Victoria Janssen's Blog, page 16

#TBRChallenge – Book by a Favorite Author: Wild Angel by Pat Murphy

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Wild Angel by Pat Murphy is a book by a favorite science fiction author I have been saving since it came out in paperback in 2000.

When Sarah McKensie’s parents are murdered in 1850 California, the young girl is saved by a mother wolf and raised in the pack. Part Mowgli, part Tarzan of the Apes, Sarah becomes the Wild Angel of the Sierras, rescuing those in need, while eluding her parents’ killer, a man who still wants to see her dead. Sarah lives with the wolves, hunts with the wolves, fig...

My February Reading Log

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Fiction:
In the course of reading Coming to Terms: Consequences Impend (Clorinda Cathcart’s Circle Book 12) by L.A. Hall, I discovered I had somehow missed Tricks and Traps: Tables Turned (Clorinda Cathcart’s Circle Book 10)! Which I had not noticed, because both volumes 9 and 11 were further back in the continuity. It was good to find out my memory is not that terrible, that I had in fact missed an installment! And I still managed to enjoy reading it.

Tricks and Traps: Tables Turned (Clori...

#TBRChallenge – New-To-You Author: Pembroke Park by Michelle Martin

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Pembroke Park by Michelle Martin was a gift from Keira Soleore several years ago.
It is repeatedly cited as the first lesbian Regency Romance, traditionally published by the storied Naiad Press in 1986.

Description:
When Lady Joanna Sinclair meets lady Diana March on horseback and clad in male attire, she is outraged. Such bizarre behavior is simply unacceptable in Herefordshire! But she is irresistibly drawn to the headstrong Diana, whose eccentricity cloaks a mysterious darkness in her pa...

My January Reading Log

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Fiction:
The Orphans of Raspay: A Penric and Desdemona novella by Lois McMaster Bujold had fun twists and turns; there is currently one more novella in this series for me to read. I am a huge fan of Bujold so enjoy these immensely.

Shadows in Death by J.D. Robb is the fifty-first Eve Dallas mystery, this time upping the ante with a contract killer villain. There are also bonus appearances of Roarke’s Irish family, proving Robb knows we’re in this for the secondary characters as much as for ...

#TBRChallenge – Comfort Read: Tree of Cats by Ellis Avery

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For my “comfort read” I chose Tree of Cats by Ellis Avery, the final novel by a college friend who died from cancer in 2019. Another college friend who read the manuscript told me the outlines of the story, which led me to believe it would fit in this category. And in a metatextual way, it comforts me to know that this last work of Ellis’ hands is out in the world. Reader, it was not a comfort read, at least not in the conventional sense. But I was comforted.

Description:
The thrilling and ...

Arisia 2021 Schedule

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I’ll be participating in a couple of Zoom panels at Virtual Arisia 2021, January 15-18, 2021.

“Comfort Food Media: Extreme Stay-at-Home Edition”
2020 was going to be the year we were going to tackle the piles of unread books, of films we’d been meaning to see. Many of us haven’t actually worked on those lists, choosing instead to revisit the things that we know repair our collective calm. What old favorites did you return to this year, why is this so comforting, and what do you do with the ...

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This is the official website of writer Victoria Janssen.

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#TBRChallenge 2021

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This year, I’ll be participating in SuperWendy’s TBR Challenge. My goal is to post reviews of a themed book on the third Wednesday of every month. Feel free to join me! Tag your social media posts with #TBRChallenge. The monthly themes, and my choices to fit those themes, are listed below. All of the books are from my To Be Read shelves as of December, 2020.

January 20 – Comfort Read

Tree of Cats by Ellis Avery.

February 17 – New-To-You Author

Pembroke Park by Michelle Martin.

March 17 – Bo...

My December Reading Log

Fiction:

I chose The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab at random from a pile of recent books; I was reading the first few pages to see what I wanted to read next, and with this book, I never stopped until the end. I usually don’t like stories that jump back and forth in time, but this story was an exception; each jump forwards or backwards illuminated some aspect of what I had just read, and somehow propelled the narrative forward. I would call it a literary fantasy, by “literary” mea...

My September, October, and November Reading Log

Fiction:

Golden in Death by J.D. Robb is fiftieth in the Eve Dallas series, and yes I read it, and yes it checked in with many recurring characters including a couple we hadn’t seen in a while, and yes it followed, almost exactly, the pattern these books have been following for a really long time. It was comforting in its familiarity.

Taking the Heat (Girls’ Night Out Book 3) by Victoria Dahl had been in my TBR since it came out. It’s a contemporary set in Wyoming, with some scenes in NYC. Heroi...