The Zen Leaf

Wellness Wednesday #30: Awake

Posted on June 1, 2016 by Thistle

June 1st, 1999. I’d spent a hard semester at college while my relationship with a former long-time boyfriend dissolved, and I’d decided to go to France on a six-week abroad program that summer. I’d been in France roughly a week by the start of June, and already I was in love. In love with the country, in love with my fairy-tale room on the third floor of my host-house, in love with the cobblestone roads and cafes and cathedrals and classes.

June 1st, 1999. I sat on the floor of my bedroom, listening to music and doing my French homework for the day. I’d been struggling so hard with depression, but in that moment, something lifted from my shoulders. For the first time in years, I felt awake. Alive. I started smiling. Grinning. Laughing to myself. I could breathe again.

I cannot say exactly why this one moment affected my life so profoundly. Maybe it was simply a combination of being away from the troubles at home plus lots of exercise (walking everywhere!) and healthier foods. Hormones and health can really make a huge difference in a person’s life. Maybe it was just a change in perspective. That one moment, however, allowed me to shuck off the chains I was carrying. The boyfriend who had been ill-using me, my fears of being alone, the ties to certain beliefs and traditions that no longer worked for me. In that moment, I crossed over into a new life.

That’s not to say everything has been peachy-wonderful since then. Of course not. All I know is that a dividing line was drawn, the most significant dividing line of my life, before or since. Every year, I celebrate. June 1st feels like a new year for me, a new beginning, a new chance to let go and live.

Posted in Personal | Tagged memorable, Wellness Wednesday | Leave a comment

Everything I Never Told You, by Celeste Ng

Posted on May 30, 2016 by Thistle

Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet. From this beginning, the story of a mixed-race family in the 70s unfolds, spinning outwards as the discovery of the favored child’s death affects everyone.

This will be a very difficult book for me to review. Let me start with this disclaimer: I did not personally enjoy this book, though at the same time, I think it is a good book. This is far outside my normal reads. I don’t usually enjoy historical fiction, straight literary fiction, or books where the narrator shifts on a whim from character to character. The book is good, but I am not the intended audience, and even a good book in a category I don’t really enjoy is not going to make for an enjoyable experience for me. So why keep reading? Two reasons.

First, I learned a lot from the book. There were some interesting historical stuff in here that I didn’t know. For example, I’d never heard of rabbit tests for pregnancy before, and I spent some time researching that. I do like learning these kinds of tidbits. There was also a lot about the cultural history of racism against Asian people in America. I’ve read some of this before, but not enough that I feel I know much. As this sort of racism continues to this day (I have a friend in a white/Asian mixed-race family whose children get some of these same comments even now), I feel like I ought to understand better.

Second, the book was far more interesting to study and ponder after reading than it was (for me) to actually read it. I’ve had similar experiences with other books before. For example, I couldn’t stand Madame Bovary, but I loved studying it through literary analysis and having an in-depth discussion of its themes/cultural relevance/influence/etc with my book club. Sometimes books are simply more interesting to study than to read, and I found that to be the case here. I disliked just about every character in the book, except Hannah, and yet each was so fascinating to pick apart and analyze after the fact.

Back when my first son was born, his baby book asked the question, “What are your dreams for your child?” My answer was that I refused to put any dreams on him, because I didn’t want to accidentally give him burdens instead. I’d had some experience already with what happened to children whose parents tried to force them to live out their own dreams, as Lydia’s do with her. I thought about this, and about how the family fractured because of Marilyn’s short abandonment, and about the causes for lost dreams in the first place, and about how roles for women are slowly changing, and how some parents despise the children who are most like them while other parents love those children the most. I thought about the ways that each member of the family carried a kind of traumatic memory behavior pattern, and how that pattern influenced the silence that created a false life around them. I was not exactly happy about the knowledge that through Marilyn’s choices, she constructed the downfall of so many people, when it feels like that blame ought to be spread out a bit more. I didn’t like her being the center of it all, in the end.

In other words, the book got me to think, and while it may not have been the most pleasurable read for me, I did enjoy the studying of it afterwards, and maybe that’s enough.

Posted in 2016, Adult, Prose | Tagged gender studies, historical, POC, psychology | 4 Comments

Sunday Coffee – Something New

Posted on May 29, 2016 by Thistle

It’s been about a month or so since I finished my last manuscript, Maldralith, and I think it’s time to settle on a new project for the summer. I have a few possibilities picked out. Three are a little more well-developed in my head than the others, though I have new ideas splashing out over me so often these days that I’ve been feeling the panic of “not enough time!” Once I make my choice, I can go ahead without reservations, but I need to pick one first, and that’s almost always the hardest part. So, informal poll time! Which of the following three do you think I should work on next?

