It started with a trio of deadlines – which weren’t, surprisingly, the problem. I met the deadlines with no problem. Post-deadline, though! Dylan turned ten (I know! Ten! If it wasn’t so trite, I’d say time really does fly), and there were all the activities associated with a little guy turning ten – gifts to buy, the perfect birthday card to get, lunch, dinner, get-together with family. And Mother’s Day on top of everything – another lunch, more shopping.

(I know, it doesn’t sound that rough. And it wasn’t. But I just hadn’t been expecting all the running around and eating out, which cuts huge chunks of time out of the day.)

And it’s already time for another Sunday Salon! I never even got around to replying to comments from last week’s post, so I hope you all won’t mind if  I just pretend that I already did and start fresh with this one. When seen from my Sunday Salon perspective, this week actually doesn’t look as chaotic as it really was:

Eating: Ward didn’t have a performance Friday night, so he made roast chicken. To those not in the know, my husband makes the best roast chicken – juicy, tender and lightly flavoured with rosemary and lemon. To make things easier for today (we’re heading over to my sister’s for Mother’s Day), he roasted a second chicken and we’re bringing cold chicken slices and scallion and ginger oil as our contribution to today’s feast.

Drinking: This week I discovered the pleasure of iced mint tea. It turns out Second Cup, my favourite coffee place (even now, when I’m not drinking coffee) will make iced tea out of any of their regular teas, so I gave the iced mint tea a try. It is SO good!

Reading: I didn’t have much time for reading this week, but I did manage to finish one book: Anne Holt’s Blessed Are Those Who Thirst. I know a lot of people liked this one, but it just didn’t grab me. I must admit, I skim-read through the second half rather than DNF’ing it because I wanted to know who did it. It might, however, just be the translation, and perhaps if I understood enough Norwegian to read it in its original, I would have liked it better.

Writing: Totally out the window this week. Not even a blog post to break up the midweek monotony here. (Yes, I’m hanging my head in shame.)

Making: Zilch. Nada. Nothing. It’s been that kind of a week.

Exercising: I finally downloaded a pedometer app and when I went for my run on Monday this week, I came back and told Ward my time. After doing the necessary km to miles conversion, I announced, “I ran a 14-minute mile.” Ward, polite guy that he is, managed a strangled, “Oh, yes?” but I could tell from the look on his face that most people probably could walk faster than that. I’m chalking it up to my using my meditation songs playlist for running (running meditation, get it?) so I put together a faster playlist and I’m happy to say when I went for my second run of the week, on Friday, I ran an 11-minute mile. Much better, although I’d love to get it to ten minutes.

I seem to have developed a consistent walking habit, which makes up for not running as regularly as I’d like to. Most days I manage a brisk 40 minute walk, with some days (when I’m going to Chinatown, mainly) I clock 80 minutes.

Source: By Themightyquill (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons

(Those 80 minutes walking to and from Chinatown are a good thing, as I tend to head over to dim sum when I’m in Chinatown and it’s a good way of walking off the calories before and after I ingest them. Sadly, rice flour, the main ingredient of my favourite dim sum dish – shrimp cheong fun or rice noodle rolls with shrimp – is very high in calories.)

Anticipating: A more restful week, during which I plan to (1) clean/clear out my desk (a Herculean effort may be required, I’m afraid), (2) clear out my clothes drawers to make room for hot weather clothing and (3) READ, READ, READ!

What about you? How has your week been?

Time: 9:51 AM

Place: At my desk, which I still haven’t cleaned up yet. I’d snap a photo for you all, but I’m way too embarrassed. Let’s just say my desk is pine-coloured, but you don’t see a whole lot of pine anywhere.

Drinking: Yes, that pomegranate/kale/flaxseed smoothie. This is what I have for breakfast every day, so it’s probably not going to change for a while.

