Two reviews for the price of one!

Originally written on June 13, 2009

Just finished Rogue Angel: Polar Quest this afternoon. It was a good read. Much better than Swordsman's Legacy; the plot and action flowed a little better and it was crisper writing-style wise. In this volume we find Annja (the main character, for those who don't know) traveling to Antarctica to see if these mysterious artifacts are "signs of aliens visiting earth" or maybe proof that some unknown ancient race of humans were super advanced before the Mayans or even the Egyptians. I liked it because the tension and suspense was maintained throughout the whole story and you never really knew what was going on. And Annja was a little more feisty in this volume, which was nice. She had been loosing her touch in the last two volumes, so it was nice to see her take a little more charge. She's getting back to her old self. Not quite getting to the "kickin' ass and takin' names" level, but not taking crap from the guys and showing she can keep up with the boys.

However, Garin (one of the other main/recurring characters) was a little sex-crazed in this volume. He and Annja have had this fun little sexual tension thing going on, and it's been fun to read how frustrated he can make her, but yet she's strangely attracted to him on some level. But this volume... basically every time they had a scene together he had to mention something about them going to bed together. Normally Garin is a complex, hard-to-pin-down character where you're not quite sure if he's going to be the good guy this time or maybe a not-so-good guy, but this time he was just the "thinking with the wrong head" guy. It was a little annoying. But, over all, on my scale from 1 (hari kari) to 10 (orgasmic bliss) I'll give this recent Rogue Angel a strong 7. Good job. Look forward to reading Eternal Journey.

When I finished Rogue Angel I started the next book on my pile I kept from getting packed. I've packed up about 99% of my books since I'm going to be moving soon (*le squee!*) but I had to make sure I had some things to read. So my next book I'm working on is the first in a mystery series, called On What Grounds. It's one of those mystery series that is a themed one. Like Joanna Fluke's Hannah Swenson mysteries that are all based around food and has recipes inside the book, or Knit One, Kill Two (Knitting Mystery Series) that has knitting patterns (really tempted to getting that knitting one since I love knitting!). The One What Grounds is a coffeehouse mystery, where it's based in a coffeehouse (duh) and has coffee tips and drink recipes. It's good so far, good pacing of action and character development, and the main character, Clare Cosi, is a fun and strong (yet vulnerable) heroine.

Although the whole coffee thing does get a bit much. When she's making coffee for people, the explanations/directions for how to make said drink, or when Clare compares the kiss of her ex-husband to the sensations of drinking a really good cup of joe, you almost want to grab her by the shoulders and say "Yes! We get it. You. Love. Coffee." But I've worked as a barista in three coffeehouses (Dunn Bros, Caribou, and B&N Cafe--that serves Starbucks) so I can totally sympathize and get the whole coffee subculture; especially when she describes the "high maintenance" customers, those people who can't understand why their drink isn't ready the instant they ordered it. Yeah, I've had my fair share of those people, and they are the reason why I don't miss working behind the bar. But I'm glad that so far this book is going well---I have the first six books in the series. I got the first one at B&N, and then I awesomely found the other five at Half Price Books. The seventh one is still in hardcover, and we all know how I feel about hardcover.

Once I finish this one, I'm going to go back to my long-lost genre of paranormal romance. I haven't read a strictly romance book since the Romance Book Club at Barnes & Noble, and we kinda disbanned last September when most of the members left for college. Oh well. The next one will be the second book in the Light Warriors series by Patti O'Shea, called In Twilight's Shadow. Yay. And I might read another book between that one and the third in the series, Edge of Dawn, which I will be receiving June 30th (I pre-paid for it to get my 40% Employee Appreciation discount!). Hehehe.