I am exhausted. And with good reason. What reason, you ask? This one:
I took a short break from knitting last weekend.
This is what I did instead. I crocheted. This coming weekend marks the 80th birthday of my grandma, and since she helped me get obsessed with textile crafts, I made her a doily.
It’s currently blocking on my cork board. (I like blocking small things. They fit nicely on my board. I am rather concerned about blocking Icarus, however, as I know it will NOT fit. I doubt it will even fit on my bed. I try not to think about these things too much, as I don’t like knit-induced-panic.)
This is a close-up of the medallion in the middle…
It’s done in a fun off-white thread with gold sparklies. Sparklies make everything neater, in my (usual) opinion. Sparklies are cool. Besides, what better way to celebrate an 80th birthday than with a bit of bling?
I was surfing around a bit, trying to stay awake (not a restful night's sleep last night) and found this:
Girl In a Man Suit
It's a post PBW wrote in 2005 for Romancing the Blog, and it's good. Funny in classic PBW style, plus it's a good reminder with helpful tips. But now I'm stressing out.
Did I write guys who act enough like guys??
Great. Now I'll have to go double-check.
Week 9 ~ Feb 26-Mar 4, 2007
Private Demon (Darkyn #2
by Lynn Viehl
(fantasy, paranormal romance)
This is the second book in Lynn Viehl’s Darkyn series. It follows up If Angels Burn with the same semi-predictable but still very enjoyable plot style, yet there is nowhere near the unsettling feeling that comes from the torture scenes in the first book. This is still a dark fantasy, or perhaps an urban fantasy (the definitions blur a little), but there were no scenes that I will skip when I do a re-read (as there was in the first one).
I enjoyed this book, probably more than the first one. I like the heroine in If Angels Burn better, but she shows up in Private Demon as a supporting character, so that made me happy. In fact, many of the cast of the first book recur in the second. It was an easy sequel to read: a few new characters, the return of old favorites, and not too much re-telling of the previous plot. It had been several months since I read the first book, and Viehl blended the summary with new plot so seamlessly that it seemed I had just finished reading the previous book.
There isn’t a lot of the plot that can be told without giving away things from If Angels Burn, but I can discuss the heroine, who is a new character. She seems pretty realistic to me, yet there were a few aspects of her character that I had to take with a grain of salt. It seemed that she was focused on different parts of her illness than I would have been in her position, and while I can understand it from a plot viewpoint, it did leave me rolling my eyes at her a few times.
Also, there are almost two heroes in the book, which was a twist I found interesting. That part worked better for me than the heroine did. Most people who I’ve spoken to who have read this book favored one of the men as the one who should win the lady, but I found myself disagreeing with them. The “popular favorite” may have been better for her, but the situation was creepy for me. He’d known her and watched her for ages, ever since she was little – he was too much a father figure to her for me to want him to be her lover.
Anyway, it was an enjoyable book. The series flows well, and seems to have plenty of momentum to carry it through the other books which have been written and the couple of others that have been contracted for in addition. The only problem I have with the series is that it’s shelved in the romance section. I don’t see these as romances: they are urban/dark/paranormal fantasy. Yes, they have romance elements, but they are not – to me – true romances.
(Friday Fivers are basically just a series of five questions posted on Fridays that anyone can answer on their blogs. The questions go up here, for any who are curious.)
1. What’s your favorite game show to watch? I only actually watch one: Jeopardy. And then only sometimes.
2. What game show would you like to be on? I’d love to be able to have the quick-recall needed to be on Jeopardy. But as for the “on TV” part, I don’t really want to be on any of them.
3. Do you know anyone who has been on a game show? Not that I know of.
4. What do you think the worst game show is? Honestly? The only other game show I can think of at the moment is “Wheel of Fortune,” yet I doubt that it’s the worst one out there.
5. Bob Barker, Howie Mandel or Alex Trebek? Since I only know who Alex Trebek is, I’d have to vote for him, even though I’m not sure I want to. Then again, I’m not sure what the vote is for (best? worst?) so I guess it doesn’t matter.
Stole this from Northcoast Exile... Bold the ones you’ve read, italicize the ones you want to read, cross out the ones you won’t touch with a 10 foot pole, put a cross (+) in front of the ones on your book shelf, and asterisk (*) the ones you’ve never heard of.
Paperback Writer: Authors and Slogans
Very, very amusing. Published authors do advertising slogans.
And because I can't resist, here is my probable favorite:
Laurell K. Hamilton for G.E.: We bring dead things to life.
