Bloodhound (Legend of Beka Cooper) by Tamora Pierce

Bloodhound is the story of Beka Cooper, and her adventures in the city of Port Cayn in Tortall. She and one of her partners, Clary Goodwin, go to investigate a counterfeit ring - one that's been more prolific than normal. They're hoping to shut this ring down before even more damage is done, especially with winter coming on and little to no food due to a bad harvest. They meet the Rogue of Port Cayn, a most lovely character by the name of Pearl, Beka meets a dashing young chap by the name of Dale, and things of many derring-do are done.

I rate it 10/10 stars. Tamora Pierce is amazing, as always. Her characters are real, not two-bit caricatures fantasy (a genre where the world itself tends to be the main character) novels can have. The issues are real, the way the characters deal with them and their environment are real, and I'm not left feeling like anything in the story had to bend to fit the plot. The dialogue is witty, and clever. And just because Beka and her friends have had some hard knocks, doesn't mean they don't have a sense of humor. Tamora Pierce's writing has made me literally giggle with joy. I can't wait for her next book to come out.

Swords for Hire by Will Allen Review

This book perfectly demonstrates why I love adventure, fantasy, humor, and all the combinations in between. All the characters are realistic and completely themselves - there's no sense that at any moment the main character might decide to something frelling stupid that you know only serves to further the plot. Rather, the frelling stupid things they do are funny, and firmly driven by who the characters are and the situations they find themselves in. I admit to having crushes on Sam, and especially Rigby, and I absolutely admire Melinda. The story is well under 200 pages, and is well-paced and packs a powerful punch. I felt like it was the perfect length, even though I very much wish to read more of the characters in Swords for Hire. It's extremely unfortunate that the author, Will Allen, died before he could see Swords for Hire in print. I'll be looking for more of his work, published posthumously by his brother. 9/10

Conglomeration

I, previously, had two other blogs besides this one. One, which I used for my knitting exploits, the other primarily for book reviews. I've decided to combine those two into this one. Thus, I have imported all my previous posts on those blogs (which are not many), into this one.

I chose to incorporate all three into one, because it just got too complicated trying to think in three different blogs. And then there were the posts I wanted to make, that didn't seem to fit anywhere. Now, I'm just going to write whatever I feel like, right here. 

Now that that's taken care of, I may or may not get some actual blogging done.