Force Awakens SPOILERS

There are MAJOR spoilers in this post. Do NOT read if you want to remain unspoiled.

Silent Knight

The latest book I finished is Silent Knight, by Tori Phillips. I got it because I had read another of her books and apparently she wrote a series. Curious about the series, and because the first one I read was good, I got this one. The other book of hers I'd read is Midsummer's Knight. Silent Knight follows the brother of the guy from Midsummer's Knight and takes place before it.

I am glad I read it. It was predictable, and kinda cliche. Very typical romance novel. I'd rate it R for language and suggestions. It was enjoyable and I'm glad I bought it. I will continue to keep an eye out for more books by this author!

Oh, I suppose I should write what it's about. An unwanted and mistreated French girl is being married off to an English man in the far north. Through many trials and wrong turns she stumbles upon a monastery where the monks take pity on her and send one of their own to guide her the rest of the way north. This monk, Guy, is new to the order and has not yet taken his vows. The Father in charge doesn't think he is right for a monk life and sent him on this quest to help him realize that. Before sending Guy off he makes him take a vow of silence. And Guy keeps his word, haha, I made a pun. Anyway, Guy keeps his word and is silent for a good part of the book. Celeste, the French girl, doesn't know that the man she is set to marry is a classic bad guy. Guy does and wants to find a way to help her. As they travel they fall in love. Guy is torn because he'd decided on a monk's life, Celeste is torn because she doesn't know he hasn't completed his vows yet and because she's promised to another.

The only thing I think I have to complain about is that we never see Aunt Marguerite after the beginning. She breaks a leg in the beginning of the book, which is why they wind up at the monastery. Aunt Marguerite was traveling with Celeste until then, but was left behind to heal. And then we never see her again.

Pompeii

I finished one book and started another. I might give up the new one though. It's written very poorly. It changes perspective almost mid-sentence. There's also a lot of people's thoughts, without italics or anything to separate it. Just suddenly "This this and I that and oh this, well maybe you know, she thought". No quotes, nothing. It's very disconcerting. Also I'm 67 pages in and nothing is happening. It's Shelters of Stone, part of the Earth's Children series. I've never read any of them and picked up what I've found out is book 5 kind of by random chance. Apparently, after looking it up, nothing happens in this book, it's a general recap of the first 4, and the writing style is not really the same nor are the characters really quite the same anymore either. So I suppose I picked up the worst by accident. Not really encouraged to try harder to read this.

So anyway, the one I finished was Pompeii, by Robert Harris. That was a good book. It's about an engineer who works on the aqueducts. He's recently transferred in and has to repair a line by the volcano. There's plots and schemes. Mostly, though, it feels as though the point was to show the event from every angle, the characters came second. For example, our engineer starts off across the bay, goes across to Pompeii, travels up to the top of the volcano, goes back down to Herculaneum, heads back to Pompeii, turns and heads back to Herculaneum, goes by horseback all the way around to Misenum, back across on a boat, swept down to whatsit I can't remember the town, walks back to Pompeii, and then "manages to survive somehow". I can overlook the character going all over experiencing every aspect of it, but the method he uses to survive is... disappointing. I guessed at what it was going to be but even as I read it I was like "noo, that would not actually work".

Anyway, I enjoyed learning so much about how aqueducts work. It was not boring or tedious or overwhelming. I think the book was good enough that the lame ending was not enough to ruin it as a whole.

spoiler

He gets into the aqueduct and goes along the tunnel and gets out further down the line.

The Dangerous Duke

Since Tommy is now in preschool I have been able to read more! I finished The Dangerous Duke, by Christine Wells in just under a week and a half!

Set in 1817, a Duke, Max, has only recently inherited the dukedom and had previously worked for the Home Office doing dirty work. Anything they want to keep unofficial. Whatever, he'd do it. He inherited the title of Duke only because of arson at the old Duke's... castle? Manor? House? Estate? I'm not sure of the right name. Either way, fire and people dying and now Max needs to find out who did it. The vicar knows where the suspected arsonists are and won't tell, so Max puts him in jail and seeks out the vicar's sister, Kate. She threatens to expose government secrets and claims she wrote them in her diary, she says she'll do it if her brother isn't released. Max steals the diary and kidnaps Kate.

