Dexter is Delicious

Dexter is a daddy! Precious little Lily Anne changes Dexter's worldview. He no longer wants to kill. Too bad Cody and Astor don't feel the same way, and now Uncle Brian is back, hanging around, showing the youngsters the way. To make matters worse, there is a group of cannibals killing and eating people, which is extreme even for Miami. Debs is in charge of finding a missing teenage girl, whose friend was found eaten, and is eager to find her before she suffers the same fate. Deb enlists Dexter's help, and  poor Dexter is kidnapped when his attempts to free the young lady fail, but Deb is able to rescue him. Acting on a tip from someone they don't really trust, Deb, her boyfriend Kyle, and Dexter head to the defunct amusement park Buccaneer Land, where they almost become dinner for the cannibal crew, but are rescued in time by Brian. Kyle skips town, embarrassed he was unable to protect Deb, but his timing is awful: Deb is pregnant.

Prairie Fires; Death of an Heir

Two really good ones I've been looking forward to reading. First up: "Prairie Fires" by Caroline Fraser. I love Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" books, and over the last few years there have been quite a few books published that have researched Wilder's life and theorized how much her daughter, Rose, actually helped her write them, and if they were factual or not. This one was much, much better than "Libertarians on the Prairie". Fraser concludes that yes, Rose helped her mother edit and polish her original stories, but manuscripts in Laura's own hand show how much she did on her own, and she tried to keep them as factual as possible. What really got me about this one, something I had thought about before but it didn't really hit me until I read this, was poor Almanzo's story. He grew up comfortable in Malone, New York, his parents weren't rich by any means, but they weren't poor like Laura's parents were. They always had plenty of food (as anyone who's read "Farmer Boy" knows only too well) and Almanzo got an early start working on the farm, with horses, and he loved it. He was a brave, hardworking man, he saved the budding town of De Smet when the hard winter hit, risking his life to go get wheat so the settlers could eat. He and Laura were very, very happy at first, and he had no reason not to believe his hard work would pay off and someday he'd be just as happy and comfortable as his folks had been when he was a kid. He wanted to provide for his wife and their future children. He was honest and faithful and a bit of bad luck, catching diphtheria, crippled him for life. He told Rose, so poignantly, that his life had been "mostly disappointments", and that broke my heart. Not just for him, but for all the pioneers who struggled and scrimped and did their best just to stay afloat and failed, not through laziness or bad decisions, but sheer bad luck.

"Death of an Heir" by Philip Jett broke my heart as well, I cried a lot while reading it. Adolph Coors III, eldest grandson to the founder of the Coors brewery, was by all accounts a wonderful man: a good, fair boss; a loving husband and father to his four children; a dutiful son to his demanding father; and a hardworking partner with his two brothers, who helped him run the brewery. Everyone liked "Ad", as he was called. Ad loved living out in the country on a ranch and raising horses, at forty-four years old he was looking forward to phasing out the brewery side of his life and concentrating more on working outdoors. All that ended on February 9, 1960, when Joe Corbett Jr. carried out his audacious plan to kidnap the heir and collect a big ransom. Corbett was a fugitive from California who had murdered a man and managed to escape and get to Colorado. He had worked on his kidnapping plan for years, but what he didn't count on was Ad Coors, a healthy, athletic man, putting up a fight. Rather than surrendering meekly to Corbett, Ad fought back and as a result Corbett shot him, killing him. He then bundled his body up in his car and drove to a dump, where he cast him aside and returned to Denver to mail the prepared ransom note to the widow. After several months on the run, the FBI eventually caught him (well, Canada caught him and let the FBI know) and he was brought back to Denver to stand trail for the murder of Ad Coors. In Colorado, in order to get the death penalty, you had to have either an eyewitness or a confession. The police tried to get a confession out of him with no luck, so he stood trial and got life imprisonment. He professed his innocence to the end of his life, but the kicker was he only served about 18 years in prison and was paroled. He ended up killing himself in 2009 when he found out he had cancer. It just disgusted me that he took a good man's life and only ended up spending 18 years in prison. Ad Coors and his family deserved better.

Hardcore Twenty-Four

I was kind of disappointed by Janet Evanovich's latest Stephanie Plum, "Hardcore Twenty-Four". She slumped for a bit there, but the last few years have been pretty decent. Not as good as the first six or seven, of course, but still, better than they were. This one was meh. I mean, how many different ways can Stephanie destroy a high end luxury car that Ranger loans her? After awhile it's all the same. Diesel makes an appearance in this one, and I know he's one of Evanovich's supernatural characters from a different series (although I think he got his start on the Plum novellas she used to write--it's hard to remember at this point), and I'm not really a fan of mixing him in with books that are supposed to be somewhat realistic. It's just jarring and weird. At any rate, it looks like Trenton has been infested by zombies. They turn out to be regular folks who are under the influence of a potent new drug that makes them act like the undead. There's someone going around stealing heads off dead bodies in the morgue, which is gross, and Morelli is at his wit's end trying to figure out who would do such a thing. Stephanie's got her hands full taking care of a pet boa constrictor for a guy she had to take to jail, and she keeps running into the zombies in the woods by the guy's trailer. Definitely not one of her best.

The Beguiled

I've been trying to get through Thomas Cullinan's "The Beguiled" for months now. Of course there was a long waiting list for it because of the movie, so I went on the list. Once I got the book, I started reading it, got about 2/3 of the way through, then had to return it because of the holds. Went back on the list, waited, and finally got it again and was able to finish it. Whew! It was actually pretty good. John McBurney is a wounded Union soldier who is found in the woods by Amelia, a young Southern girl attending a small boarding school run by two spinster sisters. The book alternates chapters between the other students at the school and the two sisters who run it. As you can imagine, a small, impoverished all girls' boarding in the middle of the Civil War is a pretty boring place to be, the girls are on each others' nerves, and McBurney provides some welcome entertainment. He is young and handsome and charming, and quite good at pitting the young ladies against each other. He is a shameless liar and flirt, and before long the girls are ready to kill each other over this young man. One of the sisters tries to kick him out, only to have him basically take the school hostage and declare he's not going anywhere until he's good and ready. I loved the ending, even though I saw it coming, it felt very realistic.

