This book begins with Devi, 27 year old, American-born Indian daughter of Avi and Soraj, writing a list of the pros and cons of committing suicide. The pros win and, with careful consideration and planning, she fills her bath tub, climbs in and equally carefully slits her wrists. All the planning in the world is ruined by her mother, who comes calling, lets herself in with the key Devi has long wished she hadn't given her, and finds her daughter in time to save her life.

On her release from the hospital, Devi goes back to live with her parents and her grandmother Vasu, who is visiting from India. Unable to face the things that drove her into the bath tub in the first place, or the explanations everyone wants of her, Devi simply stops talking. And she soon starts cooking. To Soraj's horror, she invades her mother's perfect kitchen and starts creating her own curious brand of fusion cooking - dishes such as blueberry chicken curry. As she cooks, she begins to heal. And around her, her mixed-up, confused family begins to rediscover itself, from her sister Shobha and her failing arranged marriage to Soraj's hurtful relationship with her own mother and a whole lot more in between.

This come to a head when a stranger arrives at the door to reveal Devi's most painful secret, the one that was the final straw that drove her into the bath tub. As her family faces this, everything cracks apart so that it can come together again in a new, better way.

This sounds like it should be a depressing book. It isn't. It's bright and thoughtful and just a bit crazy like its title. I truly can't remember how I found out about it, but I'm sure it came from browsing around the internet. One of my nice librarian friends tracked down a copy for me and I devoured it in a couple of days. Now I want to share it with everyone, especially my mother and my Indian "sister" who I think would relate to quite a bit of it.

It's written in an occasionally non-linear fashion, where it can take a moment to work out if the current anecdote is current or in the past. However, I didn't have an real troubles with that. While Devi is the main protagonist, the book doesn't focus solely on her. Instead, all the characters get a share of the limelight, usually giving the reader secret knowledge the other characters don't share and thereby making everyone a little more honest.

The things you might expect to find are in here, especially the clash of cultures and generations as Soraj tries to live her Indian life in America and keep her daughters, who think of themselves as American, Indian. We see how Soraj's own childhood with Vasu has shaped her into the person she is, and how her own raising of Shobha and Devi has shaped them. All in all, this book is about love. The love for one's husband or wife, one's lover, one's family, one's heritage. The different characters have all found different kinds of love to be their first priority and each is show to be neither less nor more than any other, but all their choices gave a profound affect on the people around them.

Then there's the appendix at the end where the author has a chat with her characters, which is just delightful.

This is a delightful book; go out, find a copy, read it and then share it with your friends.

Cousins Kate and Cecy, along with their new husbands (Thomas and James respectively) set off for a honeymoon "Grand Tour" of Europe as this book begins. Thomas' mother, Lady Sylvia, is accompanying them as far as Paris. But their adventures start the moment they cross the Channel into France, when a strange woman leaves an equally strange parcel for Lady Sylvia. This turns out to be the Sainte Ampoule, a piece of the (now unnecessary) coronation regalia of France. Soon after, their party is attacked by highwaymen and the Ampoule is stolen away. This leads to the discover that Lady Sylvia was once (and still is) a member of the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel and that this in unlikely to be the quiet honeymoon that was planned.

Visiting a local ancient Roman Temple, Cecy encounters young Theodore Daventer and his tutor, the unpleasant Mr Strangle who appeared in The Enchanted Chocolate Pot. Mr Strangle appears to have performed some equally unpleasant magic ritual and when this is only the first such encounter, all the newlyweds become further suspicious of Mr Strangle and his charge. On reaching Paris, General Wellington informs them that the Ampoule is not the only piece of European coronation regalia to have been stolen recently and charges them, under the guise of continuing their honeymoon tour, to find out just what is going on.

Soon the four are getting caught up in magic, both new and ancient, a possible plot to restore Napoleon and, of course, discovering what marriage is all about.

Like its predecessor, this book is written in sections by Cecy (Patricia Wrede) and Kate (Caroline Stevermer). Kate is writing in a personal journal, but Cecy is supposedly writing a disposition about their adventures for the (magical) authorities. For something that is supposed to be a report, it is very, very full of personal thoughts and descriptions that really shouldn't be there (I don't think the readers will really want to know every mundane, or even just personal, detail). She also discusses at great length what she is going to use as a focus for her magic. This is supposed to remain a secret so that an unscrupulous magic user cannot take advantage of the knowledge (as happened to Thomas in the first book). Of course, if it really was a stolid report, it would be very boring for the reader. Still, I feel perhaps Wrede should have chosen a different medium for Cecy.

The plot of this book is more convoluted that the first one, but it is also well thought out and very clever. I didn't pick up what was going on until the gang discovered it all (in a singularly easy way, I felt) and I certainly didn't pick out who the chief villain was or what their dastardly plan was.

Once again, the magic has been woven neatly into this near-history and done very cleverly. Kate's first attempt to build a focus in rather spectacular, given a good explanation of why things didn't go exactly as planned, and is important at the resolution of the story.

And if you very want to have great adventures like this, it might be a good idea to learn to knit.

