Wednesday Reading Meme
What are you currently reading
Still about halfway through Star Wars: A New Dawn, as I haven't had much time to read it since mentioning it the other day.
What did you recently finish reading?
Mizuho Kusanagi: Akatsuki no Yona Vol 9-11: A bit odd to be reading these volumes while watching the anime, which is far, far behind the manga, of course (and unless there's a second season, the anime won't get to this point)
-And then Yona became ROBIN HOOD. Literally. That was great.
-Who would have thought I'd actualy start liking Tae-Jun, or enjoy an arc centered around him? AND YET.
-MORE ADORABLE FLASHBACK CHAPTERS. And then they turned into the story of a serial childnapper kidnapping wee!Yona.
-I'm glad that Yona is becoming more and more aware of the fact that King Il was not actually a very good king. But while Soo-Won may have taken over because of that and have long term plans, Yona, in exile, is doing as much or more to take care of the problems caused by King Il in the present.
-Hak...really needs to just tell Yona how he feels, already.
-I have a theory that we only know part of the legend about the Red Haired King, and that the rest of it is the reason Ik-Soo and his master were banished. My theory is that the rest of the legend is that when the king returns, war and bloodshed will come to. Soo-Won's father knew about that and wanted to kill Yona to prevent it, and King Il killed him to protect her, and that's why he adopted pacifist policies and refused to allow Yona to learn anything close to combat skills. And, you know, kicked off the whole revenge cycle that will most likely lead to Yona and Soo-Won engaged in outright war.
Joyce and Jim Lavene: Wicked Weaves, Ghastly Glass, Deadly Daggers and Harrowing Hats: This is a very fun mystery novel series set at a Renaissance Faire. The main character, Jessie, is a professor who spends her summers at the Faire, which is permatently situated at an old airforce base that's been renovated. Every once in a while, the series slips into "those RenFaire folks are kinda weird," but it's mostly "those RenFaire people who live there year round get a little bit caught up in the things they love sometimes." It's pretty fun, though, and I give it kudos for being one of the few "cozy mysteries" series where dead bodies turning up a lot actually does affect people's willingness to go to a place.
Gauntlet by Ellery Prime and T2A: The first Sparkler Monthly offering for me to complete! This is one of their prose offerings. Clio has recently moved to the big city and is striking out on her own for the first time. One day, she's harassed on the street and is offered a refuge of sorts buy two men named Jack. The "refuge" ends up being a prison called The Gauntlet, where Clio and others are hunted by people who want to perform experiments on them. I was really into the first half, but less so the second, which is set in a different part of The Gauntlet, and had a different setting. It was good, but ended feeling more like part one as opposed to the full story. We never learn the true nature of The Gauntlet, and we're teased with subplots and following up on the fates of certain characters, but they aren't actually followed through. I'll read a sequel, or anything else the writers produce for the webzine, though.
Windrose by kosen, ch 1-4: Windrose was my favorite of the Sparkler Monthly first chapters I read in their sampler several months ago. Danielle is a young Spanish woman who travels to France in search of her missing father. Along the way she meets a dashing pair of siblings, Angeline and Leon, who are considerably less kind and honorable than they initially appear to be, and she soon learns that there's a lot more to her father's disappearance than she thought. It's pretty much a straight-up swashbuckling adventure, written for and mostly about women.
Well Read, Then Dead by Terri Farley Moran. First book in a mystery series that decides to combine bookstore/bookclub lady detective with cooking mysteries to have a protagonist who owns a book-themed cafe. Very enjoyable, though I don't really have anything to say about it.
Murder in the Mystery Suite by Ellery Adams. The first book in another mystery series, this one set at a resort for book lovers. The protagonist, Jane, decides to have a murder mystery weekend, only to have the winner of her scavenger hunt end up dead. Then she learns that her family are the super secret custodians of hundreds of rare and unknown manuscripts, and have been for centuries. It's just that no one thought to tell her this until she was in her 30s. This is apparently also a very very very dangerous job, because the family librarian informs her that it's time to learn martial arts and archery and all about the secret passages in the manor house. And that she has to get the Super Sekrit Secret Society tattoo. A booklover's Id ran wild with this one, but I see no reason to object.
What do you think you'll read next?
I'm guessing more sparkler monthly and mystery novels.
