Lords and Ladies, by Terry Pratchett

Summary: Invasion of the elves from an alternate reality. Er, that makes it sound like a bad sci-fi movie. It's not like that at all. It's more of a wholey human thing except for the elves messing with people's minds and so on. Okay, and the Librarian and some other typical Discworld stuff. Read it for yourself if you really want to have some idea what went on.

Thoughts: Squee, everyone lives happily ever after and hopefully learns a lesson about believing in onesself. And of course Pratchett manages to mutilate familiar stories. Or something like that. Quite possibly the best book I've read recently, although that could be due mostly to having little enough time to read any given day that I never had a chance to get bored reading so much in one go.

Cat's Eyewitness, by Rita Mae Brown

Summary: At a convent near Crozet Virginia, a statue of the Virgin Mary is seen to be crying blood. Harry is, of course, suspicious. Later, a man is found dead praying at the statue. It looks natural again, but Harry can't help but be suspicious of this too.

Thoughts: Woot, mystery! Happy happy joy joy. Not too much else to say given that the point of a mystery is trying to figure out whodunit, so I wouldn't want to give anything away. Oh, and there's also more plot and character development in the continuing saga of these characters. I can't help but wonder whether maybe I'm missing something by reading them out of order.

Carpe Jugulum, by Terry Pratchett

Summary: After King Verence invites a family of vampires to the christening of his daughter, the vampires decide this would be a good opportunity to take over the territory.

Thoughts: I think I would've enjoyed it more it it'd been shorter. It seems to contain useful life lessons, I mean beyond how one can kill a vampire. If I could be bothered to think, I might be able to mention what some of them are.

Whisker of Evil, by Rita Mae Brown

Summary: After a man is mysteriously found dead, the usual suspects are determined to figure out why. (It's a mystery. To say more might give away something important. Or else be reiterating the back story.)

Thoughts: Squee, mystery! I'm not sure how much I can come up with to say at this hour of night. I'm half asleep right now. The lining-up-ness of some of the stuff in this book, namely rabies, and my current favorite song, "Little Fuzzy Animals", is kinda ...interesting. Yay plot twists! Yay random events in the lives of the characters completely independent of the plot line! Yay small town/country life book! Yay exclamation points!

Strays, by Ron Koertge

Summary: What, I have to summarize the book? Um, okay. Ted ends up in foster home after his parents die in a car crash. His life has changed alot and he has many new experiences

Thoughts: Yay, everyone lives happily ever after. And I'm not sure what to say about the stuff that happens before that. Besides the fact that it's loads more interesting than my ATM S textbook. And I've read far more of this book than I have that one.

Cooking Up Murder, by Miranda Bliss

Summary: After Annie and Eve witness a man's death (murder, it turns out) they can't help but try to find out who the culprit is. Well, technically, Eve wants to show up her ex-fiance, the police detective in charge of the case, and she drags Annie along. But whatever the cause, they start an investigation. And things happen.

Thoughts: Well, for starters, there was the sort of fairy tale ending that made me giggle. Besides that, I liked the fact that the narrator was completely aware of her amateur detective-ness and the idea that maybe she should leave the investigation to the professionals (not that she does, but she does mention the idea). And of course there's always the "whee mystery story I want to know whodunnit let's try to predict the outcome" thing (which totally merits a run-on sentence).

The Nature of Jade, by Deb Caletti

Summary: When Jade sees the boy in the red jacket on the zoo's elephant webcam, she feels some kind of connection to him. And once she meets him in person... Well, I'll let you find that out for yourself.

Thoughts: OMG, emotional book! (or at least the ending was.) Squee, a book set in Seattle (never mind that it appears to be slightly different from the Seattle I know, ie the Seattle that exists in what we know as the real world. Are there really any gargoyles on the UW campus?). Yeah, a moving story of changes in people's lives. And occasionally I'd get annoyed with the writing in present tense for a few pages before I'd stop noticing it.

Murder at Monticello, by Rita Mae Brown

Summary: A long dead skeleton is discovered during an excavation at Monticello, and Kimball Haynes is determined to figure out who the person is and what happened to them.

Thoughts: Woot, a mystery! An "OMG I can't put it down b/c I must find out whodunit" kind of book. Yeah, don't really have much to say, and I'm not sure why I bother in the first place.

Oh, and this is completely irrelevent, but I'm convinced that the purpose of sitting at a table to eat is so that one doesn't make a horrible mess of one's pants. Except that my desk didn't exactly help matters in the messiest case. Although I guess it likely would've been way worse otherwise. But as I said, this is completely irrelevent.

The Brimstone Journals, by Ron Koertge

Summary: A rather freaky episode in the lives of some number of high school students.

Thoughts: This book takes the form of a short ~page's worth from each of like a dozen characters. So I think I would've followed the story better had I approached it in a more methodical way, after each segment, write down what happened and what we learned about the characters and so on. Because I'm pretty sure there's alot that I failed to pick up on. Unless that was because the author didn't actually mention it.

Kill Game, by Francine Pascal

Summary: Gaia becomes an FBI trainee trying to solve a fabricated but realistic case and makes things difficult for herself in the process.

Thoughts: A tail of high action and adventure. I suppose it falls into the category of literary fluff, but I didn't read the previous books for their high literary value. And the book ends with a hugeass cliff hanger.