The Bookkeeper

Just a couple of days ago I started reading “Mr. Darcy takes a wife” by Linda Berdoll. Since I am not a native English speaker I hardly ever comment on the language or the writing of any given book, but with this one, I have to make an exception.

If asked how to describe the writing style “purple prose” wouldn’t even begin to describe it. I don’t know whether I can finish this book. I’m only on page 51, but the prospect of having to read more than 460 pages of this accumulation of complicated words that I have never heard before and of convoluted sentences is pretty boring. The frequent use of the word “betwixt”, which unfortunately evokes the image of a chocolate bar in my mind, and the numerous brackets doesn’t make the reading any easier. I don’t think that I’ve ever read the word “betwixt” in any Austen book –or any book for that matter. 

To give you a small example, I’ll quote a short paragraph of the Darcys’ wedding night:

Gentle, guiding strokes influenced her to allow him betwixt her thighs (an objective she found quite tolerable), this demarché culminating in the discovery of her womanly portal. Due to his exceedingly admirable ministrations, therewith, her womanly portal was quite anxious to be traversed.

Just a few paragraphs above this delightful description Darcy’s “credentials” are mentioned:

Yet, she could not help but stare (by reason of its tumescence, his torch of love just so happened to be trained directly upon her and it was difficult to disregard).

Torch of love! Give me a break! Tumescence? If, like me,  you have never heard that word before, here is the definition from a medical dictionary:

Main Entry: tu·mes·cence
Pronunciation: t(y)ü-'mes-^&n(t)s
Function: noun
: the quality or state of being tumescent;especially : readiness for sexual activity marked especially by vascular congestion of the sex organs <tumescence … is the really essential part of the process—Havelock Ellis>

Can it get any worse than that? I like Darcyiana, but this is just too much, even for me.

The war is at a fever pitch with both sides stretched to the limit, when the dark wizards score a shocking victory and capture Orlando St. Clair. Haggard with worry and grief at the separation from his lover, Alain fears that even if they find Orlando, the vampire’s heart and mind may be far too broken to save.
Knowing the Alliance teeters on the brink, Christophe Lombard, the oldest, most powerful vampire in Paris leaves his self-imposed seclusion to join the fight. Alain’s lost friend Eric Simonet, who betrayed him to join the dark wizards, is faced with a choice between revenge and redemption. And Jean, enraged by Orlando’s capture, faces the most agonizing decision in his unlife as the final battle looms: Will their actions lead to the shattering of the Alliance or the salvation of the world?

Finally I read the long awaited last instalment of the Partnership in Blood series by Ariel Tachna, “Reparation in blood”.

It is quite some time ago that I read “Conflict in blood” and even longer that I read the two previous books (I reviewed Conflict in blood in May 09). I know now that I should have re-read it before reading this. Some situations that were mentioned I had totally forgotten and they left me wondering what people were talking about. I strongly recommend that you re-read at least the third book in the series before you start with this one. Not because you won’t be able to enjoy Reparation in blood but simply in order to get the most out of it.

I’m not going to go into how much I like the series or Ariel’s writing. I already said enough about that in my previous reviews. I’d rather comment on some things that happened in the book instead.

Right on the first page it is clear that Alain is beside himself. Like in the last book I found the difference in how Alain and Orlando kept themselves up astonishing. I would have thought it would be just the other way around. As it happened Alain was a complete wreck, snarking at people, using language I’d never have expected from him and generally acting irrationally and unreasonably (even if all this was understandable). Orlando, however, was strong, withstood Serrier and kept cool and calm.

The main pairings again play important roles and develop their relationships into something more or, like in the case of the love/hate couple Jude and Adele, into a strictly business partnership. Those two might have found their match, but how that match will ever turn out positively I don’t know.

David and Angelique finally overcome their misgivings and find each other. This was done in such a sweet way that those two quickly became one of my favourites of this book.

Monique and Antonio didn’t play a big part in this book at all. Monique was mentioned a few times, but only by people on the other side as the prime example of a successful defector, and a bit later on when we hear about her sentence after she was tried.

What I liked was the fact that the war was not dragged out ad infinitum, but ended somewhere in the second half of the book. A lot of time was spent on describing how things were wrapped up and how people dealt with loose ends. In fact I found that the war ended rather abruptly. I didn’t mind that, but I would have expected a longer battle. Once the milice finally found Serrier’s hiding hole, however, they made short work of him (with some help admittedly).

After the war we hear more about the aveu de sang together with Thierry who learns something about it he doesn’t like too much. All the time I was hoping along with him, only to see my hopes crushed in one sentence.

