Source: Pink flower on stilts by avlxyz (via Flickr)

For non-Aussie readers who follow the blog, today we’re celebrating one of the biggest national events in Australia.

Melbournians are lucky enough to have a public holiday today, and are probably enjoying a champagne breakfast as you read this.

That’s right. They have a public holiday for a horse race.

You see why Australia is the best place to live in? The rest of us grumble about having to go to work, but seriously, who’s working now?

That’s what I thought.

So to celebrate Cup day, we’re running a Readers’ Sweep. Here’s how it works:

1. The first 24 people to comment here or post a reply to me on twitter (@BookThingo) are in.
2. Participants must sign up before 1pm to give me time to allocate the numbers.
3. Only Australian participants* are eligible, but overseas readers can wear fancy hats and join in spirit. *If you live overseas but can supply an Australian mailing address, that’s good enough.
4. I’ll assign random numbers against each participant. Depending on how many there are, we may get 2 or 3 each. The numbers will correspond to horses as per this list.
5. Each participant promises to send a book to the winner. The book can be used, as long as it’s in good nick, and it has to be a book you’d actually recommend to someone (i.e. not from your DNF pile).
6. If, for some reason, the winning number, wasn’t allocated to anyone, then whoever has the highest placing horse will be declared the winner.

Clear as mud?

I’ll announce the winner after the race (usually around 3pm AEDT). Note that, if you win, you’ll have to provide a mailing address to everyone who promised to send you a book. I’ll email you to get your details, then I’ll forward your details to everyone who entered, either via email or by sending them a private message on Twitter.

Update: When I email the winner, I’ll ask for reading preferences, which I’ll send along with your mailing address. This will help everyone send you books you’re more likely to read. However, everyone is, of course, free to send whatever book they wish to the winner.

Participants

It’s locked in! Here’s the final list of participants and the horses they’ve been allocated:

Marg – BASALTICO (18)
Nikki — WARRINGAH (15)
SueBT — MOURILYAN (5)
Cath H. — ZAVITE (10)
Edie — DAFFODIL (20)
Jacq — CRIME SCENE (8)
marybelle — ALLEZ WONDER (22)
Ruth — VIEWED (1)
MdV — LEICA DING (24)
Suzi — CEST LA GUERRE (2)
Camille — MUNSEF (9)
Joie — MASTER OREILLY (4)
Christina — ROMAN EMPEROR (6)
Jill — SHOCKING (21)
Jen — ALCOPOP (11)
Wandergurl — NEWPORT (14)

The race starts at 3pm. Good luck, everyone!

Twitterature by Alexander Aciman and Emmett Rensin

Twitterature: The World’s Greatest Books Retold Through Twitter is funny. Or, as the Internet might say, funneh.

Over the years the Internet has evolved—I refrain from saying “exploded”—into many things, many of which have developed their own language. For those of us who tweet and must use only 140 characters to express ourselves, this lingo comes in handy when we need to cut things down.

Alexander Aciman and Emmett Rensin have used this concept and produced the Web 2.0 version of  CliffsNotes, with each book condensed into around of 2 pages of tweets (some of the more dramatic books get 2.5). While tweeting might not be your thing, the one-liners presented do a great job of condensing the main points into a few interesting lines that pretty much sum up what the book needs to say, with a bit of modern banter and some LOL, WTF, OMG along the way.

Some of my favorites include:

Macbeth
@BigMAC Battle went well! Cut mothafuckas from the nave to the chops! Neither bade farewell nor shook up! WORD UP! REPRESENT!

Oedipus the King
@WhathappensinThebes PARTY IN THEBES!!! Nobody cares I killed that old dude plus this woman is ALL OVER ME!!! Total MILF!

Paradise Lost
@MorningStarlet OMG I’m in HELL!

For people who need a guide to acronyms and such, there’s a handy dandy glossary at the back, and you don’t have to have read all the novels covered—I certainly haven’t. While some of the authors might roll over in their graves thinking, My character is not a hip hop bro, I’m sure many of us (and them) will appreciate the humour that goes with these “translations” of their work. If anything, it might encourage readers to buy the actual novels—I know that Anna Karenina and Heart of Darkness are looking more interesting to me—while some of the entries might make other novels seem pretentious and make you wonder, Why is this required reading again?

Be warned, though, that Twitterature could be considered spoilery. I mean, if the character dies, it’s right there, and if you are ever planning to read that novel and don’t like knowing these things, just be careful. (Though in my opinion someone always dies in required reading.)

One tiny whinge. Some years ago Modern Library published the Best 100 novels of the 20th century, and Ulysses by James Joyce came out as number 1. I have never read it and I am told it’s not an easy read. I was hoping it would be in this book, but it’s not. Can I has a sequel?

Twitterature is published by Penguin Australia and was released this week. The UK edition will be released on November 5, and the US edition on December 29.

US edition

UK edition

Title: Twitterature: The World’s Greatest Books Retold Through Twitter (excerpt)
Authors: Alexander Aciman and Emmett Rensin
ISBN: 9780141047713
Release date: October 26, 2009
Publisher: Penguin Australia
Format: Paperback

Where you can buy this book

AUSTRALIA: Booktopia | Co-op Bookshop| Fishpond | Gleebooks|  Nile | More
EBOOKS: Not available
WORLDWIDE: Amazon US | Amazon UK | Book Depository

Soulless by Gail Carriger (Parasol Protectorate, Book 1)

Gail Carriger’s steampunk paranormal historical romance mixes Victorian manners, werewolves and hickeys in a book that’s a little different from the average paranormal fare.