Kate has been widowed for some years and has some pretty big self esteem issues stemming from her late husband's lack of interest and apparent disgust at her wanton passion. Kate has spent these years turning inwards, writing an imaginary lover in her diary.

Guess which diary Max stole? The government one never existed, which isn't a spoiler since you learn that in the first chapter, I believe.

Anyway, Max reads the diary and thinks Kate wants all that's in it so he tries to give it to her.

This book is very full of passion and it starts right off with it, no long slow romance here! Some books take you straight to the end with barely a kiss, not this one. I've read other books that were more or less the same way that weren't nearly as good. This one was done very well.

I also enjoyed the sub-plot between Jardine and Louise. Louise is Max's sister and Jardine is a co-worker of Max's. Jardine is even more ruthless than Max, Jardine will do things Max won't consider, or so the book tells us, we don't see Jardine doing a whole lot. Apparently they had tried to be together when Louise was younger, but Max said no, and Louise did anyway and got hurt helping Jardine with a mission. Or something. And now she tries to keep away from him but still loves him. I looked it up and there is a prequel to this book about them that I'm thinking has the backstory in full. But as yet no sequel. I would very much enjoy a sequel about them. Have Max and Kate as a subplot this time, maybe they have a baby or something. That would be a nice touch. The book is still new enough (2008) that it's still possible for there to be a sequel some day. I am going to see if the library has the prequel for sure, and maybe someday in the future if I remember I'll check if a sequel has been written.

This author has two other books that, as far as I can tell they don't have anything to do with this one. I'm willing to put them on my read list and will be keeping a look out for her books at future book sales.

A Child's War

This time I decided to go with a non-fiction book, A Child's War: World War II Through the Eyes of Children, by Kati David.

Basically the author, who herself was a child at that time, interviewed a lot of people who were also about her age and compiled their stories as a collection of shorts, each followed by a "how the war affected me" and "what I'm up to now" page.

A lot of the details were sparse, but that's understandable as these are the memories of children who were 4-10 during the war. Not 5-10 as the beginning of the book claims, as at least one of the children was 4 and I think another was about to turn 4 or had just turned 4. And these memories had been blurred by lack of knowledge at the time, age, and trauma.

It is not written as sadly as I had imagined it would be. I think, to really feel each one, you should stop after each story and contemplate it.

My edition has a hand written note in the beginning, this book had at one point been given by a grandmother to her granddaughter, and she writes that she is giving it to her granddaughter to help her understand those times, and in the hopes that she'll try to help make sure no child has to suffer in her own lifetime.

The Drifter

I chose to read The Drifter, by Susan Wiggs because Tommy starts preschool soon so I'll be able to become really engrossed in books again soon and so far Susan Wigg's books haven't been so engrossing that I would want to wait until Tommy was in school to read it. But this one was really good. In fact I would say it's my favorite so far. I could easily see this as a movie. It was predictable, but there was always a chance that what I predicted wouldn't be so. But I was right, everything I thought would happen did.

Basically, a man is accused of murder, he and the woman he's with take off. She becomes sick and needs a doctor, so he finds one. She just happens to be everything he's ever truly wanted, even if he didn't know what it was he wanted to begin with. But don't go thinking this book has cheating in it because it doesn't. The man and woman pretend they're married but all along you get the sense that he loves her like a sister, except for a few occasional moments. So stuff happens and he sticks around town longer than intended, but with a US Marshal on his tail he has no choice but to flee, but as he falls in love with the doctor he finds it increasingly hard to go.

And that's as much as I can say without revealing too much.

Murder at the ABA

The next book I read was also sent to me by a friend. It is Murder at the ABA, by Isaac Asimov.

It is about a writer who is found dead at a booksellers convention. The main character, who is written in first person, believes the writer to have been murdered. The book follows him as he investigates. But it's not as heavy as it sounds, it's interesting and has some humorous parts too. I enjoyed that Asimov put himself in the book and how he did it. It was a good read.

Savannah Purchase

My latest book was sent to me by a good friend. It is Savannah Purchase, by Jane Aiken Hodge. It is apparently the last book in a series, but I can't find much information on it. I suppose if I went through all of her books on amazon people would say things like "this is the first book", "this is the second book", in their reviews (which is how I found out about this one being the last) but I don't care enough to do that.

