Cover Blurb:
     Murder is in the air everywhere--even at a needlework show. Betsy Devonshire, owner of the shop Crewel World, finds herself snowed in at the convention hotel in Nashville along with her policewoman friend, Jill, and employee, Godwin. When another shop owner, Belle Hammermill, falls over the railing, plummeting down nine stories into the middle of the atrium, even the most avid sewers look up from their tatting. Everyone, of course, assumes the fall to be an accident. However, as Betsy, Jill, and Godwin start talking to the show's attendees, they begin to learn that a selfish and devious Belle had plenty of enemies--and they are all in the hotel.

I didn't enjoy this latest needlecraft mystery as much as I have the others. I'm not sure why, except that I wonder if moving out of the familiar setting of Excelsior was the problem. Here, instead of familiar characters (beyond Betsy, Godwin and Jill) we have a set of new strangers along with a bunch of people many cross stitchers will know by name because they are real people in the needlework industry. Ferris has given real, living people words to say that they have never said and an adventure they have never had. I think this may be my problem as this sort of thing very rarely works for me outside historical novels - and there I still expect the author to have done their research. Not only that, but she took an institution of the industry and moved it around by two months and made it do what she wanted. I feel that if Ferris wanted to write about the Nashville Market, she should have left it in February where it belonged instead of changing everything around. It was like she was trying to be clever, but couldn't make the story fit into the normal set of events so started changing them to suit herself. To me, that's lazy, fannish writing. If it didn't work, she should have changed the story, not the real events.

The murder is relatively simple really, with a limited number of suspects, none of whom really engaged me. I guess, all up, I didn't really care for the murdered woman, the suspects or anyone very much. It wasn't a really bad read, despite this, but certainly the lowest of the series.

It's been a while since I "visited" with Eve and Roarke. With the growing TBR insanity, I haven't got back to my in-progress series as much as I might like. I keep getting distracted by new books.

This time around, Eve is off-planet at a law enforcement symposium and trying not to think about the seminar she is supposed to be giving. It's easy to be distracted when a 50-year veteran and legend of the police force, Douglas Skinner, tries to blackmail her into helping him put Roarke behind bars. Things get more complicated when one of Skinner's aides is bludgeoned to death in a stairwell.

This was a very well executed tale, a tangle of parents and children, prejudices and passions and another glimpse into Eve and Roarke's lives. The resolution was neat, the solution clever and the herring nicely red. A good, short addition to the series.

This is just a little story (only 16 pages) about how Miri Robertson became a mercenary. It is a fill in story and a very pleasant opportunity to meet her as a child, meet her parents and see her first interactions with Liz Lizardi. Was it worth the price of the entire anthology for 16 pages? I'm not sure, but I'm glad I read the story and feel I know a little more of why Miri ticks the way she does.

Cover Blurb:
     Darkness falls... despair abounds... evil reigns...
     Eragon and his dragon, Saphira, have just saved the rebel state from destruction by the mighty forces of King Galbatorix, cruel ruler of the Empire. Now Eragon must travel to Ellesméra, land of the elves, for further training in the skills of the Dragon Rider: magic and swordsmanship. Soon he is on the journey of a lifetime, his eyes open to awe-inspiring new places and people, his days filled with fresh adventure. But chaos and betrayal plague him at every turn, and nothing is what it seems. Before long, Eragon doesn’t know whom he can trust.
     Meanwhile, his cousin Roran must fight a new battle–one that might put Eragon in even graver danger.
     Will the king’s dark hand strangle all resistance? Eragon may not escape with even his life. . .

Cover Blurb:
     The first of Phryne's adventures from Australia's most elegant and irrepressible sleuth.
     The London season is in full fling at the end of the 1920s, but the Honourable Phryne Fisher - she of the green-grey eyes, diamante garters and outfits that should not be sprung suddenly on those of nervous dispositions - is rapidly tiring of the tedium of arranging flowers, making polite conversations with retired colonels, and dancing with weak-chinned men. Instead, Phryne decides it might be rather amusing to try her hand at being a lady detective in Melbourne, Australia.
     Almost immediately from the time she books into the Windsor Hotel, Phryne is embroiled in mystery: poisoned wives, cocaine smuggling rings, corrupt cops and communism - not to mention erotic encounters with the beautiful Russian dancer, Sasha de Lisse - until her adventure reaches its steamy end in the Turkish baths of Little Lonsdale Street.

Cover Blurb:
     One desperate call to the gods...
     One blast of extraordinary magic...
     One gift of unimaginable power...
     The legends of the Godstruck were just that - legends. Until, in an attempt to defend her people, Captain Kallista Varyl called on the One for aid and was granted abilities such as no one had seen in centuries.
     Now Kallista has been charged with a new destiny as one of the most powerful women in the land- but her power is useless if it cannot be controlled. Mastering her “Godstruck” abilities is the first step. The next, learning that she cannot unlock the secrets of the Compass Rose and defeat her nation's enemy alone. And finally she must stop a demon-possessed king....
     The Compass Rose: fourfold magic barely understood-or contained....

