Huh. This was really interesting but the end totally confused me. I think it was connected to the dark tower/gunslinger series, which I started reading but lost one of the books and never found the others.

Engaging, though.

672 pages.

This was interesting because I’d read Warlock a year or so ago - and this covers a piece of the life of the same character, much earlier in his career. It makes me want to track down any in-between books and figure out how he got from here to there.  

659 pages

Interesting book.. Binchy writes in a manner which doesn’t really allow you to walk away from it. Short bursts like cutscenes from various viewpoints keep dragging you back.

The story itself was something I hadn’t seen before, and was pretty OK.

692 pages

I have been SLACK here. Mostly because I wanted to keep track of the page numbers and I read these six books in a row and now they’re strewn about the house and I haven’t gathered them up yet. Anyway. Harry Potter, one to six, ploughed through in a week or two.

Huh, I thought I’d had all my LMM books already, but two more showed up in a late shipment. Me likey! Soft and sweet and full of nature-loving, fairy joy, just like most of her books. Very pleasant. LMM has a way of creating wee characteristics for people you only hear about in passing that makes them live for those few seconds, it’s quite endearing and causes a real whirlwind of activity in the brainpan.

274 pages.

I read the first half of this book in the waiting room before a doctor’s appointment last week; the previous book was a giant hardcover, and this fit nicely into my purse. It doesn’t, however, fit neatly into any category, or even into my psyche very well. It’s about passion, dance, and motherhood, and it’s a little unsettling. I finished it last night and it was beautiful; almost poetry more than prose. Huston’s style reminds me of Anne-Marie MacDonald - very fluid and intriguing. I’m not sure I really “got” the ending - maybe I was just tired? - but it was a gorgeous journey into words and I really enjoyed it.

appx 200 pages - I don’t have the book here to check.

OH COME ON. I just wrote a HUGE review, and I hit publish and it didn’t work, AND there’s no draft?

Gah. I HATED IT. Next!

496 pages.

I think this is possibly the very last of LMM’s books (outside of short stories, which don’t interest me much) that I hadn’t read before. Very light and sweet, I believe it’s unique in my recollection of LMM’s work by starting out in earnest discussion of a man. It’s also the first introduction of a violin that I can remember, and as a Cape Bretoner it’s surprising I didn’t miss it before, PEI being so close and all.

134 pages.

I thought I’d read all of LMM’s books, but a search through Indigo’s website with that lovely gift card has gleefully proved me wrong. It’s a positively delightful book. LMM of course has a grand pattern that often repeats throughout her heroines, but the details are always different, and it’s the details that make a book, no?

217 pages.

— 

I think I must now make some jewellery. I haven’t in a while and I’m feeling the call from my empty workbench and my full storage coffers.

And book number one is complete! I’ve got a whole boxful of new books from a carefully applied gift card I got from my brother and sister(in-law) for xmas. Now I need to decide what’s next!

I finished this book before I knew it was over; there were 30 pages of author’s notes afterwards, almost as interesting as the book itself, discussing Rice’s loss of faith during college, and how she regained it a few years ago.

The novel is a first-person narrative by Jesus Christ of Nazareth, in his seventh year, coming to terms with being the Son of God. The writing is very restrained and simple, completely devoid of Rice’s usual plush surroundings; the sentence structure is simple and plain, and it was jarring sometimes - but I was fascinated just the same. I get the impression that she intends to write nothing but books for “the Lord” from now on; which is disappointing, but I’ll read anything she writes, so I’m kind of at her mercy.

I’m off to lend this book to a good friend whom I lovingly call a “Jesus-freak.”

339 pages.