I just remembered another vampire book: "Children of the Night" by Dan Simmons. There's a lot of present-day stuff about hematology science and AIDS, but everything he wrote about the country of Romania under Ceaucescu was more horrifying than the monster, and that is saying something.

meara,

The Book Alcove? I live real close to that store, and it is way cool. (Reminder to self: next available Saturday, see what books you can sell there from the chair o' culled books)

Yay! I've just been to my happy place... the library. Ahhh, twelve bucks a year for all the books you can read, seriously doesn't get any better than this. Items I picked up: Lord of the Isles by David Drake as per someone's suggestion on this thread; Shopaholic Ties the Knot by Sophie Kinsella- Bridget Jones with money issues; Trickster's Choice by Tamora Pierce- a fan since jr. high; Sunshine by Robin McKinley- has gotten less-than-rave reviews by readers here; and The Bone Woman by Clea Koff- non-fic tale of a forensic anthropologist who works with the UN in Rwanda, Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo (a real cheerful tale).

Hmmm... think I might be addicted to my library. I guess the post-school non-textbook freedom has gotten to my head. Oh well, off to watch Corner Gas.

Meara, you can always drive out to Reston and go to Reston's Used Bookstore--founded by MY WAY COOL MOM and her best friend 25 years ago. They sold the store to two long-time employees a couple of years ago, but it's still a really good bookstore.

Hey all, popping in before the baby abuse starts to provide a warning. Stephanie Laurens got a hardback deal. She wrote historical romance paperbacks about the Cynster family and they weren't bad. I don't remember them clearly, which probably means beach readability, fun, light, not too many glaring historical errors. Unfortunately, the hardback, her first, reads like the Nikita fanfic Dana's been sharing in the fanfic thread.

If the author has one thing consistently the same, it's that she tells rather than shows. Her descriptions of the heroic couple's sexual encounters are marvels of vocabulary abuse. I found myself shrieking, "blah blah blah!" at it. The bad guy was obvious by halfway through, despite the fact that our heroes never even considered the person. Really, really bad book. Scarily bad. I read the whole thing because I'm an idiot and couldn't imagine how an author I'd previously enjoyed could change so drastically, kept thinking there'd be some last minute salvation. Unfortunately, even the happy ever after ending was boring.

I'm tempted to post this review on Amazon. It's that bad.

Wow. That's bad and I wonder what happened?

Also, Cinescape has rumors of HP6 in September.

Not very likely. Rowlings had a new-ish baby for the beginning of this one, she has ALWAYS run frantically late, and the publishing publicity engine hasn't geared up. By this point in the last book, the title had been leaked, tantalizing snippets were being dropped, and the book was available for preorder on Amazon.

I read the whole thing because I'm an idiot and couldn't imagine how an author I'd previously enjoyed could change so drastically, kept thinking there'd be some last minute salvation.

Barbara Hambly, Dragonshadow. IJS.

Oh, yeah. I keep hearing bad things about the continuation of that series. I've managed to stay away from it so far.

She better not mess with Antryg, that's all I'm saying.

I liked "Sunshine" just fine.