Sticky Fingers, and Something Cool

We had our housewarming on Australia Day, and the inevitable mingling of my friends and my brother's friends. (I'd already met most of Li's friends, as we get together for crafternoons, AKA gossip and cake.) Rory's three years older than me, and some of his friends have children. So of them came to the party. Children! At one of my parties. I nearly spontaneously combusted. They were all very well behaved children, despite my vision of a horde of screaming, sticky-fingered monsters. I say "all" and "horde" like we were being overrun. But actually, before a baby arrived later in the afternoon, there were two.

One was a ten year old girl, and once her mother prodded her to "tell Rhiannon what you're reading", I found I didn't mind they were there so much. This girl liked to read fantasy. She was reading Eragon, and liked books about witches and magic. I got up then and there and went to my bookshelves. I would have liked to throw several hundred books at her, but I started with one. My hands hovered over the Immortals quartet by Tamora Pierce, but something held me back. Those books are very to dear to me, and what if she didn't really like fantasy? I settled on the Wolf Tower books by Tanith Lee: funny, exciting, easy to love.

If I was guaranteed to have fantasy-book-loving, dance-class-attending offspring I'd happily procreate (eventually). But what if they're sticky-fingered whiny brats? What if they didn't like books? Perish the thought.

Also, something cool. I stumbled across this yesterday while I was Googling myself. I was actually trying to find a post I did on belly dance for Pirate Penguin. Honest I was.

Character crushes

I'm just over at SheroesCentral and reading through all the posts about "Tammy's men"--ie. the men in Tamora Pierce's books. It seems I'm not the only one out there with a big dirty crush on Numair! Nerdy, bookish, intelligent, sweet, absent-minded, and tall dark and handsome to boot. What more could a girl want? Okay, I've mentioned Numair twice in as many days. I need to stop.

My other character crush would be Gabriel from Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klaus. Big bad-boy werewolf on a motorbike. Hawt. This is also one of my favourite books.

There are others...but those are the big two!

Just finished reading...

I've just finished Beka Cooper: Terrier by Tamora Pierce. I fell in love with Pierce's books about ten years ago when I picked up Alanna: The First Adventure. Ever since then I've loved books with girls who fight. Realms of the Gods (Immortals #4) would be my favourite. I love Daine and Numair. The whole time I was reading it I was shouting in my head "JUST KISS HER ALREADY!!" I wasn't fond of the Circle of Magic books and stopped reading Pierce for a little while, but I'd heard such good things about Beka Cooper.

It was enjoyable. Not edge-of-my-seat so, but Pierce so effectively creates her worlds that you can't help but be drawn into the story. I liked the heroine. She's very original, and there was plenty of humour and fighting and odd-ball characters. The sexual tension is building nicely--and at snail's pace, which I confess I LIKE. None of this "quick gaze into the eyes and fall head over heels" crap! And the romance is the side-story, not the focus which I love, too.

I'm looking forward to the next one! Not sure when we'll see the paperback in Oz, but I'll keep my eye out for it...