Eating: Ward didn’t have rehearsal last night so he cooked for us! He made his fabulous Japanese gyozas, and also these delicious shrimp and chive dumplings I found online earlier this week. Whenever he makes Asian dumplings, we always have lots of leftovers, so I’m looking forward to more gyozas and shrimp and chive dumplings for lunch.

Reading: Fiction-wise, I’ve still been going through a lot of starts, trying to sink my teeth into a book but just not too sure what that book will be. I’m about a chapter into Blessed Are Those Who Thirst, by Anne Holt, and I’m still working my way through Leif GW Persson’s Another Time, Another Life: The Story of a Crime. I have Ransom Rigg’s Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children waiting for me on the Overdrive app on my iPad, and Dylan and I are reading The Case of the Peculiar Pink Fan, by Nancy Springer during the day, and Peter Pan at night, as his bedtime story.

I did race through Gretchen Reynold’s The First 20 Minutes: Surprising Science Reveals How We Can Exercise Better, Train Smarter, Live Longer, finishing up the book yesterday, mainly because it’s due back at the library tomorrow, and it’s a book I’ve been really wanting to read. Some really fun, eye-opening stuff in there, and motivating to boot.

Listening: Again, lots of starts – I seem to be in a really funny reading mood this week, dipping in and out of various books trying to find something that suits my mood. I listened to the beginning of 61 Hours, by Lee Child, Bitten, by Kelley Armstrong and Peril at End House, by Agatha Christie before finally settling into David Baldacci’s Split Second. Earlier this week, I did finish another Jack Reacher novel, Gone Tomorrow, which might have been why I just wasn’t in the mood for 61 Hours – just a little Jack Reacher-ed out, I think!

Writing: Haven’t gotten back to my current novel yet, but I’m going to be writing a regular feature at Reel Life With Jane – I’ll be writing about the summer series Rookie Blue which premieres on May 23. Rookie Blue is one of my favourite television shows,  so I’m very excited about this! This past week, I’ve been brainstorming ideas for pre-premiere posts and hope to have my first article up there sometime this coming week.

Creating: Nothing yet, BUT I signed up for Trish’s Pin It and Do It challenge (again – and fingers crossed I’ll do better than the last time, which wouldn’t be hard, as I didn’t do a thing last time …). I signed up for the Timid Pinner level, which puts me on the hook for making only one to three things from my Pinterest boards. Surely I can handle that, right?

Working: I have three deadlines coming up this week, so a lot of this past week has found me working on indexes. Still slogging through that high school biology text, which was delayed somewhat, pushing the deadline from this past Friday to tomorrow morning.

Exercising: After I wrote last week’s Sunday Salon post to procrastinate on going on my first run of the year, I did actually go for my run – yay! And it went much better than I’d anticipated. Usually when I haven’t run for a while, my legs give out – the lungs work fine, but there’ll come a moment when my legs turn into limp spaghetti and all I want to do is flop down on the ground and rest them – but this time around, my legs didn’t tire out. Afterwards, I realized all the walking I’ve been doing must have really helped keep my legs in shape.

This past week, I walked for a total of 250 minutes, which surprised even me. And guess what? The First 20 Minutes suggests doing your workout first thing in the morning, before you eat, so I actually went for a run earlier this morning! And all I can say is, it’s a lot harder running in a fasted state. A lot harder. I’m not sure if I want to do that again – I do like running first thing in the morning, but next time it will probably be with my breakfast smoothie in me first.

Photo credit: Canadian Opera Company

Anticipating: Ward has his full dress rehearsal of Dialogues des Carmélites tonight, and I have a ticket for the performance! So I’ll be watching him on stage – I’m really  looking forward to it! I’m sure it will be worth having to live through my own cooking the past six weeks while he’s been tied up with rehearsals. And opening night is this coming Wednesday!

So that’s been my week. How did your week go?

