Becka’s Project Journal

I think it’s time for another book report.

Evan’s Above by Rhys Bowen.  I have enjoyed some other books by this author. This one was on the light side for me.  Not much mystery, characters a little thin.  Enjoyable, but I read it in about 1/2 an afternoon and just kind of felt like “meh”.  There are more in this series and I think I will pass.

The Unknown Ajax by Georgette Heyer.  Georgette is one of my favorite all time authors.  I am so happy they are currently re-releasing her books.  It is annoying that they are $13 a pop, but I do love an oversize paperback and I know I will read them again and again.  What is an ajax?  According to the prologue, the “unknown ajax” refers to a character from Shakespeare’s Troillus & Cressida, “a dumb horse of a man who could be duped”.  Meet our hero.  A delight as always.

Dead until Dark by Charlaine Harris.  I have heard a lot of buzz about this series.  Sometimes I ignore buzz; sometimes I wait until the second Harry Potter book comes out until I see what all the fuss is about and am pleasantly surprised.  I wish I had passed this by.  It is ridiculously similar to the Twilight books.  I announced very loudly at one point that if “this character turns out to be a werewolf, I am throwing this book in the trash!”  I didn’t have to throw the book in the trash but it was a near thing. It was a big yawn for me.  I am done with vampires, thank you.

The September Society by Charles Finch.  And just because we are on a roll with things-that-make-you-go-bleh, this one was also a dud.  I think I counted the use of the word beautiful or beautifully about 6 times on one page.  The language is what killed me.  The word choices were odd, the vocabulary was limited.  The way that our hero describes his lady love made me yell at the book.  The story was somewhat interesting, but I kept getting pulled out of that reality by the word choices.

Queen’s Own Fool by Jane Yolen and Robert Harris.  This one was pretty good.  It follows Queen Mary of Scotland, with the story as told by her “fool”.  Amazon calls this one a YA novel for ages 9-12.  I think that is probably a good category.  I kept thinking I had read the same series of events, just more sophisticated storytelling (I think it was a Jean Plaidy novel).  I enjoyed it, but I recommend the Plaidy even more.