Started Reading: January 21, 2008
Finished Reading: January 22, 2008

Naturally, I couldn’t stop myself from reading the sequel. This, too, was all right, though the last part of the book confused me a bit at first.

I’ve not much to say since…I’ve read this in a rush because I couldn’t study until I finished it and I had to finish revising a paper for the next day. I can’t remember whatever complaints I’ve had - if I had any. It’s not my favorite but it didn’t bore me. The resolution was a bit disappointing to me, though I can’t explain why right now. Heh.

Started Reading: January 20, 2008
Finished Reading: January 21, 2008

This was a pretty good book. I’m not entirely in love with series books because they take forever and I don’t like waiting. But I feel like I’d keep on reading the novels about Lily and Rule and their other friends in this little world created by Wilks. I haven’t really read any “werewolves vs goddesses” stuff. Lily is a very strong character with a mysterious (and interesting) grandmother whose history I wouldn’t hesitate from reading. And she’s a female cop (a role I don’t see often cast to a protagonist in novels).

Her bond with Rule was also well-developed that you’d know it’s not just a physical bond. She and Rule had to work together and trust each other. So I’m very satisfied with how they became a couple. The plot was good and even the minor characters had past and personality that they don’t seem so flat.

Started Reading: January 12, 2008
Finished Reading: Januay 12, 2008

The world in which The Black Jewels Trilogy takes place is dark, filled with sadists, masochists, sex, violence, and ambition. Thrown in this epic are a lot of characters - demons, slaves, witches, the undead, and other different races. It has a good plot but –

The characters are terribly generic and it’s easy to get bored with their reactions from time to time. Saetan is always surprised at the things that Jaenelle does when really, he should just get used to it. He’s always stopping himself from wringing her neck, it’s ridiculous.

And it’s irritating that Jaenelle is such an omnipotent Witch. She goes to places that none of the supposedly powerful lords have ever visited. I mean, I wouldn’t mind if she did have every kind of ability out there but please, shouldn’t her guardians and mentors at least have some experiences with the unknown? The older characters needn’t have the experience on everything but at least they should know just a part of what Jaenelle has seen, experiences evenly distributed among them so that they’d have enough knowledge and background to make their reputations believable. Their inexperience and, yes, ignorance makes them seem toddlers as compared to Jaenelle who’s always surprising everyone.

And the only thing that the males know are sex and violence. As if we haven’t got enough of that in Daemon.

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Started Reading: January 11, 2008
Finished Reading: January 12, 2008

This was a book I needed to finish quickly else I wouldn’t be able to study at all during the weekend, heh. I was actually a bit hesitant to read a book from the series again because I’ve forgotten what had happened in the last two books. But I’m glad I read this because it reminded me why I read the first two books in the first place. I loved Mercy Thompson and Briggs’ other characters. : D

It was Zee’s and a bit of Ben’s turn to be put under the spotlight now, which is good because they, as characters, have developed along with Mercy, Adam, and Sam. It’s always refreshing to find characters other than the protagonist being fleshed out. I’m also glad that the resolution between Mercy’s two relationships has been included in this book already. It’s not good to drag that out too long.

But still, that’s not just everything that I enjoyed.

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Started Reading: January 8, 2008
Finished Reading: January 9, 2008

This book starts with a great potential because it attempts to do something different with time travel and literary classics. An actress time-traveling to the 1810’s is definitely a good plot to work with. The way C.J. experienced, too, both the fortunate and unfortunate aspects of the Regency period is also something favorable. Lady Dalrymple was a nice enough person, though conveniently eccentric, Lady Oliver a mirror of Lady Catherine, and Percy…was the lover straight out of a historical romance novel (unfortunately).

The book was good, its characters were quite entertaining. I’m glad C.J. knew, most of the time, what should and should not be done but, as the common error of ladies in historical romances, she makes love before the wedding. Henceforth, things are pretty much predictable — which is the only disappointing aspect of this novel. I’m not a big fan of what transpired somewhere in the middle and the latter part of the book. I would have liked it better if things turned out differently with C.J. Like, if she gave solution to some other kind of problem or a different sort of bad fortune befell her. These parts of the story just makes By a Lady more like a historical romance novel instead of something Jane Austen-ish.

This was OK but I lament what-could-have-been.