Lots of things get wrapped up nicely. Eric’s friendship with Alain and Thierry gets, well, re-established might be too strong a word, but at least they get over the animosities and maybe will find back to how it used to be.

The extorris Couthon is dealt with swiftly, something, I’m sure, every reader wanted to see. One of the most interesting points was a short flashback into Orlando’s past that told us more about his first days as a free vampire after Thurloe was executed.

Vincent’s trial takes place as well, so we see a glimpse of what the future will bring to him and Eric.

There is an epilogue which I liked a lot. It finishes Alain’s and Orlando’s story off, so we won’t have to deal with them again. I loved the couple from page one, but in the second half of “Reparation in blood” they became too sweet for me. I didn’t think that was possible, but, yes, it was.

Ariel is writing a sequel about one of the couples, set about a year after the war, she said. So what couple could that possibly be? As far as I am concerned I’d like to know more about either David and Angelique, but even those two seem to be in sync now and don’t need any further exploration. So I’d settle for the couple I love to hate, Jude and Adele. Their situation is not clear at all, we have no idea what their future as a couple (if they ARE a couple at all) will be like and there is enough tension and potential for conflict to keep the story going.

So, as the last book in a series, it brought everything to a satisfying end, but leaves enough room for more. I’m looking forward to it.

If you are interested to read my thoughts about the first three books in the series, you can find them below: 
Alliance in Blood
Covenant in Blood
Conflict in Blood

Available at Dreamspinner Press

I haven’t participated in the Weekly Geeks for ages, but it was always such fun, so I think I will try to do it more often again. This week it is an interesting topic for all bloggers: Commenting.

Do you have a commenting policy? For example:
*Do reply to all comments? If you do, how do you do it? Email? On the blog?
*Do you use moderation?
*How do you handle trolls? Flaming?
*How much do you tolerate from a belligerent commenter before you close or delete comments?
Have you ever gotten a comment from someone you admire? An author? A superstar blogger (the ones with the book deals)?
How do you feel about author comments? Are they welcome or do they make you nervous?
Word verification? Yay or nay.
And then there’s spam. How do we combat the evil that is spam?
Talk about your experiences with any of the above. Share your wisdom with other bloggers. What works on your blog? What doesn’t?

OK, I try to reply to all comments. It’s only polite, if somebody takes the time to comment on my blog that I do the same and reply. I usually reply directly in the comments section. Readers can subscribe to comments, so they will know when a new comment has been added.

Comments are moderated only the first time a reader comments. Once the first comment has been approved the next comment appears automatically on my blog. I haven’t had a troll problem yet. So I can’t say what I’d do. It’s the same with belligerent comments. Never had any yet. Spam IS a problem, though, but with Akismet which is a default plugin for wordpress blogs, it can be controlled very easily.

I hate word verification. I often have problems with it on other blogs, so I wouldn’t want to use it on my blog either.

I love author’s comments. In the m/m romance community word about a review seems to get out rather quickly, so I have had a few authors who came by and commented. Even if my review wasn’t all positive they have always commented in a nice way and said they appreciated the time I took to talk about their book. Lately one of my reviews was quite negative, in fact I said I could not recommend the story, and when I saw that the author had commented, I thought “uh oh”, but she was very gracious and had a lot of interesting things to say.

A nice feature for people who comment that I use is Comment luv, another plugin for wordpress. It displays the last (or another chosen) blog post of the commenter’s blog. So, readers can see immediately whether they might find something interesting to read on another commenter’s blog.

The little comment graphic that Weekly Geeks is displaying this week comes from The Vintage Moth, where they offer even more. I think I’ll either use one of them or create my own to stick up in the sidebar. Maybe it will coax readers into commenting more. Bloggers love comments, and I’m no exception.

See what others have to say at the Weekly Geeks blog

This is the cutest idea for kids – a Dr. Seuss reading passport. You print out the passport and the accompanying stickers. When your kid has read a specific book, you place the appropriate sticker in the passport over the book. Since kids love to collect things this is a great motivation for kids to read Dr. Seuss.

Click at Seussville on “Events”, then “General”, and there you are.

Ethno ist in! Afrika, Asien, Orient, Südsee – exotische Designs aus fernen Ländern liegen voll im Trend und versprühen Urlaubsflair. Komplette Schmucksets: kurze Ketten und Longlines, Armbänder, Ohrhänger & Co. aus Muscheln, Holzperlen, Federn, Lederbändern und vielem mehr. Wie es geht ist Schritt für Schritt ganz einfach erklärt, mit Foto-Grundkursen und genauen Anleitungen.

