I Hate to Say It…

… but I’m going to.

I haven’t been reading much lately.  I know!  What’s wrong with me?  Well, lots, but I’m not going into that publicly.  If you really care about what’s wrong with me go read my totally-private-and-not-all-over-the-internet Twitter feed.

To say that I’m not reading at all is inaccurate.  I have ARCs from Ian Tregillis, Seanan McGuire, Suzanne Johnson, and Tina Connolly.  And I’m super excited about them.  In a kind of distant way.  I’m reading Something More Than Night by Ian Tregillis very slowly, because I’ve been waiting for this book for two YEARS.  He read a chapter of it at LepreCon in Tempe, AZ when I first met him.  And I was hooked.  And then I had to wait.  And wait.  And WAIT!  So, I’m savoring.  I’m nibbling the chapters ever so gently because when it’s over this thing that has been glowing in the back of my brain for ages will be over.  Granted, I’ll have something new.  I’ll have the whole story.  And I want that.  But I want to take my time getting there.

Something More Than Night is a noir mystery set in Heaven.  The archangel Gabriel has been killed and it is up to a mixed up angel named Bayliss to fill the void he’s left in the Heavenly choir.  Oh, and not get rubbed out next for sticking his angelic nose into whatever mess got Gabriel snuffed in the first place.  Did I mention there was also a girl?  A redhead named Molly who gets caught up in Bayliss’s mess.  Because there’s always got to be a dame in these kinds of things.  And Molly is a great one.  She’s nobody’s doll.  She’s confused and pissed off and a little lost.  But she’s tough and human in a way Bayliss aggressively isn’t.  Tregillis is one of my favorite authors of this last decade anyway.  And I’m so glad that I’m finally getting to read this story.  But I’m reading it slowly.

The last two books I finished were disappointments.  We’ve already gone over House of Secrets and why that wasn’t what I was looking for.  The next book was great.  Until the end.  I’m not going to name names because I’m about to spoil the snot out of it.  It was a light romance.  I don’t expect great things from them.  But if you’ve spent the entire book with the woman telling me she doesn’t want to get married I’m going to believe you.  I don’t want those things myself.  Great!  We’re on the same page.  We can totally be happy and fulfilled without… Wait!  What do you mean the only way she can bring herself to trust him is if he marries her?  Because marriage suddenly eliminates any doubts you might have had about this guy before.  Right.  I see.
Oh wait, there’s more?  Of course there’s more!  Oh, she wants kids now?  And she went ahead and got pregnant without telling her husband who, as far as they’d discussed, still was adamantly opposed to kids?  That’s awesome!  No, wait, I mean that other thing… reprehensible!  That’s it.  That’s reprehensible.  So that’s made me a little gun shy about books I don’t trust.  I just, I’ve been hurt too many times.