Library day always meant a blissful few hours of browsing the shelves. I’ve been searching my memories, and I honestly don’t know what everyone else did – since we were in a mall, my mom might have gotten some shopping done, but she was also a reader and I’m pretty sure when it came to checkout time, everyone had at least a few books to take out.

I browsed at the library, but I never read. Reading was for when we got back home.

After browsing, we’d get a hot dog from the Orange Julius stand in the mall. I didn’t like hot dogs – I still don’t – so I’d get the pizza dog, because all that tomato sauce and melted cheese did the best job of covering up the taste of the hot dog.

Every now and then, as a special treat, we’d get to go to Mr. Mike’s Steakhouse instead. I’d have a steak and a baked potato and back then, I regarded it as a meal fit for a queen. (What am I saying? I still savour a steak and baked potato dinner!)

I’ve never really been without a library ever since. Every place I’ve lived, finding and using the local library has always been a top priority. I don’t have as much time for browsing the shelves these days, which is why I’m so thankful library systems now have their catalogs available online. I tend to browse late at night from my laptop, putting in requests for books that I want to read.

Before my son Dylan came along, library time usually meant darting into the library in between errands to pick up holds. When we realized we would be homeschooling Dylan, though, the library once again became a regular, weekly destination.

Dylan loves the library, but unlike me, he doesn’t use his library time for browsing. He does browse the shelves, but only a little. Our branch is on the small side, so I rely on the library’s request system to keep both of us knee deep in books.

What Dylan likes to do at the library is read.

He’s done this from the very beginning: even before he could read, once we assembled a stack of picture books, he’d insist on sitting at a table and paging slowly through every single one.

He hasn’t changed at all. Nowadays, after we find our books on the hold shelf, we have to find a table so he can go through his books, one by one. He doesn’t read them all, but he does page through every single graphic novel in the pile. There have been days when he hasn’t wanted to go to the library, days when he’s got a special Minecraft project he’s designing, or his big brother has promised to play a video game with him later, and on those days he’ll say to me, “Let’s just go in and checkout our books, okay?”

But it never happens that way. We’ll find his books on the hold shelf, he’ll stand there with the pile in his arms, checking out the titles, and he’ll change his mind. Minecraft? Video games with his big brother? Surely that can wait. “Can we sit at a table and look through our books?” he’ll ask.

It’s not a request you can say no to.

As for me, I still don’t read at the library. I actually don’t feel comfortable reading at the library, because I know I’ll never have the time to actually finish a book there. Sooner or later, I’ll have to close the book, get up and leave. And I hate doing that. When I start reading, I want to know (or at least have the illusion) that I can read the book to the end if I want. So I just browse, although my browsing is limited to the shelves closest to where we’re sitting.

What about you? What kind of library habits do you have?

Time: 10:39 AM

Place: At my desk, which is looking extremely messy right now. I think I’m overdue for a clean-up.

Eating: Nothing yet.

Drinking: My normal breakfast drink of pomegranate juice, kale and flaxseed. Which doesn’t taste as bad as it sounds. Really.

Reading: It’s been a good reading week in that I’ve had my nose in a lot of different books, and a bad reading week because I’ve been mostly dipping in and out of books, not really finishing anything. In nonfiction, I’m about halfway through Chris Higgins’ The Blogger Abides, which I highly recommend if you’re in need of inspiration about blogging. While Higgins is writing mainly for the freelance writer, the parts about coming up with ideas for blog posts would be helpful for anyone who’s felt burned out with blogging.

I also started Jennifer Weiner’s The Next Best Thing, which has been fun so far. And I’m halfway through Another Time, Another Life: The Story of a Crime, a Scandinavian crime thriller by Leif GW Persson, which I picked up after I read Bernadette’s review of the book. Another Time, Another Life can be rather plodding at times, but it’s got me hooked – I really want to find out how everything ties together. I’m having a bit of trouble with somewhat clunky passages, which I imagine is just the result of reading the translation rather than the original language.