So, this book is about cousins who look close enough alike to be twins. One is married and wants to escape her life for a while and gets her cousin to take her place. But she starts falling in love with her cousin's husband, which isn't as horrible as it sounds since her cousin's marriage is in name only. It was a little hard to get into as it forces the reader to think. The book starts off as though you were in the middle of a story (which I don't think we were since I was able to find the book that takes place before this and as far as I can tell it doesn't involve this pair of cousins) and you have to figure everything out as you go. It's not really that bad but it was hard to stay motivated. I'm glad I did keep on with it, however, as it was a good book. I thought everything wrapped up nicely, if a touch conveniently.

Once Upon a Rose

The next book I read, Once Upon a Rose, by Judith O'Brien, I got by accident. How does that happen, you ask? Because at the library book sale Tommy was having a meltdown and I guess the book I was holding at the time I put in with the ones I was buying instead of back on the table. This is not the sort of book I would have normally chosen. It is about a country star. Who travels back in time. And falls in love with a man back then. She also has a boy's name (Deanie which I guess is not really a boy's name but it feels like one to me). Not my kind of book. But I gave it a go because why not, I'd bought it, and it could be fun. (Spoilers ahead)

And fun it was! If you want an example of what a Mary Sue looks like this is it. The first page told me how much fun this would be when the first thing we see is how gorgeous she is, the descriptions of her hair and eyes and how lovely she is go on and on. Throughout the book her great beauty is referenced many times. Deanie grew up in a hard life, not knowing her daddy, mom working at a truck stop, she grows up waiting tables and writing songs. Now, angstily enough, everyone but her gets to sing her songs because she is just such an awesome song writer and everyone's walking all over her. But now! Now she gets her chance! She somehow gets the funds to go to England and is filming a music video at a castle when she goes into the maze (a maze that the author even admits in an author's note did not actually ever exist at this castle!) and travels back in time to the court of Henry the VIII. Now, she meets Marty Stu. Yes, that's right. This book is such a Mary Sue that she had to invite Marty Stu to join her. Marty Stu has miraculously worked his way up to Duke over the span of 10 years, and though it's painfully obvious to the reader that he is himself a time traveler, the book chooses to hold off that information and make it a big spoiler reveal later on. He is perfect in every way, except for a slight tooth imperfection that Deanie thinks about obsessively, that perfect little imperfection that makes her want to touch that tooth and kiss that tooth and lick that tooth and... well maybe not lick. Anyway, Deanie quickly captures the king's attention, who, upon meeting her, makes her a lady to the Queen (who at this time is Anne of Cleaves). The king wants her to be his mistress. Cromwell decides to use her by trying to get her with the king to regain king's good graces. She becomes Queen Anne's best friend, her most intimate friend. She instructs Anne and tells her what to do and later is the single most important aspect in "saving her life from being beheaded". She is instrumental in bringing Elizabeth back to court. She laughs with the king, she preforms songs on a guitar to the court, mesmerizing him. Kit (marty stu), is one of the best jousters, besties with Suffolk and the king both, excellent hunter and swordsman. And all the ladies want him. Everywhere he goes women stare and drool over this perfect specimen of a man! He oozes manliness.

So, Kit and Deanie know each other for about two weeks before they are the world to each other and can not ever be separated. There are many pages describing the depth of their everlasting and undying love for each other. About three weeks in she suddenly springs on him that she wants to have his baby. So their love would go on.