Grip of It; Walking Dead Vol. 28: A Certain Doom; Strange Death of Europe

The reviews for "The Grip of It" 'by Jac Jemc sounded pretty good, so I took a shot and wasn't disappointed, it was an appropriately creepy haunted house story with unreliable narrators, so at the end of it I wasn't sure if the house was *actually* haunted or if the husband and wife were just whackjobs. James gambled away his savings, and Julie suggests they move away from the city (and the temptations) and give themselves a fresh start. They find themselves with a fixer upper that was too good a deal to pass up. The neighbor next door is kind of a creep, and no one wants to talk about the house's sad history. Major red flags right there. James and Julie alternate chapters, talking about the escalating weirdness in the house: the strange drawings that appear on the walls, the secret passages, the mold in the water, the stains on the walls that get bigger. Julie finds herself covered in bruises with no idea where they came from, and James just stops showing up at work, obsessed with discovering the history of the house, and gets fired. Neither of them talk to each other, so they're both wondering why the other one is acting so strangely. The kicker comes when Julie throws herself off the roof.   

Getting caught up on the "Walking Dead" graphic novels by Robert Kirkman. I stopped watching the show a few years ago, but I heard they killed off a major character that I really liked, so I'm glad I don't watch anymore. This one picks up where Vol. 27 left off: the herd of undead the Whisperers have unleashed is heading straight for Alexandria. Andrea takes off on a horse with a few others in an attempt to turn the herd and drive them into the ocean. Rick stays behind with the others to defend the walls of Alexandria. When they collapse, Negan actually ends up saving his life (Negan turns out to be sensible character in these novels in a *long* time, oddly enough). Andrea is successful in getting the majority of the herd to jump off the cliff into the ocean, but she is bitten in the process and goes home to die in Rick's arms. That sucked :( Carl and the other Hilltop survivors pitch in to help defend Alexandria, and in the end they're working on rebuilding, with poor Rick devastated about Andrea and unsure how he's going to go on without her.

Douglas Murray's "Strange Death of Europe" is a wake up call to anyone who still thinks open borders are a good idea. In just a few short years, a lot of Europe doesn't resemble Europe anymore. With hundreds of thousands of refugees arriving yearly, countries are scrambling to find shelter and food, in addition to medical care, jobs, and schooling, for all the newcomers. People are angry, and one of the best points he makes is that we can't even have a dialogue about it because if anyone dares to ask why European culture doesn't matter, they are labeled racist and xenophobic. What does it mean to be European? What shared cultural norms are there? It's heavy stuff, and while everyone wants to be compassionate, at the same time the question has to be: at what cost? When do you draw the line and say enough? No easy answers here, but lots to think about.

The Complete Sookie Stackhouse Stories

Most of the short stories in "The Complete Sookie Stackhouse Stories" have been published in previous collections and anthologies, so I'm pretty sure I've read most of them before, but only a few sounded familiar. They were all pretty good, I especially enjoyed "Two Blondes", which had Sookie and Pam traveling to a strip club and auditioning together to cover for the fact that they had just killed the club's owner. Only one story really had Eric in it (lame) but they were still fun.

Dexter by Design

Jeff Lindsay's fourth Dexter book, "Dexter by Design", starts with Dexter in Paris, on his honeymoon with Rita. They come home and Dexter faces an interesting case at work: someone is making performance art pieces out of dead bodies. Deb asks for his help, and when they go to question a witness, Debs is stabbed. Her new partner, Coulter, is onto Dexter and giving him a hard time. Dexter enlists Deb's boyfriend, Kyle, to help him track down the guy who's trying to "frame" him for killing the guy he thought stabbed Deb (Dexter actually did kill him, and was caught on camera, so his story is that the film is bogus). Oh, and the guy he thought stabbed Deb *actually* didn't, so he kind of killed an innocent man. Whoops. At any rate, it all worked out in the end and Rita has some wonderful news for Dexter--he's going to be a Daddy!

Whispering Room

Jane Hawk's mad run from the law continues in Dean Koontz's "The Whispering Room". Jane gets an unlikely ally in the form of a sheriff from a rural Minnesota town who is devastated when an upstanding member of the community turns her car into a bomb and drives it into a hotel, killing a bunch of people. Luther finds Cora's journals at her house and reads about the spider in her brain that she wrote was taking over her life, and knows something big is going on. He lights out for Iron Furnace, Tennessee, where Cora went to a convention the year earlier and came back "different", according to a close friend of hers. Jane shows up in the town at the same time, on a trail given to her by one of the lawyers involved in the conspiracy to eliminate people who are a threat to their takeover of the world (confused yet? Shockingly, it all made sense in a scary sort of way). Jane and Luther team up and rescue a group of kids from the town and take them to safety, and Jane heads to San Francisco to confront the big bad guy, who turns out not to be the big bad guy after all but a front. Oh dear. I have a feeling this is all going to get worse before it gets better.

Member of the Family

I put Dianne Lake's book, "Member of the Family", on hold as soon as we ordered it, and I got it right when Manson finally died. Good riddance. Fifty years too late, in my opinion. Why the state of California kept that piece of human garbage alive and fed is beyond me. At any rate, ever since I read "Helter Skelter" at the age of 13, I've been fascinated by the Manson family and read everything I could about them. Dianne Lake was just fourteen when she joined his killer cult, a lost, rebellious teen whose own parents were no fit guardians. They were happy to let Dianne go off with a group of complete strangers, since she had been causing problems in the communes they flitted to and from. Charles made Dianne feel loved and secure and safe, and she spent two years with the family, until they were all arrested at Barker Ranch and Susan Atkins spilled the beans and the cops realized they had more than just drug taking, dune buggy stealing hippies behind bars. Dianne spent some time in a mental hospital, regaining her sanity (she was psychotic, mostly from all the LSD she'd ingested over the years) and when she got out she was fostered by a kind cop and his wife. She had to testify at Manson's trial, since she witnessed Leslie Van Houten burning items belonging to Rosemary LaBianca (she didn't participate, or even know about the killings until after they happened). It was a powerful and moving story, and she didn't flinch from telling the uncomfortable details. I'm glad she's had a good, healthy life since then, and I'm even more glad Charles Manson is dead.

