This post's purpose is to collect my common tags in one place, so readers (and I!) can easily access entries on several subjects.

A while back I posted the list I kept of my reading in 1991. Here's the list from 2001. Suddenly, there is a lot of Romance, including quantities of Georgette Heyer, my all-time favorite romance writer, Laura Kinsale, and another of my ultimate favorites, Judith Ivory.

I still need to type up the other lists--I didn't keep a list every year, but there are still several more. It's fascinating to me now to see all this.

( Cut for length, 2001 reading. )

I started reading a fantasy novel I'd been saving for some time, in great anticipation, but I had to put it down. I doubt I'll ever get any further into it. I'd read everything else this author had written, but this one...no.

The book has a great concept, making magic a bit like vampirism. The magic-users know that, by doing magic, they are causing someone's death, bit by bit. There's a conspiracy of silence about it. The book is mostly from the pov of the magic-users.

That was the problem for me. I couldn't bear to read their pov for very long, I couldn't bring myself to become involved in their story because I was so opposed to it, even though I knew by the end it was likely change would occur.

I didn't want to read it, so I stopped. Sometimes it's just easier that way.

I think I made good progress on the proposal this weekend; it feels weird to be polishing and adding layers into a couple of chapters without continuing, but I didn't want to submit rought draft, either.

Blogged about opening sentences of novels. For this week, I wrote my blog posts ahead of time, since I'll be out of town for a few days.

Reading the new Nalini Singh book, Angel's Blood, first in a new series. In the first chapter, I felt it was a bit heavy on the worldbuilding for what the story needed, which happens a lot in paranormals that are meant to become series. I am overly picky about this issue, so I imagine not everyone will notice or care. After the first chapter it didn't feel so guidebook-y to me. I am enjoying the book now that I've gotten into it, and really like that Singh's characters have a wide variety of racial backgrounds.

The setup is that there are psychically powerful winged beings, called archangels, who semi-formally control the world. There are regular angels as well, who don't seem to have the psychic powers, or not as much. The archangels can create vampires in exchange for the vampires serving them for a century, and if the vampires run off, a hunter like the protagonist, Elena, fetches them back. The angels and vampires are not of divine origin in this setup, and I learned in chapter eleven that they've always been around in human history. The archangels are very beautiful and scary, so of course Elena has to do a job for Raphael, archangel of New York City. She finds him dangerously attractive. He finds her dangerously attractive. But they must track an archangel gone evil.

Ooh, and I saw the Watchmen movie! Did not care about the ending alteration, thought it was tidier than the original, was amused by the "Outer Limits" shout-out. Loved the look of the costumes and sets. Winced a bit at some of the blood-spattering. Overall, was quite satisfied. I had popcorn, too.

I read the new Eileen Wilks novel, Mortal Sins (World of the Lupi, Book 5) over the weekend, and really enjoyed it. I think it's one of the best in the series so far.

For those coming in late, her series has a species of werewolves, all male, called Lupi. The first book introduces detective Lily Yu, who ends up psychically mate-bonded to a Lupi. And for once, I didn't mind a psychic mate bond! The books are set in a roughly contemporary US where magic works, and lately has begun to work much better, with accompanying problems. Lily can detect magical gifts in humans, and goes to work for the FBI in a special unit that deals with magical and related issues. There's also been some travel to other dimensions, but I like the "magic is awake right here!" plots best.

Mortal Sins has a number of conflicts going. First, Lily's Lupus mate Rule is dealing with being temporarily appointed as heir to a Lupus clan other than his own, which has a psychic component, at the same time as he has to go to court with an estranged partner to gain custody of his son. (As all Lupi are male, they breed with regular humans. They breed true, if I remember right, always having male children who are Lupi.) There's the relationship with his son's grandmother, who's raised the child, as well. Then he finds murdered bodies.

Wilks continues to address issues of race, sometimes explicitly. A local cop is black, and is angry when Lily calls him on prejudice against Lupi; in another scene, Lily reminds someone that she is not white. There are several places where racial prejudice is mentioned in conjunction with prejudice against people who have magic. When Lily speaks of going public with her magical ability, however, she likens it to a gay person coming out.

I am really interested in seeing where Wilks goes with this next.

This year, I decided to keep track of the books I read. I've done this several times over the years, and last night I typed up some of the old lists from the ancient notebook where they reside.

Here's 1991, which features many books from Tor, because I had a friend working there who obtained them for me. I didn't track rereads.

( oracne's reading in 1991. )

Y.S. Wilce, Flora's Dare: ZOMG so good. Ummmm...most of what I loved was spoileriffic, and I really don't want to spoil, so, ummm...it's second in a series, and the world is really cool, it's an alternate California that is a client state of the Huitzals, nicknamed Birdies, who are alternate-world Aztecs. Also, Wilce has a really great prose style which I love.

