And then it was Feb

Good afternoon lounge lizards,

I was looking over my CV today and one of my friends suggested inclusion of my personal interests in my resume... this gave me pause for thought, for two reasons...

1. I don't do anything cool!

2. I don't want to admit that I don't do anything cool!

So, in order to limit the damage, I have listed:

Personal Interests:

1. Travel

2. Writing

3. Renovating

Travel, definitely

Writing, well, my lack of input here would reflect a certain reticence regarding that

Renovating??? definitely have issues with calling that an interest... I have been "working" on my bathroom since Aug 2009, and by working I mean stripping some paint for an hour every 6 months or so, with the result that my bathroom constantly looks like it's moulting:

So, I'm not sure I can claim renovations, but we will give it a go....

Anyway, the actual purpose of writing - keeping you up to date on the latest and greatest in Urban Fantasy....

So January was Kelley Armstrong Month
I managed to swing a trip to Houston for work, and went absolutely mental on the Amazon "one click" button, with the result that I have a heck of a lot of reading to catch up on.
First was to get my teeth stuck into some Kelley Armstrong, starting at the beginning...
Bitten is written from Elena's perspective - a thirty-something female werewolf; she's living outside the pack's protection but as an extremely rare female, it's tough to fit into human life when the males of the species will do anything to get their hands on you.
This book set Elena on the path to be a regular favourite in the "Otherworld" universe, but it wasn't until Stolen that Armstrong really got to the guts of her vision of the otherworld.
Again, Elena sets up the story, but now we are introduced to a whole swath of other characters who will feature for the next 12 books, countless short stories and two spin-off trilogies.
I really liked this method of introducing a character in a book possibly two or three (or in Savannah's case 11) books before you really got their story... it gives you a chance to actually care about the character from the start of the book, but allows for tales which could never have been told if Armstrong had stuck with Elena's first person view of the world; it also removes the need for wearing in the reader to the new universes just to be able to tell a story, and gives the feeling that at book 11 we are only just beginning to warm up! Armstrong revisits favourite characters, and has provided a reality that's not just good and evil, but really plays into the shades of gray that we see daily - I love the idea of the Sorcerer's Cabals being multinational corporations, it gives them depth and nastiness but also provides a logic for the power base (by providing protection for their many employees from the prying eyes of humans, they are able to occasionally kill a recalcitrant security guard out of hand...)

So basically, with witty prose, smart and varied heroines and some incredible imagination, Armstrong has created a world for escapism that at times can be sweet, raunchy, political and geeky, with mystery and action thrown in for good measure.

recommendation: read them in order... as much as you can figure out the order!