And just how do our sickening couple find their way home? Well, there are many layers of rules that don't really make sense. There has to be glass. In your hand. For blue light to shine out of. There has to be explosions or flashing light of some sort. It has to be spring or fall. It has to be evening. They enlist the aid of Suffolk to light the explosions that send them back home, and he apparently doesn't care that it's basically witchcraft that they're practicing and agrees to help them. So for whatever reason Deanie and Kit both go back to her time, instead of each going to their own time or going to a different time altogether. They are separated a little, though, physically. Deanie is somehow inside a bush when she reaches her real time and is found by the crew of the music video. Kit is... I have no idea where he is but instead of searching for Deanie he leaves the maze and randomly takes off with the first random stranger he sees and is then committed to an insane asylum or something when he's found wandering London. Deanie has a breakdown and sees a psychiatrist who insists Kit was all in her imagination. So blah blah Deanie goes slowly insane, Kit tries to contact her, but Deanie's music people block him assuming he's just a creepy stalker. Despite having him on the stalker list a guard at a show she does in England (where she is in front of "thousands" of fans) lets him in and they run back to her hotel to twist up the sheets. And then it's recap time for those of the readers who don't know about that part of English history that these two were in, and they lay in bed talking about what happened to Henry and Suffolk and Anne. After which Kit suddenly decides he has to leave because he can offer her nothing, because he's the best jouster, an ace pilot in vintage planes, but he's nothing in the 90s! He has to leave her so he can find himself! Sounds to me like a lame excuse to run.

But in the epilogue all is well because they're married and he somehow found the money to build the biggest and best vintage airline tourist attraction thing with old planes and old music and old clothes to fit a WWII era theme. Like everyone wants to buy his company, they're even raising their offers! But he's turning them all down because he loves his job and is going to move it to Nashville where Deanie lives.

The whole thing is so silly I can't imagine the intent was anything but a comedic take on bad romance novels. If you are teaching a class and want to make one of the lessons on "what not to do" this book would be a good example. I'm not even doing it justice in my descriptions. There's swearing but otherwise it's very clean for a romance novel. I could see it as a cheap, straight to video romcom. I'm holding onto this book just because it was amusing. Though I don't really think the author meant for it to be that way.

Wow, I just went back over this. I talk waaaaay longer about the books I don't like (though I did kinda like this just not in the intended way) than the ones I do like. I should work on that.

End of the Dark Nest

I just finished The Swarm War (Star Wars: Dark Nest, Book 3), by Troy Denning. It was about how the other two are. I'm not going to go all out and call this trilogy as bad as the Hambley books but it was pretty bad.

I am left with more questions than answers and yet this is the last book in the trilogy. Jag is left at a cliffhanger. I don't know if we get real-Jaina back at all. This book gave me a little hope that maybe she'll go back to normal at some point. The only interesting part of this entire trilogy was Jacen. The rest was either lame or awful, or vaguely interesting.

While I would like to move right on to the legacy books (which is the next series in the timeline) I think I'm going to hold off for now and read some other books first. I need to double check how many of the legacy books I even have. I think I'm missing two or three. I don't even know how long the legacy series is, and apparently there's a Fate of the Jedi series after that and I'm not sure if I have any books in that. I have about 3 books that take place after Dark Nest and I'm not certain which series they belong to. I guess getting caught up on my Star Wars reading has, well, caught up with me, lol. Mind you I still haven't read almost any of the Clone Wars era books, and I haven't read a lot of the old republic books except the Karpyshyn(sp?) books. Otherwise I've read everything else.

Dark Nest 2

I just finished reading The Unseen Queen (Star Wars: Dark Nest, Book 2), by Troy Denning. It was better than the first book. I'm especially enjoying reading about Jacen. I've liked Jacen a lot since about the middle of the NJO. Until then he was always kinda in the background for me. Unfortunately I was spoiled for something that happens in this book about him. I didn't know it was this book, specifically, but I saw it coming in this book after reading the first one. I suppose having Jaina the way she is is as good a way as any to keep Jacen from having anyone to talk to about anything. Since he doesn't want to also tell Zekk, who is still linked to her for some stupid reason. I guess I just said the reason. Because the script says so.

Anyway, still totally not interested in the Killiks or how super, incredibly powerful they are. Really, the bad guy can turn herself invisible by "hiding behind your doubts"? How lame is that? Is that even something that can happen?

I also don't understand all the little sub-groups of Force users. When Luke was originally on his search for Force sensitives to start the Jedi Academy with he surely would have been led to some of them? How old are these sub-groups? I could see random Force users starting their own little groups and without anyone who knows Jedi knowledge they would each turn out a little differently, also depending on the cultures around them. But they would have to be fairly recently made to not have attracted his notice some 25 years earlier. (I'm a little lost here but I believe Jacen and Jaina are about 26 now and it was after they were born that he started the academy)

Joiner King

I finished reading The Joiner King (Star Wars: Dark Nest, Book 1), by Troy Denning.