Listening: On a recommendation by Jenn, from Jenn’s Bookshelves, I picked up my first Joe Ledger book, Patient Zero, by Jonathan Maberry, narrated by the very talented Ray Porter. It’s an action-packed zombie novel that’s perfect for the audiobook format, especially with Porter’s great narration. He does such a variety of voices, you’re never wondering who just spoke, and his female voices sound female.

Writing: Didn’t touch my latest novel at all, as I’ve spent this week getting back into my freelance writing. I’ve been out of the field for so long, most of my writing portfolio is in print, which I’m realizing isn’t particularly helpful in this digital age. So I’ve been doing a lot of brainstorming, trying to work out the best ways to get back into the game.

Creating: Sigh. Nothing. The week’s been crammed with so much, there just hasn’t been any time for me to even think about making anything. I would say I hope next week will be better, but I’ve got a few scheduled appointments and a couple of deadlines, so it’s already not looking good.

Working: I’m indexing a high school biology text book at the moment, and a legal looseleaf service. One deadline is this coming week, the next one is early the week after. I’m really liking the pace of my deadlines recently, even though the slower pace does mean I’m making less money. But I’m not feeling burned out! So that’s good, right?

Exercising: I did one at-home workout session this week, and took three long walks. But right now, I’m psyching myself to get out there for my first run of the year. This first run is always the hardest for me, because I don’t like to run on the treadmill during the winter, so I’m always a little rusty, and the first run is always on the short side. But I do know, once I get out there, I’ll remember, “this is why I like to run!” and it keeps getting easier and easier.

Dreaming: It struck me this morning what a short running season I have here in Toronto – short for me because I can’t run in the winter, and I hate running when it gets too hot. So that leaves me with just the few months of spring and fall (which is why I really need to get out there today). And then I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was a treadmill out there that mimics outdoor running, by surrounding you with huge immersive screens that make you feel like you’re actually outside, with all the attendant effects: the wind blowing through your hair, people chatting with each other as you run by them, birds chirping, leaves rustling. Does such a treadmill exist, anyone know? (Of course, if it did, it would probably be exorbitant but I’m dreaming here, right? So anything’s possible.)

Anticipating: Taking those first few steps of my run. Because if I don’t get into anticipation mode, I’m not going to do it.

So that’s been my week so far. And yes, I’m seeing right now that writing this has been a way to procrastinate about going on that first run. Wish me luck, and please do envision me tying up my running shoes, ready to step out there.

What about you? What have you been doing this week?

You see, I am (temporarily) in charge of dinner.

Yes, you can feel sorry for my kids, they who must bear the brunt of this change in the domestic cooking arena.

And to make things worse, it’s all more or less my fault.

Early in February, I got an email from the Canadian Opera Company (well, I did, as did all the other subscribers to the COC’s newsletter). They had some interesting news: they were holding an open call to fill over a 100 “supernumerary” roles for their upcoming spring productions!

If you’re like me, you’re probably wondering, what’s a “supernumerary”? Luckily, the newsletter spelled it out for me:

Supernumeraries, a.k.a. supers, are the extras of the opera world and play a variety of non-singing roles. They are vital to enhancing the operatic experience presented on stage.

If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you probably know the following about Ward, my significant other:

(1) he teaches martial arts for a living

and

(2) he’s the (one and only) cook around here.

What you probably don’t know is, he’s a huge opera fan. So when I read that email, I got really excited. “You’ve got to go to the casting call!” I said.

Ward was hesitant, never having even contemplated doing anything like this before. But I was persuasive, and when the date of the open call rolled around, off he went.

You probably know where this is headed, right?

Yes, Ward was picked to be a “super”: he’s playing the role of a peasant in the COC’s production of Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites, the story of an order of Carmelite nuns during the French Revolution.

