The Best Laid Plans

Well, my well intentioned vacation has turned into an extended illness. I have pneumonia now. Sigh. It certainly has been a trying year. I have been sick every month for the last year. I recently had bronchitis and it has turned into pneumonia. Luckily my mom is a Polyanna and we have been playing the glad game. We have decided to look at this as a tender mercy from heaven that allows me to be sick in a safe and loving place. I am slowly getting better--my parents have been amazing. I am just glad that I have this time to get better. It is the first time in three years that I have not been teaching in the summer. So really it has been a vacation--not super comfortable but I have gotten a lot of reading and writing done when I have been feeling better. I have finished several books in the last week and thought I would share them.

I have become a big fan of Jessica Day George. She is a local writer--a graduate from BYU. She has two children and lives with her husband and small dog Pippin in Salt Lake City. She has two books that are fairytale retellings. Then she has the Dragon Trilogy. In Dragon Slippers the heroine is Creel--a orphan from the country who has plans to become a dress maker in the King's Seat. But her aunt who is "dumber then a barrel of turnips" has other plans. She decides to feed Creel to the local dragon--if the land owner's son saves her then they will all be set for a life of luxury, if he doesn't--there is one less mouth to feed. Creel ends up meeting the dragon, befriending him, gaining a pair of beautiful blue slippers that magically control all of the other dragons, and is apprenticed to the finest dress maker in the kingdom. Creel is a spunky heroine who is a gifted seamstress and a caring friend to the dragons--but can she handle being the heroine of a dragon war?

The next book in the series continues the exploits of Creel and her dragon friends. Creel gets closer to Prince Luka and helps him and the King of the Dragons save the kingdom from alchemy of the worst kind. She creates several gorgeous dresses, sashes, and a wedding dress. . . just not her own.

Dragon Spear came out just yesterday and I had a lot of time on my hands. This is the final installment of the trilogy and finds the dragons trying to make it on their own away from the humans who never can seem to leave them alone. Luka and Creel help the Dragons establish a home in the Far Isles where they can be safe and raise their children. . . but they discover that there are more dragons than they had thought.

I have also been on a Mary Stewart kick. She is the original lady of suspense--huge in the forties and fifties, she wrote until her death in the late nineties. Gabriel Hounds is set in Lebanon and follows young Christabel and her "cousin" Charles twice removed as they deal with marijuana dealers and the mystique of the Far East. It is quite delightful and very exotic. Excellent plot and writing, though escapist in nature, this is the best kind of suspense--just enought danger, dogs, and romance.
While picking up my copy of Dragon Spear I discovered that one of my favorite writers, Patricia C. Wrede, has finally written a new book, the first of a series. Thirteenth Child is brilliant. It gives the American West its own mythological past. Eff was born a thirteenth child. Her twin brother, Lan, is the seventh son of a seventh son. This means he's supposed to possess amazing talent -- and she's supposed to bring only bad things to her family and her town. Undeterred, her family moves to the frontier, where her father will be a professor of magic at a school perilously close to the magical divide that separates settlers from the beasts of the wild. It is like a mixture of Little House on the Prairie and Harry Potter.

Next was an old favorite--Thornyhold by Mary Stewart again. This old-fashioned gothic romance is as good as they get. When Gilly's witch aunt leaves Thornyhold to her, a house in the middle of the woods, Gilly finds that she has inherited far more than she realized. Along with the house comes a cat, a still room filled with herbs (and a missing recipe book), an attic chamber with carrier pigeons (who have secret messages), and an attractive neighbor whose young son offers the sacred and unique blessing of friendship. But Thornyhold possesses far more than even these simple offerings. The place itself seems to envoke otherworldly gifts as well: Gilly cultivates the abilities to heal and to foresee the future once she makes Thornyhold her home.

It's impossible not to like Hermux Tantamoq, the watchmaking mouse. He relaxes in a flannel shirt printed with pictures of cheeses from around the world, he has a caged pet ladybug named Terfle, he writes endearing thank-you letters to the universe each night, and he has a big heart--a heart that aches for the fearless aviatrix Ms. Linka Perflinger, who unexpectedly visits his shop requesting an emergency rush repair of her wristwatch. Little does he know that this brief rendezvous with the jaunty adventuress will change his life forever. Nothing. Even nasty encounters with his neighbor (the horribly garish and affected cosmetics tycoon Tucka Mertslin) and pleasant interludes with his artist friend Mirrin don't distract him from his new heart-quickening obsession. Suffice it to say that gentle Hermux gets in way over his head with his detective work and proceeds to have fur-raising encounters involving spies, thieves, killers, betrayal, the Fountain of Youth, snakes, calliopes, and dramatic rescue attempts. Throughout it all, however, Hermux continues to thank the world at large: "Thank you for corner grocers. For sandwiches and honey fizz. For scary news and narrow escapes and trolleys and shopping bags. Thank you for loyal pets and bold adventurers (and adventuresses)."

Just thought I would share some good reads. Now back to bed for me.