Dexter in the Dark

In the third Dexter book, "Dexter in the Dark", Dexter shows up at a crime scene where two young women have been burned and decapitate, their heads replaced with ceramic bull's heads. It's not particularly gruesome or more awful than other crime scenes he's been to, but for some reason this crime scene scares the bejeesus out of his Dark Passenger, who flees, leaving Dexter alone for the first time in his life, unsure of how to proceed, and totally uninterested in killing. His sister and the rest of the detectives are trying to solve the murders, Rita is trying to get him interested in planning their wedding, Cody and Astor are trying to convince him they're ready to kill on their own, and all Dexter can think about is getting his Dark Passenger back. Poor damaged Dexter!

Miss D and Me

I really enjoyed Kathryn Sermak's "Miss D and Me". I think I've read one other book about Bette Davis, before I started keeping this blog, so it's been quite awhile. I've seen a few of her movies, "Baby Jane", of course, and "Jezebel", which I really like. Kathryn was Miss Davis's personal assistant and good friend the last decade of her life, traveling with her to Europe and spending time with her family. She grew to love and appreciate her as a person and not just a celebrity. Kathryn's admiration for her spirit and courage come through loud and clear. I especially enjoyed hearing how Bette named her Mustang "Black Beauty", which is also what I named my Camaro :)

Twin Peaks: the Final Dossier

So I was hoping Mark Frost's "Twin Peaks: the Final Dossier" would help clear up some of the last season of "Twin Peaks", but it kind of didn't. It helped for some things, like Shelly and her daughter, but mostly it just summarized what had happened over all three seasons, provided some backstory in some spots, and theorized what might have happened during the interim between seasons two and three. Still, it was a quick read and a good refresher on what all went down (and yes, I know technically the last season isn't really season three, but it makes sense in my head to call it that, so I am). I have more questions than answers after reading it, but in a good way. That's what "Twin Peaks" has always been about :)

Dearly Devoted Dexter

Doakes is following Dexter pretty hard, so Dexter is spending a lot of time with Rita and her kids, Astor and Cody, in order to look like an average guy. He hasn't been able to let his Dark Passenger come out to play, and he's getting cranky. Then a killer shows up in Miami, a really nasty guy: he cuts pieces off his victims, basically leaving them alive but with their minds completely gone (he sets up a mirror so they can watch him butchering them--yikes). Former Black Ops Kyle Chutsky shows up from Washington to help out, as he is apparently familiar with the killer, whom they have dubbed "Dr. Danco". Deb and Kyle start dating, and she's livid when Danco grabs Kyle and begs Dexter to help get him back. Meanwhile, Dexter accidentally proposes to Rita, and Masuka throws him an epic bachelor party and Danco takes advantage of the opportunity to kidnap Doakes. Dexter finds Kyle and is able to rescue him before *too* much damage was done, but Doakes wasn't as lucky.

Mr. Darcy, Vampyre

Still working on avoiding all those big nonfiction books I checked out! I love "Pride and Prejudice" (book and films). I've liked a lot of the sequels written by other authors and some of the spoofs, like "Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies". If P&P could be fun with zombies, why not vampyres? Sadly, I was wrong. Fitzwilliam Darcy is a vampyre, although Lizzie doesn't know it when they get married. They take off on their honeymoon trip and go first to Paris, to meet some of his relatives. Lizzie is a bit concerned that Darcy doesn't want to be alone with her, since, after all, it is their honeymoon. She tries to set her doubts aside and have a good time, and she does in Venice, where she meets more friends and family. Then off to a remote castle, which is stormed by an angry mob of villagers, and Darcy and Lizzie barely escape with their lives. An ancient vampyre is pursuing them, determined to have Lizzie for himself, and Darcy finally tells her the truth. They can never be together, for fear of making her a vampyre, too. It was all very silly, but not in a good way, in an eye rolling "My God, why am I still reading this?" sort of way. And she took great liberties with the vampyre mythos. Darcy can eat food, and go out in sunlight, and wear a cross. I would have been better off rereading the original.

Casino Moon

These Hard Case Crime books are so much fun!
"Casino Moon" by Peter Blauner is about a man in Atlantic City named Anthony. He was raised by his stepdad, Vin, who is in the mob. Anthony has fought his whole life *not* to become a gangster, and he's drowning. He owes all kinds of money, and can't seem to get ahead to save his life. Anthony thinks he's found a way out of his mess when he comes across a former prizefighter named Elijah who is looking to make a comeback. Anthony decides to become his manager, and borrows more money to help Elijah get a fight that will propel him back into the spotlight. He ends up in all kinds of trouble with Teddy, his dad's boss, over the deal and things go south very quickly. It was painful to watch Anthony make bad decision after bad decision, with the best of intentions, and nothing working out for him.

See What I Have Done

I was super disappointed with Sarah Schmidt's "See What I Have Done". It's a fictionalized account of the Lizzie Borden case, so of course I was excited and snatched it up as soon as it came in. Right off the bat her writing style didn't appeal to me, and I told myself to just give it up and return the book, but I was determined. I'm sorry now I wasted my time, it just wasn't for me. She had a strange premise for crime: Uncle John hired a man named Benjamin to accompany him to Fall River and "have a word" with Andrew about the way he was treating his nieces. Benjamin is a rather unsavory character, but he manages to sneak his way into the Borden home that fateful day, unseen by anyone (despite vomiting under the table...yuck). And yet, he wasn't the murderer. Schmidt doesn't come out and *say* it, but she strongly implies it was Lizzie who butchered her stepmother and father. Benjamin is upset he was cheated out of his chance to hurt someone, but he does find the murder weapon and take it with him when he leaves (which explains why the police never found it). All in all it was very disjointed and like I said, the style was not to my taste.