There will be spoilers.

What happened to Jaina? It's like between the end of the NJO and the start of the Dark Nest Trilogy she became an entirely different person! I hate what's happened to her. And who is Zekk? Why is he suddenly so important? Why is he suddenly glued to Jaina? What happened to Jag? I guess Zekk was in Star by Star but I have no memory of him. I think he was probably big in the Junior Jedi Knights and/or the Young Jedi Knights series. I have never read either. I don't like the mindsharing thing and I hope it goes away. At the end of my copy of the book it includes the short story Ylesia (which takes place in the NJO), and Jaina was so cool in it! In the Dark Nest Trilogy, so far, she's really lame.

I'm basically trudging through the Dark Nest Trilogy to get to the Legacy series. After having read the first book and a few pages into the second book I'd skip it if I thought it would be ok. I skipped the Black Fleet Crises. But I think important things probably happen that I should read about so I'll keep reading.

Hunger Games pts 2 and 3

I read the other two Hunger Games books. I've seen the 2nd movie but not the 3rd. The 2nd book was a lot better than the first, a lot less script-like. The 3rd book, without a movie to compare it to, was really good. It will be fun to see it as a movie later. Currently I'm waiting to see if netflix is going to get the 3rd movie.

This series is so popular I'm sure nothing I can say would be unique. I enjoyed it, that is all.

Management

I don't normally talk about movies on here I think but I just had to come talk about this one. Tommy's been going to bed easy lately and Victor was working late so I decided to watch a movie. (I don't have to wait till Victor's gone to watch a movie, it's just quieter/more peaceful to do it alone) So as I browsed netflix, finding nothing, I came across a Jennifer Aniston movie, "Management". I like Jennifer Aniston. If I could switch bodies with any woman in the history of ever I'd pick her. I usually enjoy her movies.

Well, the movie was horrible. It was long. Sooo long. It was only 1 1/2 hours long but it felt like 3 hours. There's spoilers ahead. It's late and I'm tired. I don't feel like trying to make a non-spoiler review. I'll just say there were a lot of scenes that were too long and had nothing going on in them. The short is it's about a stalker and a woman who lies and uses people.

It's about this woman who's into recycling and charity. She stops at a motel on a business trip. The motel is run by a mom, dad, and son. The son starts pestering her and being pushy and creepy. After knowing him for 2 days and not even being around him more than a few minutes here and there she sleeps with him. He hops on a plane and goes to her workplace to see her. Later he follows her when she moves across the country. He even becomes homeless just so he can hang out in the same town she lives in. He stalks her with binoculars and sets up a bizarre "accident" so he parachutes into the pool of her boyfriend's house. Yes, she has a boyfriend. She didn't at the beginning of the movie but she got one along the way. She doesn't like the boyfriend but he's rich, as she says "he's good to me". Blah blah stuff happens, she winds up pregnant, breaks it off with the boyfriend and goes home to mom jobless, homeless, probably penniless except for eventual child support, and at a bad point in her life. So the guy shows up and of course now that she has nothing she decides that creepy stalker guy, who's offering to support her and the baby, might be the way to go.

Star Wars: Scoundrels

I finished reading Scoundrels, by Timothy Zahn just now. It follows Han Solo just after A New Hope (and right before Allegiance). Han is approached to do a heist, he gets in some other people to help him do it. The team is to break into a mansion and steal some credit chips. It's not a "you absolutely must read this" book but it's still a lot of fun! Just a good fun adventure. I won't give something away but I had my suspicions about something for a while that were finally confirmed in the last sentence of the book. That was part of the fun actually, that I didn't figure it out right away. It started with "hm I wonder... nah, well maybe... no, probably not" and kept going like that until the end. Like I said, it was just fun all around.

