“Memories fade if not cultivated. You decide what you keep, and what you throw away. Out of so many experiences, your memories are the moments you considered important enough to hold onto. They tell a story, your own, and that of the people you knew, the lives that touched you. They are a beautiful, unique work of art.” Karen Chance, Dragon’s claw.
Thank you so much for sticking with me. I am going to be posting a lot over the next month or so! I have a few ARC’s that I am insanely happy to review…Please enjoy the quotes that will be coming over the next few weeks of posts.
I post some reviews here that I post on Amazon and Goodreads. The rest of the time I am rereading old favorites and new releases. I try not to post spoilers, so I take the quotes that most strongly speak to me and make posts. I find it interesting that each time I reread an old favorite DIFFERENT quotes appeal to me. Sometimes there is overlap but it is infrequent. The human brain is an amazing thing!
Since the next book is currently in arc form I decided to do a reread…these are the things that spoke to me…
Touch the Dark
I usually did the Goth thing, or as close as I could get without looking truly awful—strawberry blondes don’t wear black well—but that was when I was working. I found out pretty early that no one takes a fortune-teller seriously if she shows up in pastels. But on my days off I reserved the right not to look like I was going to a funeral. My life is depressing enough without help.
My parents were an obstacle to his ambition, so they were removed. Simple.
. I was like some kind of poison—get anywhere near me, and you’re lucky if you just die.
My only thought was that, in a room full of vampires, it would be my luck to get killed by the only other human.
… it wasn’t a surprise. Where my life was concerned, I’d learned long ago that everyone wanted to use me for something.
Claimed by shadow
gave myself a mental slap. At the rate things were going, I was going to need therapy.
At this rate, I was going to be the youngest person ever to die from a stress-induced stroke.
“The only thing I want is a nice, uncomplicated life. With no one trying to kill me, manipulate me or betray me.” And where, if I messed up on the job, I didn’t get anyone killed
Embrace the night
Tomorrow there would be trouble and danger and pain, and I didn’t know if I would be smart enough or strong enough or capable enough to handle it all, especially now that I understood what I was up against. But I knew one thing: today, finally, something had gone right.
Buying Trouble
Gamelans don’t merely speak the truth, they rip away all the happy little lies we tell ourselves to mask it, forcing us to acknowledge it deep in our very souls. They make us face the raw facts about our lives, and most of the time, they’re not pretty.
Death’s Mistress
, I just stood there, swaying a little on my feet and wondering how paranoid a person had to be before she decided the toys were out to get her. But in the end, I shrugged my shoulders and just
. I realized that I wanted it to be real, all of it, wanted him to have cared about her, wanted him to care about me. And I was so very afraid that he didn’t. It was easier not to ask, to let the possibility last a little longer
A Family Affair
A lot of people believed that John had a death wish. Even some of those closest to him acted like they suspected it, despite denying it when anyone else brought it up. But it had never been true. There had been times when he could honestly say he hadn’t cared much, either way, but he’d never been suicidal.
Ride the Storm
You have to let go, Cassie.” Yeah, people had been telling me that all my life, too. To the point that I’d started to tell it to myself: don’t care, don’t love, let everyone and everything that matters slip away. Let life take them, let it have them, because it’s going to anyway, because that’s all it does: take and consume and destroy. It lets you feel happy so the pain hurts more, lets you have hope so it can crush it, lets you have loved so it can rip it away. You can fight against it, but it’s a trap, the whole damn thing. Better get used to it. But I wasn’t used to it. I’d never gotten used to it. I was tired of it, sick to death of it, and furious, so furious I could barely see.
Got the latest Rowan and devoured it quickly. Love the series and can’t wait to see what’s next. A great addition filled with snarky heroines and surprises. Heartily recommend to all those Urban fantasy lovers out there…
I am a reader. The thought of going without my books is inconceivable. For the most part, I have my favorites, books that are a comfort no matter what my life throws at me. When I was little, the books were something I needed. I travelled with a copy of “Little Women”. Jo and Beth, Meg and Amy were very real to me. I read that book until it literally fell apart – but it did not matter since they became a part of my brain. I know that they came from another persons brain. I know how much they meant to me. But it wasn’t just them. It was Anne of Green Gables and Pippi Longstocking and Cutter and Leetah. It was Amelia Bedelia and Bedknobs and Broomsticks and a magical doorway to Narnia that kept my imagination in thrall. It was the thought of Tesseracts and the pagentry of fantasy novels and the words of a bard. Its the words of Elizabeth Dickinson and the words of Keats. And, slowly, it became what was the fabric of my life. The threads I can remember, as well as the ones that I didn’t incorporate into my world view.
As an adult, I read everything and found myself finding more companions. Around other things that happened in the real world, there too were the characters of Anne Rice, Nora Roberts and Guy Gavriel Kay. And something amazing came from the books. It was friends who were only a few pages away. They were never too busy. It was the knowledge that, just by reading a book 📖, I could recapture where I was when I read it the first time as well as some of the minutia I had missed the first time around because I wanted to know what happened. Knowing what happened meant I could pay more attention to the characters that were secondary. And, there were times in my adult life when I had to read those treasured pages one word at a time. It was harder that way.
All of this was a little bit away from my main point. I said I was a reader and I am. It means that I escape into those other worlds and learn the rules… Whether it is based on mythology or vampires, society or shapeshifters it gave me an escape and a place to hope and dream about, while my body betrayed me. I also, somewhere along the way, developed a rule that if I started a book, I finished it. And, then, I found myself feeling a drive to finish a series, even if it wasn’t up to my standards. But, I started this blog to highlight one of my favorite authors and the two heroines of her novels. Karen Chance reminded me why she held a place among my favorites with Dragon’s Claw. It’s the latest release of the Dorina Basarab plot line which is a companion to the Cassandra Palmer series. I realized that I had missed Dory and Marlowe. And, reading it, I felt that excitement that comes from a new adventure and some old friends. I cannot wait for the next story.