No House Limit

I bought a bunch of the Hard Case Crime books when they first started coming out (2007? 2008? somewhere in there). I've read some, but not most, and the other night I wanted something to take to bed that wasn't a huge nonfiction book (like everything I currently have checked out from the library) so I dug into my shelves and came up with "No House Limit" by Steve Fisher. Set in Las Vegas in the 1950s (God, I wish I could have seen it back then!), Joe Martin is the biggest independent casino operator on the Strip. The Syndicate's been trying to chip away at him for awhile, but thanks to a great security team who has his back, Joe has managed to thwart them at every turn. Then one night Bello shows up. He's a professional dice man with big money behind him, and he spends three days winning millions off Joe. It was really great, I enjoyed it. I would love to read more books by him, but it looks like they're hard to find. That's a shame.

Best of Richard Matheson; Two Nights

"The Best of Richard Matheson" was an excellent collection of his short stories. Richard Matheson wrote a few of my favorite "Twilight Zone" episodes, and while some of the stories in this collection were a little too science fiction for my taste, most were pretty good. Quite a few had great surprise twists at the end that I didn't see coming. "Button, Button", "Where There's a Will", and "A Visit to Santa Claus" stand out as particular favorites. Great collection, I really enjoyed it.

I hope this is a start to a new series by Reichs, I really enjoyed the main character, Sunday Night. She's ex-military and ex-cop who was injured on the job and forced to take an early retirement. She's got a past full of demons: Reichs didn't delve too deeply into it, but it seems as if Sunday and her twin brother, August (Gus), escaped from a cult back in the 90s. Due to her unique upbringing, her mentor Beau thinks she's perfect to help on a case that's eluded Chicago PD for over a year now. A mother and her young son were killed in a terrorist attack, and the daughter is missing. Her grandmother, a wealthy Southern dame, is offering big bucks if Sunday can find her.

Borden Murders

While reading "Caroline", I saw Sarah Miller had written a book about the Lizzie Borden case. I finished reading it and saw on the back cover that it is considered a children's (well, grades 7 and up) book, which surprised me a bit. Not sure why it surprised me, since I was twelve when I first read "Helter Skelter", so it's not like kids that young can't be interested in true crime. I guess it's just that when I was a teen, they didn't write true crimes books specifically for my age range (at least none that I knew about). It was well written, just no new information for me, because I've read literally everything I can get my hands on about the case. I also got to visit the Borden house back in 2011, I think. I have pictures somewhere :) It's just one of those cases that fascinates me, since we won't ever know who really did it.

Darkly Dreaming Dexter

All right, well, I think I figured out what I'm going to reread now that I finished the Sookie Stackhouse books by Charlaine Harris. "Darkly Dreaming Dexter" is the first in the Dexter series by Jeff Lindsay. Dexter is a blood spatter expert in Miami with a dark secret: he likes to kill people. Now, having been raised by a cop, Dexter has a strict moral code. He can only kill people who are bad. He carefully chooses his victims: murderers, pedophiles, rapists, and sacrifices them to his "dark passenger". His adopted sister, Deb, is working vice, anxious to get her big break into homicide, and it looks like she might get her chance with the latest string of murders of prostitutes, drained of blood and cut into pieces. Dexter is intrigued by the kills. I love how snarky and darkly humorous Dexter is. Lindsay is a fun writer, I wish he would write more.

Paperbacks from Hell; Caroline: Little House, Revisited

"Paperbacks from Hell" by Grady Hendrix was a lot of fun. He took a look back at the golden era of horror and the craziness that was being published back then (but crazy in a super fun way). His summaries of some of the stories had me laughing out loud, and a lot of the cover art was so excellent and over the top. I think I added about 1,000 books to my "to read" list (the last thing I needed, right?) but some of those books are really hard to get a hold of, since they were only in print for a short period of time and not meant to be classics that stayed in libraries forever. I see a lot of Ebay in my future :)

"Caroline: Little House, Revisited" by Sarah Miller was "Little House on the Prairie", told from Ma's (Caroline Ingalls) point of view. It was excellent, great to get an adult perspective on the events that happened. Caroline has just discovered she is pregnant with their third child when Charles asks if they can move to Kansas. She reluctantly agrees, and off they go in the wagon. I can't even begin to imagine how awful that must have been: first of all, traveling that far in a wagon and being newly pregnant to boot? No thanks. They get to Kansas and pick a spot to make their new home. While Charles is looking for good land Caroline is naturally worried about who will come to help her when it's time for the baby to be born. After living in Kansas for about a year, the farmer who bought their home in Wisconsin reneges on the deal and the Ingalls family has to pack up and move back (they don't stay long, but that's another story). It makes me want to go back and reread all the Little House books, even though I really shouldn't.

World of Ice and Fire

Whew, what a behemoth of a book! It was beautifully illustrated though, and interesting. Martin quickly breezes through the history of the Seven Kingdoms in a sort of Cliffs Notes style. A page or two on each Targaryen king (it's hard to keep all those Aegons straight...), some information about each of the major houses and their castles and lands, which was fun. He also included information about areas beyond Westeros: Slavers' Bay, etc. If you're still dying for more information about the people who inhabit Martin's world of Ice and Fire after reading the five books he's published so far (seriously, when is book six going to be out?! I'm dying over here) this was a good "tide you over" book.