While Zahn was writing this (or maybe it was done and just in editing?) I saw a cover picture and the cover of the book had Lando on it! That couldn't be right! At that point in time Lando is mad at Han over something that happened in the Han Solo Trilogy which happens before A New Hope. How could they be together on a job? I was even actually upset and surprised Zahn would do something like this. Well, I shouldn't have been. And I doubt he'll ever see this but if he does I'm sorry! I shouldn't have doubted you. As always, he is the master of Star Wars fiction and handled it nicely. So nicely that I have no complaints at all about it. And you know I love to complain. I also learned a few things, I apparently didn't understand the Yavin Vasilika as well as I thought I did (it's a horribly confusing comic book drawn by someone who can't draw who hasn't got a clue what Han looks like with a plot that's barely canon at best) and that I need to read the Ylesia story because I have to admit I've never done that. It's a short story that was included with one of the NJO, I believe, and is referenced in this book.

I found it neat that Kell Tainer was in the book. I only somewhat remember him from the Wraith Squadron books but it was still a good throw in.

I also enjoyed the short story "Winner Lose All" at the end.

Hunger Games Book 1

I finished reading the first Hunger Games book a few days ago. Not going to bother with a link, I'm going to assume everyone already knows what it is and etc. I enjoyed the movies (I've only seen the first two so far, waiting for netflix to get the 3rd) so I figured I'd enjoy the books. And I did enjoy the book, it was good. It was a quick read and it really sucked me in. However, there's not much to it. It's basically like someone watched the movie and decided to write everything they saw. They almost didn't need a script for the movie because the book is script-like enough. There is a little more to it than the movie but not much. And the scenes in the movie showing stuff happening outside the arena kind of makes up the difference between the indepth stuff in the books and indepth stuff in the movies. The "rest of the story" that didn't make it into the movie were basically just backgrounds and memories. However, I can't wait to read the 2nd book! I haven't started it because I don't have it yet. I only have the first book because I got it at the used book sale. After price checking I have determined to get the 3-pack from amazon and give away the copy of the first book that I currently have. Someone drew all over inside the cover and dog-eared the pages, I hate when people do that to books. Seriously, using a bookmark is not hard! Grab any random scrap of paper, even a candy bar wrapper or anything will do! You don't have to turn down the page corners and cause horrible creasing.

Darth Plagueis

I finished another book, Star Wars: Darth Plagueis, by James Luceno. It always takes me a while to work through his books, I'm not sure why. They're very good, though. And this one was no exception. I loved reading about Darth Plagueis and everything that happened leading up to TPM. I liked seeing how all the schemes and stuff were playing out and being made. The book is not just from Plagueis's perspective, we also see things from Palpatine's viewpoint a lot. The book goes through to just after TPM, and the parts that happened during TPM felt a little fanfiction-y to me, but then you're working with a character who was not in the movie but you still have to show the stuff that happened during the movie, so that would be a little hard to do without it feeling fanfiction-y, so I can forgive that.

While reading I realized something. Why I hate Dave Filoni so much. James Luceno has always shown nothing but respect for the other Star Wars authors. He includes details that might feel minor, but are really, really interesting because they were mentioned in other books, sometimes only in passing. He is very well-read and makes sure to cross no lines. Filoni, however.... Picture this, imagine a daycare. You have Stackpole and Allston playing with army guys in planes and stuff. You have Anderson coloring pictures. You have Zahn building with blocks. You have Traviss off in a corner, she's in time-out. Everyone is playing peacefully. Suddenly the doors slam open, Zahn's tower falls. Filoni stands in the open doors, eyeing everyone maliciously. He runs over and shoves Stackpole and Allston over, kicking their toys around. He runs to Anderson and rips up his pictures. He runs around shoving and taking toys from anyone else he passes (cause come on I can't remember every author's name). He spies Wolverton and starts to bully him almost worse than the others, trying to brainwash him into thinking anything but reality. He then sees Lucas and moons him. And none of the adults care, they just encourage him and pat him on the head and say he's such a good little boy.

