ilona_andrews

Lion Brand Yarn:

Dear Ilona,

Stay cozy indoors with your knitting and crochet, or challenge yourself with this week’s Puzzler!

There is no puzzler. There is no yarn. There is only book.

Mirrored from One Crazy Dame. Comment here or there

ilona_andrews

UPDATE: Brooke found it, thanks everybody!

Does anybody have the old draft for BAYOU MOON, the one where William goes to meet Nancy in the forest after the bar?  The one with howling and the tree?  If you happen to have, could you please send it to me, because I apparently deleted the blasted thing and I need to cannibalize it for the sex scene.

Thank you.

Also, I wish some rocks would fall and finish this book, damn it.

Mirrored from One Crazy Dame. Comment here or there

ilona_andrews

Gordon and I worked all day.  We ran out to mail off Twitter winner and grab some cheese and guacamole for tacos.  Kid 1 stayed home to cook said tacos.   While we were out, HBSC called her three times.  They were rude, and they badgered the kid until she called us at the store in a bit of a panic.

We got home.  Apparently, the HBSC card was on an automatic repayment tied to our debit card.  The debit card had expired a month ago and we forgot to update the account.  We’ve had the card for seven years.  We were almost never late on it, and surely not for the last year, because it was set to come out from that debit card.  The amount of late payment which caused this minor catastrophe?  $49.

We payed the account in full and cancelled the card.

Twenty minutes later HBSC called us again, asking for payment.

That’s four calls today, three calls within the last two hours.  I’ve been meaning to pay off and cancel the cards, but I like to have the cushion of credit, because I’m nervous.   But I am terribly happy to be free of this card company.  Really whatever the balance was wasn’t worth getting my kid attacked via phone.

Mirrored from One Crazy Dame. Comment here or there

jumping_down
liverpoolreds

Meet Fernando Torres! Um, online.

alishenai
bookish

Valiant: A Modern Tale of Faerie by Holly Black is a companion to her earlier novel Tithe: A Modern Tale of Faerie.

The novel revolves around the protagonist Val who runs away to New York after she discovers that her boyfriend has been cheating on her with her mother. Shortly after she arrives at the city she meets some homeless teenagers named Sketchy Dave and Lolli who invite her to stay at the tunnel where they live with Dave's older brother, Luis. Val soon learns that a troll also lives under the bridge and that Luis is his servent. Val also becomes his servent and before long she and her new friends become involved the mysterious deaths of several fairy folk.

Although I liked Valiant more than Tithe I still didn't enjoy the novel very much. Again my main problems were with the characters. In Tithe I disliked Kaye because she was nothing but a lazy arrogant thief whereas in Valient Val is slightly more likeable because although she does steal it's only because she has to in order to survive living on the streets. However she is still a pathetic character because not only does she start taking Never despite that she knows how dangerous and addictive it can be but she also has sex with someone who she didn't want to have sex with whilst using Never to pretend that she was having sex with someone else. I find this idea both disgusting and very disturbing. The other characters such as Lolli and Dave were also equally if not more dislikeable. In fact Ruth, Luis, and Revus are the only characters in this novel that are likeable.

The most interesting character in the novel is Mabry because she is a rather complex character. As for Revus although he is a likeable character I found him a bit dull.

Nevertheless Valient is still a big improvement in the series because the scenes were easy to follow and because the plot was far more interesting. I also liked the reference to "The Three Billy Goats Gruff" and although I disliked the way Never was used throughout the novel I thought that the notion was quite interesting. Despite this though I felt that the characters let the story down so I would not recommend this novel.

horrorfangirl
bookish

Ok so I was looking throuncgh the BooksaMillion magazine The BookPage which has book reviews and intrerviews with various arthors. It also shows different books and how much they cost (along with the BAM discounted prices). The thing that bugs me is just how different the savings are. One item was around seventeen dollars and the discount price was something along the lines of 13 dollars and some change.

Yet if you look at some of the mass produced paperbacks there is only something like a twenty cents difference between the cost price and the discount one. I don't get it why not just have a set price and be done with it? Honestly it would seriously make a lot of things easier for everyone I think in the long run.