Dead Ever After

The last Sookie Stackhouse book. Sigh. Not sure what I'm going to read now. I suppose I might actually have to start in on the pile of library books I have checked out!
Eric "divorces" Sookie so he can marry the Queen of Oklahoma. While I was sad about it, it only made sense. Sookie knew, deep down, that her relationship with Eric had a time limit, since she had no desire to become a vampire. Sookie is arrested for Arlene's murder, and Sam goes to Eric to ask for help bailing her out. Eric does, but on the condition that Sam not be with her, and Sam agrees, although it doesn't take long for him to break that promise. I think we all knew from book one that Sam and Sookie would end up in a relationship at some point, and I thought Charlaine Harris did a nice job once they finally did get together. Witch Amelia's dad, Copley Carmichael, made a pact with a devil in order to get his business back and destroy Sookie, so she had all kinds of people after her in this book. In the end, Claude returns from Faery and teams up with Steve Newlin and Johan Glassport (who was Queen Sophie-Anne's lawyer a million books ago) to kidnap Sookie and torture and kill her. Their plan is thwarted by the good people dancing at Stompin' Sally's (which sounds like an excellent place to visit, btw). It had as much of a happy ending as one of Sookie's books can. Harris did write a quick and dirty book called "After Dead", which basically just had a one or two page summary of each of the characters in the book and how their lives ended up.

Deadlocked

Sookie uses some of the money her fairy godmother, Claudine, left her to help Sam out of a tight spot at Merlotte's, and in return Sam makes her part owner of the bar. Which is good for Sookie, it gives her more responsibilities. Eric is in a real tight spot of his own: he doesn't feel like he can turn down the Queen of Oklahoma's marriage proposal, even though he wants to stay with Sookie. He knows Sookie is in possession of a magical fairy artifact known as a cluviel dor. Her fairy grandfather, Fintan, gave it to her grandmother. It's powerful magic, a one use only type of thing that can be used on Sookie or someone she loves. Eric hints that he wants her to use it to get him out of his bind, and Sookie does think about it, but she really wants Eric to man up and get out of it on his own. A dead girl shows up on Eric's front lawn after Eric drank from her, and Sookie and Bill team up to figure out who killed the part Were girl. In the end, Sookie ends up using the cluviel dor to save Sam's life, which irritates Eric. I'm not a fan of Eric in this book, he's acting like an indecisive brat. Which isn't normal for him. Since when does the blond Viking god need a mere human woman to help him out of a bind? Never, is the correct answer.

Dead Reckoning

Well, I'm almost done with Sookie, and that makes me sad. Merlotte's is fire bombed, but luckily everyone is okay. Sandra Pelt, Debbie's psychotic sister, is still after her, and Victor is still causing lots of trouble for Eric. Sookie comes up with a plan to get rid of Victor, but Eric has another problem: before his maker died, he was in negotiations for Eric to marry the Queen of Oklahoma, and Eric feels duty bound to honor his last wish, even though he's dead. He doesn't want to leave Sookie, but he honestly doesn't know what choice he has. Sookie is irritated at their lack of communication, among other relationship problems (you'd think after 1,000 years Eric would have it figured out by now, but I guess not. Men). Sookie has a falling out with her witch friend Amelia, and her fairy kin are still causing problems in her life. Plus she doesn't like Sam's new girlfriend, and is pretty sure she's out to do her harm.

Dead in the Family; It Takes Two

Sookie was pretty badly beaten at the end of the last book, so she's slowly recovering, with Eric's help. Eric's maker, Appius, shows up with his latest child in tow: Alexi Romanov. Yes, that Romanov. Alexi is a bit nuts, and Appius is having a hard time controlling him, yet he doesn't want him to meet the true death. Appius was hoping Eric could help him, and so Eric is spending all his free time trying to rein in his brother and not piss off Victor, the King's regent in Louisiana. Victor has it out for Eric: he's tried to kill Sookie and Pam. Sookie's fairy cousin Claude comes to live with her. Since Naill has closed the portal between the human world and the Fae, Claude is lonely and says being around Sookie's trace of fairy blood helps them both. When Dermot shows up, Sookie is worried he's going to try to harm her, but it turns out Dermot was cursed (kind of like Eric back in book four) and he's actually really nice. Coleman, who was the father of Claudine's baby, is the bad fairy looking to kill Sookie, to get revenge since Claudine (and their unborn baby) died defending her. The battle in the end takes care of a lot of problems at once.

Something new! I only read it because it was pretty short and had lots of pictures, so it didn't take long. I don't really watch any of their shows anymore, I got tired of the same old formula (I'm feeling that way about a lot of reality shows I used to enjoy watching). For those of you who don't know, Jonathan and Drew Scott are twins who help clients buy fixer uppers and rehab them. They also have another show where they help clients fix up their homes to sell in order to buy newly renovated ones. And they have a third show where they compete against each other: they each buy a fixer upper and rehab it and whoever makes the most profit selling it wins. These two are pretty much on HGTV 24/7, and as a result I think they've spread themselves too thin. Maybe it's just me, they still seem pretty popular, although I expected this book to have a long waiting list at work but it didn't. It was pretty bland: they just recounted their childhoods, how they got started working early (age 7) and their big dreams of making it big: Jonathan in magic and Drew in basketball and acting, before ending up where they are now. Good for them, I guess, but reading about other people's success stories can be a drain, especially when your own life seems so shitty.

Dead and Gone

Since the vampires coming out was so successful(ish) the Weres and shapeshifters decide to come out too. The people of Bon Temps take it pretty well, but it doesn't work out for some, like Sam's mom, who is shot by her second husband (on accident, he claims, then files for divorce, so...). Sam has to leave town to go see to his mom, and while he's gone Sookie steps in to run the bar. Someone kills Jason's wife, werepanther Crystal Norris, and leaves her on a cross in the parking lot at Merlotte's, which was a little more than Sookie bargained for. She's in real danger from a fairy who is challenging her great-grandfather for rule of the Fae. Eric tricks her into marrying him (great trick!) in order to better protect her in the upcoming supernatural/vampire/fairy war. There was a lot going on in this book, and even though Sookie ends up back with Eric like a smart girl, the ending was still sad.