Alexia Tarabotti is a souless (literally!) spinster with a fondness for parasols, living in a Victorian London populated by supernaturals who are well organised and fully integrated into society. One day she accidentally kills a vampire, and Lord Maccon, head of the Bureau of Unnatural Registry (BUR) is compelled to investigate. (Did I mention Lord Maccon is a hot werewolf?) Alexia’s propensity to get herself into trouble—though by no real fault of her own—means that she and Lord Maccon are constantly being thrown together, with expected and unexpected results.

Soulless is what I would call a steampunk romance. There’s enough technology and innovation to constitute an exploration of that theme, and there’s enough kissing and werewolf hickeys to make it a romance. It’s a good intro to steampunk for urban fantasy readers who are looking to try it, because while it talks about technology and fantasy it’s not so much of a mix that it becomes overwhelming or confusing. It has a good balance of romance as well, though I think the average non-romance reader might wonder why a lot of time is being devoted to nibbling of the non-food variety.

Alexia is a very strong heroine. One of the things that I liked most about her was that she was strong without trying too hard to kick arse and that she was perfectly content with her life. She is a spinster and a bluestocking (at 26, mind you) and she’s all right with that. Not resigned, not boo hoo I’m making the most of what I’ve got with my life, but yeah, I’m all good with that, no worries content. She is naturally curious about the world around her, and thanks to her late father’s extensive library and the scientific developments of that age, she is very well informed. She’s also not a pushover, despite the dramatic nature of her family and the genteel nature of women of that period—she can not only stand up for herself, she can also wield her parasol in an effective manner.

Lord Maccon is a gruff, control freak, alpha male + pack leader who is trying his best not be confuddled by his sudden attraction to Alexia. His attempts to make things right with her remind me of the Hugh Grant character in romantic comedies except with more balls, the ability to kick serious arse and Christian Bale’s body in American Psycho. (Yes!)

The secondary characters are also well fleshed out, like Lord Maccon’s Beta, the ever efficient Professor Lyall, Lord Akeldama the dandiest, fanciest vampire evah, Floote the unflappable butler, and many others.

I quite enjoyed the richness in prose and the vividness of the descriptions, whether it be of technology, Victorian England or the elaborate outfits that went with each character. The exchanges between characters were snappy but proper. I felt that Alexia was polite even when she was rude to her mother—I don’t think I could ever be that eloquent arguing with mine! I also thought that the author had a good grasp of the tone of the era, and the language always felt appropriate, even if the character was acting outside what would be considered the traditional boundaries of Victorian propriety.

Yay or nay?

I would highly recommend this for lovers of urban fantasy, romance or anyone who would like to try something different from the usual paranormal.

Soulless is published by Orbit. The next book in the series, Changeless, is due for release in March 2010.

Title: Soulless (audio excerpt)
Series: The Parasol Protectorate (Book 1)
Author: Gail Carriger
ISBN: 9780316056632
Release date: October 2009
Publisher: Orbit

Where you can buy this book

AUSTRALIA: Booktopia | Dymocks | Ever After | Fishpond | Galaxy | Intrigue | Nile | Rendezvous | Romance Direct | Romantic Reflections | Siren | More
EBOOKS: Books On Board | Diesel | Dymocks | eBooks.com | Fictionwise | Kindle
WORLDWIDE: Amazon US | Amazon UK | Book Depository

What Happens In London by Julia Quinn

Julia Quinn bounces back to form with this witty romantic comedy. Squees all around.

I discovered Julia Quinn after reading The Duke and I many, many years ago. I loved the Bridgerton series but honestly found the books after that to be sadly lacking. I didn’t like The Secret Diaries of Miranda Cheever and I found The Lost Duke of Wyndham and Mr. Cavendish, I Presume to be repetitive and disappointing. So I waited a while before buying this one and was pleasantly surprised to find Quinn back to her old form.

What Happens in London was lovely and delightful. I haven’t been able to say that about a book (much less one of Quinn’s) in a while. It made me smile at the most inopportune moments. I had to put it down and wait until I got home so people wouldn’t think it was silly that I was laughing to myself.

Olivia Bevelstoke is the daughter of an earl. She’s a bit bored this season since her best friend married her brother (see The Secret Diaries of Miranda Cheever) and moved away. She’s got a new neighbour, and the gossipy friends that she has now have told her that he killed his fiancée. So she decides to check him out.

Sir Harry Valentine has no idea why his beautiful neighbour is checking him out—he’s not a spy, just a Russian speaking translator—but hey, he can have fun with that. Things get a little more involved when Olivia attracts the attention of a Russian prince, and Harry has to figure out if there’s anything more to that than meets the eye.

Quinn does a wonderful job of working out the development of Olivia and Harry’s relationship through witty dialogue. Their humorous banter provides for a lot of squee moments. Sebastian, Harry’s BFF (Best Friend Forever) also steals the scenes quite a bit with his ‘acting’ and snarky comments. (I was excited to find out his book will be out next year.) The rest of the characters are well depicted, and Quinn does a good job of fleshing out their personalities through dialogue as well.

The only concern I had was that Olivia was the daughter of an earl, and Harry was merely a baronet. I think that in real life, an earl would take issue with his super popular I-could-marry-a-Duke daughter marrying below her station, but as this is a romance, and the ending was done rather well—squee, squee again—I am willing to forgive that.

Yay or nay?

A resounding yay! I would recommend this book for anyone who needs a smile on their face. If you are stressed, down in the dumps, need a good laugh, read this book. Even if you aren’t feeling this way, get it anyway. I loved this book so much, I forsee rereading it well into the future.

