BOOK & BLOG |
|
|
September 6, 2011 Books of the Week:
Ray Lilly, whom we've met before in two previous Connolly books, is in as much trouble as usual in Circle of Enemies. The two previous books in The Twenty Palaces series told us that Lilly has become the tool of a magical society that fights to keep supernatural monsters out of our world. Their methods are as brutal as the methods of the monsters, and they have their own ferocious magic. Luckily for Ray Lilly, he's gotten some of that magic, and that's all that keeps him alive in his newest adventure. Ray begins seeing his friends from his car-thief past, and he comes to understand that they're being killed off one by one . . . and they blame him. Ray goes in search of his remaining confederates, and as you can imagine, things go from bad to worse. I think Connolly's books are startlingly original and suspenseful, and I recommend them all highly. I'd wanted to The Devil in the White City for a long time, so I downloaded it onto my ereader for my trip to Atlanta for DragonCon. I don't know how many of you are interested in the World Fair held in Chicago in 1893, and how many of you are fascinated by one of America's first and most psychopathic serial killers, H.H. Holmes (real name: Herman Mudgett), but when you think that the World Fair made Holmes's murders possible and that these two developments in America's history occurred at the same time in the same city, you've got to be interested in how one affected the other. Larson has painted an amazingly vivid picture of life in Chicago at that time. I tell myself that Holmes wouldn't be able to get away with so many murders now, but I suspect I'm being optimistic. I've said recently how much I've enjoyed Chloe Neill's Chicagoland Vampires before (maybe I'm on a Chicago kick?), and now the newest one, Drink Deep, is out. I haven't finished it yet, but you bet I'm going to very soon. I've heard it contains just as much of a shocker as the previous book, which is hard to imagine. Blog This will have to do as a blog for this week and next. I'm writing hastily between conventions. DragonCon and Bouchercon are almost back to back this year. I just returned from Atlanta and I'll be heading out again on Sunday to start to St. Louis, since my husband's family lives there and we're going to get in some visiting before the convention starts. Also, Laurell K. Hamilton and I are going to do an event together, our first ever, on Wednesday the 14th. It's a charity event, so it's not free and you have to purchase tickets in advance. Go to The St. Louis Public Library site for details. http://www.slpl.org/slpl/library/article234090457.asp I'm sorry this wasn't on the calendar sooner, but I suppose I thought of it as a local event. DragonCon was incredible, as always. My thanks to Derek Tatum of the Dark Fantasy track for some wonderful programming. All the DragonCon personnel I dealt with were polite and hardworking, and they did their best to make the increasingly huge convention run smoothly. I was on a vampire themed panel with Laurell, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, J Lewis, and my buddy Jeanne Stein. We had a good time and the audience seemed to, also, which is the best of all possible worlds. I also had a very ego-inflating hour on the "Bestselling Authors" panel, which I shared with Jonathan Maberry, Terry Brooks, Kevin Anderson, and Sherrilynn Kenyon. Being in a group with these people will really make you think well of yourself! I was also on three panels with some of the cast from "True Blood." Denis O'Hare, Kristin Bauer van Straten, Jim Parrack, and Joe Manganiello are all attractive, articulate, and a lot of fun, so we had an excellent time. BffPaula and I wore our widow's weeds to one panel, just to show them off. Not our usual thing, but we made quite an entrance. Bouchercon will be quite different. I come from the mystery field, so I feel very much at home at mystery conventions, and I'm very pleased to be the Guest of Honor at the biggest one of all. I hope to see some of you there. Charlaine Harris |
Current Entry
Past Entries2011
|
© 2011 Charlaine Harris
|
|