No One to Love

    

     I haven't found much time this week for blogging but I did manage to finish another book.  This was another romance by Lauren Willig, though a tad more serious than the Pink Carnation series.  The title was the Ashford Affair and while I didn't dislike the book, Lauren Willig being a talented story teller, I didn't enjoy it as much as the silly ones. The main reason being I just didn't connect with any of the characters.  Good characters are one of the most important elements in a great book. Writers spend a lot of time and some might even tell you blood, sweat, and tears, trying to create characters that feel authentic and that they're readers will fall in love with. The characters in The Ashford Affair were well written, I just didn't like them. Most of them seemed self centered and even the sympathetic ones couldn't hold my affections. So would I recommend the book?  If you like period dramas, you may enjoy this one, set mainly in Europe post WWI and Kenya Post WWII. It was a well told story. And perhaps you'll find a character in it in which to relate. Unfortunately I did not.
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Guilty Pleasures

    I read a lot of different types of books.  Plenty are thought provoking literature.  Many are classics.  But I have a confession to make.  I am a hopeless romantic. Okay, that might not come as a surprise to those who know me, and I actually prefer the way Kathleen Turner phrases it in Romancing the Stone.  She calls herself  a "hopeful romantic."  I love a good romance novel.  The cheesier the better.  In fact my favorites are the ones that actually make you laugh out loud at how over the top they are.  The one I just finished was one of the Pink Carnation Series by Lauren Willig, and the hero was actually contemplating "how much agony there is in a fingernail."  I prefer the Regency romances that don't have quite as many bodice ripping and throbbing manhood scenes.  Just good old fashioned seething passion and pent up frustration.  The Pink Carnation books are doubly fun because they're also spy novels. And that's what I read them for.  Fun.  I'll get back to broadening my horizons eventually, but for now bring on the duels at dawn and heart fluttering moonlight trysts.  What's your literary guilty pleasure?

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Groupie Alert

    

     Well, I was finally able to tear myself away from the woods long enough to finish a book!  I tend to binge read, reading one author or genre till I reach the saturation point and switch to something else.  This time I was on a T.A. Barron kick and just finished The Ancient One.  For those of you not familiar with T.A. Barron he is most well known for his best selling The Lost Years of Merlin Saga.  I read the 12 books in that series in 4 weeks!  Yes, they're that good. They're middle grade fantasy, one of my very favorite genres.  The book I just finished was one of his earlier novels. The second in the Heartlight trilogy.  I liked it a lot, especially the Native American mythology and nuances that permeated the story.
     I met T.A. Barron once at a writer's conference, shortly after reading all the Merlin books and I gushed like a groupie.  I tend to do that when I meet favorite authors. The time I met Jane Yolen I practically fell at the poor woman's feet. T.A. Barron was a truly lovely man. He was warm and charming and an inspiration to other writer's. It was such a pleasure to meet him and I highly recommend his books. There is a positive, love fueled message in all of them that children need to hear and characters that are easy to fall in love with.
     Now I've changed tracks slightly and I'm reading one of the Pink Carnation books by Lauren Willig, a Regency, spy romance, that is mostly fluff and completely over the top and I'm enjoying it thoroughly.

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Intro

     My favorite book of all time is Jayne Eyre, it's why I named my daughter Charlotte, so when I decided to write a blog about my love for books and my adventures in birdwatching the above quote from the book seemed like the perfect fit for my blog title. It fits me too.  I'm a bit of a free spirit and I'm sure my husband would confirm that I have a determinedly independent will. Why do i love Jayne Eyre?  Well, I do tend to be drawn to melodrama, and it sure is choc full of it. I'm old fashioned and I completely relate to the plain, educated heroine with a fiery temper. And I'm pretty sure Mr. Rochester is one of the most romantic characters ever written and I am a fool for a good romance. As I write this blog you'll find I don't limit myself to romance though.  My book tastes are pretty eclectic. As varied as the species of birds we've been delightedly watching in our back yard.

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