What Happens in London is a companion book to The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever. It is published by HarperCollins under the Avon imprint in Australia and the US, and by Piatkus in the UK. The Australian edition was released this month; the US and UK editions were first released in July.

Australian/US edition

UK edition

Title: What Happens in London (excerpt)
Author: Julia Quinn
ISBN: 9780061491887
Release date: October 1, 2009
Publisher: HarperCollins Australia
Format: A format

Where you can buy this book

AUSTRALIA: Booktopia | Dymocks | Ever After | Fishpond | Intrigue | Nile | Rendezvous | Romance Direct | Romantic Reflections | Siren | More
EBOOKS: Books On Board | Diesel | Dymocks | eBooks.com | Fictionwise | Kindle
WORLDWIDE: Amazon US | Amazon UK | Book Depository

Kindles are available to order for US$279 (A$313) from the Amazon website now and will begin shipping from 19 October. Amazon’s director of merchandising Laura Porco is scheduled to run a demonstration of the device in Sydney on Monday 26 October. An Amazon spokesperson told WBN that it had ‘not been confirmed as yet whether [books from] Australian publishers will be available’ to read on the device.

CNET Australia provides some technical details:

The reader can either download books via USB or by 3G or 2G wireless, without any mobile contracts … but the spokesperson could not give any information on which carrier had been selected.

A spokesperson for VHA said it hadn’t signed a deal with the bookseller. Telstra has yet to respond to queries. Optus said it “had nothing to confirm”. On the site, however, it is possible to check wireless coverage that the device will access, which seems to be quite extensive.

The device weighs around a third of a kilo and is 203.2mm by 134.6mm by 9.1mm. It has 2GB internal storage, with around 1.4GB available for user content, which Amazon says will store up to 1500 books. With one charge, the reader will operate for up to four days.

What’s that loud thump? you ask. That would be the Amazon monopoly crashing into our shores.

Personally, I’m cheap and the price point isn’t low enough for me to buy the Kindle. I’m also not a fan of Amazon’s heavily discounted and loss-leading pricing strategies. But I know a lot of readers who will be excited by this news, and I have to admit that it’s tempting to own a Kindle and be one of the cool ebook reading people.

In any case, I hope the Kindle gives a much-needed boost to Australia’s dismal ebook market by forcing the other products/retailers to increase their marketing efforts, and by encouraging publishers to release locally published books in a digital format.

The Bookseller+Publisher article quotes Don Grover, CEO of Dymocks, on some possible implications on the local ebook market. Basically, Grover thinks the ebook market won’t grow unless Australians have access to good content.

I’ll be interested to see if Amazon makes inroads into our local ebook market where Dymocks has not. (Because I think Dymocks’s strategy was flawed and didn’t really understand its target market.) It’ll also be interesting to see if the other ebook readers used by Australians—Sony eReader, Hanlin/BeBook, Cybook, Iliad—will be muscled out by Amazon, or if they’ll benefit from the overall increased awareness of ebooks.

This is a very interesting development in Australia’s book market, given that the parallel import restrictions are still under review. I don’t have any insider knowledge about anything, so I’m going to use this post to link to articles covering the Kindle’s international release. Watch this space!

Click here to pre-order the Kindle from Amazon. The product ships on October 19.

Links round-up

I’ll add links as I find them, and the newest will be at the bottom of the list. (Thanks to @OzAlleyCat for the help!)

• Amazon Kindle Now for Sale to Customers in More Than 100 Countries (Amazon)
• Kindle available to Australia (Bookseller+Publisher) — Quotes from Dymocks CEO regarding availablity of ebooks in Australia
• Amazon’s Kindle comes to Oz (CNET Australia) — Technical details regarding WiFi and specs
• Amazon’s Kindle heading for Australia (SMH) — Strangely devoid of any questions pertaining to the local market
• Kindle To Be Sold To Australian Customers (Lifehacker Australia) — Around 200,000 titles available for download, 3G coverage but provider hasn’t been confirmed
• Amazon launches the Kindle worldwide, UK store to follow (Bookseller.com) — Details on UK publishers who will make books available for Kindle
• Amazon Lowers Price on #1 Bestseller Kindle to $259 and Introduces New Addition to the Kindle Family of Wireless Reading Devices-Kindle with U.S. & International Wireless (Amazon)
• And here comes the Kindle (Rachael’s Ramble) — Goes into more detail on the hash Dymocks made of marketing their ebook offerings
• Kindle Gets Cheaper, Travels Internationally (Technologizer) — Kindle will have US interface, no local models yet
• Kindle comes to Oz! (The Book is Dead) — Questions, questions, so many questions…
• Kindle coming to Australia (bookbook blog) — Excellent post to counter all the WOOHOO-ing on the Kindle. Not sure points on PIR are correct (will update this when I find out more) but I agree with Charlie’s assessment of what the Kindle is and what it isn’t:
  

  The Kindle has been widely hailed as heralding a reading revolution but what it’s actually heralded is a bookselling revolution…Amazon really ought to be paying you to own one not the other way round.

