It’s a favourite dish of mine. But the one I had tonight was greasy, with too much sauce and the gnocchi were very soft. Hm. Take-out, that probably didn’t help!

Synopsis:
“Mercy Thompson’s life is not exactly normal. Her next-door neighbor is a werewolf. Her former boss is a gremlin. And she’s fixing a VW bus for a vampire. But then, Mercy isn’t exactly normal herself…. and her connection to the world of things that go bump in the night is about to get her into a whole lot of trouble.”

Mercy is a shapeshifter, by the way. Coyote… What a refreshing read! I really liked it. Yet again a new look at werewolves. And fae, vampires and the whole other shebang. Good fun. I have to check if there are more Mercy Thompson books around – to find out, if there is more to come with her and that nice, good looking werewolf. Not telling you, which one! You have to find out yourself. No, but this is not the usual hot steamy paranormal sex thing, there is a good deal of old fashioned sleuthing going on and hunting and firearms and karate…. I have to go to Amazon now and stick everything by Patricia Briggs on my wishlist, excuse me for a moment…

From Amazon.com:
“My name is Meredith Gentry, but of course it’s not my real name. I dare not even whisper my true name after dark for fear that one hushed word will travel over the night winds to the soft ear of my aunt, the Queen of Air and Darkness. She wants me dead. I don’t even know why… I fled the high court of Faerie three years ago and have been in hiding ever since. As Merry Gentry, I am a private investigator for the Grey Detective Agency: Supernatural Problems, Magical Solutions. My magical skills, scorned at the courts of Faerie, are valued in the human world. Even by human standards, my magic isn’t flashy, which is fine by me. Flashy attracts attention and I can’t afford that. Rumour has it that I am dead. Not quite. I am Princess Meredith NicEssus. To speak that name after dark is to call down a knock upon your door from a hand that can kill you with a touch. I have been careful, but not careful enough. The shadows have found me, and they are going to take me back home, one way or another. So the running is over. But the fighting has just begun… “

It started very promising. The usual humour and an interesting storyline, although not quite a gritty as Anita Blake. Up until the point, when she goes home. From the onwards it just seemed to be Merry Gentry considering who looks the most stunning, what their clothes look like and how good they might be in bed. Hm. It wasn’t actually bad, but a bit disappointing. More sleuthing would have been nice. Well, let’s see how #2 turns out, there is room for improvement!

Synopsis from Amazon:
“This handbook explores basic feng shui methods to turn office space into a positive environment. It covers: analysing the influences that the office environment has over you; defining what you want; clearing obstructions and blockages; reducing environment stress and energy drains; getting value for money; and harmonizing your workspace with your goals, and keeping it working for you.”

A little to esoterical for me towards the end, but otherwise a lot of very good ideas and suggestions. Made me realise, what I subconsciously knew already: My office space is wrong in every imaginable aspect. Now I have to figure out how to get my boss to improve the Feng Shui of the place. As the book suggest, I will start small with my own space and take it from there…. Good little book to get a first glimpse at Feng Shui.

From Amazon.com:
“If your pulse flutters at the thought of castle ruins and descents into crypts by moonlight, you will savor every creepy page of Elizabeth Kostova’s long but beautifully structured thriller The Historian. The story opens in Amsterdam in 1972, when a teenage girl discovers a medieval book and a cache of yellowed letters in her diplomat father’s library. The pages of the book are empty except for a woodcut of a dragon. The letters are addressed to: “My dear and unfortunate successor.” When the girl confronts her father, he reluctantly confesses an unsettling story: his involvement, twenty years earlier, in a search for his graduate school mentor, who disappeared from his office only moments after confiding to Paul his certainty that Dracula, Vlad the Impaler, an inventively cruel ruler of Wallachia in the mid-15th century, was still alive. The story turns out to concern our narrator directly because Paul’s collaborator in the search was a fellow student named Helen Rossi (the unacknowledged daughter of his mentor) and our narrator’s long-dead mother, about whom she knows almost nothing. And then her father, leaving just a note, disappears also.
As well as numerous settings, both in and out of the East Bloc, Kostova has three basic story lines to keep straight, one from 1930, when Professor Bartolomew Rossi begins his dangerous research into Dracula, one from 1950, when Professor Rossi’s student Paul takes up the scent, and the main narrative from 1972. The criss-crossing story lines mirror the political advances, retreats, triumphs, and losses that shaped Dracula’s beleaguered homeland, sometimes with the Byzantines on top, sometimes the Ottomans, sometimes the rag-tag local tribes, or the Orthodox church, and sometimes a fresh conqueror like the Soviet Union.
Although the book is appropriately suspenseful and a delight to read, even the minor characters are distinctive and vividly seen, its most powerful moments are those that describe real horrors. Our narrator recalls that after reading descriptions of Vlad burning young boys or impaling “a large family,” she tried to forget the words: “For all his attention to my historical education, my father had neglected to tell me this: history’s terrible moments were real. I understand now, decades later, that he could never have told me. Only history itself can convince you of such a truth.” The reader, although given a satisfying ending, gets a strong enough dose of European history to temper the usual comforts of the closing words.”