Winter’s Son
When Poe Winterson’s mother hangs herself, Poe is sent to live with her grandmother in the childhood home she hardly remembers. Eight years of nomadic life have obliterated memories of before. She barely recognizes her former best friend, Blake Hansley, and doesn’t recall the dilapidated piano abandoned in the woods where they used to play. She has no idea that this piano acts as a gateway to another world, a world of Nightmares that have haunted her dreams for years. Suddenly, nothing about the fabric of Poe’s life can be trusted – not her upbringing, not her memories, not the details of her mother’s death. She wants to run, to disappear back into the real world and never step foot near that piano again. The Nightmares have taken Blake, however, and Poe refuses to let them destroy any more lives in their hunt for her.

Notes: YA fantasy, first in a four-part series based on the four seasons, and this would be my second draft of this novel

Gargoyle Island
Mallory Dane inherits a tropical island luxury home off the coast of Honduras, but when she arrives to claim it, she runs afoul of an immortal priest and a gargoyle-come-to-life. She quickly discovers their secret: once chained to the island, a resident can never escape. Never one to accept her chains quietly, Mallory sets about unraveling the numerological magic that has trapped her family line on Gargoyle Island for a century.

Notes: adult contemporary fantasy, standalone, and this would be my second draft of this novel

Goblin Market
Mizzy has been a refugee since her infant years. She lives in the goblin district of New York City, interacts mainly with other goblins, and has never considered breaking the US’s many statutes about magical creatures. One night, she’s goaded into a small act of rebellion, and with that act, Mizzy’s life is upended. Now she’s on the run from both the US government and black marketeers intent on stealing her magic. Her community of goblins won’t help her, and she finds herself surrounded by creatures of all sorts, refugee and native. Each were in hiding, and together, their collective knowledge might help them escape, or might reveal a truth none of them could have discovered alone.

Notes: fantasy (could be YA or adult at this point), probably standalone, and this would be a first draft.

So what do y’all think? Any of these catch your eye?

Posted in Writing | Tagged Sunday Coffee | 5 Comments

Happily Ever After (Part II)

Posted on May 27, 2016 by Thistle

I’ve been reading a couple of fairy-tale like series this month – princesses! – and instead of reviewing each book one by one, I’m going to do mini-reviews in a single set. No sense clogging up my blog with tons and tons of mini-reviews!

For Part II of these Happily Ever After minis, I’m reviewing the rest of the dystopian series that began with The Selection by Kiera Cass. While these aren’t the same as the romances in Part I – these are set in a world where Happily Ever After isn’t assured – I went into the series with a good idea of how the formula and plot-arc would unfold over the five books. Longer series like this are difficult to review without giving away spoilers from previous books, so I won’t be talking about plot at all, and instead will just give my reactions to each of the books as I went along.

The Elite
While I enjoyed The Selection, I was a little put off by how close it stuck to the plot/details of The Hunger Games. Thankfully, The Elite branched away into its own story. I still had some issues – America’s extreme naivety was particularly infuriating – but for the most part, I found this a step up from the first book. At one point I actually found my heart pounding along with the characters’ in a moment of extreme stress. That doesn’t happen to me often when I read, so points to the book and author for that!

The One
I’m in two minds about this book. On the one hand, I really enjoyed a big chunk of it and felt like the plot finally got going in stride. There were the beginnings of deeper characterization of the auxiliary characters, and a little more seen about the outside world. The ending, however, went through so much in such a short amount of time, though, that I feel very unsatisfied. There are some characters who deviated massively from their personalities, a lot of unanswered questions, more blindness and easily-solvable miscommunication, and some deus ex machina. I hadn’t realized that this book was the end of the initial series, and that the next happens further along in time. I’m hoping some questions will be answered/explored in further volumes, but I’m still left unsatisfied here.

The Heir
Nope. None of my questions answered. This is basically the start of an entirely new series. It’s a good one, yes, but I still wish I had more from the end of the last book. Setting that aside, though, I enjoyed The Heir. I’m not a huge fan of the narrator, who seems very naive in many ways, but essentially this is what I was thinking would be interesting about the last book – seeing the Selection from the point of view of someone doing the selecting. I imagine Eadlyn’s experience is similar to Maxon’s in many ways, so it was almost like revisiting the books from a different point of view. The ending is very abrupt, though, and unfortunately I’m going to have to wait a bit before the next book, as the hold list is quite long at the library.

