"Deadlocked" By Charlaine Harris SPOILER

SPOILER FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT READ THE EARLIER BOOKS!

Deadlocked is the latest book in the TRUE BLOOD series.
Another series where I wish the main character wasn't so miserable all the time.
I do like Sookie. Part of me wishes she'd get together with Sam already. He's great for her. And she could be good for him if she'd just see whats in front of her. They'd be great together.
The other half of me knows that if they did that then something bad would undoubtedly happen to either force them apart or make them unhappy with each other.
What happened to happily ever after? There are so many interesting things that people can get up to without being miserable.
That's the problem with so many modern writers these days. I think anyway.
People need to realise that there is no lore against happiness.

But sadness aside. I did enjoy "Deadlocked".
Charlaine's book's are always a pleasure to read. She has such a ready imagination, and it's never hard to picture the story as she tells it.
I liked what happened on the forth to last page. And I want to knock Alcide and Eric's heads together. They're both ridiculous. And not in a good funny ha ha way.
Felipe too. I'm quite disappointed in him actually. I expected more of him. Something that didn't include him acting like a spoiled toddler with super powers. I mean really. Oh well.
I know that at minimum he's going to try and get Sookie to work for him again. I hope she looks him in the eyes and tell's asks him what he he has to offer.
Protection? So that she can make a target of herself for his rivals? People who might try to torture her again?
Money? For what? Sookie is happy with her house. She doesn't want a fancy car as far as I can tell, and she has a good income. Enough to live happily off.
Fame? ... Oh, you mean the thing that makes people never want to leave you alone and insist on knowing all your darkest secrets? Talk about nightmare for someone with Sookies abilities.
And if she doesn't do his bidding. He'd hurt her and the ones she loved? Ahh. I see. When he said protection, he meant "Not let them get to you so that I'd have the pleasure of hurting you myself." Of course. That is just the thing to make someone want to agree to work for anyone else. A guarantee that if she wasn't perfect she'd get hurt. And if she IS perfect she'd almost definitely get hurt.
Oh Wait! I apologise. There is a third option. She could give up her freedom entirely and go to live in a strange city with Felipe, then stay in a locked and windowless room under heavy guard without ever coming out except when Felipe wanted her. BRILLIANT!

I guess you can tell I think highly of the vampire King huh...

"Wee Free Men" By Terry Pratchett

I first read this book (Or rather, my mum read it to me then) when I was 8 years old, and I still love it as much today as I did then.
My favorite in the series is actually the forth and last one "I Shall wear Midnight"

Tiffany Aching is a great character. I love the matter of fact way she approaches life and the world in general.
She has such a clever yet somehow innocent mind. Especially in the first book.

My favorite line of hers will always be when she gets made Kelda of the Feagles, and she has to answer something before it can be official. With the wee birdy and the granite mountain. (In mind of not turning this into a spoiler version I wont say more then that.) I love it.

And the Wee Free Men (aka Nack Mac Feagles) are always a pleasure to read about. I like all there lines. Especially Daft Wallies, and Not-So-Big-as Medium-Size-Jock-But-Bigger-Then-Wee-Jock-Jock. (I'm surprised I remembered all that.)

I'd recommend this book to anyone.

"Slave to Sensation" By Nalini Singh

"Slave to Sensation" is the first book in the Psy-Changeling Series.
It's about Sascha, a woman who is Psy. A race of powerful Psychic's who believe that anyone week enough to feel emotion is not worth keeping around.
And Lucas, a Changeling leopard who's just about had enough of Psy superiority.
He want's to know how he can stop the Psy from repeating their latest atrocity.
Nikita, Sascha's mother and head of her family group, wants to get new information on what makes Changeling's tick.

Pretty standard Romance stuff. My own mother doesn't like Nalini, but I do. The world's she paint's are just so fascinating. I love the way the plot develops from book to book. It's not like how most "episode" series end up. When each book is mostly a separate entity on it's own, with just the vaguest background to link them.
Nalini's series actually move forward, and even though I find them in the romance section of my local book shop, I keep getting them because I want to know what happens next.
The romance part of it is good too. She always focuses more on what brought them to be together, not sex. Though that's in there. It's secondary. Which is something I like, though I'm not sure how many of you will agree with me.

"Kiss the Dead" by Laurell K. Hamilton

 I would not recommend Laurell's books to anyone under 15. Just for the record.

