I read books, I swear...

Not that it seems like it; according to this I haven't read any books between May 8 and May 19 - but I have!

It's just that one of them I can't talk about, and then I'm in the middle of a couple of them so no single one gets finished.

But I did finish (and start) In the Shadow of Blackbirds by Cat Winters. It was pretty good, especially for YA, I think - there were some "magical" elements, but also a lot about WWI and the Spanish Flu, and I thought the author did a nice job of incorporating her research and really setting the scene nicely. The story itself wasn't all that fascinating. An intriguing main character, and then some (not so) mysterious shenanigans.

Basically, she's the daughter of a man arrested for aiding draft dodgers and flees from Portland to her aunt in San Diego, where her childhood best friend / blossoming first love lived before he enlisted. Nobody's heard anything from him, then they hear he's dead, then he starts haunting her (after in a fit of rage at the desperation and hopelessness of life she goes and gets herself electrocuted) and it turns out things are not what they seem. Except...they kind of are. While I appreciated that in the end we didn't get the happy ending I thought was coming, the "twist" at the end wasn't much of one...unless the audience is supposed to spend the whole book yelling at the protagonist, "open your eyes, girlie!!" (I dunno, girlie seems period-appropriate). But I really did like Mary Shelley Black as the heroine - she loves science (and it's believable, not totally anachronistic, and not overly feisty) and does the right thing even when it's hard and/or dangerous.

Could be the start of a series - at least, MSB seemed way too well drawn, but also with hints at future developments, for a one-off. Not that a character in a non-series book couldn't or wouldn't be well-drawn, there's just something about it that feels like the author is setting her up for future escapades.

One major problem, though - the ghost non-sex sex scene was just LUDICROUS. I mean, seriously. So silly. And yet still a million times less stupid / hotter than the random 10-seconds-of-dry-humping orgasm in Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, so that's something.

And they day before I finished a really good - although not as excellent as I had hoped - book, which I can't talk about because it was an advance copy I got my hands on.

Tuesday's Three

I was thinking last night that I'd make a point of bringing back 3 books a day, as I start to empty my apartment, but I'm not even sure that would take care of all of the previously-read library books I have scattered around... However, the three I brought in this morning are:

A Lesson in Secrets, Jacqueline Winspear (Harper, 2011) - this is another Maisie Dobbs mystery. Don't remember what it's about, except she finally has a nice man (I think, and I even think I know which one, although I don't want to say here), but it really is getting to the point where even if they're decently written, with well-rounded and appealing characters, if you've read one, you've kind of read them all...

The Abyssinian Proof, Jenny White (W.W. Norton, 2008) - sequel to The Sultan's Seal, so another Kamil Pasha mystery. Which is funny, because I totally just picked three books that were roughly the same size, I didn't bother to check and see what they were, or if there was a theme. Well, I did check to see what they were just to make sure there was nothing really awesome that would deserve more time. Anyhow, more Istanbul shenanigans in the 1880s. Well-written, and Kamil is a really strong main character, and a good anchor for the series, but damn was this one predictable. Like, I totally forgot what it was about (honestly, the title itself didn't even ring a bell, I just knew Jenny White does the Kamil Pasha series), then I opened it just now, read the first lines, and thought "oh right - THIS book" and remembered that I had anticipated everything that happened. But I enjoyed being along for the ride, as I recall.

The Twelfth Enchantment, David Liss (Random House, 2011) - so, all I can think about right now is how weird the word "twelfth" looks. But, we press on: I had to skim the first page to remember what this book is about, which is a young girl in early industrial England who has to...do magic to save the world? basically? And I also then immediately remembered that when I started reading it I was kind of upset because the book was not at all what I expected. I had gotten it thinking it would be one of his "economics/business + mystery in the past" books (like the Conspiracy of Paper series or The Whiskey Rebels), which I've either read one of or wanted to read (now that I'm looking it up, I think I read a book by another author along those lines, and that's why I wanted to move to Liss), and then I find freaking  evil fairies and stuff. NOT PLEASED. I don't even know that the book was so bad, it's just a) not really my thing, and b) not at all what I was anticipating/looking for.