It’s been a crazed month what with intensive reading of novels/stories for critique and intensive revising of novels/stories for moi and work going a little bit bat****. Fortunately, there were some fun reads helping me make it through.

Books finished in August:

1. Magic Bleeds by Ilona Andrews

A great entry into the series. Major changes, though, so if you haven’t started these books yet, don’t start here. In fact, start with book one. There’s a character arc, people!

2. Sea Witch by Virginia Kantra

I enjoyed this. It has an almost traditional romantic suspense plot, except for the sealies and the demons running around, but well handled and Ms. Kantra is a good writer.

3. Draft Novel by Someone

Very nice paranormal romance. I hope to see this one on the shelves some day.

4. Amazon Ink by Lori Devoti

I thoroughly enjoyed this, really fell into the story and got towed along. That doesn’t always happen for me, so I  appreciate it when it does. I found the beginning somewhat off-putting and I almost put the book down, but decided to push forward and I’m glad I did.  It’s entertaining, good character interaction, with well thought out worldbuilding that made it seem credible to me that Amazons have survived in secret all these years. I thought the characters particularly rounded, with a nice understanding of the mistakes we make and the lessons we learn from them. I also liked that Ms. Devoti resolved the mystery of this story, gave me a feeling of completion, yet didn’t tie everything up in a neat little package. There’s room for the characters to do more growing and evolving. I hope to be able to read about that in future books.

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Books begun in August:

1. Crows: Encounters with Wise Guys by Candace Savage
2. Magic Bleeds by Ilona Andrews
3. Sea Witch by Virginia Kantra
4. Draft Novel by Someone
5. Amazon Ink by Lori Devoti
6. The Magicians by Lev Grossman
7. No Rest for the Wicked by Kresley Cole

Continued reading this month:

1. Popular Magic: Cunning-folk in English History by Owen Davies