The Countess

I finished reading The Countess, by Catherine Coulter. According to the back of the book this book was apparently first published in the 70s under a different name and has now been updated and reedited. The story is set in the early 1800s, and it is that Andrea, who has been horribly scarred, emotionally, by her parent's failed marriage. To protect herself from the evils of men she marries an older man, so that she is not only socially correct by being married, but so she can be "safe" from advances by other men by throwing her marriage in front of her as a shield. However, she meets her husband's nephew, whom she starts to fall in love with. But do not mistake this for a romance. I thought this book would be somewhat of a romance but it wasn't. It was there, and there is a goodly portion of the book thrown in almost as an afterthought that features the romance, but it is not the sole focus of the book, and I'm ok with that. The focus of the book is that soon after she arrives at her husband's house she is threatened by someone who wants to kill her. She encounters a few different times when she is threatened and almost killed. Is it a ghost? Is it a person? The book is gothic, which was fun. For a good while when I was first reading it I thought it was comedic, as in a book making fun of gothic books. I either got used to it or it toned down because I didn't notice that as much as the book went on.

And that's about all I have to say on it.

Kenobi

The next book I've read is Kenobi, by John Jackson Miller. It takes place right after Revenge of the Sith and, as the title suggests, it follows Obi-Wan.

This book is really, really good. You have Obi-Wan, who is messed up from fighting the clone wars and having just about killed Anakin, who was like a brother to him, who's fall he blames on himself. At one point he expresses guilt because he believes he's responsible for the Empire's very existence! He is all alone on a barren world shunned by the people he's given Anakin's son to. Owen tells him to get lost and quit hanging around. Obi-Wan wants to be left alone, to live the hermit life to protect Luke. But that's just not who he is and he keeps letting the Jedi within shine through. Some chapters end in "Meditation" where he tries to communicate with Qui-Gon, and at one point he starts talking out loud to Qui-Gon (who never responds in the book, btw). It almost feels like poor Obi-Wan's starting to go crazy. Who wouldn't having lost everything, and everyone, and believing yourself to be the cause of everything bad that's happened.

As the back cover says, there's trouble brewing between the Tusken Raiders and the "settlers". And, well, Obi-Wan wasn't "The Negotiator" during the Clone Wars for nothing. Obi-Wan brings peace to the land, but I'm trying not to give away spoilers so that's about all I can say about it. It's a little bit western, it's a little bit Batman. One of my favorite parts was when someone went into a building and people were concerned so Obi-Wan told them to go find the others and he'd see what was up. A "mysterious shadow" takes out all the thugs and rescues this character, who escapes and meets up with the group. Obi-Wan rejoins and is all "Nah, I never got inside the building at all, I was distracted by a rather eager vendor, has something exciting happened?" haha, oh, Obi-Wan... The book writes it better than I did but you get the point.

I would like to thank Miller for referencing the Jedi Apprentice books. At the mention of Satine or whatever her name is from The Clone Wars I rolled my eyes and groaned. But a later mention of Siri Tachi made me so delighted I completely brushed that aside. Not like he's responsible for The Clone War's atrocities.

I would have finished this book a lot sooner but I've been busy with a secret crochet project.

MoonSpell

Yes, I have finished another book already. Moonspell, by Linda Ladd. Despite there being 360 pages there's not a lot to this book. I'm also not sure why it's called moonspell. The moon has nothing to do with it.

Basically, an Irish woman named Jillian has fallen on hard times. Her father died fighting the king, one of her brothers is exiled and the other presumed dead. Her lands have been given to an Englishman whom she has decided to hate because he is English. Forced to marry him, she rubs clay on her face to keep him away from her because I guess dried clay looks like pox scars and she assumes all men want out of a woman is beauty. He sees her maskless one day, and does not know it's her. He is overwhelmed by her beauty and almost rapes her. After that she's scared he'll find out her deception and scared of him because of what he did to her (at the same time she's turned on by the idea), he sees she's scared and thinks it's because she's a pox-ridden maiden. Besides, he'd rather think about the other woman because in arranged marriages you get a free pass for cheating on your spouse.

After a time she sees he's actually sort of kind, and besides, she's fallen in lust with him, though she hates every bit of attraction she feels for him. She keeps up the disguise because men are pigs, right? I felt the depth of her deception was unfair to him. Despite being unable to control himself around her (though he does learn how later) he felt like the victim for a lot of the book.

