How I Fell in Love with a Librarian and Lived to Tell About it

Okay, so I have to admit that when I started looking for books about librarians, this one came up first thing. It looked a little odd, so I decided against it. But then I changed my mind and thought, "what the heck, why not?"

Rhett Ellis wrote How I Fell in Love with a Librarian and Lived to Tell About it (and let me tell you how freaking long that title is!).

It's a short book, just 101 pages about how a small town minister falls in love with the new librarian. Why did he have to live to tell about it? There was no great murder mystery, no overwhelming force that kept them apart.

The librarian was bipolar.

And then there's the guy who wants to shut down the library, and tries to blackmail the minister. It (of course) doesn't work out that well for him.

Anyway, it was cute, if a little odd.

Ghost Hunter

Ok, are you ready for this one? I'm reading Ghost Hunter, by Jayne Castle, and the male lead is a librarian! Awesome!

Okay, so Jayne Castle is the pen name for Jayne Ann Krentz. Anything by Jayne Castle takes place in the future in another realm. It's kind of weird, but fun.

Anyway, every city has The Guild, a mafia-type organization that keeps ghosts from hurting people in the catacombs under the city. Yeah, I know, far fetched. But still...fun.

In this one, Cooper is the new Guild Boss of Aurora Springs. When Elly breaks off their engagement, he waits 6 months before following her to Cadence where he can try to woo her again.

But things start to go awry when Elly's neighbor gets hurt in the catacombs, and suddenly they're trying to uncover a drug dealer who's trying to set up Cooper.

Confused yet? Let's throw in her pet dust bunny just for fun. Little predators, big fun.

I liked it. Plus...male librarian. How often does that happen?

Ella Enchanted

Okay, so part of my idea when I said I was going to read more award winning books was that I was going to read award winning kids books. Because, face it, sometimes you learn more from a kids book than you would than reading Shakespeare.

You think I'm kidding? Read The Missing Piece Meets the Big O by Shel Silverstein, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, or The Phantom Tollbooth by Norman Juster.

Okay, there's my rant on why I love kids books.

Anyway, I have to admit that I saw "Ella Enchanted" when it came out (starring Anne Hathaway), and at some point heard it was a book first (unsurprising, really).

As far I can remember, the movie and the book (the latter written by Gail Carson Levine) are a lot a like. Well, Prince Char (for Charmont in the book, but Charming in the movie) is a lot nicer in the book. In the movie, he's kind of a diva.

Anyway, the book was fun. Ella has glass shoes, a terrible step-family (Hattie is really a terrible sister), can learn any language, and even tame ogres in her spare time. Not to mention runs away from finishing school, and steals Hattie's wig on her way out. Not bad for a girl who is cursed and has to do everything she's told.

Oh, and I did mention that her fairy godmother is her cook? Yeah, but she makes really good food.

The book won a Newbery Honor. I liked it. 3 snowflakes.

Running Hot

I just finished Running Hot by Jayne Ann Krentz. Okay, what you have to understand about most of Jayne Ann Krentz's work is that it usually has to do with paranormal/psychic stuff. The Arcane Society novels (Running Hot is the latest) are all about those.

The Arcane Society is a secret society of people with psychic powers. The whole point of the series is taking down a group called Nightshade, who is trying to create a drug to enhance (and even start more) psychic powers.

And, of course, in everyone one, there are two really powerful psychics (1 male, 1 female) who get together to fight the big-bad, even if at first it's not the big-bad.

In this one, it's Grace Renquist (not her real name, but then, we never find out her real name) who's a genealogist librarian (!!) with J&J (basically the Arcane Society revolves around the Jones and Jones (J&J) agency, who promote all things in learning about psychics), and Luther Malone, ex-cop who does some contracting work with J&J.

I did mention it's in Hawaii, right?

Anyway, so they're in Hawaii, trying to see if a guy is really a killer, when they stumble upon the fact that he's using Nightshade, and that there's a big meeting of Nightshade upper management (Nightshade is a corporation). When a woman who can kill with her voice come onto the scene and tries to kill Grace, and succeeds in killing the guy Grace is looking for, they eventually end up breaking the back of Nightshade.

Weird? A little. But oddly believable. You know how if you sing a high enough note, you can shatter glass? Her trick is a little like that...except she causes an aneurysm in the brain. Awesome.

Anyway, I enjoyed it.

Competition!

