Trading Spaces Behind the Scenes (67)
I wasn't sure if this counted, but you know, I read the damn thing cover-to-cover while watching the West Wing marathon, so there you have it, number 67. Did you know that Paige Davis married a guy whose last name is Page? That's why she kept her name. So as not to be Paige Page. Erp.
Now, I have to go and make sure I end the year on a higher literary note. :)
The Marshall Plan for Novel Writing by (66)
I picked this up because I was told it was a good book for structure. And it is! It's the most over-structured plan to writing that I've ever even heard of. Will I use all the advice step-by-step? Absolutely not. Will I keep the advice in the back of my mind as I plan, write and edit? Absolutely. It did answer some questions I've been trying to get answered... like where to put chapter breaks and so forth. I will take these as suggestions, not as rules, but I'm glad that someone out there has addressed the issue.
Cleopatra's Heir by Gillian Bradshaw (64)
When I closed the book, I said, out loud, "That was really good." Seriously. Without thought, just said it.
It was an emotionally satisfying book. I think I've said before that I'm Bradshaw's ideal audience, so I don't know how the rest of the world will find it, but really-- she always delivers a good, extremely well-researched story with likeable characters. There's almost nothing else to say... except that I wish she'd write more books. I also wish that this book had really happened.
Conflict of Honors by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller (63)
The first of the Liaden Universe books to be written (I believe), I can only hope that the subsequent ones are better. I don't want to be too harsh, but this book really reads like a first novel. Or, maybe a novel written by two writers, neither of whom are willing to say to the other, "No, not quite right, let's fix this." I don't know.
Maybe it didn't seem so great because "fans of Miles Vorkosigan will love these!" propaganda got my engines revved for something a bit different?
Maybe because it's the first one?
I've got two more in this trilogy to go, because I bought the omnibus edition; lord knows if I'd picked up just this book, I wouldn't keep going. But I will go on, because I feel I have to. But I'm counting each book separately, damn it, while praying that they live up to their copious praise and get much better.
Please note: these aren't BAD. They just aren't great.
The Dewey Decimal System of Love by Josephine Carr (62)
Quite fun. Almost the perfect librarian romance, except that the main character was a bit too set in her ways to charm me at first. Of course, I know librarians who I feel are just like her, so I should probably get over it, but it was hard to step into her shoes completely. Went very quickly, though; I started and finished it in a night and a day, and I felt that the character did love books convincingly. Sometimes that's missing from depictions of librarians. Those depictions make me wonder.
Bath Tangle by Georgette Heyer (61)
Everyone! Always! Spoke in exclamations!
I know that's a function of it being written earlier last century, in part. And I admire the heck out of Heyer. But I think, of all the models I might use for writing a Regency, she is not the best one. Sherwood Smith points out in her essay Why I Can't Read Most Fantasy Novels or Regency Romances that Heyer created her own vision of Regency society based on what was important to her and to her generation of women. Lady Serena embodies the New Woman of Heyer's time in a big way.
The thing that threw me most was the omniscient perspective; only once did I feel a character breathe, and that was Ivo. Hm.