• Tax headache looms for UK Kindle buyers (Times Online) — Covers the UK release of the Kindle, but it’s worth reading because I think some of the issues are things we ought to be thinking about in Australia. What about the GST, for example? I don’t think it’s fair for Amazon to bypass our tax laws when every local bookshop has to charge GST.
• Amazon Kindle Available to International Customers (MonkeyBear Reviews) — Not Australia-specific, but raises salient points about being an international Kindle user
• Amazon Kindle International Fail??? (MonkeyBear Reviews) — No way to know what books are no geo restricted until you’ve already bought the Kindle
• Kindle not the book’s iPod moment (Crikey) — “If an e-reader user wants to experience all the frustrations that currently exist in the market for an Australian e-book provider they should buy a Kindle now,” says Australian Booksellers Association CEO. PIR shouldn’t be an issue, but Amazon restricts sales to Australia. (I’ve always wondered about geo restrictions for Australia—the PIR provision for one-off customer special orders that should allow Australians to buy ebooks published overseas—but I have yet to hear a satisfactory explanation of why it’s happening.)
• Kindle Goes International — With a Little Help From AT&T (Wired) — Sheds light on how Amazon is getting around the issue of geo restrictions. Basically, they made deals with English-language publishers to pay royalties to the print rights holder in the country of purchase.
• International Kindle comparison table (Blog Kindle)
• Kindle in bad books as Aussies hit with higher costs (SMH) — Kindle ebooks will cost more for non-US readers due to roaming fees associated with Amazon’s WiFi deal with AT&T. The Australian Society of Authors is advising members to resist the Kindle push because profits are going to Amazon, and not to publishers or authors.
• Kindle opens a new chapter in publishing (SMH) — Questions regarding availability of titles for Australian Kindle users, and a very quick round-up of alternative ereaders
• Amazon Kindle International – publishers screw readers again (TeleRead) — Skim through the actual post and read the comments. As @Tim_Coronel pointed out, questions about rights ownership should be directed at agents and authors more than publishers.
• Kindle available to Australia (follow-up article, Bookseller+Publisher) — Geo restrictions will apply to Australian Kindle users, and few of the books available are new or local books. What right to publishers have to restrict foreign ebook sales when Australian parallel import restrictions allow legal purchases foreign print book editions as special orders? Lonely Planets is the only confirmed local publisher to have agreement with Amazon, although Simon & Schuster plans to have local ebooks for Kindle by Christmas.

More at Book Thingo:

• Parallel importation of books to Australia (Part 1)
• Parallel importation of books to Australia (Part 2)
• Productivity Commission expected to recommend open market for books

The Outlaw Demon Wails by Kim Harrison

This was a book I had in my TBR box for a while, mainly because someone had spoilt something in the previous book, For a Few Demons More, so I was a bit put off reading that one and not about to jump ahead. I finally read For a Few Demons More before the challenge and decided to forge ahead with The Outlaw Demon Wails while the details of the last book were still fresh in my mind.

Rachel Morgan is determined to squash her inner adrenaline junkie and make wiser decisions that won’t land her and her friends in so much trouble. But a request for her help in obtaining an elf DNA sample from the ever-after leads to a revelation of Rachel’s true origins and changes her perspective on family and risk-taking.

I enjoyed seeing Rachel’s character grow, and there are also some developments in the world as a consequence of the previous book that are still playing out. Rachel isn’t the only one to have grown. Trent Kalamack, who seems to live in the grey area despite holding some very black and white beliefs, gets his eyes opened as well and we get a better understanding of why he does some of the things he does. For the first time that I can remember, I finished reading the book without the usual feeling that things will get worse for Rachel before they get better.

At the end of the book, there is a short story about the demon Algaliarept and how Ceri came to be his familiar.

Some recollection of previous books is required because references to earlier events are frequently made and characters do play parts in later books. They are definitely not to be read as stand alones.

Dance with a Vampire by Ellen Schreiber

Raven Madison is a goth who stands out in her home town dubbed Dullsville. Nothing happens until the arrival of a boy around her age whom no one ever sees, especially in daylight. She barges into Alexander Sterling’s world and charms the pants off him (well, not literally because this is YA—Raven has slept with Alexander in his coffin, but there’s no mention of any extracurricular activities). His arrival brings complications that run their course over several books, and Dance with a Vampire is the fourth in the series.

A young vampire boy, who is the younger brother of Alexander’s enemy, has latched onto Raven’s decidedly un-Goth little brother, but no one else seems to realise that Valentine is different from other boys his age.

Raven and Alexander try to set traps for Valentine and track him down without letting anyone know that he and Alexander are real vampires, while Raven prepares for prom, makes time for her best friend (who now also has a boyfriend), has verbal skirmishes with her nemesis Trevor Morgan (who seems to have had a crush on her until he realised that he would have to disregard his friends’ opinions and his own need for peer acceptance to be with her), and romanticises her future with Alexander until she is shown that she is not yet ready to give up her humanity after all.

I would describe the series as a soft YA because Raven overly romanticises her future with Alexander, not to mention the aforementioned lack of extracurriculars in the coffin. She’s not quite as wholesome as the teenagers in YA fiction I’m complaining about in my description of Vampire Academy, but she’s decidedly quite innocent and much less independent than Richelle Mead’s teenagers.

Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead

I bought this book solely because I was planning to go to Richelle Mead’s book signing at Galaxy and didn’t want to meet her without having read something she’d written. Although I don’t read much YA fiction anymore, I chose Vampire Academy over her other 2 series because I have been a vampire fan for well over a decade. Actually, the main reason I had avoided these books up until now was that they have been published in C format size, which I find annoying. What’s wrong with publishing them as normal-sized paperbacks?

What I enjoyed most about Vampire Academy was that it wasn’t written in the same style as the YA fiction published when I was a teenager in the 90s. Back then, high school students were written with more maturity than many adults have developed today. They were insightful and didn’t write people off because they didn’t understand them. Their hearts beat faster from holding someone’s hand or a simple kiss and most of them never even thought about sex. These people on the verge of adulthood referred to fellow students their own age as ‘kids’ and girls were attracted to ‘boys’. Does that bear even the slightest resemblance to ANYONE’S high school experience? It sure as hell wasn’t mine.