The Crown
I got very tired of waiting for the library list to thin, and eventually used an Audible credit to get this one. I enjoyed the story very much, despite feeling like it was very predictable in places and still lacking in some of the world-building that I wished to see. It was a good end to the series, and the Happily Ever After is definitely what I needed right now. Oddly, I didn’t mind the audio either, read by Brittany Pressley, despite usually avoiding YA audios. Some of the crying-while-speaking was overdone, but otherwise, I liked how she kept all the different voices straight in a book that contained many, many characters.

Random notes:
– I’m very glad I waited until the entire series was out before I began reading. Back-to-back was definitely the way to go. Wish I could’ve gotten that last one quicker.
– I wish I could see a little bit more from Maxon’s side during the actual selection, particularly in being raised not just to choose from a pool of women, but to think it’s “normal” to seriously date many women at one time. As I said before, Eadlyn’s story showed this a bit.
– To be honest, I’m not sure I’ll remember much about this series beyond it being the princess dystopia series…

Posted in 2016, Prose, Young Adult | Tagged mini-review, speculative | 6 Comments

Wellness Wednesday #29: Ankle Update

Posted on May 25, 2016 by Thistle

Remember when I sprained my ankle? Like, back in late August? Been a long time since then. About nine months, in fact. Things were getting better at one point. I had some Airrosti therapy appointments in November that helped, and my doc gave me some strengthening exercises to improve function even more. I changed shoes, which also helped. I still had occasional pain, and my foot grew stiff after I exercised, but I was healing. Until April.

Over the last couple months, I’ve developed pain in a different area of the foot, a spreading burning sensation radiating out from the underside of the outer ankle. The top of my foot was painful to the touch. When I exercised, I’d get so stiff and sore that I’d have to hobble around for days afterwards. If I instead rested it for several days, I’d start getting random shooting pains through it every time I put pressure on it (even just sitting it flat on the ground with no weight on it). I tried different physical therapy exercises, massages, ice, stretches, chiropractic, and more, but nothing worked. Six months after my last Airrosti visits, I went back in.

The news grew worse. My doc examined my foot/ankle. It was stable, and there was no extra scar tissue or kinking of the fascia to iron out. He worked on the entire leg all the way up to the hip and lower back, just in case the pain was referred (I do have extremely tight IT bands). There was a possibility, he said, that the pain in my foot was because the muscles there were overcompensating for something the leg was supposed to do. More likely, though, I had a tear in the ligament and needed an MRI. If there was a tear, I would likely need surgery or to at least be booted and immobile for 12 weeks. Sob.

He told me to ice my lower back on that side. My lower back didn’t hurt any, but I followed the instruction, and two days later, I woke up with my foot feeling fine and my lower back hurting. I had a massage scheduled that day, and my therapist said the muscles in my lower back were super tight. She did a release technique on them (extremely painful) but when she was done, neither foot nor back hurt. Suddenly, I had hope. Maybe it wasn’t a tear. Maybe my stupidly tight legs/hips/back were just causing my foot to overwork itself.

In the two weeks since then, I’ve been testing different exercises, and I’ve gone back to my Airrosti appointments. Some exercises do cause me to get sore/stiff, but with some new therapy exercises, that goes away after a day (yay!). During my second Airrosti appointment, my doc continued to work all the way up my leg/hip/back, then discharged me. If it flares up again in the future (hopefully not!!), I’ll go in for an MRI, but I’m hoping with the right strengthening, PT exercises, and massage, I can be fully healed soon!!

PS – An update also on the kidney stone issue: it passed, all is well, and the imagine doesn’t show other stones, so I’m in the clear for now at least!

Posted in Wellness | Tagged fitness, health, Wellness Wednesday | 4 Comments

Top Ten Books That Changed Over Time

Posted on May 24, 2016 by Thistle

Today’s topic is about books you once read and your feelings toward have changed over time. That change can be positive or negative, but in this post, I only want to discuss books that I originally had negative or indifferent feelings toward, and grew to love as time passed. In no particular order:

1. We by Yevgeny Zamyatin: The first time I read this book, I was thoroughly confused. My review was a jumbled mess of WTF? I liked it – at least I thought I did – but I really had no idea what was going on in there. Within three years, the book had grown into one of my favorites in retrospect, and I reread/re-reviewed it with clearer insight.

