Debutants and Witches...

[savageseraph]

Storms continue in my slice of Georgia. They were severe enough this afternoon that the lights flickered dangerously a time or two and the phone lines cut off for a blip. Sadly, they were not severe enough that we went down and I could come home and work from here with the wee hound at my side.

I had to fire someone today. He'd intentionally not followed our program guidelines and then lied about it in his reporting and then to my face (well, to my ear since it was over the phone) when I asked him flat-out about it. After that, he tried to bury me in excuses, and when that didn't work he just got pissed off and tried to turn on the guilt. You know, he was going to be gone no matter what he said, but at least I could have had some respoect for him if he owned up to what he did.

Over the weekend, I reread THE MAGNOLIA LEAGUE and the sequel THE WHITE GLOVE WAR. They're the first two books in a YA trilogy, and I'm just not sure about them. There are some things I find horrifyingly fascinating, like the whole Savannah debutant thing. I'm a little uncomfortable about how the characters and their motivations seem to be painted in broad strokes and lacking in subtlty, and I'm uncomfortable with the rich white ladies keeping their men and money and social capital via hoodoo charms supplied by a deciddely not-white family. There are just some things that seem like ill-conceived bits of writing, and while the second book added some new complexity, I'm not sure it will develop in the ways I'd like to see it go. While I have some impetus to finish the series when the next book comes out, it's definitely not a must-read for me.

On the other hand, I'm one book into a series based on Greek mythology and societies of demigods that I'm quite likely. The series is by Josephine Angelini, and the books are STARCROSSED and DREAMLESS. I suppose I owe some more proper reviews of what I'm reading.

At long last, I've also cracked open Deborah Harkness's A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES. Currently, I'm about 50 pages in, and it's a bit of slow start. Diana Bishop, historian specialzing in the history of science and witch, is pouring over medieval alchemy books at the Bodelin archives when she comes across a magical text which does little more than let her think about the fact she is a witch and how magic was responsible for her parents' deaths and how she wants to avoid it as much as possible. The next day while she's researching, she comes across a vampire and professor of biochemistry at Oxford who is also researching there.

While i'm intrigued by the witch, vampire, daemon levels of magical society, things are happening a bit slowly. And I say that as someone who quivers with inner glee at the thought of researchig there and being to request and spend quality time with manuscripts that old. Since the book launched with such a huge splash last year and the next installment just came out, I'm going to stick with it for a bit and see if things start to pick up speed. Because while I do want to like the book based on content, my To Be Read pile is large and scary enough that I should move on if I'm not love with the ride.

Comments

[i-llbedammned.livejournal.com]

It's sad that the man couldn't even go out with dignity.

I may have to look into Starcrossed and Dreamless. I love Greek mythology and demigods.

A Discovery of Witches also sounds very interesting. I would love to work with magical societies and very old books.

[savageseraph.livejournal.com]

The cover of STARCROSSED put me off at first. It felt a bit cliche. But the Houses of demigods are interesting, and we just started getting into their politicing in the first book.

There is romance and curses and Fates and Furies. Good stuff.