Enter 17-year old Rose Hathaway. She swears, drinks, sneaks out, breaks rules and flirts simply because she enjoys male attention. She also has a crush on her 24-year old mentor. Her best friend Lissa is popular and gifted, but depressed and cuts herself to release emotional pain. The behaviour isn’t glamourised but simply presented as part of how these teenagers cope through what can be a dark time in many people’s lives.

Rose and Lissa were forced to escape St Vladimir’s Academy and the story opens when the Guardians track them down and drag them back to the campus. There they deal with following someone else’s rules again, reaction from the rest of the academy’s population (not all of which is positive and awe-stricken), separation and some very cruel pranks while figuring out whom they can trust.

As far as a recommendation goes, I hadn’t even finished this book before deciding to buy the rest of the series.

Seducing Mr. Darcy by Gwyn Cready

Flip (born Phillippa) Allison is divorced and unhappily childless. Her discussion at a cafe about Pride and Prejudice’s MrDarcy and the likely heat of his passion is overheard by Austen professor and literary snob Magnus Knightley, who immediately looks down on Flip for her crass comments and casual bird-watching field uniform (complete with bird shit), in full imitation of art by art.

After a massage during which she imagines herself with Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice, she rereads the book and, this time, there’s a reference to the character she played in her dream. Even worse, the antique edition on display is even more adulterated. Flip could really do with the help of an Austen scholar. If only we had one of those floating around the place…

Meanwhile, Flip’s ex likes having sex with a string of young, rich and entitled interns on Flip’s desk and after one such encounter, he and his current partner discover an extinct bird in Flip’s purse from her encounter with Darcy. The ex tries to blackmail Flip and undermine her chances of being selected for an expedition they’re both applying for, while the rich bitch does some sneaking around of her own to see how she can turn the situation to her advantage.

Seducing Mr. Darcy won the RITA for Best Paranormal Romance Novel in 2009, which cemented my decision to read it, and I’m really glad I did. The story was a lot of fun and the banter between Magnus and Flip was pretty hot. I can honestly say that I had never found the game of Scrabble to be even the slightest bit sexy until I read this book. The Scrabble scene alone should get another award!

In some ways the deviations made to the characters are even more out there than in Lost in Austen and I didn’t always find them very convincing. Maybe it was to evoke a sense of wrongness that makes it more urgent for Flip and Magnus to fix the book, or maybe it’s because we all might infer different things about how certain characters might react from how they are presented in the original work. But if you have faith that the story won’t get murdered, this book is well worth the read.

Nice Girls Don’t Date Dead Men by Molly Harper

I just found out that this is actually a closed-ended series, which, for those who have never heard these words used together, means that it actually has an end—something that is almost unheard of in the current paranormal romance climate. I’m so sceptical that I’m going to cover my arse and say that Harper described her debut book Nice Girls Don’t Have Fangs on her website as ‘planned as the first in a three-book series.’ Plans can change is all I’m going to say.

Nice Girls Don’t Date is the second book in the series. Jane is a former librarian who was turned by the hot vampire Gabriel to save her life. Before her death, she may not have been the most exciting, kick-arse character, but realistically I think most of us can relate to her love of books (particularly Austen—she named her dog Fitz after Fitzwilliam Darcy), intelligence and snarky, sarcastic sense of humour. Jane’s character and a recommendation from Sofia at Galaxy were the reasons I started reading this series.

Jane has adjusted to her new life as a vampire, living with her dead Aunt Jettie’s ghost, helping her best friend plan his wedding, having a relationship with her sire, and coping with her family’s denial of her condition, so don’t expect Jane to be the focus of the book this time, despite its being a first person narrative. There are strange happenings, but no murder plot. The threats are less overt so it feels as though this book ran at a slower pace and wasn’t quite as exciting as Nice Girls Don’t Have Fangs, but it is still a good read and left enough questions unanswered for me to read the third (and final?) book, Nice Girls Don’t Live Forever, to be released January 2010.

This Duchess of Mine by Eloisa James

As the central romance began as a subplot throughout the Desperate Duchesses series, readers of the series already know that Jemma left her husband Elijah, Duke of Beaumont, after she found him fornicating with his mistress on his desk during his lunch hour after having left the marital bed that morning. He asked her to return home as he has cardiac arrhythmia and needs to beget an heir. Only when she arrives, he keeps finding reasons not to bed her. She wants Elijah to love her, so arranges for another woman to pursue him as well so that he can feel as though he has options, but he is expected to choose her over her rival. Somehow she never saw the obvious flaw in her plan and was both surprised and annoyed when he appears to be flirting with her rival. Adding insult to injury, she had to compete for his attention against his work.

In theory, I would be hesitant to accept the redemption of a cheating husband, but from the beginning James established Elijah as having good, solid intentions, and his (one-off?) adultery was easier to forgive because the encounter took place years before the book is set, he is shown to be pathologically honourable in every other respect, and Jemma is well known for creating scandals of her own. At the risk of sounding like a cop-out, Elijah didn’t really want to have sex with his mistress and compartmentalised this business transaction separately from sex with his new wife.

Despite touching on the adultery hot button, James did the right thing in having them get to know each other during a courtship period, which they hadn’t had before they were married and they were able to show that they had developed real feeling for each other and that made me forgive their flaws.

A Duke of Her Own by Eloisa James

Eleanor loves Gideon. Gideon loves Eleanor but married Ada instead. So Eleanor declared her loyalty to Gideon by stating to the ton that she would not marry less than a duke. Enter the Duke of Villiers, who has more bastards than the classic Thredbo ad and needs to marry a duke’s daughter. Everyone assumes the match will take place—after all, the only other duke’s daughter is insane.

