Buying Books! Yay!

Our tax return came on Friday so we just couldn't resist going to Barnes & Nobles on Saturday. It feels so good to buy books! I came home with four: Stardust, by Neil Gaiman; Good Omens, by Terry Prachett and Neil Gaiman; Anthem, by Ayn Rand; and Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand.

So far I've read Stardust and Anthem and I have just started on Good Omens. I don't like bashing other authors, but Stardust left me disappointed. The story had promise but it felt sloppy and unfinished.

Anthem, on the other hand, was intriguing. It gets kind of confusing since all but the last two chapters are written in first person but only referring to the self as "we." This makes sense if you read the story. In it "I" does not exist, there is no self only the collective. It's a lot like the Borg collective. Wait, maybe it is the Borg collective.

Well, resistance is futile, whether you agree with it or not Anthem gets you thinking and I love that.

What are your favorite books? (I'm sure it must be impossible to just have one favorite book!)

Book Review: A Country Life, at Home in the English Countryside, by Roy Strong

I got this book by accident, it is not my usual type of reading material. Our local library has a very handy online catalog system that is great for looking up books and putting holds on them, from the convenience of your home computer.

That said, it is not without a few bugs; every once in a while it refuses to show you the thumbnail picture of the book's cover. This may not be a problem for most people but I love checking out design books and drooling over the pictures; I don't actually like to read them. This book came up in one of my searches and from the title I assumed it was another pretty picture book.

It wasn't.

I decided to read it anyway.

At first I was just dabbling to see if it held my attention and surprisingly it did.

This book is not a novel, it's not a story with a beginning, middle, and end. It's more like a series of blogs or diary entries. It's about a man, his wife, and a few cats and their life living in an English country house.

Each entry is short, two pages at most, and they are divided by season. Small--maybe insignificant--adventures and observations about the garden or the locals fill most of the pages. There is something so sweet about this book, it's peaceful.

Roy Strong's writing is just... I don't know what, I like it. In a novel it would probably sound overly pretentious, almost snobby, but here, to me at least it didn't. His writing reminds me of Jane Austen's style, he uses words intentionally, something that seems lost in a lot of writing. I'm not trying to say he is the next Jane Austen, though I'm sure he would appreciate it, but his writing smacks of irony in a very similar way.

My favorite entry is titled Walking the Cat. After losing one of their cats to a disease that is spread by feral cats, Roy and his wife decide against letting their new cats roam free. This results in the "need" to take their cats on daily walks. I had to read that entry to Danny, it was so cute.

I'm a little embarrassed to say this, but my own internal narrator speaks very much like Roy Strong writes.

I give this book five stars out of five. Some people may be bored by it (I hope not), but I thoroughly enjoyed it. If you're in the mood for a book, or a pace, that's a little different, give this one a try and don't forget to let me know what you think!

Post Numero Uno

Welcome to the Fayre Tales blog!

Wow, my first blog! isn't that super duper fantastico!

Hey doods I'm writing a book, but it's not out yet so I'm gonna bug you about it every week or so until it, like, is out, yeah...

Is there an un-corny way to start this?

My husband's advise: You're the writer.

Thanks dear.


Here goes...

Fayre Tales is my first book, my first trilogy actually. O.K. insert elevator pitch here:

Fayre Tales is about two societies, Inches, who are forced to live underground by an evil dictator, and Faeries, who don't believe in the existence of Inches. When Fayre (an Inche) is born in a Faery village events are put in motion that may cause the two societies to collide... again.

Ooh! Are you interested yet? Still working on the elevator pitch.

Here's some more about me: I only ever wanted to write one book, I had never even entertained the idea of being an author full time. Someone should have warned me that just like potato chips you can't have just one book. Guess I probably wouldn't have listened though.

At the moment I am about half way through the first draft of book two and continuing work on editing book one. Like many writers before me I am discovering the thrill of getting to know the characters I am writing about. Even with a basic outline to work from it is so exciting to get to see what's just around the next bend in the road, the next page in the book, it's both exhilarating and terrifying!

My goal here is to update about once a week or so with insights into my writing process and maybe an occasional excerpt from one of the books. Speaking of excerpts, here's one to get you started:

     Gran was busy making plans of her own, she stopped to visit Jolly. He shouldn't be too hard to convince, she would just need to make it seem like it was his idea. Of course that's not an extremely difficult thing for a female of any species, but she didn't want the council to know that she had any involvement in it or they might forbid him to go.
     Jolly was sitting on the front porch dangling his pudgy feet over the edge, “Hi, Gran, it's a lovely evening, isn't it.”
     “I'm sorry to say, I hadn't really noticed, Jolly.” She said sighing.
     “Come sit, Gran, tell me what's the matter,” Jolly was always such a nice kid, thought Gran with a smile. She sat down next to him dangling her feet too.
     “Fayre came back today,” Jolly looked at her with surprise and couldn't hide the smile on his face, “She said she found something, she's determined to go and search for her people.”
     “Her people?” Jolly asked surprised, “then she's not a Faery after all?”
     “No, Jolly, she's not,” she paused and sighed, “I have to say I'm worried about her.” Well, she wasn't lying. Hopefully he'd catch the bait.
     “She's going by herself?” he looked worried, good, “but that's dangerous, she can't go by herself!”
     “There's nothing I can do, Jolly.” Gran tried not to look at him, it was working well. Who knew old Gran Melia could be so devious! She tried not to laugh out loud.