Nach einer kurzen Materialkunde und einigen Grundanleitungen werden 18 Sets mit ausführlichen Materiallisten und Anleitungen vorgestellt. Anders als im Buch v. Gaby Wiedemann erkennt man hier aber schnell den Stil und sieht Parallelen zum Schmuck der jeweiligen Epoche oder Gegend.

Die Bandbreite reicht von Pharaonengold über Südseetraum, Farben der Savanne, Indian Spirit und Viva Peru bis zu Land des Lächelns und Gipsy Queen. Die Sets bestehen immer aus einer Halskette und mindestens einem weiteren Schmuckstück, entweder Armband, Ohrringe oder Fusskettchen. Nicht alle Modelle entsprechen meinem Geschmack, das wäre auch zuviel erwartet, aber jedes Set hat etwas für sich. Sehr hat mir das sehr farbenfrohe “Mit karibischem Charme” gefallen in rot/orange/grünen Tönen. “Aus der Zarenzeit” ist sehr filigran und genau passend für die Epoche, und besonders originell ist “Im Land der Eisbären”, unter anderem mit Merinowolle.

Hier ist für jeden etwas dabei.

Edle Glas-Perlen und Filzwolle vereinen sich zu modischen Schmuckkreationen. Swarovski-, handgewickelte böhmische, hochwertige Glas-Perlen und nadelgefilzte Formteile laden zu unendlicher Kreativität ein. Lassen Sie sich inspirieren…

Wie in fast jedem Buch gibt es eine kurz gehaltene Einführung in Material und Werkzeug, sowie eine Kurzanleitung. Es wird auch erklärt, wie das Filzen funktioniert. Das hatte ich gar nicht erwartet, sondern war davon ausgegangen, dass es sich um fertig gekaufte Filzteile handelt.

Insgesamt werden dann 16 Schmuckstücke bzw. Sets aus mehreren Schmuckstücken vorgestellt. Die Teile sind vom Stil her alle ähnlich, sehr geschmackvoll, in sehr schönen Farbkombinationen. Filz und Glasperlen passen offenbar vorzüglich zueinander. Für diejenigen, die gerne mit Vorlagen arbeiten, gibt es auch für alle Modelle noch einen  Bogen, in dem die Fädelreihenfolge etc. nochmals aufgezeichnet  ist.

Das Buch ist eine schöne Inspirationsquelle und gibt tolle Ideen, was man aus den beiden Materialien kombiniert machen kann.

Topp-aktuell: Lange Ketten aus Glasperlen, Wachsperlen, Halbedelsteinen, Naturmaterialien und mehr. Für jeden Anlass: Ketten und Gürtelketten in tollen Farben und Stilen von modisch bis edel. Leicht gemacht: Der ausführliche Foto-Grundkurs zeigt Schritt für Schritt wie es geht.

Als ausführlichen Grundkurs würde ich das Buch nicht bezeichnen. Es beschränkt sich auf zwei Seiten Material- und Werkzeugkunde, sowie zwei Seiten, auf denen die absoluten Basissachen erklärt werden.

Danach werden zwölf Ketten vorgestellt mit hübschen Fotos, ausführlicher Anleitung und Materialliste. Die Ketten sind sehr unterschiedlich und abwechslungsreich. Das Material, das verwendet wird reicht von Filz über Ton- und Glasperlen bis zu Plüsch. Auch wenn alle Ketten “extra lang” sind, sind sie doch vom Stil her grundverschieden.

Als Ideengeber und Kurzanleitung ist das Buch zu diesem Preis auf jeden Fall zu empfehlen.

We all know that Twilight fans can get a bit rabid when they see their favourite author or one of their heroes threatened. Now another one, a certain Kayla Patterson has come forward to give Universal a piece of her mind, explaining what she thinks about plagiarism.

Latino review has received the following letter from Kayla, addressed to Universal studios concerning their recent release “The Wolf Man”:

To whom this may concern:
This movie was a complete waste and I feel that it offends ALL Twilight Fans around the world, that including myself. For one, it was a COMPLETE remaking of the Wolf Pack from the Twilight Saga: New Moon. It gives the werewolves a bad name and makes them look like some deformed mutation of a rabid dog. I actually started to like werewolves after seeing Jacob Black and all his awesomeness on the big screen at the movies. That was until I saw your crappy remake of what you call to be a "were wolf". I don’t see how you live with yourself for making it the way you did. If I made this movie, I would be ashamed to even admit that I owned it. How can a werewolf be killed with a silver bullet? Better yet, have you saw the transformation of the man that is "supposed" to be the wolf? He sits in some chair and his entire body turns in to some mutated freak. If you would watch the transformation of Jacob Black, (Taylor Lautner) he doesn’t come close to looking as fake, cheap and or mutated as the wolf man.  You tell me, who looks to be the better werewolf. Your stupid Wolf Movie didn’t even make the top Movie for the charts; Valentines Day WITH TAYLOR Lautner! Get that this is MY oppinion and I felt I wanted to express it because I saw that your email was on your site. I wanted to let you know this is what i thought of the wolf man that sucks.
FREAKIN LAUTNER DID!

