Thought I’d better catch up on some book reviews, since it’s been months since I did one. Soulless is the first in a series and I read this one in August of 2011, right around my birthday. It easily falls into the steampunk category, or as someone else called it “bustlepunk”. This book had come highly recommended, and it did not disappoint. It was utterly delightful, especially with terms of endearment between the characters such as “my little tulip” and “my petal”. And a Victorian era book with vampires and werewolves? What’s not to love? Such a fun book. Plus, I learned two new words with this book – dirigible and phaeton.
After finishing Soulless, I picked up The Paris Wife which was our book club selection for September. I’d been looking forward to reading this book and again, I was not disappointed. This book took me a lot longer to read than it really should have. But I enjoyed every bit of the book. There were times when I really related to Hadley and times that I didn’t. But I loved feeling like I understood more about the time and the people than I previously did. Once again, I wished I’d been able to go to the book club discussion having finished this, but the discussion and the book were worth it nonetheless.
I had to go on a business trip to Chicago right after Thanksgiving, so I threw this one in my purse to take along with me. I figured it was a big enough book that it would keep me busy during my time sitting at airports and nights at the hotel. I thought this book was just as enjoyable as the first one, but I’m also glad that I took a little break between the two. I read a big chunk of this during my Chicago trip, but even once I got home I had a really hard time putting this book down. I’m really looking forward to reading the third book in this series. My mom is the one who got me started reading these books, and she loaned me her books, and it’s been cool discussing them with her. I love talking about books with my mom!
You may recall I read the first book in this series back at the beginning of last year. It took me a long time to read this one because of so much going on in my life, but it was a welcome break from the world when I got a few minutes to read. Even when I could only manage a page here and there, it really was a great respite. After the big shocker at the end of the first book, I was uncertain about reading this next installment, but it didn’t disappoint. So good! I’m really looking forward to reading the next book. It’s kind of funny, now that I’m looking at it, that I read City of Bones at the beginning of last year and then book two at the beginning of this year. Same with Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – read it end of 2010, and then read book 2 end of 2011. Wonder if that’s saying something about what I like to read at a particular time of year?
And here’s the last one! I know…still with me? After finishing City of Ashes, nothing was appealing to me. Of course, that was right around the time my dad died…so I really couldn’t focus on much of anything. I ended up re-reading The Hunger Games in the couple of days before I saw the movie and I really enjoyed that. Then, the new Black Dagger Brotherhood book was released at the end of March. How could I resist? I went at lunch the day after it was released and picked up a copy. Within the first few chapters of this book, my first thought was – was I in a coma when I read the last book? Clearly I had forgotten quite a bit of what happened in that book. I had to get online and do a quick recap before I figured out what I was missing! But, once that little snafu was over, I really really enjoyed this book. I zoomed through it as usual with these books, and it did not disappoint. So good!!
So…what to read next? Well, after some persuasion, I decided to pick up Game of Thrones and read it. I’ll let you know what I think!
