Thursday, September 15, 2011

Currently Reading #1

So once again I'm working a lot more hours and haven't had time to properly write up reviews... okay, that's not entirely true.  I sound like one of those people that always say "I don't have time to read!", as if insinuating readers have hours to leisurely flip through pages of silly fiction (actually, I do get to read quite a bit at work).  I just haven't been making the best of my time, not when it comes to book blogging.  So in order to put something up, I'm going to share the Goodreads synopsis on all 3 books I'm reading (one for bookclub, one I bought yesterday and one I'm currently reading on my kindle).  What are you currently reading?

Fingersmith 
by Sarah Waters
From the author of the New York Times Notable Book Tipping the Velvet and the award-winning Affinity: a spellbinding, twisting tale of a great swindle, of fortunes and hearts won and lost, set in Victorian London among a family of thieves.

Sue Trinder is an orphan, left as an infant in the care of Mrs. Sucksby, a "baby farmer," who raised her with unusual tenderness, as if Sue were her own. Mrs. Sucksby's household, with its fussy babies calmed with doses of gin, also hosts a transient family of petty thieves-fingersmiths-for whom this house in the heart of a mean London slum is home.

One day, the most beloved thief of all arrives-Gentleman, a somewhat elegant con man, who carries with him an enticing proposition for Sue: If she wins a position as the maid to Maud Lilly, a naïve gentlewoman, and aids Gentleman in her seduction, then they will all share in Maud's vast inheritance. Once the inheritance is secured, Maud will be left to live out her days in a mental hospital. With dreams of paying back the kindness of her adopted family, Sue agrees to the plan. Once in, however, Sue begins to pity her helpless mark and care for Maud Lilly in unexpected ways. . . . But no one and nothing is as it seems in this > Dickensian novel of thrills and surprises.

The New York Times Book Review has called Sarah Waters a writer of "consummate skill" and The Seattle Times has praised her work as "gripping, astute fiction that feeds the mind and the senses." Fingersmith marks a major leap forward in this young and brilliant career.
Thoughts so far: You never know with books set in the past, sometimes the writer tends to bog it down in impossible to read slang and overwhelms you with details- no fear in Fingersmith.  It truly gives the proper feel of the time without sacrificing the spark that makes you flip eagerly through the pages.  So good so far. :)  Reading this for book club!

A Clash of Kings 
by George R.R. Martin

Time is out of joint. The summer of peace and plenty, ten years long, is drawing to a close, and the harsh, chill winter approaches like an angry beast. Two great leaders--Lord Eddard Stark and Robert Baratheon--who held sway over and age of enforced peace are dead...victims of royal treachery. Now, from the ancient citadel of Dragonstone to the forbidding shores of Winterfell, chaos reigns, as pretenders to the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms prepare to stake their claims through tempest, turmoil, and war.

As a prophecy of doom cuts across the sky--a comet the color of blood and flame--six factions struggle for control of a divided land. Eddard's son Robb has declared himself King in the North. In the south, Joffrey, the heir apparent, rules in name only, victim of the scheming courtiers who teem over King's Landing. Robert's two brothers each seek their own dominion, while a disfavored house turns once more to conquest. And a continent away, an exiled queen, the Mother of Dragons, risks everything to lead her precious brood across a hard hot desert to win back the crown that is rightfully hers.

A Clash of Kings transports us into a magnificent, forgotten land of revelry and revenge, wizardry and wartime. It is a tale in which maidens cavort with madmen, brother plots against brother, and the dead rise to walk in the night. Here a princess masquerades as an orphan boy; a knight of the mind prepares a poison for a treacherous sorceress; and wild men descend from the Mountains of the Moon to ravage the countryside.

Against a backdrop of incest and fratricide, alchemy and murder, the price of glory may be measured in blood. And the spoils of victory may just go to the men and women possessed of the coldest steel...and the coldest hearts. For when rulers clash, all of the land feels the tremors.

Audacious, inventive, brilliantly imagined, A Clash of Kings is a novel of dazzling beauty and boundless enchantment--a tale of pure excitement you will never forget.

From the book jacket of the 1999 Bantam Spectra Edition.
Thoughts so far: I told myself I was going to wait until I finished with Fingersmith before I picked this up, but I couldn't resist buying when I was at Barnes and Noble yesterday, along with a cute Owl bookmark and yet another Halloween coffee mug.  I just read the first little bit last night, but I'm sure it'll be a great read because winter is coming.  I'm also sure my heart will break a thousand times.

Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs
by Molly Harper
Maybe it was the Shenanigans gift certificate that put her over the edge. When children's librarian and self-professed nice girl Jane Jameson is fired by her beastly boss and handed twenty-five dollars in potato skins instead of a severance check, she goes on a bender that's sure to become Half Moon Hollow legend. On her way home, she's mistaken for a deer, shot, and left for dead. And thanks to the mysterious stranger she met while chugging neon-colored cocktails, she wakes up with a decidedly unladylike thirst for blood.
Jane is now the latest recipient of a gift basket from the Newly Undead Welcoming Committee, and her life-after-lifestyle is taking some getting used to. Her recently deceased favorite aunt is now her ghostly roommate. She has to fake breathing and endure daytime hours to avoid coming out of the coffin to her family. She's forced to forgo her favorite down-home Southern cooking for bags of O negative. Her relationship with her sexy, mercurial vampire sire keeps running hot and cold. And if all that wasn't enough, it looks like someone in Half Moon Hollow is trying to frame her for a series of vampire murders. What's a nice undead girl to do?
Thoughts so far: Hilarious!  I'm a little less than a fourth done with this book, but the writing style is very funny.  This is not my usual genre, but it's like Stephanie Plum meeting Sookie Stackhouse, so all the humor with a dash of hot vampire.  Great fall read!
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3 comments:

  1. I really need to start the Martin books. That last vampire on sounds hilarious. I look forward to your review.

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  2. I've heard such good things about Fingersmith. I know I'd enjoy it. Too many books, too little time!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great reads Kate! Can't wait to hear your final verdicts.

    I'm trying to finish Boneshaker for my bookclub and then read Glow because I borrowed Andrea's ARC

    ReplyDelete

Leave a comment, you know you want to! Here's hoping that your next book is a Midnight Read!

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