Still about halfway through Star Wars: A New Dawn, as I haven't had much time to read it since mentioning it the other day.
What did you recently finish reading?
Mizuho Kusanagi: Akatsuki no Yona Vol 9-11: A bit odd to be reading these volumes while watching the anime, which is far, far behind the manga, of course (and unless there's a second season, the anime won't get to this point)
-And then Yona became ROBIN HOOD. Literally. That was great.
-Who would have thought I'd actualy start liking Tae-Jun, or enjoy an arc centered around him? AND YET.
-MORE ADORABLE FLASHBACK CHAPTERS. And then they turned into the story of a serial childnapper kidnapping wee!Yona.
-I'm glad that Yona is becoming more and more aware of the fact that King Il was not actually a very good king. But while Soo-Won may have taken over because of that and have long term plans, Yona, in exile, is doing as much or more to take care of the problems caused by King Il in the present.
-Hak...really needs to just tell Yona how he feels, already.
-I have a theory that we only know part of the legend about the Red Haired King, and that the rest of it is the reason Ik-Soo and his master were banished. My theory is that the rest of the legend is that when the king returns, war and bloodshed will come to. Soo-Won's father knew about that and wanted to kill Yona to prevent it, and King Il killed him to protect her, and that's why he adopted pacifist policies and refused to allow Yona to learn anything close to combat skills. And, you know, kicked off the whole revenge cycle that will most likely lead to Yona and Soo-Won engaged in outright war.
Joyce and Jim Lavene: Wicked Weaves, Ghastly Glass, Deadly Daggers and Harrowing Hats: This is a very fun mystery novel series set at a Renaissance Faire. The main character, Jessie, is a professor who spends her summers at the Faire, which is permatently situated at an old airforce base that's been renovated. Every once in a while, the series slips into "those RenFaire folks are kinda weird," but it's mostly "those RenFaire people who live there year round get a little bit caught up in the things they love sometimes." It's pretty fun, though, and I give it kudos for being one of the few "cozy mysteries" series where dead bodies turning up a lot actually does affect people's willingness to go to a place.
Gauntlet by Ellery Prime and T2A: The first Sparkler Monthly offering for me to complete! This is one of their prose offerings. Clio has recently moved to the big city and is striking out on her own for the first time. One day, she's harassed on the street and is offered a refuge of sorts buy two men named Jack. The "refuge" ends up being a prison called The Gauntlet, where Clio and others are hunted by people who want to perform experiments on them. I was really into the first half, but less so the second, which is set in a different part of The Gauntlet, and had a different setting. It was good, but ended feeling more like part one as opposed to the full story. We never learn the true nature of The Gauntlet, and we're teased with subplots and following up on the fates of certain characters, but they aren't actually followed through. I'll read a sequel, or anything else the writers produce for the webzine, though.
Windrose by kosen, ch 1-4: Windrose was my favorite of the Sparkler Monthly first chapters I read in their sampler several months ago. Danielle is a young Spanish woman who travels to France in search of her missing father. Along the way she meets a dashing pair of siblings, Angeline and Leon, who are considerably less kind and honorable than they initially appear to be, and she soon learns that there's a lot more to her father's disappearance than she thought. It's pretty much a straight-up swashbuckling adventure, written for and mostly about women.
Well Read, Then Dead by Terri Farley Moran. First book in a mystery series that decides to combine bookstore/bookclub lady detective with cooking mysteries to have a protagonist who owns a book-themed cafe. Very enjoyable, though I don't really have anything to say about it.
Murder in the Mystery Suite by Ellery Adams. The first book in another mystery series, this one set at a resort for book lovers. The protagonist, Jane, decides to have a murder mystery weekend, only to have the winner of her scavenger hunt end up dead. Then she learns that her family are the super secret custodians of hundreds of rare and unknown manuscripts, and have been for centuries. It's just that no one thought to tell her this until she was in her 30s. This is apparently also a very very very dangerous job, because the family librarian informs her that it's time to learn martial arts and archery and all about the secret passages in the manor house. And that she has to get the Super Sekrit Secret Society tattoo. A booklover's Id ran wild with this one, but I see no reason to object.
What do you think you'll read next?
I'm guessing more sparkler monthly and mystery novels.