The Grim Grotto; The Penultimate Peril; All Together Dead; Sleep Like a Baby; The End

The Baudelaires end up on a submarine with Captain Widdershins and his stepdaughter, Fiona. They are searching for the sugar bowl that was thrown out the window of the VFD headquarters on the mountain. Fiona tells the orphans about her missing brother, Fernald. She also tells them about a very poisonous mushroom that grows in the underwater cave they are about to search for the sugar bowl. The three Baudelaires and Fiona don diving gear and enter the cave. They find a lot of stuff, but no sugar bowl and poor Sunny's helmet gets infected with the poisonous mushrooms. When they reach the submarine they discover Captain Widdershins is gone and Count Olaf has captured them. Violet and Klaus manage to save Sunny, but Fiona betrays them when she learns the hook handed man who's always with Olaf is her long lost brother Fernald. The kids end up escaping Olaf and end up back on Briny Beach, where all their troubles began. A mysterious woman is waiting in a taxi, and the Baudelaires get in.

The woman in the taxi is none other than Kit Snicket, Jacques's (and Lemony's, although he's never mentioned by name) sister. She is able to answer some of the Baudelaires questions regarding the VFD and takes them to the Hotel Denouement, the LAST SAFE PLACE. Kit tasks the Baudelaires with disguising themselves as concierges, and keeping an eye on the two managers, Frank and Ernest. Frank is on their side, Ernest is not. Since they are identical, it's a challenging task indeed. Everyone from the earlier books shows up: Justice Strauss, Jerome Squalor, Sir from the lumber mill. Justice Strauss tells the Baudelaires that there's going to be a trial, and they will have to testify against Count Olaf so he can be punished for his wicked deeds. She has a big book Jerome has compiled, detailing Olaf's mischief. Of course the trial is a farce when the orphans discover that Justice Strauss's other two judges are both in Olaf's employ. The Baudelaires have to do some things they aren't proud of, like burn the hotel down, and help Olaf escape.

Sookie's going to the big vampire summit where Queen Sophie-Anne will be tried for killing her husband, the King of Arkansas. Sookie is the only witness, and the queen wants her to read any humans minds to determine who is trying to double-cross her. Right off the bat, things hit a snag when the King of Arkansas's second in command is murdered. Sookie meets up with Barry, the bellboy from Texas who is also a telepath, and they work on their unique skill together. Quinn is there, but he and Sookie barely see each other, because he's so busy plus he's mad she took Eric's blood again, bonding them even closer together than before (she was forced. Or so she claimed. Um hmm). Sookie then discovers the Fellowship of the Sun is planning on blowing up the hotel during the day when the vampires are all dead to the world, and she has to get as many out as she can. Like a smart girl, she gets Eric out first. Sookie somehow manages to make it back home and swears off vampires forever. Good luck, girl.

Something new! I know, I was shocked, too. And sadly, it just wasn't very good. I don't know why I keep reading her Aurora books. I liked one or two of them, but the rest have been pretty bad, and this one was just middling. Aurora is mother to a new baby, Sophie. Robin has to go out of town for a few days to get an award for his book, and as he's getting ready to leave Aurora feels like she's getting sick. Robin doesn't want to go, but she insists, and hires Virginia to come and help her out. Virginia was a home helper that came when Sophie was first born. Robin leaves, Virginia shows up, and Aurora (who for some unfathomable reason is called Roe, but I refuse) goes down for the count with the flu. When she finally emerges from her room one night, there's a dead body in the backyard and Virginia is missing. It takes a whole lot to get it figured out, and literally every second paragraph is about Aurora having to nurse the baby. Like, literally. I'm sure new moms who nurse are super exhausted and feel like they spend all their time feeding the baby, but it makes for very tedious reading.

As I read this one, I couldn't get the Doors' "The End" out of my head (in fact, I'm singing it now). At any rate: the Baudelaires and Count Olaf are lost at sea when they end up shipwrecked on a coastal shelf near an island. A girl name Friday takes the orphans back to the island, but leaves Count Olaf because he was rude to her. Hey, great! They're finally safe from Olaf (at least for a little bit). The island has a facilitator named Ishmael, who has some pretty strange rules and customs. He doesn't expressly forbid things, but everyone ends up bowing to peer pressure, and as a result, the island is a very boring place with no books, no mechanical equipment, and the same boring food every day. After another storm the orphans go back to the coastal shelf to help gather debris to see if there's anything useful, and they come across a very pregnant Kit Snicket. Olaf is also pretending to be pregnant, but Ishmael sees through his disguise and locks him in a cage. The islanders fight about letting Kit and the Baudelaires come back to the island, since all they seem to do is cause trouble, and they finally leave them on the shelf. A couple of the islanders come to the kids in the night to tell them they are going to mutiny in the morning and ask them for their help. Kit begs them not to, but the Baudelaires are unsure what to do. They go to the arboretum on the other side of the island where all the stuff that Ishmael has declared useless has been taken to look for weapons, but Ishmael discovers them and takes them back to the main gathering spot. Olaf tries to invade once again and Ishmael shoots him, releasing the deadly poison Olaf had been hiding. The kids find an antidote, but the islanders don't trust them and end up sailing off. They help Kit deliver her baby, a girl they name after their mother, and Kit dies from the poison. In the end, we discover the Baudelaires' mother's name was Beatrice, the mysterious love of Lemony's life who died in a fire.

Definitely Dead

Sookie's cousin Hadley, who was a vampire and the Queen of Louisiana's consort, has died (again) and she left everything to Sookie, so Sookie travels to New Orleans to pack up her apartment and take what she wants. When she gets there she meets Amelia, Hadley's landlady, who is a witch. Amelia sealed up the apartment with a magic spell to keep it intact, but the spell is broken when Sookie goes in and that's how she and Amelia discover the dead werewolf in the closet. Well, he was dead, now he's a vampire, and he wakes up hungry. Sookie and Amelia manage to escape that disaster, only for Sookie to get involved in something deeper when the Queen invites her to a party to celebrate her marriage to the King of Arkansas. Quinn, the weretiger, goes with her and all hell breaks loose. I like Quinn, but damn, I miss Eric.