Photo credit: Canadian Opera Company

If you get a chance to attend the performance, which runs in Toronto from May 8 to 25 at the Four Seasons Centre, Ward says he’s in the front row in several of the scenes in which the supers play a part. Look for the tall guy with light brown hair and blue eyes, dressed in peasant robes. (Mind you, I think all the supers are in peasant robes. And there are about 60 male supers. So okay, you might not be able to pick him out.)

Ward’s been having a blast, attending the rehearsals, hearing some great opera almost every night, getting to meet some of the main performers.

The downside? I’m temporarily in charge of the kitchen. Because there are a lot of rehearsals in the evenings, both during the week and on weekends.

Which means, no one to cook dinner.

So far, we’ve been having a lot of takeout. As I mentioned in my last Sunday Salon post, I’ve even taken to doing the 40 minute walk to Chinatown to pick up congee and Chinese donuts (which Wikipedia tells me is called youtiao) and then doing the 40 minute walk back. The walking is a good thing, because having a lot of takeout does not add up to a particularly low-fat diet, if you know what I mean.

Then there’s that good old standby, grilled cheese. And sandwiches. I am particularly gifted in putting together ham and cheese sandwiches. I will even cut off the crusts if you so desire.

And let us not forget frozen lasagne. Thank goodness for frozen lasagne. It kind of feels like a home-cooked meal. So far we’ve tried two kinds: the Longo’s store brand and the President’s Choice brand from Loblaw. Everyone here likes the President’s Choice one better.

Now I just have to get through most of May.  If  you have a suggestion for a quick and very very easy dish that even I can make, please please please let me know in the comments. My children will thank you.

Since this post mentions food to a certain degree (although it mostly discusses the root of our current kitchen sorrows), I’ll be linking it up at Weekend Cooking, a regular feature that runs every Saturday at Beth Fish Reads.

Currently: 10:07 a.m. I’m pleased with myself because I’ve actually been up for a while – which is not my norm on Sunday mornings, but it’s a beautiful morning and it feels so nice to get an early start to the day.

Eating: Nothing yet, because I always have my pomegranate-kale-flaxseed smoothie in the mornings.

Drinking: Pomegranate-kale-flaxseed smoothie. Yes.

Reading: I read The Killing Floor earlier in the week. It’s the second time I’ve read a Jack Reacher book (the first one was Bad Luck and Trouble, a couple of years ago). I’ve actually stayed away from Lee Child’s Reacher novels because I was under the mistaken notion the story arc went something like this: lone good guy gets beaten, beaten some more, beaten some more, then from what looks like the ashes of sure, bloodied defeat, rises to, finally, conquer the bad guys.

I personally don’t like this kind of story arc very much. It’s one of the reasons I prefer a team approach in action thrillers, rather than the lone wolf. Because that’s often a typical story arc for a lone wolf hero.

But, as Lee Child’s own foreword to The Killing Floor notes, this is not the case at all when it comes to Jack Reacher. In fact, Child set out to create a hero who can, and does, win his fights, always.  And you know what? There’s a time when you need that kind of a superhero-who’s-not-a-superhero character in your reading life. Now’s that time for me. Especially given the kind of week the world’s been having – sometimes you just need the sure thing, you know? The hero who does always win. So maybe Reacher’s been like a comfort read for me this week.

Anyway, once I finished The Killing Floor, I started (and finished, the other night) another Jack Reacher novel (One Shot). I’m listening to Echo Burning right now, and plan to keep on with Lee Child’s Reacher over the next little while, until I get tired of the good guy who wins every fight.

Writing: On Tuesday I was out picking up some congee from a place in Chinatown that I really love, when on my walk home I passed by this woman who gave me the idea for a character. And as I walked, the character drew a supporting character, who turned out to be the narrator, and I started fleshing out the first scene in my mind. I wrote that scene the next day. So that’s what I’m working on right now. It’s more on the cozy mystery side right now, but that might change.