All in all, another enjoyable story by Wrede and Stevermer. It isn't likely to change your life, but it is a very nice way to while away a few hours.

Juliette is one of the few females remaining to a dying people - the jaguar race who can shift shape between human and the great cat. She lives in the jungle with her sister and cousin, trying to protect the females of their race who are being brutally abducted by a group of rogue jaguar males. While breaking into a secret laboratory to release the research animals, she finds a man, chained and bleeding on a concrete floor. The man is Riordan, one of five Carpathian brothers sent our by Prince Mikhail's father centuries ago to protect the South American continent from the scourge of vampires.

As soon as he sees her, Riordan knows he was found his lifemate. Juliette has to come to terms with what this means, heal Riordan's terrible wounds and rescue her sister, all packed into one 100 page short story.

When I started this, I expected to be disappointed. In fact, my thoughts were along the lines of "Oh no, not another big cat shapeshifter". I was not pulled into the two "Leopard" books at all, and didn't think jaguars needed to be added to the mix. However, I have to admit that Feehan won me over. The story had more depth to it than I expected and I enjoyed it. My main complaint would be that I thought Jasmine's (Juliette's sister) fate was unnecessarily harsh. However, I kind of suspect she may turn out to be someone else's lifemate and what happened to her in this story will figure in that one. This is not a hugely memorable tale (or it may just be that short stories aren't really a medium that works for me), but it was a nice addition to the Carpathian mythos.

In the King's Service is the first in a long-promised trilogy that will tell us about the childhood and youth of my favourite Kelson-time characters, Alaric Morgan and Duncan McLain. Ostensibly, In the King's Service chronicles King Donal Haldane's attempts to ensure his young son, and therefore his kingdom, has a strong protector once he is gone. Around this central thread spin the parents and grandparents of many of the characters from Kelson's time.

This book does suffer the fate of nearly any book that tries to cover a long period of time and a lot of characters in a few hundred pages - the characterisations get skimped on. All the same, it's a interesting insight into the development of the Eleven Kingdoms into what we were introduced to in Deryni Rising. There were lots of names where I was trying to remember who I knew from that family, and others where I was suddenly crying, "Oh, that's so-and-so's father. Now it makes sense!"

On it's own, this book would be very confusing and not particularly satisfying, but as a set-up book (which is what it claims to be), it's a useful beginning. Morgan was only born in the epilogue, so I'll be looking forward to the next one as he grows up. Hopefully it won't cover such a long time frame and we'll get a lot more depth and the corresponding satisfaction.

Famous artist John Lafcadio might have been dead for thirteen years, but that doesn't stop him from being able to cause a good stir. Before his death, he completed 12 paintings and left instructions that they were to be revealed, starting five years after his death, one a year until all the sealed crates had been opened and his masterpieces were available to the world. Albert Campion comes to visit Lafcadio's widow, Belle, just before the eighth painting has been shown and, being a friend, is invited to the unveiling.

All appears to go well and the painting - Joan of Arc - is revealed as planned, turned into a spectacle and overseen as usual by Lafcadio's agent, Max Faustian. Things go awry when the lights go out. Once the power is restored Tommy Dacre, Lafcardio's grand-daughter's fiance, is found stabbed to death with a pair of ornate scissors. Campion soon finds himself investigating not only Dacre's murder, but a series of other odd events, another death and, ultimately, finds himself almost losing his life when he underestimates the murderer.

This book is not so much a "whodunnit" as a "prove-hedunnit". Campion figures out the identity of the murderer early and there are plenty enough clues for the reader to do the same. The killer is clever, slick, supremely self-confident and just a little bit insane. Campion's attempts to first unmask, then stop the killer are stymied every step of the way and for a while there it looks like he might be the final victim. It is luck and back up from his friends that saves him this time, not his own intellect.

This is a very different book that I liked and was unsure about, both at the same time. It is a departure for the usual crime-solving adventure and I'm of two minds about whether or not it works. Certainly, some early strange events (such as the disappearance of all Dacre's works) finally make sense when the killer's motives are revealed and it is all very clever. But the pacing felt kind of wrong to be, although I think that was mostly because Allingham had things happen in a different order than usual. Here, the basic story line went murder, suspicion, discovery of murderer, discover of murderer's motives, plan to stop murderer, failure of said plan, resolution by Hand of God. Campion didn't really take over this story, he just struggled to keep up with other characters, and I think that was probably the source of my dissatisfaction. That and the ultimate fate of the murderer, which seemed like a cop out to me.

Not one of Allingham's best, although we meet some lovely characters such as Belle and her grand-daughter Linda and get a chance to see inside the artist's life of the time. I still enjoyed the story, but it won't be first on my list of Campion books to reread. If you only want to read one, pick a different one. If you already know you like the series, this is still a good, solid addition it and I suggest you read it. After all, drunk Campion at the end of the book is a total delight. (I'm told it is in the Peter Davison TV adaptions as well, although I haven't seen them.)

I just don't have enough peace and quiet in my life for audio books at the moment, nor can I fit in reading the book, so I'll try to get back to this at a later date.

