Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Books and RVing

We took the RV out last weekend. Bob picked the camping spot over near Yakima and unfortunately there was one thing not mentioned on their website: MOSQUITOS!!!! Yikes! I slathered myself with insect repellent cream and didn't get any bites. The last day we packed up to leave and I ran from the RV to the car with no repellent (took a total of 5 seconds) and got 4 bites!!! Damn things.

I only managed to finish one book, The Red Heart of Jade by Marjorie M. Liu, over those two days but it was long and had a complicated plot. With 369 pages and non-stop action, I found it slow reading because there was so much going on that I had to re-read portions occasionally. The first chapter made absolutely no sense at all. Dean Campbell is a clairvoyant who works for the Dirk & Steele detective agency (3rd book in the series). He's having a dream where he's burning alive and it took me a while to figure all that out. There seemed to be more blood and guts in this one with an evil dragon shapeshifter that rips people apart and burns them alive. One scene where he rips off a guy's ear and pops it in his mouth to crunch like a potato chip really turned my stomach. That was probably the worst scene.

Mirabelle Lee is a professor of archeology who hasn't seen Dean for 20 years. In fact they were childhood sweethearts who each thought the other was dead. I'm not going to go into the plot because it was very intricate. I loved the setting that starts out in Taipei and moves to HongKong and mainland China. My biggest problem with the book is that it does not have enough romance in it. I would classify it as a paranormal with a smidge of romance.

As a romance I give this one a C, but as a paranormal I give it a B+. Hmm, well, that averages out to about a B-. If you love paranormal, give this one a try, but for those who want romance you will probably be disappointed like me. I plan on reading the next one though and hope for more romance in that.

4 comments:

Kristie (J) said...

I read and enjoyed the first book in this series and I have the second TBR (somewhere) but I still hadn't made up my mind about the third one. But a C on the romance part of it - hmmmm. Now if it was a B+ in the romance, it might be a bit different.

ReneeW said...

I enjoyed the first two books in this series. Yes, it would have been better to have a B+ romance with a C for the paranormal aspect. I really hope Koni (the shapeshifting crow) gets his own story.

CindyS said...

I'm so glad that others go out on that tenuous limb. I do have a Liu but I think it's the second one in the TBR pile - I heard great things. A C in the romance and I'm out!

Sorry about the mosquito bites. I get eaten alive and my family gets a kick out of the fact that the minute dusk hits I'm indoors for at least two hours. I don't know what I would do if mosquitos were out all the time as I have heard is the case in many places! I would just be an indoor person.

CindyS (ohhh, just realized I officially mosquito free right this minute - because I'm betting I'll get bit tonight at the BBQ)

ReneeW said...

Yeah, I recommend you skip this one. I wish I had now. Not a bad book just not enough romance and that's the main show, right?

Here in Western Wash. we have very few mosquitos, but we went camping in East. Wash. next to a ranch. We talked to the lady who owns the campground and the ranch and she said she didn't get around to draining the pond which had gone stagnant and became a home for all those larvae. No shit!

Have fun and don't get bit at the BBQ.

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