Since I’d already been working on another mystery novel, this switch to the new! shiny! idea signals a change in my methods. A long time ago, I stopped working on several different things at once and began focusing on one project at a time, because conventional writing wisdom is to stick with one thing or you’ll never finish. But recently I read (and loved) Diana Wynne Jones’ Reflections: On the Magic of Writing and in it, Jones talks about all the starts she has lying around, the manuscripts she’s started and never finished. And she was so prolific! And anyway, it’s not like the conventional approach has seen me finishing a multitude of projects, has it? So I’m freeing myself from conventional wisdom and letting myself write what I want to write, even if it means stopping mid-type in another work-in-progress.

Watching: This week I watched The Voice and Bones. Basically, doing catch-up.

Listening: I don’t do the music thing very much, but this week I did play Deva Premal and Miten’s Satsang – A Meditation in Song and Silence while I was writing. That counts, right? And I read Lee Child’s One Shot, and have started Echo Burning, in audio.

Working: One indexing deadline this week, so it’s been a nice, easy time for me. The index is due on Monday, so working is what I’ll be doing for most of today.

Exercising: I only worked out once this week, but I did go for four 40-minute walks (aka going to Chinatown, which is a 40 minute walk each way). And after reading about how moving around is just so good for you, I’ve taken to doing Couchersize: my favourite reading position is inclined, on the couch, so I’ve been doing leg lifts and such while I’m reading, and using a 3 pound weight and doing arm curls with my free arm. Not sure if this really counts as exercise or not, but at least I don’t feel like I’m being too sedentary.

Anticipating: Dewey’s Read-a-thon next Saturday! I’ve signed up again as a cheerleader, and I’m so excited. I’ve cheered in several Read-a-thons in the past, and it’s always such fun.

So that’s me for this Sunday. How’s your Sunday (and week) going?

A few months ago, Ward confiscated shelf space in another bookcase for all the new cookbook additions he received at Christmas. But frankly, there isn’t any more spare shelf space anywhere. So no more shelf space for him to confiscate.

What this really means is, no more shelf space, period. For any kind of book.

We’ve resorted to squeezing books into any reasonably sized gaps we can find. It works, although it does make for somewhat messy looking shelves.

Unfortunately, most cookbooks tend to be on the large size.

Take Nigella Lawson’s Nigellissima.

Nigellissima is a beautiful book. It is also quite a large book. So large, we haven’t been able to find a gap the right size anywhere on our shelves.

So Nigellissima has been semi-permanently residing on our coffee table. (As a matter of fact, all manner of books have taken up semi-permanent residence on our coffee table, and honestly, there’s not much room for anything else, like coffee cups.)

The good news? I’ve discovered a very temporary solution to our cookbook problem.

The Library

When Candace posted her review of D’Lish Deviled Eggs, by Kathy Casey, I decided to check the Toronto Public Library to see if I could borrow a copy. Turned out I could, and so I did.

And I’m very glad I did. In addition to delicious recipes, it turns out this book, while available in hardcover, is small, in terms of its physical dimensions!

Which means it’s on my to-buy list, the next time I engage in a book buying spree. Which we all know I shouldn’t be doing, given the lack of bookshelf space here. But I think we all also know I’m not going to let a thing like lack of space stop me, right?

Ebook Versions

I’ve gotten used to viewing recipes electronically, since we subscribe to a few cooking magazines through Zinio. They look great on Zinio’s iPad app, and the iPad sits nicely on the cookbook stand in the kitchen so no problems there.

So why not ebook versions of cookbooks, I thought?

Well, actually, I didn’t go through this particular thought process. What really happened was this: I was cruising Amazon online, looking for cookbooks to buy Ward for his birthday earlier this month. And I came across Plenty: Vibrant Recipes from London’s Ottolenghi, by Yotam Ottolenghi.

And as luck would have it, the Kindle version was on sale. I think it was $2.99, although it might have been $3.99.  (Unfortunately, it’s no longer on sale – I just checked, and it’s now $9.80. Still a good deal, though.)