2. Devilish by Maureen Johnson: My original review of this book stated that it was a confusing mess of a book. I didn’t dislike it, but didn’t find it as good as other books by the same author. Later, I went back and reread that review, surprising myself because Devilish had become my favorite of all Johnson books, even though I hadn’t reread it.

3. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro: I was indifferent to this book when I first read it. Within six months, I realized I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and it had grown into a favorite. Ironically, the book continually invaded my mind from time to time until years later, when I saw the film. The film somehow effectively shut out the book, which makes me sad, and makes me think a reread is necessary.

4. Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson: Initial read judged it as good, but not nearly as good as other Sanderson novels. Just okay. However, this one stuck in my head and kept beating at my brain until it became one of my favorites. Recent reread showed the love to be deserved.

5. The Nature of Jade by Deb Caletti: My original 2009 review of this was lost, but my initial thoughts were again “okay but not great.” By the end of 2009, this had become one of my favorites of the year, and I reread it while on vacation that December.

6. Meant to Be by Lauren Morrill: I remember this book was distinct fondness despite its silliness and predictability. Recently, I went back and read my review, and was surprised to find that I noted many things that bothered me despite liking it. Once again, I grew more fond over time.

7. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling: When I first read the HP series (right after Half Blood Prince released), I was turned off by all the angst and yelling in OotP. I know many people feel the same way. When I subsequently reread the series two dozen times in the next year, my feelings toward each of those books changed, and this grew into one of my favorites. It’s so very well-written, despite the angst.

8. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell: This one is a little different. I actually loved this one from the start. The quality of my love changed over time, though, as the book wormed its way to the forefront of my brain over and over, and I began thinking of it as a favorite rather than just a book I loved for the fun of it the day I read it.

9. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller: I first read this in a satire class in college, and the whole read was one big WTF moment. I must have had the impression that there was something there I liked, however, because I tried again the next year, and the year after that, and by the time I was married and had several small kids, I had a handmade shirt with “flies in your eyes” drawn across it and the boys traded Catch-22-style insults with each other when angry.

10. The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson: In 2013, I read both of Sanderson’s new YA novels, Steelheart and The Rithmatist. The former, I loved. The latter, I thought was okay, but had a lot of issues with. Over time, the former dropped from my memory completely, and the latter turned out to have real sticking power (possibly because I read it aloud to my kids). In the end, it’s The Rithmatist I ended up loving longterm.

The pattern should be obvious here. Books that stick with me for a long time, rather than fading away in my memory, tend to be the ones that grow into long-lasting love in my heart. Sometimes I initially love a book, but if I can barely remember it a month later, it will fade from a spot among my favorites. This is why I prefer to read slower with some books, or to multi-read others. Time spent with book-loves helps them stay book-loves for me!

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

Posted in Book Talk | Tagged lists | 4 Comments

Sunday Coffee – Medical Mess

Posted on May 22, 2016 by Thistle

I hate the term “hot mess” but I’m going to use it right now, because that’s what I am. Three days ago, I started having pain in my lower right back. Felt like sciatic or back-labor pain, getting worse over time. I was so bad by the next day that I missed my great friend Stephanie’s graduation (walking the stage for her Master’s!) that I’d been looking forward to for a month. I kept thinking the pain was possibly digestion-related or menstrual-related, though neither made sense as time dragged by. Yesterday morning, I was weak, lightheaded, clammy, and nearly fainting. By afternoon, Jason took me to Urgent Care.

Urgent Care was a HUGE waste of time. The doctor at this local facility knows nothing, and kept saying that he thought this was a muscle strain. Hey, dude, I know what muscle strain feels like. Just because I’m fat doesn’t mean that I haven’t been an athlete for most of my life. When we mentioned a couple things related to my diagnosis, like say having ovarian cysts that might have burst or endometrial pain, he dismissed me completely. On the way home from Urgent Care, I talked with that same friend above, who agreed to watch our kids while we shuffled over to the ER instead.

The ER took me seriously, thank goodness. Very quickly I had blood work drawn, an IV put in, x-rays and CT scans of both my head and abdomen, where they discovered I had a medium-to-large kidney stone blocked up and causing my kidney to swell. Fun! I’ve never had a kidney stone before and we have no family history of them, so this was a surprise to me. Especially as the Urgent Care doctor spent a long time telling us why it couldn’t be a stone because of where I was feeling the pain. (Later examination of a simply Wikipedia article shows that I was feeling pain exactly where is normal. That idiot.)