Henry DeTamble is the time traveller of the title. He's a man with a genetic disease that will come to be known as Chrono-Displacement Disorder; he unexpectedly and randomly slips through time, always arriving naked and confused. His wife is Claire Abshire, who first met Henry when she was six (and he was thirty-six). He visits her throughout her childhood, coming from a range of dates in her future, knowing what is going to happen to her but refusing to tell her in advance. Henry on the other hand, first meets Claire when he is thirty-one (and Claire is twenty-three) and this time it is she who knows his future and he who must live it.

This is the story of their marriage; their joys and heartbreaks, their trials and their happiness and through it all, their love which remains first and strong despite everything. I found a website where Niffenegger says "I wanted to write a book about waiting. ... I wanted to write about a perfect marriage that is tested by something outside the control of the couple." These are indeed the fundamental things that this book is about. Claire is always waiting, always waiting for Henry. From when she first meets him at six, to when she is an old woman, long after Henry has died, she is waiting for him to come to her, either slipping through the cracks in time or walking up to her in their own, shared chronological space.

There have been a huge number of rave reviews about this book. That is something that always makes me nervous, especially for something that is a mainstream novel (and this is, despite the time travel) as generally those sorts of books aren't my kind of books. But the more I heard about this one, the more I decided it might be "my kind of book" after all. I'm so very glad I decided to try it out.

This is a book that is both down-to-earth and highly lyrical. It is a pleasure to read, even when your heart wants to break for Henry and Claire. Niffenegger helps the reader out, by giving the date for each section as well as Claire and Henry's ages at the time, but it is still possible to get a little confused as time keeps shifting. I found that it was best simply to "go with the flow" and let the story seep into me, rather than trying to keep close track of the time shifts as that distracted me from the essence of the story which is far more important.

This seems to be a short review for such a good book, but for me The Time Traveler's Wife is a book to experience rather than try to analyse in detail. It is by turns funny, beautiful and heart-breaking and a delightto read. I recommend getting hold of a copy, settling back and sharing Henry and Claire's entwined lives.

In a New York where magic is real - although no-one with true talent would use such a crass word as magic - Wren Valere and her partner Sergei work together to "retrieve" stolen objects. Sergei is the deal-maker, finding clients, arranging terms and deals and contracts. Wren is the one who does the actual fieldwork; able to manipulate energy, she can infiltrate, locate and retrieve the objects they have undertaken to return.

Businessman Oliver Frants wants the cornerstone of his office building back. It's not so much that the building might fall down - after all, they don't make them that way any more - but that the stone contains a spell that grants protection to the building and everyone who works within in. The cornerstone has been stolen, clearly by magic as it was pulled right out of the middle of the foundation without affecting any of the stonework around it. Wren and Sergei have been hired to find it, retrieve it and return it to its rightful place in the building.

As they set out to undertake their commission, Wren and Sergei soon discover that things are not as simple as it might appear. The superior and generally insular Mage's Council (which looks down on free lancers like Wren with disdain) may or may not be involved now, but it soon becomes clear that one of their members cast the original spell on the cornerstone and they would rather that fact doesn't get around. At the same time, strangers are watching Wren, Sergei's past is beginning to catch up with him, human vigilantes are after the not-so-human creatures that live in the shadows and magic places and Wren and Sergei are both beginning to realise that their partnership isn't quite as all-business as they had previously thought.

Finding and returning the cornerstone turns out to be only the beginning of the adventure.

I felt a little bit mean only giving this book a six out of ten. I tossed around the idea of upgrading to a seven for a while, but decided to stick to my original gut response. It is from the still-new Luna line and so far they have been rather hit and miss. I keep saying I won't buy any more new in case I know I just have to have it (say, the next Asaro one) and then I keep getting tempted. I feel that Staying Dead contains both hits and misses.

I believe this book is Gilman's novel and it does seem to suffer from some classic bits of "first-novel-itis". I have two main complaints. She has way too many plot threads running at once. It makes it difficult to keep up with them all and stay in touch with the story. The whole sub-plot about the Silence seemed hardly necessary, only becoming relevant in the last couple of pages and I think it could have been dropped altogether. As for the vigilantes after the fatae, that had no bearing on anything else in the book. If Gilman is planning to use this is a sequel, she should have saved it completely for that next book. Secondly, she tried too hard to drop hints about what was coming up, that I had all this information in my head without anything to pin it too and I'm trying to remember it all so that when the revelation comes I can put the pieces together. I found some of those revelations particularly anti-climatic after the work I'd done to keep everything in mind while waiting. For example, there is plenty of build-up to who stole the cornerstone, but once it is revealed, that fact, and the character as well, soon become unimportant.

However, don't let my negativity put you off completely. I found Staying Dead to be quite compelling; I thought of abandoning it a couple of times, but always kept going. Wren and Sergei are well drawn and interesting characters and I'd like to know what happens to them next. The plot was very clever - it just needed a little trimming of the extraneous elements. I rather suspect I'll be reading the sequel when it comes out.