If you think the synopsis from Amazon is long, complicated and tedious, try reading the book! My mother loved the book and passed it on to some of her friends, who also liked it a lot. I just thought it was a huge drag. It just rambled on and on and on. The changes from one storyline to the next happened often in the beginning of the book – I kept putting it down a lot to read something else, because I was bored. By the time I picked it up again, I wouldn’t have a clue, whose story I was reading – the characters all sounded the same. About half way through the book I considered tossing it, but sheer stubbornness kept me reading. I finally finished it this morning, thank god! It finished on quite a bitter sweet note. Well, and it tried to leave you with a cliffhanger, of course. Sorry, not scary.
It’s a bestseller, obviously many people liked it. So don’t let me put you off, give it a try!

Synopsis from Amazon:
“Author Jonathan Stroud delivers such a potent and unforgettable mix of magic, history and intrigue with The Amulet of Samarkand, the first part of his compelling Bartimaeus Trilogy, that it is difficult not to want to read the next novel immediately. Undoubtedly the shortest 480 pages you’ll ever read, The Amulet of Samarkand is a superb novel of revenge and adventure with the most original central character for years.
Bartimaeus is a wisecracking Djinni (pronounced “Jinnee” we’re reliably informed) unlike no other. Summoned from some otherworldly place to do the bidding of a pipsqueak trainee magician called Nathanial, he sets about his given task reluctantly but with aplomb. Nathanial is after revenge and that makes him dangerous. Previously humiliated by a powerful magician called Simon Lovelace in front of his impotent master, Nathanial has spent every waking hour for years cramming knowledge of the highest magic into his head so that he can exact his own special kind of vengeance.
Bartimaeus is charged to steal a precious and powerful object, the Amulet of Samarkand, from Lovelace’s residence, which the Djinni achieves but not without angering a few old mates on the same astral plane and having to spend the night annoyingly disguised as a bird. Bartimaeus, despite being bound to Nathaniel, discovers the boy’s real name—a tool he can use to his own advantage. But he is constantly outwitted. Then an overriding danger becomes apparent that threatens the whole fabric of society and they must work together to combat it.
Stroud’s fantasy world is familiar, yet fascinatingly different. It’s almost Victorian London, yet Magicians hold overall power and inhabit parliament. The writing is captivating, the story intelligent and mesmerising. It’s difficult to imagine a more scintillating collection of characters and situations. Unmissable. (Recommended for ages 10 and over.) “

Darker than Harry Potter, in a grimmer Britain with an alternative history where magicians rule. The characters are less lovable, the djinnis seem to be the ones with the real emotions. The idea that magical powers come from the djinnis that are enslaved by magicians summoning them is quite an interesting one. I liked Bartimaeus, I found it a bit depressing though and didn’t like Nathaniel very much. Still, I am tempted to get books 2 and 3, especially after reading the synopsis of book number 3, “Ptolemy’s Gate”.

Absolutely love them! I keep them in the freezer, that way they taste even better….

I read this a long time ago and do not remember any details anymore. But I remember that I really liked it. Very good story, suspense until the end.