What I Read In June...

Why? Because I need to get a post scheduled for today, I'm tired, I'm brain dead, and I just spent the past four hours with drunken Brits learning lots of slang and all about stag dos. Trying to explain why a sober, married, American girl was surrounded by drunken, married, British men talking about stag dos is a bit beyond me (and quite possibly classified) so we're going to retreat to the much safer world of books and what I read whilst vacationing. No buy links, and only mini-reviews.

RAVEN BOYS by Maggie Stiefvater - given to me by the Twinny One, Amy Laurens (@InkyLaurens) to convince me there is good YA I read this whilst sitting in the moonlit flooded mountains of Colorado. Ten points to House Stiefvater for making me look up a word. Quiddity shall now be part of my vocabulary. The book was intelligent, fun, and I enjoyed it because the parents acted like parents and the teens didn't act like teens. They acted like how I was as a teen (or would have been if I had money and lived somewhere other than Denver) and I could understand them. No angst, marginal love entanglements, relatively little violence, but some fun mythology and a bit of magic. Good for Percy Jackson, Dresden, and Kate Daniels fans.

THE DREAM THIEVES by Maggie Stiefvater - because ones does not simply read *part* of a series. One binges on the whole thing. Again, intelligent characters, magic, a bit of a plot twist. Enjoyable but in some ways predictable and forgettable. I find it hard to care for a character who is set to self-destruct and doesn't care for anyone else, so the focus characters of the book were difficult to love. Still a good book, but not my favorite in the series.

FURIES OF CALDERON by Jim Butcher - someone gave my husband the whole series as a present and he left the first book just lying there neglected by the bed. Of course I had to pick it up! The fact that Butcher said he wrote the series to combine Roman legions (SPQR!!!) and Pokemon intrigued me and I was willing to give the swords and sorcery a chance. It's worth clearing an afternoon for. Think GAMES OF THRONES where some of the characters you love live!

ACADEM'S FURY by Jim Butcher - set two years after the first book it's easy to pick up Butcher's formula if you read the books back-to-back, but that doesn't make it bad. Trying to do this spoiler free .... um.... explosions, fights, people fall in love, people die, part of a mountain falls down... Ta-da! Go read the book.

CURSOR'S FURY by Jim Butcher - it's a series, all right? One doesn't quit reading midway through the book. I'm partially done with this one as I type this report and so far I enjoy it. There's a little more military action. Not as much Fade (yet - I love Fade), and I'm not sure what Rook is up to, but I hope things work out for her. Unless Butcher changes his style drastically I except to lose a character I love before the end of the book, but I suspect it will all work out in the end.


So.... what are you reading?