Happy New Year!

Surprise! A new post for the new year. I had a wonderful holiday with my family and I'm now full up on new books (with more coming soon--thanks, Mom & Dad!!) for the new year. So, here we are on an unusually cold day in January--32 degrees at noon here in south Texas--with leftover barbeque in fridge and more than a little irritated by the last book that crossed my path.

I'd been looking forward to it, already taken in by the cover art, the good word of mouth, and the dearth of new fantasy on my shelves as of late. Then it was here and I was half-way through and waiting for the story to begin. I was in denial that it had already started and that it was the kind of soap opera plot that was more like the Fairies of Peyton Place. Of course, female protagonist, it would have to be a journey of the heart, right?

Well, no. It didn't have to be about self-discovery through sex, nor did it have to treat the fantastic elements like the remnants of bad traditions that cause people to do stupid and murderous things. Thanks for that. Good to know that I only read fantasy because I'm a reactionary prig. And your next fantasy novel? Black-balled from the library, my dear. So sorry, tradition and all that. You understand.

I had much better luck with Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book. It was engaging from the unexepectedly bloody beginning to the unexpectedly sad ending and kept me immobile on the couch from start to finish. Altogether the kind of reflective book that brings up the missing parts of the holidays, friends and relatives no longer here or unable to visit, the way the season changes as its meaning inevitably shifts to younger family members.

And here we are in the new year, waiting for the words that haven't been read yet and the days that haven't been thawed from the future or accreted to the past. Happy New Year!