 

The letter is accompanied by a couple of pictures that show very clearly what is obviously a ridiculous copy and misinterpretation of a werewolf and what the real thing is supposed to look like.

Isn’t this just brilliant? Poor Kayla! She has given Twilight fans an even worse reputation than they already had. But wait – we’re not done yet. If you look a bit further below you will find a comment by a Poly Cruz that is just as good as the original article. She says:

Even though I am a huge twilight / Taylor Lautner fan I have to say that they didn’t completely rip off twilight. As you all know (If you read the twilight books) that at the end of  Breaking Dawn, Edward said that Jacob’s pack were shape shifters, not werewolves. So they are not technically ripping off Twilight.

 

I wonder if Edward fans go equally nuts over Dracula. Anyway, this whole discussion made my day. Everybody knows that the first appearance of a werewolf in film or literature was Seth Green as Oz in Buffy, which technically makes Joss Whedon the inventor of werewolves. Just kidding!

This stunning volume utilizes glorious colour photos to catalogue all types of beads (glass, wood, metal, ceramic, natural, semiprecious, plastic, novelty and collectable), offer design guidelines on planning jewellery (considerations of bead shape, texture, size, weight and colour), and document various practical considerations (findings, equipment, basic techniques for creating earrings, necklaces, bracelets and brooches). The section on themes and special occasions, complete with directions for each project, features designs for evening wear, summer styles, holiday looks, weddings, children’s items, and African- and Indian-inspired pieces. Even the purely informational and visual spreads (those without complete instructions) offer endless inspiration and ideas for beaded creations.

The book first of all gives an introduction to beads. How they are made, where they come from and how they were used through the ages. Then it shows the various kinds of beads: glass, wood, metal, ceramic, natural beads (seeds and beans, ivory, bone, horn stone, shells), pearls and corals, precious stones, amber and jet, rocailles and synthetic beads.

Then it gives you tips how to plan a necklace, what to consider in terms of color combinations, structure, size and weight, specific themes (e.g. for evening attire, summer, festive, wedding, kids) and various looks (African, Native American, Indian).

It shows you examples of how to turn old, broken necklaces into something new and explains techniques in short.

From the first look the book gives a slightly outdated feel. However, it gives a lot of valuable information which is underlined with detailed pictures. The various beads and forms are all shown very clearly and the necklaces all are very tasteful (even if the style is not always what I would like to wear).

I especially liked the introduction of the history of beads. I never knew that the word “bead” came from the old English words for “to pray” and “prayer”. I checked the etymology of the German word “Perle” (the Germans don’t differentiate between beads and pearls as far as the word is concerned) to find out whether it had a similar background. The Brothers Grimm tell us, however, that the word probably derives from the Latin “pirula”, which means “little pear”.

I also found the section about the various looks helpful where Janet Coles explains what beads to choose to achieve a certain feel.

The book is not aimed at beginners who want to learn about techniques or specific projects. As a thorough introduction to the topic it is extremely informative and beautiful to look at.

Available on amazon

Klappentext: Dieses Buch soll Sie verführen, Ihre eigenen Kreationen zu verwirklichen.
Erstellen Sie mit wenig Zeitaufwand und viel Fantasie aktuelle Schmuck-highlights für Ihre Garderobe.
Lassen Sie sich verzaubern von den Perlenschönheiten verschiedener Kulturen.

Die Einführung in Materialien und Techniken ist sehr kurz gehalten.   Insgesamt werden 18 Schmuckstücke gezeigt und ihre Herstellung beschrieben, die meisten davon Ketten, einige Armbänder und Ohrringe.

Sieben Ketten werden mit Ankerketten gefertigt, für mich definitiv zuviele, und fast der gesamte Rest mit Baumwollkordel. Offenbar ist Draht beim Ethnostil nicht so sehr gefragt. Die Ketten gefallen mir zum Grossteil sehr gut, jedoch vermisse ich mehr Information über den Ursprung der Kette bzw. des Stiles der Kette. Im Klappentext ist ausdrücklich von verschiedenen Kulturen die Rede. Da erwarte ich auch, dass ich darüber aufgeklärt werde, wo der Stil der Kette seinen Ursprung hat oder woher die Perlen dafür kommen. Alleine das Etikett “Ethno-Stil” als solches genügt mir hier nicht.