Sheila's Guests and Reviews

When I was a kid it annoyed me that so few books mentioned characters who went to church. I went to church. Most of the people I knew went to church. Weren't we worth writing about? I suspect when I was a kid I simply wasn't drawn to, or introduced to, those sweet Sunday school books that would have filled that gap. Perhaps that's just as well. But now I read the Sunday-school-sweet books, all grown up, plus many others where characters do go to church but don't feel the need to tell the world--or is it where authors do go to church but don't feel the need to tell the world? I guess the question still remains, are people like me worth writing about--are we worth reading about? And the truth is, I really don't want to read about me; I want to read about someone interesting, or at least someone in a story that's interesting; I want a fiction to draw me in and make me think before it spits me out. There'll have to be facts in that fiction if it's go...

I used to avidly read series of novels when I was a child. Biggles, the Chalet School, Barnabas Collins (though I never saw the TV series), and more. At first I didn't care what order I read the stories in; I just picked them by the title or the picture on the cover, knowing I was bound to enjoy the story too. But I gradually learned how the tales fit together; Chalet girls grew older, got married and had daughters of their own; Barnabas Collins? --- I never quite figured him out; and Biggles moved on to better planes. I learned the joy of overarching story and began to organize my paperbacks so I could read them in order. I was hooked on series! I still am, of course. I watch the stores for the next Dresden File to come out in paperback. When Jim Butcher spoke at Powells, I was delighted to learn that a) he's a great speaker, and b) Dresden really is a series, with beginning, middle AND end (though there's still a long way to go). Kat Richardson's Greywalker novels l...

Books read for GBA: 31 I think I've finished reading for the Global eBook Awards. The ceremony's coming up soon, and I need to write comments on the book pages and start posting all my reviews. Two of the books I read most recently were parts 1 and 2 of a series; several others came from series too, so they got me wondering, what makes a series work? Have you read The Hunger Games? I read the second book first and was so hooked I had to go out and buy book one and pre-order book three. I guess that means the series worked for me. But there are other series where I feel like I've only read half a story and I'm not sure I'll bother with the rest. Then there are those semi-infinite series where I can pick and choose a book and wonder, have I read this one yet ?--Tony Hillerman's Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee books for example--I'd love to read them all one day. I think, for me, a series works best if I learn to trust the author. If a story feels complete while ...

I guess it's time to search my bookshelves for other series of books that we're addicted to. Patricia Cornwell: I've just started reading these - Post-Mortem, Body of Evidence... Kay Scarpetta is a very convincing character. I don't know anything about her job or the place she lives, but I do believe everything as I read it and find myself cringing in my chair as if I can smell things she doesn't even describe. Dean Koontz: I like nearly all his books, and I guess they're mostly not series. But I really like Odd Thomas - different and yet with all the concerns of a "real" person negotiating the real world. Tony Hillerman: He's another one who writes about a world I don't know. I started reading his books when I saw a kid in the school chess club with one, and I was quickly hooked. The locale attracted me, since I was living in Utah, and the characters intrigued me because they gave me a window to look into a different worldview. I felt like I w...

I’ve just finished reading the second Claire Hanover mystery, and I’d have to say Beth Groundwater’s main character is another one strong enough to my interest through a series. Claire, of course, is a very different character from Sam Acquillo or Gus LeGarde . For a start, she’s a woman. Plus, while enormously resourceful, she really doesn’t have the kind of background or physical strength to be an action hero. But she does have lots of character, or chutzpah, as one of her friends has been known to say. Claire has the confidence to believe what she sees and to tell it like she sees it. Just because no one else saw the ski tracks doesn’t mean they’re not there. Just because no one else sees the danger doesn’t mean she shouldn’t protect her daughter. Just because… So she walks into police stations and describes exactly the sort of details that someone unaccustomed to such places would notice—the presence or absence of family photographs, the pictures on the walls… She walks into a ni...

Another series I’ve recently started reading is the Gus LeGarde mysteries by Aaron Paul Lazar. I’ve sort of started at the “wrong” end with them, having just read an advance copy of Mazurka which doesn’t come out until August, but I’m already hooked. Gus LeGarde is a very different character from Sam Acquillo . If I saw Gus in a coffee shop he’d probably be reading a fascinating book or magazine, or talking music with a friend. He’d be kind, polite and moderately sociable. And I’d feel safe if he were to nod and smile at me. Gus lives in a beautiful house with land and views, and has a fascinating family. He travels to France in Mazurka and I love sharing the trip. I know Gus has had his dark times, but I don’t get the feeling that he ever sets out to make trouble. It’s not just the background of the characters that’s different. Gus is much more open about himself than Sam Acquillo, who seems always on his guard. Aaron Lazar writes generous passages about Gus’s past, answering his r...