Villiers really doesn’t care what the ton thinks and neither does Lisette. Her fiancé has spent the past six years overseas to avoid marrying her or paying back her dowry and she’s in no rush for him to return. She’d much prefer to paint and stage plays for the local orphans to perform in. Villiers sees her as the perfect mother for his six illegitimate children and wants sweet, delicate Lisette in his nursery, and her friend, the sarcastic, sexy Eleanor in his bed.

I was glad that Villiers finally got an HEA of his own after getting dumped at least twice in the series. I enjoyed his banter with Eleanor, and his eldest son provided some comic relief as well. But warning to Kat: There is a love polygon of sorts and some characters end up alone. That’s all I’m going to say.

More at Book Thingo:

• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

Lavinia by Ursula Le Guin

When I realised I couldn’t, in good faith, review this book—the reasons for which are outlined below—I asked my friend Gutsy if she’d be interested in reading it. Gutsy and I share a love of beautifully written fantasy novels. She’s the only person to whom I’ve ever lent my Patricia A. McKillip hardbacks. Gutsy is currently doing her PhD in Children’s Literature.

Anyone who’s read The Aeneid would have learned that Vergil had considered it an unfinished work. Ursula K. Le Guin spun that concept into her version of the events that led to the founding of Rome and moved beyond Vergil’s ending, beginning from an ending she herself imagined of what had become of the heroes of The Aeneid after the war had been won.

Lavinia, princess of Latium, tells us the story of how she came to be promised to a foreign hero causing a war to be fought in her name. We walk with her through the forests of an Italy far removed from even the ancient Rome we are familiar with, from the innocence of her girlhood to the burdens and joys of an awakened womanhood and to her days as the mother of Rome.

So, does it have a happy ending?

Lavinia was given to me to review with the words, ‘don’t worry! It’s a retelling of The Aeneid so it has a happy ending’. A quick look at Wikipedia created visions of an epic war fought by valiant heroes and ending in victory and perhaps with a wedding. Being a long-time fan of Ursula K. Le Guin’s excellent prose, my imagination was primed. And, being a long-time fan of Ursula K. Le Guin’s excellent prose, I had a nagging suspicion that a price would be paid for a happy ending. Sure enough, when Kat handed the book over to me a few days later it was with the guilty confession, ‘I peeked at the ending and it does not sound so happy.’

And so I begin my review with this: Lavinia does not have a happy ending, but neither does it end sadly. Le Guin does not change the ending but moves beyond the myth of ‘happily ever after’. Yes, that sounds suspiciously like real life.

I do not consider this a spoiler, because Lavinia herself begins her tale at the end with a reflection of her own mortality—and what’s more, of her own fictionality as a character in an ancient tale—in the light of being left behind by the ones she loves most.

The heroine

Le Guin took the few lines Vergil wrote on the princess of Latium and breathed life into her, giving the name Lavinia flesh, a heartbeat and a down-to-earth voice filled with compassion, intelligence, piety and honour:

Like Spartan Helen, I caused a war. She caused hers by letting men who wanted her to take her. I caused mine because I wouldn’t be given, wouldn’t be taken, but chose my man and my fate. The man was famous, the fate obscure; not a bad balance.

Lavinia is aware of the inescapability of her destiny and shows us the wisdom in choosing the paths the gods lay at our feet and the freedom that comes with doing so.

I think of her as a woman’s heroine. She is silent yet not voiceless. She watches and sees the truth, and draws courage from doing what she knows is right even as she is caught between her love for her benevolent father, her fear of her mad mother, her anxiety over the attentions of her many suitors, the visions she has of a great poet from the future whose words create her life, her attraction to the mysterious hero Aenaeas, and the knowledge that the future of her country lies in her hands.

With Lavinia as the heroine, Le Guin brings to light the domestic side of Vergil’s epic. History buffs may enjoy the careful detail Le Guin takes in describing the management of a Latium household and kingdom. She deftly weaves the mythical and the mundane so that we, like Lavinia, carefully tread the thin line between fact and fiction.

I thought I would get annoyed at Lavinia because she seemed so ordinary for a princess. I realized after a couple of pages that her ordinariness was her strength. She was a princess of a land that may or may not have existed and, although the context is fantastically removed from our own twenty-first century concerns her emotional turmoil, her reflective character, and her womanly tasks as daughter and wife, although set in a different time and place, are so relatable. There were moments in the book where I felt bogged down by the details of running the household or preparing the sacrifices or the ups and downs of marriage, yet overall I enjoyed walking Lavinia’s path with her. Lavinia completes The Aeneid by giving the epic a woman’s voice and reminding us that all stories have more than one side to them.

A tribute to Vergil

Lavinia is Le Guin’s loving tribute to Vergil. She writes the poet into her own work, blurring the line between myth and history, story and fact. Lavinia’s conversations with Vergil are some of the best scenes in the book, standing as they do in a space that exists between fiction and reality. Lavinia herself questions her existence, wondering if she is only the product of a poet’s imagination and knowing that in the end it didn’t matter. What was important was the quality of life she led and who she allowed herself to be in the space that lay between her destiny and herself. In making us aware of the relationship between an author and the characters she created, Le Guin makes our minds turn to our own relationships with the powers that be, the universe and everything.

Yay or Nay?