Flora is the youngest child of a family of soldiers; her mother is a general, and her father was tortured by the Huitzils and is a wee bit shellshocked. Flora doesn't want to be regular army, she wants to be a Ranger, which is essentially a spy. Her idol is Nini Mo, the Coyote Queen, greatest ranger ever, and she religiously reads the yellowback novels depicting Nini Mo's adventures as well as Nini Mo's guidebook to ranger skills. Whenever she gets the chance, she practices her ranger skills, which get her into and out of scrapes. And it's much better than I can describe. Just read it.

I highly recommend this and the first book in the series, Flora Segunda.

Judith James, Broken Wing: set in the Napoleonic period, the hero is a former orphaned child raised as a prostitute and the heroine is an unconventional widow who wears trousers and studies astronomy. The book has a very old-school feel; the traveling adventure section in the middle section reminded me of novels like Captain Blood. At the same time, the romance is very tender and emotional. Definitely worth reading, even with what I felt were pacing problems..

It could have been a much longer book. The middle section, in which the hero is off having adventures he doesn't really want to have, and experiencing more angst which he will have to overcome later, has some summarizing, and much of what the heroine's doing during that period is only shown briefly. I found myself getting impatient to have them meet again, so we could get back to the romance, instead of simply enjoying the renegado mercenaries and bloody boy's own adventures and such. By the time I reached the last section, when the hero returns to Europe, I was ready to skip ahead of the final problem hero and heroine must overcome, and had to restrain myself from doing so. I was glad they overcame their problem by actually talking about it.

The book's from Medallion Press, who specialize in romances that are a little bit different, for example a couple set in Australia after World War One, and one set in 11th century India. I'll be interested to see what James does next.

C.S. Harris, When Gods Die: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery: I loved this one, second in the series, too; I wasn't all on fire with discovery while reading, but it was still really good and I was never bored, and since I read it so close to the first one, that's an achievement. The best part was that the ongoing love interest and investigative contributor, Kat Boleyn, was very, very smart in this one and I love her a lot.

Deanna Raybourn, Silent In The Grave: a mystery set in Victorian London. It's first person, from the pov of a woman (Julia Grey) whose husband dies at the beginning, and later she suspects it's murder. She learns how to be a detective as she goes, with the help of investigator Nicholas Brisbane. Brisbane's many talents and Interesting Secrets are revealed as the book progresses, and there is a nifty subplot involving a bird whom I suspect will feature in future books

Brisbane becomes more and more Swoonily Interesting as the book goes on, and I am hoping he does not become So Interesting that the narrator is excluded. Her naievety might have been exacerbated in this book by her inexperience as a detective, so might improve.

All in all, this had much more of a romance feel to it than the C.S. Harris Regency mysteries.

( Spoiler that gives away solution to mystery. )

Other than that, I liked the book. I got the second one, just to see.

C.S. Harris, What Angels Fear: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery: I loved this; it's a mystery set in Regency England, or rather on the brink of the Regency. The hero, Sebastian St. Cyr, is accused of murder and, using skills he gained as an intelligence officer on the Peninsula, decides the only way out is to find the real killer. It's very tautly structured and never lets you rest, because the information of one chapter might turn out to be a lie in the next. I also liked the intense romance element when St. Cyr is reunited with the courtesan who was his first love, and the hints of family secrets that I am sure will play out in future books of the series.

I haven't enjoyed a mystery this much since the last of Barbara Hambly's Benjamin January series. I've ordered the next two in this series already.

Harris also writes romance as Candace Proctor; I plan to read a couple of her romances, as well.

Special thanks to badgermirlacca for the rec!

Victoria Dahl, A Rake's Guide To Pleasure (Zebra Historical Romance): I don't think the title was accurate, but the book was certainly hot, hot, hot, especially because both characters were smart, and I love smart characters who can figure things out instead of stumbling along being idiots solely to make the plot more tangled. Emma is pretending to be a widow and Hart is pretending his interest in her is only sexual. They manage to transcend that, and the whole journey was emotionally gripping. I had writing to do when I read this a few weeks ago, and I kept reading anyway. So I recommend this one.

Victoria Dahl, To Tempt A Scotsman (Zebra Debut): I enjoyed aspects of this book, but will admit I'm not usually a fan of the super-young heroine, even in historicals. She was nineteen, completely old enough to marry and run a household in her own time, but I still cringed a bit every time I was reminded. Which leads me to think that, usually, I just ignore the youth of the heroine in historical romance. I just couldn't this time, because it's mentioned several times, and in fact made sense of some of her actions in the plot.

It wasn't just that, though, that made me like this book a lot less than Dahl's A Rake's Guide to Pleasure; I also had trouble taking a couple of plot elements seriously because I'd seen them so many times before, and I felt a bit manipulated. I think one of the reasons Dahl's second book was so much more to my taste was that those plotting problems had been overcome. So I am still very much looking forward to her third book.