Carnivorous Carnival; Slippery Slope

When Count Olaf's car finally stops, the Baudelaires find themselves at a run down carnival in the middle of nowhere. Using disguises from the trunk, they turn themselves into freaks in order to join the carnival's freak show. Count Olaf is consulting Madame Lulu, who is able to miraculously keep telling him where the Baudelaires are. The kids quickly discover she's a fraud, and formulate a plan to escape and take Lulu, whose real name is Olivia, with them. Unfortunately Count Olaf foils their plan when he brings lions to the carnival and announces the newest attraction to draw customers to the fair: he's going to feed freaks to the starving lions Well, great. Olaf ends up kidnapping all three of them as they flee the burning carnival, leaving Klaus and Violet in a caravan he tows with his car but taking Sunny into the car with him and his band of nefarious associates.

On their way up the mountain, Count Olaf cuts Violet and Klaus's caravan loose and they almost die. Luckily Violet is able to stop the caravan before it can careen off the cliff. But Sunny is still with Olaf, and the two are determined to go rescue her. They find a group of kids who call themselves Snow Scouts, and one of them seems to know something about VFD. They are able to get him alone and...it's Quigley Quagmire! The triplet brother to Isadora and Duncan, who supposedly perished in the fire that consumed their home. Quigley made it out, and he helps Violet and Klaus get to the top of the mountain, where, to their dismay, they discover that the VFD headquarters has been burnt down, along with the expansive library Klaus had been looking forward to investigating for answers. They are able to rescue Sunny, but Quigley gets separated from them in their headlong rush down the waterfall.

The Hostile Hospital

Taking a little break from Miss Sookie and the vampires to go back to the Series of Unfortunate Events. Book 8 finds the poor Baudelaire orphans on the run after the newspaper erroneously prints that they murdered Count Olaf. They find a group of volunteers known as the VFD (Volunteers Fighting Disease) and think that maybe they're the VFD the Quagmire triplets were referring to (it doesn't take long to realize they aren't). They tag along with the volunteers to a hospital, where they end up working in the Library. They manage to trick Hal, the man in charge of the library (he was not an actual librarian--his organizational skills were atrocious) into leaving his keys behind one night so they can sneak in to see if they can find any files to help them figure out what's going on. They find the last page of a file on the fire that destroyed their house, and it says there might be a survivor! The children are heartened to think one of their parents might still be alive, but unfortunately Esme Squalor catches up to them and manages to snag Violet. Sunny and Klaus get away and formulate a risky plan to rescue her when they discover that Count Olaf plans to cut her head off. They make it, and escape by hiding in the trunk of Count Olaf's car after he burns the hospital down. These poor kids are sure doing a lot of running and escaping.

Dead as a Doornail

Someone is shooting shifters and Weres. Not cool. First a young woman is killed outright, then Calvin Norris is gravely injured (Calvin is Crystal's uncle, Crystal being Jason's werepanther girlfriend. Calvin is also interested in courting Sookie), and then Sam is shot. Sookie asks Eric if she can borrow a bartender to help out at Merlotte's while Sam is recuperating, and Eric lends her a new vampire, Charles. Sookie's house is set on fire one night, and Claudine, her fairy godmother, is able to get her out in time and Charles, who is staying nearby at Bill's, kills the arsonist. As if she doesn't have enough to worry about, Sookie is also concerned for her friend Tara, who is dating a vampire named Mickey. Mickey is bad news, even Eric warns Sookie to stay away from him. Turns out Tara is in the relationship unwillingly and wants out, but is afraid Mickey will kill her, so Sookie turns to Eric for help. Eric agrees to get Mickey off Tara's back if Sookie will tell him what happened between them while he was cursed, since he still can't remember, and she finally does. Eric does hold up his end of the bargain, and Tara is finally safe. Sookie is shot, but she's okay. Turns out there were two shooters: the new cook at Merlotte's (I actually remembered that part when I started rereading it) who hates shifters, and Charles, who was sent to kill Sookie in order to hurt Eric (there was a lot going on in this book). Oh, and Alcide's father is killed while competing to be the new packmaster. Poor Alcide.

Dead to the World

So things are getting much, much better for Miss Sookie (at least in my opinion. She probably disagrees). While driving home from work one night she comes across a nearly naked blond god of a vampire. It's Eric!! And he's been cursed by a witch and lost his memory. Memory loss Eric is very, very sweet in addition to being very, very hot. Pam asks Sookie to please hide him in her house, since the witches are out looking for him, and Sookie reluctantly agrees. The next day her brother Jason goes missing. Bill is in Peru, so Sookie doesn't have anyone to help her, since Eric is useless for anything not related to bedroom activities (and there are a lot. Good for you, girl. You get him). In the end there's a big Were/Witch/Vampire fight and Eric gets his memory back and Jason is found in Hotshot, being held captive by a werepanther who bites him and turns him into a sort of shifter being. Eric asks Sookie to tell him what happened between them while he was cursed, but she won't. He ends up leaving her a nice check for taking care of him. Awww.