See, the universe does supply answers. Sometimes not the one we want but the one we need. Since the blow ups are still occuring in my family of origin (come on, who in my life is surprised at that one… Hmm no takers, wait nope that person just had an itch…) And the “bugaboos” (that is a made up word. If anyone out there uses that word for anything or is offended at it because it sounds like a word they have heard anywhere-that is not the use of this word and I CAN definitively say, as the person who created the word and owns the rights to it… STOP USING A WORD I CREATED if you are using it wrong. Down the rabbit hole we go… A Bugaboo is an issue that scares you or makes you uncomfortable after a situation has happened that in some way damaged you. It is like the ghost of Christmas past but instead of being Christmas it the ghost of… That inner child! Yay, new connection made!) Are now being multiplied left and right kinda like gremlins. Remember those? No too young for that? Ok furbys. Ah yes light dawns in a whole generation of people. When did I become a responsible adult? Ah, yes, that pesky thing called marriage. And when did it really hit home that I was IT as far as adults go? That would be when singing the shma and watching the light go out of my soul mates eyes… But when did it really break through? No one is asking, and this right here is what is so dangerous about the Internet. We forget what we are writing goes far and wide. That someone can twist our words to say whatever they want. And thus there are twitter wars and people who are famous for being famous telling us what to drink eat wear. Etc. But there to is the fun part. Remember the days where if you loved a celebrity you would send a hand written letter written over a period of days, edited over and over and a clean copy (without erasures or white out) would go to the celebrity. Two weeks or so later you would get something in the mail with a form letter and a small thing (a boomark, a headshot, etc). Now, you get to interact with authors and all the fans. Rather then a cold weekend trying to LARP we have people who role play online. Some of those are author approved and even the ones that aren’t allow us to interact with characters that started in someone else’s head. Isn’t that great? And we can connect with the authors who create our favorite universes. Have a question, ask the writer and if you are lucky get an answer. And it’s amazing how many times fans argue about a definitive answer from an author. We take it for granted that we can reach out and connect with someone. It’s amazing when you look at how far we have come. I remember when the Disney Channel started along with Nickelodeon. Now, if we can’t see our show on TV, there are instantaneous uploads. What a magnificent world we live in.
Ok, so I feel the need to speak up. I don’t know whether or not what I am seeing on facebook is a collaboration between google Microsoft apple and facebook. I don’t know if I am only seeing the posts of people in my sphere ir not, and none of us ever thought about what would happen in the last 20-30 years. When Disney started a TV channel of was controversial too. I don’t know that we need to be fermenting dissent. And none of us ever thought that the Internet was anything but a geekdom. So, this is what happens. Instead of lamenting our unintended consequences why don’t we look ar how far we have come since the 1940s. I choose to believe in people, in g-d and the fact that no matter what we will be ok. Maybe I am wrong. My world has personally been shattered twice by the pivotal losses of the two men of my life. Dad 32 days before the big wedding we’d been arguing over every tiny detail of for 18 months. And Jerome 10 years ago. I guess I didn’t learn enough from the first loss. But I firmly believe in the soul and G-d and that we will all see each other again. But I believe Jerome and my dad are with my girls because that’s where their heart is. And yes I may be more Anita blake then Belle but oh, the beasts library. Why are their laptops we can carry in our pockets? Because we were tired of carrying our full towers to gaming tournamwbts. None of us thought about how we would get to our future bit just put it… Someday after most everyone dies. But I want to be the heroine of my story. Full stop. And somehow I ended up in a place where I am a stereotype… Why? Because I am a book nerd. I read the originals and all the new copies so I know how bad things can get. But they also have come so far… So, if my friends who are freaking out will breathe for a minute the oxygen will calm you down. That’s the way your brain works and as we go farther and farther with cars that can drive themselves and complete access almost instantly to authors, actors, everything. Read the in death series by Nora Roberts as JD ROBB. We will get there , maybe. Or jt ellison and know true fear. Fear of secrets, fear of natural disasters which can shatter you by taking those you love. Or just of being completely consumed. Why? Because throughout history we have had to revisit our fears. And this is life. Complicated… Messy and oh so amazing. So when your car tells you you aren’t paying attention that’s because reading in cars gives you headaches, so there are audiobooks. That explains it. And we bitch if its not exactly like the voice in our head. And seat belts and airbags… Shoot look at car seats. Why? Because we are worried about our kids- either because of evolution or something else. But does it really matter? Look around and ask yourself if its better now then it was. If not, do your best to fix it. Stand up to those who are evil because all it takes for the villain to win is good people to do nothing. But I read them all. Which led to a whole new category of writing. With people like me as authors. So keep speaking up and celebrate the happy that much harder for all the sorrow along the way… And those are the books that take me away. I love that Seanan McGuire writes books with Shakespeare quotes as titles. And, that is just too cool! And then there are the others and somehow my worlds of tech and science crossed with my geekiness my need to understand and brought me here to this weird intersection of space and time where I just have to say. We are better off, but I agree with all my authors that we have to speak up. It won’t be anyone’s cup of tea, but ok. I want nothing to do with 50 shades of grey… But my fantasy books… Now, you can pry those out of my cold dead hands. But every bad cloud has a sun behind it. It will pass. And you hold onto the good that much harder. Why? because it is tempered by steel. We had to so we did. And now we are doctors and lawyers and lawyers and its progress. Yes we have a way to go, but all of it it progress…