Cover Blurb:
     And you thought puberty sucked. Try morphing into a dragon.
     I knew that at this age I'd be going through a lot of changes-but blue scales? Claws? A snout? Come on! This is ridiculous and just so unfair. And I can't believe my parents waited until the day I turned into a dragon to tell me that I am one-thanks to my dad's side of the family. Believe me, no amount of dieting can stop how big I grow when I turn dragon-and don't get me started on the tail.
     This dragon thing is going to happen every crescent moon. Can I be any more of a freak? At least I have my grandfather to show me how to get by as a weredragon. It's not easy. And I can't even tell my best friends, because dragons have ancient enemies who want to destroy them. As if my parents, school and the soccer team weren't enough to deal with. Looks like it's up to me to protect the few fellow dragons that are still left or I won't see my next birthday. Forget about blowing out those candles. With this breath, I'll set the whole town on fire...

This is a nice, light read. It's a book for pre-teens and young teenagers - and adults like me who like to revist that place in their reading. It's fairly simple, although it soon becomes clear that good and evil are never actually simple or black and white. This is also very clearly a set-up book. As Jennifer discovers the secret world of the weredragons so does the reader. A lot is only touched upon and there must be going to be more books that delve into Jennifer's life and new world. I don't know if I'll read them or not, but I'm sure I'll enjoy them if I do.

Cover Blurb:
     With their magic boundaries falling and terrible monsters invading, the Marshalls of Lladrana must follow ancient tradition and Summon a savior from the Exotique land. . .
     For Alexa Fitzwalter, the Marshall's call pulled the savvy lawyer into a realm where she barely understood the language, let alone the intricacies of politics and power. Armed only with her wits, a mystical companion and the help of the chevalier Bastien, Alexa must use her very human mind and skills to fight the encroaching evil-and resist manipulation by the Marshall's to force her to stay in Lladrana.
     Now torn between her affinity for this realm and Earth, will she return home if given the chance? Or dare she risk everything for a land not her own?

Cover Blurb:
     A deep space explosion in Riftspace sends Captain Gillaine Davré three hundred and fifty years into the future, where her likeness graces every shrine, and her accident has been recorded in history as a "divine sacrifice." Anonymity and lies seem her only options. Then a long-time enemy attacks, again. Can Gillie stop the invasion without revealing her identity, and losing the man she loves?

Cover Blurb:
     All the best thrillers contain the solution to a mystery, and the mystery in this intellectually sparkling scientific thriller is more crucial and stranger than most. Why are people turning against their neighbors and their newborn children? And what is causing an epidemic of still births? A disgraced paleontologist and a genetic engineer both come across evidence of cover-ups in which the government is clearly up to no good. But no one knows what's really going on, and the government is covering up because that is what, in thrillers as in life, governments do. And what has any of this to do with the discovery of a Neanderthal family whose mummified faces show signs of a strange peeling?

(Taken from my report on my livejournal)

This was the October SF Book of the Month for Beyond Reality. I'm the one who nominated, so I certainly needed to read it. After a number of false starts getting hold of it, I finally got a copy from the library (and then found out on Thursday night that a friend owns it and I could have borrowed it from him!)

I gave myself about a week to read it, knowing I'm running a bit slow right now. I was captured by it pretty much immediately and finished it in two days. (Which isn't a bad thing as it gives me more time to read A Sundial in a Grave: 1610 which certainly is going more slowly.)

The basic premise is that this new disease show us, a kind of flu that affects pregnant women more than men and causes miscarriages. Even more strangely, women who miscarry tend to fall pregnant again swiftly, without needing more intercourse in between. While the CDC and others are trying desperately to stop the pandemic, a small group of people begin to wonder if this is a disease or something else. They believe this is an upgrade, a new step in evolution that has been triggered from instructions in human DNA at a time when it is most needed.

It was a bit depressing to discover how much trouble my brain had working with the science, especially since I did study at least a bit of microbiology at university level, even if I never worked in the field. Still, once I eased back a little and stopped worrying out it, the most important parts fell into place so that I could easily follow the story. For me, that seems to be the trick, let the scientific aspects seep into my head by osmosis rather than study it to the point I could try to sit an exam on the subject.

Bear tricked me on the roles of the main characters, as the one I expected to be the hero wasn't, and the one who looked like being something of an anti-hero turned out to be the hero after all. Bear has faced up to a range of issues, from human development to the idea of respect versus science with relation to digging up human bones, but he doesn't dwell on these too hard, instead letting the characters muse on the subject often without reaching any definite conclusion. Mostly, he focuses on telling the story and lets the reader get as involved or not as they choose in the issues it raises.

I found that the tone of the book - mostly the reaction of the general public - reminded me very much of John Wyndham's Trouble with Lichen, which was interesting, as the topic of the Wyndham novel is very different, but the more I consider it I find the themes to be quite similar. I may need to think about this a little more.

I'm glad there's a sequel that will look at what is different about the new generation of children and I've already got it from the library and need to fit it into my reading schedule.

I thoroughly enjoyed this - reading it when I really should have been resting because I needed to know what happened next - and gave it a 9/10.