Meanwhile a feud with a neighbor is getting rough, and she gets sick (not due to the feud) and gets sent to England to stay with his brothers and sister. She likes them, tells them of her disguise (being sick she had no choice). He comes to meet with her in England and is mad at her for fooling him. Now, being that the mask of ugliness was the whole point of the book, as it says on the back of the book, I was surprised it only lasted about 150 pages. The rest of the book has to do with Jillian and Justin and their circle of
"I hate you"
"Well I hate you too but I can't resist how pretty you are"
"Well when you pull me kicking and fighting against you and force me to kiss you I can't help but like it"
"Well then how about if I just shove you onto the bed and watch you cower in a corner while I creep towards you?"
"Sounds great, and I'll be like I'm about to scream for help when my body will feel fire for you and I'll shut up and love you"
Yeah, that about sums up their relationship. For several months they act like normal married people but we don't see that, we get a time-sweep where it says they lived happily.

As you can imagine, everything resolves. Her brothers, the feud. Oh, there's also a withcraft subplot where she carelessly tells people about magic and herbs and demonstrates her "powers" and pretends to shapeshift into her cat. Because you know, even though the book says witch burnings had basically stopped she wouldn't have any residual fears taught by her parents and grandparents.

It reads like a movie, like the camera follows one person, then the camera focuses on someone else who's in the room and catches their expression at what's going on. The book feels like it is a cheaply made romance movie starring newbie actors. It's still enjoyable, just don't expect much. I know it sounds like I complained a lot but I actually did enjoy it. If I hadn't read it I wouldn't have missed anything, though.

Jupiter's Bones

So back when I was pregnant I randomly picked up a few mystery/crime type novels. Not usually the sort of thing I read but I figure it was a pregnancy craving. So far I've read one and gotten rid of it, read one and kept it, and haven't touched the other. The one I read and kept was Sanctuary, by Faye Kellerman. It was actually really, really, really good. So at other used book sales when I saw her books I bought them up, since the book I'd read was #7 of a series. I believe there's something like 18-20 books in the series. I now have 4 of them. So I figured I'd go ahead and read another just to see if they're all good or if the one I read was just her best book or something. The one I just finished reading is #12 in the series (I also own #13 and #18, at used book sales you really can't be picky and choosy over getting your series in order). It is Jupiter's Bones, by Faye Kellerman. The cover variant I have is not the one shown. Mine is like black with a window and the page inside is a tree.

So, the story is there's a scientist who has some crazy ideas, disappears, comes back as a cult leader. He dies. As they're investigating it some of the cult members disappear. So now they have to investigate that while they're still trying to figure out if the cult leader committed suicide or if he was murdered. It boils down to a standoff at the cult's compound, where a bunch of kid's lives are at stake.

I don't think it would be appropriate to say that I consumed the book, I think it'd be more accurate to say the book consumed me. I couldn't put it down. I'm glad I read it because now I know that I should definitely keep an eye out for more of these books! I may even see about picking them up on amazon. This from someone who's not really into that genre.

My one and only complaint is that I was a little lost since I had not read the rest of the series. This fault is mine alone. I was able to get the idea about things well enough. I have no complaints about how little or how much information from previous books was given. I have read other books in series that have spent pages recapping. For someone who read all the other books the recaps are annoying. So from that perspective I am content with the amount of recap given.

NJO: Done!

I see my last post was on November 22nd. Wow. Has it really taken me so long to finish one book? Of course it was a good 550 pages long. The book I read was The Unifying Force, the last book in the NJO. I first started the NJO in something like 2006 or 2007. It is a 19 book series. I'm just sad it took me so long because there are a lot of things I was reading about that I couldn't remember and had to look up. I feel something of a relief that it's over, actually. I'm so far behind other fans. Now on to the Dark Nest Trilogy then I can start the Legacy series.

There's not really a lot I can say about the series without confusing people who haven't read it and probably nothing I can say 12 years after the book was published that hasn't already been said. I did enjoy the series. And, as someone who hasn't read the YJK or JJK books, I really liked getting to know and get involved with Jaina, Jacen, and Anakin. I now want to go back and read the YJK and JJK books.

Why am I continuing to read these books if, in all likelihood, the new movies are going to destroy everything and totally mess everything up with no regard to keeping the original fanbase and alienating every fan alive today? Because I'll most likely write the new movies off as AU and dig my head as far into the sand as possible.