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Well, I’m back. Aruba was amazing – as always. I did precious little there except read and relax – which was incredibly, unbelievably, amazingly wonderful. (Eek – adverbs! I know I’m not supposed to use them, but I can’t help myself… teehee)
I am running around like a chicken sans head trying to get back into the swing of real life and have a date with the Step Kids to go to the water park today, so I’m afraid the day’s post won’t be terribly relevant to the whole writing thing. In an attempt to keep it somewhat on-topic though, I will S T R E T C H things a bit and make this reading-adjacent – as in, here are the pictures of where I spent the last week reading (each of which, btw, was excellent and just the kind of escape I needed)…
I know, I know – it’s a bit of a forced fit, but it’s the best I’ve got today. More later, promise, but for now, maybe the combo of the books I read AND the place I read them will inspire you to take your own mini-vacation – even if it’s just on the couch or in the backyard. Enjoy!
- The Last Kind Words
by Tom Piccirilli
- The Hangman’s Daughter
by Oliver Pötzsch
- The Dark Monk
by Oliver Pötzsch
- The Darkest Edge of Dawn
by Kelly Gay
- Carousel Tides
by Sharon Lee
- After the Golden Age
by Carrie Vaughn
- Case Histories
by Kate Atkinson
- The Princess Bride
by William Goldman
Now I ask you – how could you NOT love reading and relaxing in a place like this?! 🙂
Beautiful pictures! Glad to hear your vacation was so wonderful. It looks like you got to read some amazing books- I have The Princess Bride on my list. Can’t wait to hear about what you have been reading.
Thanks Jess! They were camera phone pics, if you can believe it – technology is an amazing thing…
The Princess Bride is, without a doubt, one of my all-time favorite books. It’s an equally fabulous movie – because the screenplay was written by the author and all the great lines in the movie actually come from the book. It’s not to be missed! And the others I read were a great mix too – all fun and engaging and pretty different. It was a great reading vacation, that’s for sure!
Those pics are awesome! Wow! And welcome back, Jill! 😀
I just finished the YA book “Cinder” – which I REALLY liked until the last 10 pages. *sigh* I’m not a book reviewer, and I don’t want to spoil the ending for someone who might read it, so let’s just say that I didn’t “believe” the ending. Nope. Just didn’t “ring true” for me. (And this is a book in which people live on the moon, the protag is a cyborg, and androids serve humans.) So sad, because the author created such an incredible world. Anyhow…
I think next up for my reading pleasure is Tana French’s “Broken Harbour.” I love her books!
I owe you an email! (I say that a lot, don’t I?) I’ve been swamped with non-writing work, which is good, considering Gordon’s “career change.” I will email you today though. I put it on my list!
Once again, glad to “have you back!” 😀
Thanks – it’s good to be back. Really. Because it was awful, “stranded” there in paradise with nothing to do but read and sleep and walk on the beach and swim and drink fruity umbrella drinks… *Sigh* indeed. 😉
Seriously, it IS good to be back – altho it was good to be there too!
I love Tana French too, but she’s behind quite a few others on my immediate TBR list – most notably, rereading “A Discovery of Witches” and moving on to its sequel “Shadow of Night” (Deborah Harkness), which I’m ecstatically excited to read. They were too big to take on the plane, or they’d have been my first Aruba books!
No worries about email, silly – and I’m oh-so-glad to hear you’re busy! TTYS – thanks for stopping by, the picture compliments, and the skinny on “Cinder.” I think I mentioned that I almost picked it up because the premise intrigued me (and cover/title – and you KNOW how I feel about those!) but I just couldn’t quite get into it – which is weird, since you said it only lost its magic in the very tippy-end (which, if you’re not familiar, is like the tippy-top – but different). I HATE when a book ends with a whimper or an “oh COME ON!” – it leaves me feeling robbed. I sometimes wonder if those are editor issues or author ones… Thoughts?
That’s what I said to Gordon: Was the book’s final scenes influenced by an editor or the writer’s choice? Once again, I don’t want to give away the ending (in case someone sees this and plans to read the book), but when we get together, if you don’t mind “the spoiler,” I’ll tell you why it didn’t work for me.
I just read that the next in the series, “Scarlett,” is a derivative of Little Red Riding Hood. Although the protag from “Cinder” will play a role in the next book, it’s not necessary a continuation of her story, so I’m already feeling the loose ends won’t be tied up. And no, I don’t have plans to read the next three books in the series.
Once again, it’s too bad, because the author did such a great job with everything else. Little details like a “nod” to the Bubonic plague – she has a child singing “ashes, ashes, we all fall down!” in the warehouse where all the sick people are kept (there’s a new plague pandemic) made the book that much more rich. It’s fantasy, but the sci-fi aspects were intriguing. She did well with attaching reader emotion to the characters. So much done right… Dang.
I hate that. Because it really is a great concept, and if it has those kind of touches, that stinks double… If it was that good, I think that it may be worth trying one more book – maybe there’s a different editor, feedback came in about the ending, or the author didn’t have the same time pressure.
Oh, and incidentally – that flamingo is NOT zoomed. He was right in my face. Perhaps because he was overly impressed with the Cheez-It I fed him a few minutes before. Teehee. What can I say – I WAS eating right in front of him , and it seemed rude not to share. Besides, who doesn’t like Cheez-Its??
The flamingo was real???
Cool shot!
Thanks! And why yes, yes it was – free-range flamingos wander about on the private island. See why it’s my happy place??