I'm really happy that I got this book. I had my doubts a bit. The last two books in the series haven't been up to standards. Not to mention even before then I'd felt like the series was going on a downward spiral.
Anita was having the same issues over and over again. She'd get freaked out, sort of figure out a solution by the end of the book, then in the next one it'd been like nothing had happened. We'd be taken through it all again.
After reading "Bullet" -which is a book with at least 350 pages- I felt like I'd read 50, 100 pages at most for the amount of stuff that was actually in it.
The only reason I'd continued to pick up the next book was because for all that Laurell can get fixated on one particular problem and gnaw on it, she does create the most amazing worlds. And her story lines are great, I wanted to know what happened next.

"Kiss the Dead" was like a breath of fresh air.  We're actually going somewhere. Stuff happened. I didn't feel like I was reading porn with a story line. And I know that sounds a little mean. But it's the truth. The last few books were like that. But this one was actually focused the world outside the bedrooms and Anita's torment.
People are actually happy. Which is something that I don't think has happened since "Skin Trade" or maybe even "Blood Noir" 5 books ago.

So for those of you thinking of giving up on Anita's life, I say "There is light at the end of the tunnel folks!"

We also get to see what Nathaniel's spine looks like! I mean, we've known he has one for quite some time, but normally he chooses not to use it. That is my favorite moment in the whole book, I swear. It's one sweet moment.
we get to see some old time character's come back in, and a new one.

I've been rereading all my favorite bit's again and again over the past few days. Just that in itself speaks for how much I've been enjoying this one.
So yeah. I'm happy, and I think I'll end it on that note.

On Comments...

Just now I went and looked through my settings for this blog for the first time in a while, and I realised that had it so that Registered Users only could comment. 

Which is ridiculous. But anyway, I just wanted to inform you that that's fixed now, I've got the settings on anyone. And sorry for the frustrating inconvenience to anyone who's tried to write me a comment before, only to be told you can't. 

I hope you'll try again.

"Tangle of Need" by Nalini Singh SPOILER

Note: I'm Sorry there's been such a big gap between posts. My Internet has been down for the past two weeks or so, and I just got it back this morning.


"Tangle of Need" is the much awaited latest book in Nalini's Psy-Changling series.
You can find it in amongst the rest of the Romance genre. Same as her Guild Hunter Series (that's the one with Elena, I'm sure I've mentioned) That in itself tells you allot about the main focus of Nalini's books, but it is not why I like them.
Nalini's style, especially with her psy-changeling series, is to focus on one new couple with each book and tell an underlying story through that. And she's very good at it.
I'm not sure if I can give you a good impression of my thoughts on the book without giving too much away. Considering that this is the 11th one in the series... what the hell,(I'll go back and do one about the first book some time I promise) SPOILER ALERT STOP READING
I'm starting to have a fairly good idea as to who the Ghost is. I've narrowed it down to two suspects. One more likely then the other, but I'm not ruling 'the other' out yet.
It's getting exiting.
I liked what happened with Henry Scott. Good riddance. And I think Vasic needs to spend some quality time Sascha. I don't think he's as lost as he thinks he is. (Sascha is an empath and can heal "non-phisical" wounds. Just in case some of you who haven't read any of the other books decided to read past the spoiler alert anyway..)
My favorite line in the whole book is when Aden tell's Adria and Riaz that "We appreciate the assistance" as the two of them are leaving, and Adria looks back over her shoulder and "wondered how often one of these men said that to anyone." It just manages to sum up the entirety of what the Arrows are. You can just feel it in your bones as she thinks it. Their utter isolation and loneliness, with the weight of so much responsibility to so many people pressing down on their shoulders. Just the image of him standing there watching them go, with Vasic behind him, quietly beginning to clean up of the killers remains. Pretty powerful if you ask me.

I like the ending to this one as well, with Adria and Riaz. It's not as predictable as it usually is in all the other books that have come before. It's good to have a bit of verity.

I'm worried about Ming. He's the biggest immediate threat. He could (and probably will) do some serious damage. Though I do also wonder what Tatiana and Shoshanna are up to. Especially Shoshanna. It's not like a Counsil member to go all quite and mousy. This is I think the 2nd or third book where we've heard nothing about what she's up to. It's making me suspicious.

To be honest though, Kaleb is the one who worries me the most. He means well I think, but then some of the worst kind of monsters in the world come into being by being when people think that they are doing what is right and necessarily. He'd never do anything to hurt the psy-net. He would do anything to help his people. But what does he consider helpful? I don't know.

I was going to also tell you who I thought the Ghost was, but I'm not sure if anyone would want hear what I think on that one, it might influence you're thinking until you can't come up with you're own guesses. So let me know in the comments if you do want to know and I'll answer when I see it.