Sunday Kind of Love; Children of Llyr

I love the cover of this book. I love picnics and sunflowers and the blue hat. It is seriously the only reason I decided to read it, since it's a genre I normally eschew: romance. While I like the Regency era romance, I haven't really read too many others. This one wasn't terrible, but it was completely predictable. Cute, though, and a quick read. It's set in Indiana in the 1950s. Gwen comes home to small town Buckton with her boyfriend Kent in tow. Kent is everything she and her parents dreamed she'd end up with: rich and good looking, successful. But Kent isn't supportive of Gwen's dream of being a writer. So when he just announces they are getting married without actually proposing (or letting Gwen have a say in her future), they fight and she runs off in the middle of a raging storm and ends up nearly drowning in a nearby river. Luckily town pariah Hank manages to rescue her. Six months earlier, Hank's beloved little brother Pete died in a car wreck while Hank was behind the wheel, drunk. No one in town has spoken to him since. Well, you can see how this one ends :)

The second book of Evangeline Walton's Mobingion's series was really sad and very bloody, lots of fighting and battles. Britain is ruled by a giant named King Bran, and Irish king Matholuch sails across the sea to ask for Bran's sister Branwen in marriage. Bran and his brothers are reluctant to let their little sister go so far away, but Branwen falls for the handsome King and begs her brother to let her. So Branwen and Matholuch are married and she goes back to Ireland with him. Before they leave, though, Branwen's evil brother Evnissyen gravely insults the Irish. Matholuch assures Branwen he's over it, and they have a son, Gwern. But Matholuch's advisers drip poison in his ear about Evnissyen and Matholuch is talked into putting his wife aside, banishing her to the kitchens where she is roundly abused. Branwen is able to get word to her brother Bran by sending a bird she has taught to speak, and when Bran hears how his sister is being treated he rounds up and army and descends on Ireland to seek vengeance. I'm hoping the next book is a little less depressing. Still, the story is very interesting, I'm having a hard time putting these books down, even though I have library books with due dates :)