Long story short, I was given lots of medicine and eventually sent home with instructions to follow up with a particular doctor on Monday, or call in with an emergency if things get worse before then. I’m now juggling five prescriptions and lots of instructions and I’m so very thankful that Jason was there with me and the boys had a place to go and that everyone in my family were able to pull together to find someone to watch the boys overnight if I ended up going to a hospital. I can’t imagine what this would have been like if we were still in Boston where we knew no one! I probably wouldn’t have gone into Urgent Care in the first place. Gah. Once again, so very glad to be home.

Sorry for all the medical gore.

Posted in Personal | Tagged health, Sunday Coffee | 12 Comments

Dreamology, by Lucy Keating (audio)

Posted on May 20, 2016 by Thistle

For as long as Alice can remember, she’s dreamed of Max. Several nights a week, he shows up, and over the years, they’ve developed a deep friendship and a fairly recent romantic relationship. Alice knows he’s not real, though. He’s an imaginary being, a dream-creature. Except that on the first day of school in a new area, Max is right there. He’s real…only he doesn’t seem to recognize her at all.

I have no idea where I first heard about this book. It was ages ago, back in the fall, and I’ve been dying to read it ever since. It came out in April, and still my library didn’t get a copy. Finally this month, an e-book and an e-audiobook popped up, and I snatched at both immediately. The audio was the first hold to reach me, and I listened to the entire book in a single day.

Recently, I mentioned all the “instant turn-ons” I have in books, and shared dreams is definitely one of them. The thing is, books with those turn-ons generally fall to either extreme for me. Either I love them unreasonably, or they disappoint me horribly. Dreamology was a fall-in-love book. Yeah, it had its issues, especially toward the end. There were things I wanted to know more about, and things I didn’t like. Mostly, though, I just fell in love with the whole story. I loved the idea of dream-bleeding, the edges of reality starting to act like the illogical nature of dreams, and the various friendships that develop through the book. I loved the weird science lab Alice visits and her grandmother’s quirky home. I even loved the sprinkling of locations I either visited or heard about while living in Boston, where the book takes place.

Like I said, it’s not a perfect book, but it was a good one for me. Everything I could’ve hoped it to be.

Performance: This book is read by Erin Spencer, who did a great job. I don’t usually listen to YA on audio because narrators tend to read them whiny/angsty/perpetually cynical, and while there were some of those moments here, it wasn’t constant, so it sounded like a real person!

Posted in 2016, Prose, Young Adult | Tagged audio, comfort, speculative | 7 Comments

Top Books Picked Out on a Whim

Posted on May 17, 2016 by Thistle

Today’s topic specifies that we’re discussing books picked up without recommendation and without knowing much about the book beforehand. I have a tendency to pick up a lot of books based purely on the cover or mini-description that comes through my library’s Wowbrary feed, but many of those end up going back to the library unread. After thinking back through my many years of reading, I came up with a dozen books I’d consider both “picked up on a whim” and fantastic choices. In no particular order:

1. The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson: This was the first book that came to mind. I grabbed it at random off a library shelf and figured I’d end up returning it unread. I loved it so very much.

2. Mrs. Craddock by William Somerset Maugham: In 2001, when I decided to read a classic every week, I randomly chose this one to begin the year because the cover looked interesting and it was fairly short. Maugham turned into one of my favorite authors.

3. Possession by AS Byatt: Everyone in the book world knows Byatt, but when Jason and I first saw this book in the early 2000s, on a used bookshelf at Barnes & Noble in Madison, WI, we decided that the $3 price tag was worth the risk. It looked like it might be good or terrible, and it became one of my favorite books of all time.

4. Number the Stars by Lois Lowry: I knew the author from elementary school and thought I’d disliked her books back then. In 2008, I picked this one up at random to “give her a second chance,” but it turned out I’d never read anything by her before, and this book was lovely.

5. Elena Vanishing by Elena and Clare Dunkle: I rarely read nonfiction picked on a whim, but instead choose for specific subject matter. This popped up in my Wowbrary feed last fall and it ended up being a brilliant choice.

6. The Screaming Staircase by Jonathan Stroud: I have no idea why or where I picked up the audio version of this book. I don’t remember ever hearing about it before, and one day I started listening to it and fell completely in love with the series.

7. Dick and Jane and Vampires by Laura Marchesani: So we all know Dick and Jane, but when I saw the “and Vampires” version back in 2010, I had to get it based on the concept and cover alone. It could have been terrible. Easily. It wasn’t. It was hysterical and wonderful and I wish I still had my copy…even my mom loved it, and she normally hates any kind of satire!

