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by
Patricia Briggs
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If I had to describe Patricia Briggs's novel Moon Called in a single line, I'd probably go for something like: “A lot like Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series—only way less annoying!” Like the Anita Blake series, Briggs's book features a tough-cookie heroine with a bevy of supernatural suitors, a quirky day job, and a set of ever-evolving powers that even she fails to understand. Unlike Hamilton's series, however, Moon Called shows few signs of devolving into straight-up "erotica" as poorly written as it is mind-numbingly tedious.
Briggs's heroine is Mercy Thompson, a human/coyote shape-shifter with a VW repair shop in Washington State's Tri-Cities area. Mercy's life is full of supernatural beings, all of whom are considerably more powerful than she is: her former boss is a gremlin, her next-door neighbor a werewolf Alpha, and her favorite customer a vampire with a van painted to look like the Mystery Machine. Mercy is quick-witted and charming, and while her bravado frequently gets her into trouble she's always been smart enough to get herself back out. But when a tortured and half-starved werewolf turns up on her doorstep, Mercy discovers that there are some situations even she can't fast-talk her way through.
To give the devil her due, the first few books in the Anita Blake series displayed considerable imagination, and Hamilton's love of random supernatural minutiae did a superb job of creating a fleshed-out world for her characters to inhabit. But Briggs is no slouch at the details, either—Mercy's world is well-defined, and her supernatural love interests offer an appealing blend of power and angst. (Plus, they have yet to swan around in a pair of spandex bike pants, waist-length curls, and a pirate coat. The same, alas, cannot be said of Hamilton's equivalents.)...
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Truman Capote was a high school dropout-turned-journalist-turned-novelist-turned-socialite who achieved tremendous success at a remarkably young age, produced one of the most iconic novellas of the 20th century (1958's Breakfast at Tiffany's), and then died in a truly spectacular crash-and-burn fashion... making him another excellent choice for anyone looking for a subject for an out-of-the-ordinary class paper! (We here at Wordcandy are all about spicing up the book reports.) In addition to Breakfast at Tiffany's, Capote also wrote the absorbing and disturbing In Cold Blood, a "non-fiction novel" about the murder of a Kansas farming family. At the height of his social and critical popularity, Capote began work on what he hoped would become his masterpiece, a sort of highbrow tell-all book about the lofty social circles in which he moved, entitled Answered Prayers. This probably would have been a wild success, but unfortunately Capote planned to release the book right away, instead of waiting until the characters' real-life counterparts were safely dead. When the first few chapters were published in Esquire, the majority of Capote's rich, hard-partying buddies cut him off. Shocked by his sudden fall from grace, Capote turned to drugs and alcohol. He died in 1984 at the age of 59. ...
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| Feb 23 | | Goong Vol. 8
by So-Hee Park | | Feb 24 | | Black Hills: A Novel
by Dan Simmons | | Feb 28 | | Gloves Off
by Susan McBride | | Mar 01 | | A Blunt Instrument
by Georgette Heyer | | Mar 01 | | The Flight of the Falcon
by Daphne du Maurier | | Mar 02 | | The Birthday Present: A Novel
by Barbara Vine | | Mar 09 | | The Dead-Tossed Waves
by Carrie Ryan | | Mar 16 | | Wild Ride
by Bob Mayer | | Mar 16 | | Voices of Dragons
by Carrie Vaughn | | Mar 16 | | Wild Ride
by Jennifer Crusie |
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