Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness

I resisted reading Discovery of Witches, the first book in this series for a long time. Despite the great reviews. Because? It sounded like a very tired urban fantasy trope - woman discovers she's a witch, a very powerful witch and falls in love with a vampire. Hilarity ensues, blahblahdiddyblah.

Except.

That's totally not how the book was. Nary a sparkling vampire in sight. No leather pants. No necrofu.

Just a really engaging, well written book. So I was quite looking forward to Shadow of Night, the sequel. And I was not disappointed! Not only did this have all of the goodness of the first book, supernaturals, libraries, academia, knotty mysteries, the sequel also has time travel to Elizabethan England! Woo and hoo!

I adored finding out more about Matthew's past, his friends and family. It was so apparent that the author is an historian as she lovingly described clothing and alchemical experiments. And yet I never felt, as I have with some authors, that she was simply cramming in facts because she'd done the research.

Thoroughly enjoyed the second book and I'm eagerly looking forward to the next!

Publish date July 2012

Griffin Grammar Girl's 101 Troublesome Words You'll Master in No Time by Mignon Fogarty

It would be impossible for me not to love a book about grammar by Grammar Girl. She gives clear and concise examples with very easy to remember rules. My inner grammarphile was abuzz with delight while reading this.
Published July 2012

Bad Glass by Richard Gropp

Totally my kind of book. The military has sealed off Spokane and the rest of the world isn't sure why. Aliens? Plague? Experiment gone wrong? Our narrator, a photographer in the making decides to sneak in and photograph the weirdness.

Very much like an Xfiles sort of story - weird things like spiders with human parts growing out of them, dogs with hands, distorted time, disappearing people, mysterious graffiti. All sorts of weird things happen. I was totally with the author, invested in finding out what was causing the weirdness, investigating right along Dean.

Until the very end.

What, Mr. Gropp?? Seriously? That's the ending you decided to go with after that gorgeous, slow crescendo of ultra weird with much mystery and a bit of paranoia tossed in for good measure?

So, loved it other than the last few pages.

Due out in September 2012.