Author: Graham Joyce
ISBN: 1857983424 DDC: 823.914
Read for the Once Upon A Time Challenge
See also: LibraryThing ; Author’s Site ; Scooter Chronicles ; SF site ; Tier 3000

Clive was on the far side of the green pond, torturing a king-crested newt.

I’ve read a few Graham Joyce books at this stage; this one by him won the British fantasy award so I was hoping for good things. It tells the story of Sam, a young boy growing up in 1960s England, who one night is visited by the tooth fairy, an entity that is not the insect sized woman with wings that you might expect. Instead he or she changes depending on circumstances. Sometimes male, sometimes female, sometimes an androgynous figure, but always unsettling and unwelcome in Sam’s life.

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Author: Jean Plaidy
ISBN: 9780099493259 DDC: 823.914
Read with Historical Favorites
See also: LibraryThing ; Literature Map ; Scandalous Women ; Susan Higginbotham

In an apartment of that royal palace which recently, by the command of the King, had had its name changed from Shene to Richmond, three children were ranged about a blazing fire.

This novel tells the story of Margaret Tudor, daughter of King Henry VII of England, and sister to King Henry VIII. As a teenager she married King James IV of Scotland in an effort to bring peace between England and Scotland. The rose and the thistle of the novel’s title.

Jean Plaidy has written plenty of historical fiction books. This is the 8th in the Tudor series alone. But it is the first one I’ve ever read by her. And I’d have to say I’m not really all that impressed.

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Writ & Dir: James Grey

• Joaquin Phoenix … Robert ‘Bobby’ Green
• Eva Mendes … Amada Juarez
• Mark Wahlberg … Capt. Joseph ‘Joe’ Grusinsky
• Robert Duvall … Deputy Chief Albert ‘Bert’ Grusinsky
• Alex Veadov … Vadim Nezhinski
• Danny Hoch … Jumbo Falsetti

Bobby is a night club manager. It is the 1980’s, New York. Life is good. Until the day his brother comes calling. Bobby’s brother, Joe, you see, is a cop. A drugs cop and he arrives in full on SWAT-mode at the club. This is not a way to ensure peaceful family get togethers. Especially considering that we already know there is tension in the family. You can just guess at the resulting tensions. But then the Russian bad-guys organise a hit on Joe. Bobby is stung into action and swears revenge. In this life or the next.^[1]

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Dir & Writ: Chris Weitz
Based on book by Philip Pullman

• Dakota Blue Richards … Lyra Belacqua
• Nicole Kidman … Marisa Coulter
• Daniel Craig … Lord Asriel
• Freddie Highmore … Pantalaimon (voice)
• Ian McKellen … Iorek Byrnison (voice)
• Eva Green … Serafina Pekkala
• Sam Elliott … Lee Scoresby

I read, and really enjoyed, Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials a while back, so I was really looking forward to this film, the first of three. Unfortunately it just isn’t very good. It should be. The story is a wonderful one, Kidman and Craig are fantastic, although Craig isn’t really on screen for all that long, and Dakota Blue Richards is wonderful as Lyra. Some of the other kids aren’t too great, but we’ll let them away. The special effects are, for the most part, superb. The polar bears in particular are fantastic.

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Author: Jim Butcher
ISBN: 1841493996 DDC: 813.6
Book two in The Dresden Files read for the RIP Challenge

I never used to keep close track of the phases of the moon

Harry Dresden is a wizard. Most people in Chicago don’t believe in magic or wizards, Science has seen to that, but he still gets called in to assist the police on occasion. Their Special Investigation department may be not be the dream assignment but police there still have to work. Although recently Harry hasn’t received too much business from them. A result of what happened in the first book I’m guessing, seeing as I didn’t read that. But when there are a series of extremely violent deaths Murphy, head of Special Investigations, comes calling. It looks like werewolves are on the loose.

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Author: L.J. Smith
Book #1 in The Vampire Diaries series
ISBN: 0061020001 DDC: 813.54
See also: LibraryThing ;

September 4
Dear Diary,
Something awful is going to happen today
I don’t know why I wrote that. It’s crazy.

According to the blurb on the back of this book, this should be a teen novel about a love triangle of unspeakable horror, as the vampire Stefan and his brother Damon both want Elena. Only there isn’t so much of the horror. And not so much of the love triangle either. I’m guessing that more of that arises in the follow on books.

This is fairly entertaining. Very easy to read, and short. Just what I was looking for after The Sunne In Splendour, but if I think it is a little too slight. Maybe if I could start straight in with the next book then I wouldn’t feel so meh about it, but I don’t have it, and amn’t sure if I’d be bothered to pick it up. That is a bit harsh, because this isn’t a bad book. Not by a long stretch. But I just didn’t think it was all that good either.

That is harsh though. Because as I said, it is easy to read and it pretty much does what it says on the tin. I think I just may not have been expecting such an abrupt ending.

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