Check out drinkingcocoa on Dumbledore and gayness.

Jessica Anderson, Nightkeepers: It's neat that the author used Mayan mythology as her source, but I was annoyed that the keeper of the Mayan gods is blonde and the Nightkeeper (Mayan magician) king has blue eyes; the next Nightkeeper we meet is blond, while his adoptive sister, who is magically bound to protect him, almost like a servant because she is meant to take care of him before herself, is darker. I stopped right there. "What this book needs is a honkey." *sigh*

Sure, almost all Native Americans share DNA with Europeans, and many show the physical traits of Europeans, but I would think the hereditary king of the Mayan magicians might be, well, more Mayan.

I couldn't finish the book, so I have no idea if it gets better in this respect. If anyone else finishes it, please let me know what you think.

What is your favorite book featuring a female disguised as a male?

I am especially interested in Romance and Young Adult variations on this theme. Has it shown up in Mystery very much? Other than in Laurie R. King's Holmes novels?

What am I missing?

My list so far, of ones I've read and liked:

Georgette Heyer:
These Old Shades
The Corinthian
The Masqueraders [bonus boy dressed as girl!]

Jo Beverley:
My Lady Notorious

Connie Brockway:
All Through the Night [well, she doesn't do it except when thieving, but maybe it counts?]

Anne Gracie:
An Honorable Thief [again, only dressed as male when thieving]

Laura Kinsale:
The Prince of Midnight
The Dream Hunter

Pam Rosenthal:
Almost a Gentleman

ETA: Nita Abrams' romances have a male spy who frequently disguises himself as an old woman, and I think his daughter was often disguised as a boy in her youth, but we never see it, it's only referred to. If I remember right.

Liz Carlyle, Never Romance a Rake: this is the latest from one of my favorite historical romance writers, and it has some great angsty tension throughout which I loved.

( Cut for length and quite a lot of spoilers. )

Madelynne Ellis, A Gentleman's Wager: Historical erotica from Black Lace, in which the heroine seeks fulfillment of more than one sort. Some male/male action. The story didn't propel me madly along; it was more something I read in small, yummy bites. I didn't necessarily like the characters, but I did like what she did with them; as I often do when reading erotica, I was studying what she wrote and how she wrote it. It was a nice change from all the erotic romance I've been reading.

There's a sequel, Phantasmagoria, which is on my TBR pile--it looks like it has a Gothic plot, so might have a much different feel. Am looking forward to seeing what she did with it.

Lee Rowan, Ransom: this was a male/male romance from a publisher called Linden Bay. It's set in 1796, and the heroes, Davy and William, are in the British navy, so Their Love Is Forbidden. But they and their captain are kidnapped! And Davy must consort with the kidnapper to save the lives of his friend and his captain though it could end his career! There is angst! Also a lot of nifty stuff about how they escape.

The only thing I didn't like was that William seemd to be an homage to Horatio Hornblower (who was inspired by Admiral Nelson among others): really smart and creative, good at math and navigation, tone-deaf, doesn't like horses, motherless; William's father is a vicar instead of a doctor, at least. If I wasn't so very familiar with the C.S. Forester books, I doubt I would have noticed, as most of those details are peripheral to the story, but as it was, I found them distracting. I further had the sensation of "serial numbers scraped off" because the blond Davy's last name is Archer, which reminded me too much of Archie, the blond buddy on the tv version of Hornblower, and about whom much slash has been generated.

I plan to read the sequel. It was fun once the plot got moving.

Kresley Cole, Dark Needs at Night's Edge (The Immortals After Dark, Book 4): I am still loving this series. The heroine of this one is the ghost of a self-made woman of the 1920s, which I adore. The hero is a vampire who is, at the start of the novel, insane with bloodlust. So their path to romance is a rocky one, beginning with the hero chained to a bed in the house haunted by the heroine; and of course the hero's brothers, who are trying to cure him, think he's hallucinating when he asks them about the pretty woman he sees.

Also, I love the wild, funny, unashamed world of females of the Lore, and there were more glimpses in this book.

The resolution of the story was a little too easy, but I realized I would have been annoyed if it hadn't been resolved, and couldn't think of a better solution myself, so there you go.

Cole continues to spear many of the tropes of other paranormal romances and the Alpha Hero, and to do so in a most amusing manner.

I've figured out the main reason why I didn't love either the movie of THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE or PRINCE CASPIAN, which I saw yesterday.

What I miss in the movie versions is the author's voice. barbarienne pointed out to me that a lot of PRINCE CASPIAN is narrative rather than action. That narrative is what I read so many times, what imprinted on my brain, and what says "Narnia" to me. It's not the characters and events per se. It's seeing them through Lewis' eyes and voice. In my mind and heart, the author's voice is inextricable from the story. Without that, the movies fall flat.