Le Guin’s prose is written so beautifully. I felt like I had walked into a tapestry, each word a thread skillfully woven into the next. I was totally immersed in the lovely and terrible world she created that I knew was imaginary but also loosely based on the actual past of Italy. I found the narrative to be as carefully crafted yet less dense than that of her Earthsea Quartet.

If you like Le Guin, Lavinia is a must-read. If you enjoy reading retellings of myths, fairy tales and folk tales, Lavinia is masterfully written and adds new dimensions to the epic tale. If your definition of a happy ending is a wedding, then put the book down and move on. But if a happy ending for you is one where the heroine grows into a woman who knows her mind and knows herself no matter the conditions of her fate, then you will not regret getting to know Lavinia.

A review copy of Lavinia was generously provided by Hachette Australia.

Australian paperback

UK hardback

US paperback

US hardcover

Title: Lavinia (excerpt)
Author: Ursula Le Guin
ISBN: 9780575084599
Release date: July 2009
Publisher: Gollancz (Hachette Australia)
Format: C format

Where you can buy this book

AUSTRALIA: Booktopia | Borders | Dymocks | Fishpond | Galaxy | Nile | More
EBOOKS: Kindle
WORLDWIDE: Amazon US | Amazon UK | The Book Depository

How to Break Your Own Heart by Maggie Alderson

Recently, in romance blogland, someone asked where the older romance heroine has gone. I can tell you this much: she’s not in this book.

My biggest problem with How to Break Your Own Heart is that it’s not a romance. If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have picked it up—it’s not the sort of premise I’d invest time in unless I know there will be a happy ending.

Yes, I read the back of the book. Oh, it deceived me. And so did the book’s nomination for a R*BY Award for Romantic Elements. Seriously, I’m not sure which Australian romance readers judged this book, but the readers I know would throw it against the wall.

Amelia Bradlow is content with her life. Her husband, Ed, isn’t the most demonstrative man on earth, but he loves her and provides for her. She has a job, and although it’s not the most wonderful career ever, she’s fine with it. But she’s 37 and approaching the point of no return for having a baby. To her dismay, it seems Ed isn’t so keen on children.

When Amelia starts spending more time with her best friend, Kiki, she starts questioning whether or not her marriage is as perfect as it seems. From having separate bedrooms, to the issue of kids, to Ed’s reluctance to change their comfortable routine—Amelia must decide how she wants to live the rest of her life before it’s too late.

Love triangle

I knew from reading the ending first that there’s an alternative hero in this book. Joseph was Amelia’s Might’ve-Been in high school. A friend of her brother’s, Joseph had a girlfriend at the time, and it didn’t end well.

But the problem with the setup is that Maggie Alderson starts off by recounting Ed’s courtship of Amelia. It’s actually a lovely, gentle, old-fashioned romance in France, and I wanted Ed and Amelia to have a happy ending.

Soon, of course, the cracks in their present relationship become obvious: they sleep in separate beds, Ed hates Amelia’s haircut, Ed hates Kiki’s influence on her, Ed doesn’t like Amelia working … and so on. Demonise the husband much?

Amelia encounters Joseph again at a party, and she feels sparks flying. Joseph says some things that imply he’s interested in her and has thought of her over the years.

Blech.

First, the guy was a two-timing slut in high school. I don’t care if he liked Amelia—you don’t do that to your best friend’s sister, of all people. Second, I don’t care if he’s pined for her for the last two decades—not that I can believe it—you don’t go pushing the boundaries with someone else’s wife.

Show stoppers

*** Major spoilers. Skip to the next section if you don’t want to read them. ***

So if adultery is a showstopper for you, don’t pick up this book. While Amelia and Ed are ‘working out their problems’, she ends up in bed with Joseph. It was glorious! She has her first orgasm! But when Ed wants to work things out, she goes along to see if they can talk it out like adults … and then she sleeps with Ed! Except Ed realises her bedroom technique has changed, so he knows she cheated on him.

Oh, and Joseph may have been married at the time. Also, he may have slept with Kiki.

You know what, some porntastic scenes might actually have made this plot bearable.

Ye olde biological clock

Seriously, if at 37 years of age (and with the benefit of a decent education) you all of a sudden realise that your biological clock is ticking, you’re an idiot.

Amelia’s desire for a baby outweighs all the other good things in her life. It pissed me off, to be honest.

And Kiki is childless, not out of choice, but because she can’t conceive. That pissed me off, too.

The only character in the story who doesn’t want a baby is Ed, and he’s painted out to be the bad guy because of this, never mind the fact that the story is littered with horrible parents and Ed actually has genuine emotional/psychological reasons for not wanting kids.

There are other stupid little details around this issue of not wanting babies. Amelia starts hating Ed’s insistence on using a condom. For years, these people have used condoms. Why didn’t Ed just get a full vasectomy?

So Amelia’s fear of never having the opportunity to be a mother drives her most important decisions in this book. Basically, she has a midlife crisis and, after years of leeching off her husband, decides to trade him in.

What happens when you can’t stand the heroine

I just couldn’t believe Amelia. For a well-travelled, 37-year old woman, she sounded like a 60-year old nanna who has never read an issue of Cosmo in her life. She’s passive-aggressive, and her behaviour made me feel sorry for Ed. Ed wasn’t even that likeable by the end—he has anger management and possibly self-obsession issues—but I still felt like he wasted the best years of his life on Amelia.

Amelia’s character development serves the plot. For example, she’s never had orgasm and doesn’t really know her feminine power, yet she manages to flirt her brother out of trouble just because she’s wearing some flattering clothes. Blech.

Yay or nay?

I can’t recommend this book to romance readers. But if you’re after women’s fiction with a kind of Britishy feel to it (Aussie readers might understand what I’m talking about here), I guess this book might work.

