A Shadow on the Glass by Ian Irvine

A Shadow on the Glass opens with the story of Llian, a 28-year-old Zain Chronicler of Chanthed. His graduation telling, where he presents the Tale of the Forbidding, is a great success but Wistan, the college headmaster, realizing his student might inadvertantly have uncovered a deadly mystery, harrases him to retract his tale.

That day Karan, a young red-haired sensitive, is in the audience. After a week's walk she finally arrives home in Gothryme, only to be snatched off again by Maigraith, a woman to whom she owes her life. And when the latter asks her to go to Fiz Goro and help her steal a legendary relic, the Mirror of Aachan, from the hands of the powerful mancer Yggur, Karan simply cannot refuse.

But in the citadel, Maigraith is made prisoner, and Karan barely escapes. The book then describes Karan's flight through marshes and mountains chains, hunted by a band of alien Whelm, Yggur's servants. When Mendark, the Magister of Thurkad who is also Llian's former sponsor and Yggur's bitter enemy, asks Wistan to help Karan and bring back the Mirror to him, the headmaster is only too happy to get rid of the dangerous Chronicler and sends Llian.

But the young man is tremendously awkward, and obsessed by the secrets he has recently exposed and which could be the key to the discovery of Great Tale, and in the end it is he who becomes a real burden for Karan. It's only after several weeks of running and hiding that she faces the fact that he probably is her only friend.

A Shadow on the Glass is enjoyable if a bit shallower than I expected.

The Eternal Kiss

As usual with acollection of short stories I enjoyed some more than others.

My favourites were All Wounds, The Coldest Girl In Coldtown and Kat.

The Bookwoman's Last Fling by John Dunning

former cop turned rare bookseller/appraiser, Cliff Janeway, becomes embroiled in a fascinating mystery when he is hired by the majordomo of one H. R. Geiger (noted horseman who has recently passed on) to evaluate the a rare and valuable collection of first edition children's books that had belonged to Geigers late wife, Candice. Janeways job is to determine not only the value of the collection but also to ascertain if any of the collection is missing or has been tampered with. The missing book angle of the mystery turns out to be just the tip of this iceberg.

There are a multitude of questions to be answered and horses to be tended. There is the question of what really happened to Geigers late wife (was her death an accident as had been reported, or was she cleverly murdered?). Is Geiger's daughter Sharon, a protector of abused horses, in imminent danger (since she is the owner of one half of her mothers valuable book collection). Are Sharon's half-brothers as unprincipled and dangerous as they appear?

This mystery has as many potential suspects as a purple onion has layers but Janeway is up to the task of following the clues and peeling away those layers. There are book collectors, horse trainers, stablehands, horse owners, and dysfunctional family members to choose from and Janeway discovers that the culprit will do anything (including turning Janeway into a "crispy critter") to achieve his (or her) ultimate goal.

Rare books and horseracing seem an odd combination, but in this case mostly an interesting one. A lot of the characters seemed angry or crazy and the ending was a bit abrupt.

Spenceworth Bride by Virginia Farmer

Time travel romance. A quick, light read.

Fevre Dream by George R.R. Martin

Steamboat captain Abner Marsh is approached by the mysterious and strange Joshua York, who convinces Abner to build and co-captain a ship with Mr.York. The call this ship the Fevre Dream, and it's one of the fastest and fanciest steamboats in the river trade. From the begining, Abner notices odd things about Joshua: the way he only comes out at night, his pale skin, his wierd friends who also sleep during the day, the stops at isolated areas along the mighty Mississippi. Soon Abner realizes that there have been brutal killings up and down the river...killings where the victims throats have been ripped out, or bodies horribly mangled.

As the steamboat slowly makes it's way down to New Orleans, Abner's suspicions become too much for him, and he starts to investigate just what it is that Joshua York and his friends are up to. Such begins not only a dark adventure for Mr.Marsh, but also un unlikely friendship between the two men who both share a love for the steamship and life on the river.

This isn't a run of the mill vampire tale.

Fevre Dream is an atmospheric tale in a rich historical setting; steamboats and rivers, steamy southern nights, all vividly brought to life.

On Beulah Height

The story begins with three little girls going missing from a small town called Danby. At the same time as these girls are being searched for by a much younger Andy Dalziel, the whole village of Danby is preparing to be submerged in water as a reservoir is being constructed on the old townsite. We keep slipping back to when the village of Danby was drowned and all the terrible things that happened then (which is 15 years before the setting for this book), and a new horror has occurrred in the present time when another little girl goes missing.

Good mystery tho I had a suspicion of 'whodunnit'before the end. There were times I just wanted the story to move along a bit faster.

Before You Know Kindness by Chris Bohjalian

Nan Seton is a widowed, wealthy, and endlessly energetic matriarch who spends her winters in her large apartment in Manhattan and her summers in the family home in New Hampshire. Every summer, Nan invites her son and daughter, John and Catherine, along with their spouses and children, to spend some time with her. Under Nan's direction, the family participates in an endless and dizzying round of athletic and social activities.

The book opens with a horrifying scene in which Spencer McCullough, Nan Seton's son-in-law, is accidentally shot in the shoulder, and very nearly killed. Spencer is an animal rights activist. Whether he is forcing inedible foods down his family's throats or insisting that his relatives wear plastic shoes, not leather, Spencer is unyielding in his insistence that no living thing with a parent should be a source of food or clothing for human beings. Spencer's overbearing personality and frequent absences from home have already alienated his wife, Catherine, who is ready to give up on her marriage.

After the shooting, the entire family goes into shock. This event shakes up everyone's comfortable assumptions about their lives and one another, and it forces them to reevaluate what is really important to them.