July was a bit better than June. Five books is still not a good month for the reading. I blame Mary Hoffman. She just slowed my ass right down, like she was an anchor.
Stravaganza - City Of Stars by Mary Hoffman has some more jumping between modern day London and Italy of 400 years ago. Not our Italy but one in another dimension; one where magic exists and horses have wings. There's a bunch of new characters but that isn't enough to please me. The reading is slow and the book heavy in my hand. Maybe you'd like them better than I, who knows. I managed to get through it by skimming more in the last half. When I've had a book in my hands for a couple of weeks that's not doing anyone any good.
El Borak And Other Desert Adventures by Robert E Howard actually took me more than a couple of weeks to read. It sat on my bedstand and I didn't get to it everyday. It's a complete collection of the El Borak stories which are set in and around Afganistan in the 1920's. There's lots of adventuring and slaughter. There are a few other desert adventures set in a similar area. Most of the stories are somple adventure stories but there is the occasional supernatural element. Not all the stories are complete and some were published decades after Howard's death. Still, a pretty interesting collection and one worth the read, though not for everyone. You can read a lot of Howard stories at Project Guttenberg Australia including those El Borak stories.
No Place For Magic by ED Baker is the 4th book int he series. I had read the 5th just recently and a month later I found the other two I was waiting for. Emma and Eadric are going to get married but his parents aren't too pleased to have a witch marrying into the family. They are pretty anti-magic in Eadric's kingdom. Of course that's where the happy couple head and there they find all sorts of trouble. There's some of the same humor that I liked in the other books, lots of fun characters, and trolls. Emma saves the day and gets her prince.
The Dragon Princess by ED Baker is the 6th book in the series and some time has past. Emma and Eadric have a young daughter who's got the power to change into a dragon, not always at her request. When she gets mad, watch out! Lots of new characters. There are a couple of new books in the series that follow this but Ihaven't seen them turn up in the places I hang out. Baker has a couple of non series books but I haven' got those either. I like the series and will keep an eye out for the others. So far they have been entertaining and fun to read.
The Black Book Of Secrets by FE Higgins was something I got on clearance and it looked interesting. I started reading and read it all the way through in a day. Ludlow Fitch is tried of his life as a pickpocket in the big dirty city. His parents beat him if he doesn't cough up his earnings to fuel their booze habit. Ludlow hitches a ride and winds up in a small town where he gets a job as the assistant in Joe Zabbidou's pawn shop. Joe's just arrived in town and he's got a secret. He's a secret pawnbroker who collects stories in his black book. People come to him with their tales and he writes them down and pays them a bit of money. Ludlow becomes the scribe of these tales. Good and bad things happen and the book ends unresolved. There's a second book in the series that runs parallel to the first book and I see online that there are two more after that. I have the second book and after finishing this one I jumped right on that one. I will look for the other two. It was probably the best thing I read this month and that's no secret.
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