How to Break Your Own Heart is listed in the 2009 Books Alive Guide.

Title: How to Break Your Own Heart (excerpt)
Author: Maggie Alderson
ISBN: 9780143009658 | 9780718104924
Release date: August 2008
Publisher: Penguin Australia
Format: C format

Where you can buy this book

AUSTRALIA: Booktopia | Borders | Dymocks | Fishpond | Nile | More
EBOOKS: Not available
WORLDWIDE: Amazon US | Amazon UK | The Book Depository

The lamb’s blood was splattered against the wall. Its bleating shrieks of pain and surprise drowned out the crowd noise around them. The woman covered her ears to the animal’s pitiful cries. In a circle, the seven of them stood around the dying creature.

Of all the bloody (ha!) things to criticise about the work, some commenters immediately latched on to the first sentence. Among the criticisms (I’ll link directly to the comment for attribution—this post isn’t about pointing fingers):

#1 Ouch, started in the passive!

#13 The gore didn’t disturb me as much as the passive voice…

#16 I don’t have a huge problem with the lamb being killed, but the passive structure of the first sentence gave me pause, as did the woman not having a name.

Plus a few more follow-on comments which, while not mentioning passive per se, go with the idea that the first sentence is somehow flawed because of the use of ‘was splattered’.

So tell me: Does the first sentence use the passive voice?

But wait! Before you answer that, here’s an example. Read the following and identify every instance where the author uses the passive voice.

(Note: This is an extract from a student paper.* The goal is not to critique the actual essay, but to objectively identify the passive voice when it’s used.)

What Innocent never mentions in his writing is that the Church at the time faced more opposition than perhaps it cared to admit. Innocent didn’t enjoy the security that his writing made it seem. The goal of Henry VU had been to control Italy. The papacy did its best to prevent this by refusing to crown Henry emperor unless he promised not to control Italy. Henry was obviously very interested in doing so, but died before his plans could come to fruition. Innocent was quite brilliantly using the vacancy in the emperor’s throne to try to place the church back into assured power, by stepping in to control who would become pope, almost exactly what Henry VI had done in 1075.

Innocent was also reluctant to mention the position in which heresy was putting the church. It was relatively easy to stomp out a few flames of nonbelievers, but lately more and more people were opposing the official viewpoint in one way or another. Innocent saw his people taken from him by the Waldensian heresy and the Albigensian, or Cather, heresy. People began to realize that the church was corrupt, that church practices were more and more motivated by income. Heresies that were motivated by legitimated concerns were more likely to attract attention, but none of this was mentioned by Innocent in his writing on The Punishment of Heretics in 1198.

I’ll wait for you to read it a few more times.

Did you find all the instances where the passive voice was used?

Are you sure?

REALLY?

You might be interested to learn that there are only FOUR such instances in the entire extract. Yes, four.

And you probably didn’t even spot one of them.

So, back to the first sentence of Trespasses and Sins: Does the first sentence use the passive voice?**

* Source: ‘Confusion over avoiding the passive’ by Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum. The webpage includes a comprehensive list of links to other discussions about the passive construction, as well as an analysis of which sentences do indeed use the passive voice.

** I’d also like to point out that I doubt I’d have got the answer right. In my defence, I’m well aware of my ignorance.

The 2009 Books Alive Reading Challenge finished yesterday (or today if you’re behind the date line). Stop reading and start writing your lists! Include a link to your challenge results in the comments below, so we can check out what you read. I’ll post a round-up post next week, so you have until Sunday to get those reviews done!

If you don’t have a blog, feel free to list your books in the comments below, or let me know if you’d like to do a guest post here on Book Thingo.

Books Alive Quickie Challenge

Here’s a list of the top 10 books I’ve read this year so far.

1. My Lord and Spymaster by Joanna Bourne – If you think romance writers can’t write beautiful prose, you need to read this book.

2. Addition by Toni Jordan – For maths nerds, people who count their steps, and lovers of base 10. You know who you are.

3. Old Man’s War by John Scalzi – An old man signs up for the intergalactic army. In exchange for a new, youthful body, he has to face some of Earth’s most vicious enemies. At its core, the story explores the human condition.

4. Affection: A Memoir of Love, Sex and Intimacy by Krissy Kneen – Raw, beautiful, disturbing. I’ve had all sorts of difficulty writing a review for this book. Reading it was a very personal experience.

5. The Switch by Lynsay Sands – One of the funniest romances I’ve ever read.

6. Disco Boy by Dominic Knight – The authentic 20-something, post-uni experience for people with some ambition and not much motivation.

7. Courting Disaster by Kathleen O’Reilly – One of my favourite contemporary heroes, and a virgin heroine who didn’t get on my nerves.

OR

Hot Under Pressure by Kathleen O’Reilly – The ultimate airplane fling story. O’Reilly is great at concocting realistic conflicts. I think she’s one of the best contemporary romance authors today.

8. Branded by Fire by Nalini Singh – Rawr! The sexiest book in the Psy-Changeling series.

9. The Last Stormlord by Glenda Larke – One of the most original fantasy worlds I’ve read.

10. Dark Country by Bronwyn Parry – More suspense than romance, this book captures the spirit of small outback communities. It’s rare for me to find outback books appealing, but Parry is 2 for 2.

What were your favourite reads this year? And if you took the Books Alive Challenge, don’t forget to include a link to your challenge results!

More at Book Thingo:

• Books Alive 2009 Reading Challenge
• Books Alive 2009 Reading Challenge starts tomorrow
• Books Alive 2009 Reading Challenge progress report