Nic Dempsey

Leviathan Wakes – James S. A. Corey (library book)

I surprised myself with how much I enjoyed it. The world building is great and it’s not hard sci-fi so not too technical, I found myself feeling sorry for Miller and hoping that he’d have a better ending but it wasn’t to be. I’ve already ordered the next one from the library, I have a feeling that this could be a Game of Thrones problem there are 9 books planned and 5 I think published so I’ll be hanging around waiting the next book to find out what is going to happen.

Rivers of London – Ben Aaronovitch (library book)

This was recommended to me at Christmas by Fred. He was right this was right up my alley. Funny, does London well and I ordered the next one from the library as soon as I finished it!

A review of a later book in this series noted Aaronovitch has a “tendency to support the narrator’s male gaze” and that exactly sums up the thing that made me uncomfortable in places. Grant shares a bed with a female colleague in a non sexual way and has an erection which she is ‘kind enough not to mention’ (no just no, most women of that age that I know, particularly a bright policewoman would say something!) and there are other descriptions of women that make me uncomfortable and didn’t ring true to the age that Grant is supposed to be, it’s like Aaronovitch is writing about someone his age (late 40’s, early 50’s) with the attitudes towards women that go with it and applying them to a 20 something. I noticed and I wasn’t keen. That aside, I really liked the book and it made me laugh and I annoyed people by quoting bits of it to them…

The Quarry – Iain Banks (library book)

Iain Banks last book and I really wanted to like it. I didn’t much. I liked Kit well enough but I have no tolerance for the kind of fuckwittery practiced by the other characters. Behaviour that is acceptable in twentysomethings is not acceptable in fortysomethings. I just wanted them to grow the hell up and think about Kit. The whole bunch of them were charmless, selfish idiots with no redeeming features, I know that people aren’t perfect and that they fuck up but I need to see contrition, an understanding of how your actions impact on others and I just didn’t. I deliberately don’t have people that selfish and thoughtless in my life so it’s not nice to find them in my fiction..

Moon over Soho – Ben Aaronovitch (library book)

Still good, still have the same ‘male gaze’ issues but the story is moving along nicely, I have my doubts about Lesley and I just want that down now before I read the next ones. Which are on order at the library…

Whispers Underground – Ben Aaronvitch (library book)

I really liked this. We’re finding out more about the world. It has lots of London and its history in it which is always going to make me happy and I like the addition of Zach and that we still get to see more of the Rivers.

Big Sky Country – Linda Lael Miller (kindle TBR list)

Big Sky Mountain- Linda Lael Miller (kindle TBR list)

Big Sky River – Linda Lael Miller (kindle TBR list)

Big Sky Summer – Linda Lael Miller (kindle TBR list)

Big Sky Wedding – Linda Lael Miller (kindle TBR list)

Big Sky Secrets – Linda Lael Miller (kindle TBR list)

I bought these 6 on sale about 3 years ago (this is why I have yearly limit on book buying, I can’t be trusted!) and they have been on the TBR list ever since because just after I bought them I read a review that wasn’t complimentary. Anyway, I was struggling a bit with finding something I wanted to read and came across these and away I went. I’m going to lump them all in together because I pretty much read them one after another. So the first thing to know is that they are pretty traditional category romance, which means they absolutely have a formula, love starts with dislike (or passion as the author would have it) sex happens once and then not really again until feelings have been declared (while we’re on that the descriptions of sex are hilarious!) and feelings are declared quickly within about 2 weeks and always end with a wedding. But there’s other stuff going on here too, there’s a theme through the books about parenthood with step children and adopted children and half sibling involved and cherished, all of the woman have careers, a couple of them are richer than their eventual husbands. Ok, I did find that everything works out a little bit too easily and there is a lot of money swilling about this fictional small town in Montana but as I didn’t want to think too hard, I could handwave that so I’m giving it a pass and pointing out that in a week were I was struggling because I wasn’t sleeping and work was tough, these were just what the doctor ordered.

Broken Homes – Ben Aaronovitch (library book)

God bless the library reservations system, hello book 4 in the Rivers of London series. I was right, Lesley not to be trusted but at the same time you can absolutely understand why she did it, even if you don’t like it because Peter while trying not to be a completely insensitive ass does mind what happened to her face but not for him but for her because she minds. I like that Peter is bringing all these people to Nightingale and you can see how the relationships are developing through the conversations. There’s still a lot to unpick, I’m waiting for book five from the library and book six is out in June..