Club Dead

The third Southern Vampires Mystery finds Sookie going to Jackson to look for Bill, who has been kidnapped. We get to meet Alcide Herveaux, who is a werewolf (and a contractor, by day). Alcide takes Sookie to a were bar called Josephine's, so she can "listen" in on conversations and see if she can determine where Bill is being held. She discovers that the King of Mississippi, Russell Edgington, has him at his compound. She is badly hurt in the club during a fight and Russell is forced to take her and Eric to his mansion to help her recover. Once daylight comes Sookie is able to rescue Bill and get him out, but then Alcide's crazy ex-girlfriend, Debbie Pelt, locks her in the trunk with him and Sookie almost dies when Bill wakes up, exhausted and sick and latches onto her brutally without realizing who she is (there was a lot going on in this book). Eventually Sookie makes it out alive and asks Eric to take her home, which he does, only to find a pack of weres hanging out in her house. Eric and Bill (who caught up to them) make short work of the weres and Sookie rescinds their invitations to her house. Poor Sookie is pretty banged up at the end of the book, physically and mentally. Don't worry, Sookie. I have a feeling something good is coming up just around the corner :)

Living Dead in Dallas; Vile Village

Okay, more rereads! But wait, you might say. Don't you have hundreds of books you've bought and never read? And don't you have stacks of unread library books as well? Why are you rereading books? Yes, yes, I do, you are absolutely correct. I don't know what compels me to reread books, but I do. I just can't get into anything new right now. So, Sookie it is!
Eric has loaned Sookie out to a nest of vampires in Dallas who are missing a vampire. Bill goes along with her to keep her safe and fails miserably. Nice job, Bill. Sookie ends up trapped in the basement of the Fellowship of the Sun church, which preaches against vampires. They kidnapped Farrell, the missing Dallas vampire, with the help of Godfrey, a vampire who wants to "meet the sun" and die. The Fellowship is planning on murdering Farrell and Sookie together with Godfrey, but luckily Sookie is able to escape with the help of a shapeshifter (Bill arrives minutes too late, or so he claims). There were some good Eric scenes in this one (spoiler alert: Eric is my favorite) so I enjoyed it.

The poor Baudelaires are shipped off to a village called V.F.D. to be raised by the entire community, since no one wants to be personally responsible for them. The town is unique in that it is covered in crows, and ruled by a council of elders who have a whole lot of stupid rules, like no mechanical devices or books. The town handyman, Hector, takes them home with him to eat and sleep. Hector is a decent enough guy, but he's terrified of the council and refuses to speak up for the kids. Violet, Sunny, and Klaus find couplets they suspect are written by Isadora Quagmire, their missing friend, and hope that she and her brother Duncan are being held by Count Olaf nearby. The town arrests an innocent man, claiming he's Olaf, and the real Count Olaf shows up disguised as a detective. When the fake Olaf is found dead before the townspeople can burn him at the stake, the orphans are accused of his murder and locked up. They manage to escape, and free Duncan and Isadora at the same time, but as a result they become fugitives from the law and now have really nowhere to go and no one to turn to. Ah :( Poor kids.

Ersatz Elevator; Dead Until Dark

Book six of the "Series of Unfortunate Events" finds the Baudelaire orphans living with new guardians, Jerome and Esme, in a penthouse in a fancy building. Apparently Jerome knew the Baudelaire parents and wanted to take the children in right off the bat, but Esme wouldn't let him because orphans weren't "in" at the time. Esme is obsessed with whatever is currently "in" fashion, and now that orphans are "in", she allows Jerome to take them in. The kids seems safe enough, until Gunther, the auctioneer, shows up. Of course--Count Olaf in disguise. They find their kidnapped friends, Isadora and Duncan, but sadly, before they can rescue them, Olaf and Esme, who was a student of his, whisk them away. The Baudelaires are determined to save their friends, even though the adults in their lives are fairly useless to help.

And now we can guess what I'm going to be rereading for the next several weeks! I started rewatching "True Blood" the other day, and so naturally now I have to read the books all over again (for the third time). "Dead Until Dark" introduces us to Sookie Stackhouse, the telepathic waitress in Bon Temps, Louisiana. Sookie has led a solitary existence, since her telepathy means she has a hard time being friends with or dating people. Then she meets Vampire Bill Compton. Vampires have recently "come out of the coffin", as they call it, with the invention of a synthetic blood means they no longer have to feast on humans in order to survive (but of course they all prefer it). Sookie is drawn to Bill right away, because she can't read his mind, and it's so peaceful after a lifetime of chatter in her head. Their relationship is rocky, of course, seeing how Bill is a vampire and most of Sookie's acquaintances strongly disapprove, including her brother Jason. And of course there's the added problem of women being murdered, and everyone suspects it's a vampire. 

The Last Tudor; The Austere Academy

Finally, something new! I always (well, almost always) enjoy Philippa Gregory's novels, and I enjoyed this one. It was written in the three points of view of the Grey sisters: first, poor doomed Jane, who was crowned Queen against her will, married off to Guildford Dudley, then imprisoned and executed by Queen Mary for treason. It then switched to Katherine Grey, her younger sister, and that was the longest (and saddest) part of the book. Katherine falls in love with Ned Seymour, and they marry in secret. Katherine and Ned are both imprisoned in the Tower when Queen Elizabeth finds out, and Katherine ends up bearing two sons for Ned, who should, by all rights, have been heirs to the throne. Elizabeth's jealousy gets in the way, and she ruthlessly separates the family. Katherine ends up wasting away, dying of a broken heart, no doubt. And finally, little Mary Grey, the last sister, a dwarf. She actually finds love, marrying (again, without the Queen's permission) a guard named Thomas Keyes. Elizabeth, of course, has them both arrested when she finds out and imprisoned, and Thomas ends up dying before little Mary is freed. It really painted Elizabeth in a paranoid, tyrannical light.

A few months back I started rereading the Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket, and I got to book four ("The Miserable Mill") before my reading adventures took me elsewhere. After finishing "The Last Tudor", I didn't feel like reading any of the other books I have checked out from work, so I returned to these. Book Five, "The Austere Academy", finds the three Baudelaire orphans in a horrid boarding school. They do meet some new friends: Isadora and Duncan, who also lost their parents and their triplet brother in a fire and are heirs to a fortune. Count Olaf shows up, disguised as a gym teacher, and spends his nights running the Baudelaires ragged so they don't get any sleep and flunk their classes. Guess who has generously offered to take the orphans in if they get expelled from school? The night before their big tests, Isadora and Duncan offer to take the Baudelaires place and run so they can rest and study for their exams. Count Olaf ends up kidnapping them instead and the poor Baudelaires are once again homeless, only now they are worried for their friends.