Okay, so for one of my classes, I have to create a Wordpress blog.

Wordpress. Pshaw. I like Blogger.

Anyway, that said, it pretty much has the same function as this blog. I'll probably delete it when the class is over, but in case you want to see it (it's rather boring still), visit

www.anovelbeat.com/blog

Shadow Kiss

Okay, we all know I love teen vampire novels, right? Because I just finished Shadow Kiss by Richelle Mead, the 3rd in the Vampire Academy series, and it made me want to throw the book at the wall. In a good way, of course.

Let's see...Mason's dead, and Rose is having a hard time dealing with that. Well, so's Eddie, but that's okay. Adrian has followed Rose and Lissa back to St. Vladimir's, so he's around, drinking and smoking.

Oh, and this is when they have their field practice. Rose and Lissa are not together, but still see each other.

And! The big fight at the end? Amazing. However, I hate Rose seeing ghosts. That's what kept this from being a 4 snowflake book for me.

And Dimitri! Oh, Dimitri...

Plum Spooky

I have mentioned that if you ever need a pick-me-up, you should read something by Janet Evanovich, right? Her books are seriously laugh-out-loud funny.

Anyway, Plum Spooky is her latest. It's part of the Stephanie Plum, Bounty Hunter series, but this one is a Between-the-Numbers book (the regular books all have numbers in the title...One for the Money, Two for the Dough, Twelve Sharp, Fearless Fourteen etc...), but there are a handful of Between-the-Numbers books.

The main thing about the non-numbered books? They always have Diesel, and he's always chasing some weird bad guy. I'm so serious. This time, it's Wulf, who is trying to build and evil weather machine.

But the book is awesomely funny. I laughed out loud more than once. Steph is pet-sitting a monkey named Carl, Diesel has moved in until Wulf is taken care of, and Joe has taken in one of the many Morelli men for the duration of the book. Stephanie only destroys 1 car in this book (which isn't really her fault...she left it sitting out in the woods and raccoons took it over). Lula and Tank are, well, Lula and Tank (they set a wedding date, which is scary, then break-up over Tank's cats. The man has cats).

Ranger kind of hovers in the background and provides backup (because he's Ranger), and tells Steph that she shouldn't be hanging around with Diesel, because he's a bad guy (like Ranger has any room to talk there!)

Anyway, I really enjoyed it.

Frostbite

Okay, so I just finished Frostbite by Richelle Mead. It's the second in the Vampire Academy series. Yeah, yeah, me and teen vampire novels. Give me a break!

Anyway, I just want to say...amazing. Rose is still protecting Lissa, and they're in school, but this time Rose isn't just protecting Lissa. She's trying to protect all of Moroi kind. But it's not going so well with the bad vamps attacking people.

Oh, and I did mention that she's totally in love with Dimitri, right? Who, by the way, I love too. What can I say...sometimes, I'm a sucker for the good guy.

In this one, her mom comes to her school (the guy she's protecting is visiting for the holidays), so Rose has a bunch of lovely (read: awkward and bad) family moments, including when she was battling her mother and winds up with a killer black eye. Nice.

Oh, and there are more vampires with the spirit magic, and Rose ends up making her first two kills.

Violence, drama, intrigue, and forbidden romance? How can I refuse!

The Haviland Touch

So, everyone knows I'm a big Kay Hooper fan, right? So when I was browsing a paperback shelf some where, I stumbled across The Haviland Touch and went, "Romance? Intrigue? World-traveling? A couple reuniting after 12 years apart? Sounds great!"

It wasn't too bad. Yeah, they fall back in love (unsurprising), and yeah, they eventually find the missing cross. Woohoo.

He's kind of a really big jerk at the beginning. In fact, I yelled at him (called him a bad name) the first time they see each other again. But he deserved it.

I never really got over that. Yeah, they work their issues out and fall back in love, and he takes off his bitter mask and learns what she's really like...but I still don't really like him.

Plus, he calls her "Sweet" which makes me mad because that's what Alex calls Morgana (from her Thief series), and I hate it when books overlap with stuff like that!

It seems silly, but it's true.

Anyway, 3 snowflakes.

Ummm...Right

Okay, so it's officially Feb 1, which means it's time to go over my monthly list.

Of course, I'm not sure I want to. It's a little embarrassing.

37 books. 3 were re-reads. The other 34? All new.

It's like I don't have a life.