8. The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau: When my boys were younger, they participated in Barnes & Noble’s summer reading program. This book was listed as a possible award book they could chose for finishing. The cover looked interesting, but none of the boys chose it as their award, so I got it from the library and devoured it.

9. Doll Bones by Holly Black: Early in blogging, I read several books by Black and didn’t enjoy them. I figured she was just not the kind of writer I liked. The cover and back-of-book description sounded interesting, however, so I figured, why not? Glad I got it!

10. Magonia by Maria Dahvana Headley: When we were prepping to move back to Texas a year ago, I started grabbing lots of random books from the library shelves to read. Many of them didn’t work out. This one, however, was brilliant, and I can’t wait for the sequel!

11. Second Chance Summer by Morgan Matson: Random library grab during a slumpy summer of reading. Started off kinda not great for me, and then ended up shredding me into a massive sobbing pile of Mandaness.

12. Firstborn by Lorie Ann Grover: In early 2015, I was actively seeking out more gender-diverse fiction, and in my random searches, I came across this title. It came to me from the library with a pile of others, and ended up one of the only ones I actually read. Great look at transgender issues in a fantasy setting!

Have you read any of these? Have I interested you in any of them? (heehee)

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

Posted in Book Talk | Tagged lists | 12 Comments

Happily Ever After (Part 1)

Posted on May 16, 2016 by Thistle

For Part I of these Happily Ever After minis, I’m reviewing the rest of the fairy tale romances from Eloisa James, after reading A Kiss at Midnight early in the month. As I said in that review, I’m not really a romance reader, usually finding them awkward, stilted, and unsatisfying. I was impressed by Kiss, however, and my reading needs tended more toward fast, friendly, and no-stress this month. A bunch of books with sexy sex and guaranteed happy endings were just the things!

When Beauty Tamed the Beast
This book was extremely enjoyable! I think I liked it better than the first in the series, especially the lead-up, which felt a little shaky in Kiss. However, I admit that the ending of Kiss was a little less shaky than in this book, so there’s that trade-off. Still, I enjoyed all the characters, especially how pragmatic the heroine, Linnet, is. I also really loved the sarcastic, joking banter between the two leads.

The Duke is Mine
This book was a DNF for me. I read these out of order, with this one being fourth instead of third, and before I began, I was warned about it. Amy of Amy Reads, who originally turned me onto these books, mentioned some distasteful things regarding the way mentally disabled characters are treated. She linked me out to a spoileriffic review, which went into much more detail. Even so, I decided to try the audio out, with these warnings in mind. By the time I met the first disabled character in question, Rupert, I couldn’t continue. It was less the way he was spoken about beforehand and more the way he was presented when he actually showed up that confirmed I didn’t want to read any further.

The Ugly Duchess
Though this is the fourth book in this particular series, the books are standalone, and I actually read this one third. And, unfortunately, it’s the first book that I didn’t delight in. The formula was different, which would have been okay except that it led to a lot of stilted characterization and language. This is the first of these books that had awful euphemisms during sex, and I was totally not attracted to the feisty pirate aspect of the book. This one also bordered on rape-fantasy a couple times, and that’s not for me. Note that there isn’t actually any sexual violence or threat, just that the female here seems to enjoy the idea of pretending such. Totally fine, if it’s consensual, just not for me. Anyway, this one was a bust.

Once Upon a Tower (audio)
I admit, after the last two duds, I was really worried that I’d made a mistake in continuing past the first couple books in this particular series. Thankfully, however, Once Upon a Tower was fantastic! Not only was the plot, characters, pacing, and all the rest more streamlined, but everything seemed more fleshed out than even the first two books. The only time I was even remotely uncomfortable was when the male lead intends to do something particularly awful, except then he doesn’t, and yay! Unlike the other books in this series, I could see this existing outside the realm of romance novels. As for listening on audio, I was worried that the narrator (Susan Duerden) would be awful or awkward during certain sections. Thankfully, I was wrong here, too, and other than the particularly annoying habit of adding the exact same laugh every time the text says someone laughs/giggles, I quite enjoyed the audio experience!

Random notes:
– The titles and covers are horribly cheesy and grin-worthy.
– I really have no intention to keep reading books of this kind, but it was fun to get out of my comfort zone a short while.

Posted in 2016, Adult, Prose | Tagged historical, mini-review, revisiting | 3 Comments