So I decided to get it, sort of as a test case for ebook cookbooks.  And I’m very glad I did. The book reads beautifully on my iPad Kindle app, and the bonus? The recipes in the Table of Contents are hyperlinked to the recipes in the book, so it just takes a tap of your finger and you’re on the right page.

While nothing really beats a print copy of a  beautiful full-colour cookbook, ebook versions do work just as well for the purposes of cooking. With our lack of shelf space, I think this will be an ideal temporary solution.

But in the meantime, I’ve been scoping out various spots around the condo where we might be able to squeeze in another bookcase or two …

I’m participating in Weekend Cooking at Beth Fish Reads with this post. For more delicious food-related posts, hop on over to check out many more wonderful foodie reads!

Has this ever happened to you?

It all started when I read Barbara’s review of The Sinner, by Tess Gerritsen. Reading the review, I remembered that I’d read one Rizzoli and Isles mystery a while back; I didn’t really remember much about it, except that I had enjoyed it.

So I put a hold on The Sinner at my library’s ebook site, and when it came through,  I sat down and read it from beginning to end in one, long, quite pleasurable sitting. And that started the ball rolling. In the space of the next ten days, I sped through Gerritsen’s Last to Die, The Keepsake, The Silent Girl and Vanish. I also listened to the audio version of The Mephisto Club, which was the one book in the series which I’d read previously.

It occurred to me afterwards, reading several books in a series in a short space of time is a lot like going through a whole pile of candy all at once. I enjoyed reading each book – Gerritsen is so good with her plotting, and especially the twists she incorporates into most of her novels – but at the same time, at the end of it all, it felt like a little bit too much.

I think I’ll take the remaining books in the series a little slower from now on. Still, it did make for an enjoyable ten days.

What did I think of the books individually? Luckily, I’d gotten into the habit of jotting down short notes about my reading in my daybook for some of those ten days, and had written down quick impressions of a few of the books.

About The Sinner, I wrote: “It was good, although I’d have liked a better explanation [some spoilerish details about what I would have liked clarified here]. Still had questions at the end. The romance was done well, appropriate for a murder mystery that’s not a romantic suspense. Will read more of her stuff.”

And Last to Die: “It’s interesting the twist she uses. So even as you’re thinking one thing, another totally different thing happens. It’s a good way to write a detective story.”

And The Keepsake: “Interesting twists, again. She makes you believe one thing and then twists things around but it’s all believable.”

Unfortunately, all I wrote about The Silent Girl was a little note that I’d finished it the night before. And I went through a short period of not writing in my daybook at all, so I didn’t note down anything about Vanish.

(And now that I’ve written that, I’m more determined than ever to write something down in my daybook about every book I read!)

All in all, it was an interesting period of reading. While going from one book to another in a series like I did is a whole lot of fun, I think in future I’ll allow some breathing space in between series books. Not to say I didn’t enjoy the books, because I did, but it was just too much, too quickly.

I’ve decided I like Rizzoli a lot, and Isles not as much – Isles sometimes comes across as too emotionally fragile for a medical examiner, and tends to play the woman in jeopardy a little too often. Rizzoli, on the other hand, is no victim – even when she is in jeopardy – and I really like her spunk.

I still have several books in the series to read. Ice Cold and The Bone Garden are waiting for me on my Kobo mini reader (although I probably won’t get to them before they have to be returned to the library), and there are all the earlier titles in the series as well.

Most likely, though, I’ll take a break from this series for a while. Give myself some breathing space. But now I know where to turn when I want a mystery that’s suspenseful, with a lot of twists!

In the Urwald, you don’t step off the path. Trolls, werewolves, and butter churn–riding witches lurk amid the clawing branches, eager to swoop up the unwary. Jinx has always feared leaving the path—then he meets the wizard Simon Magnus.

Jinx knows that wizards are evil. But Simon’s kitchen is cozy, and he seems cranky rather than wicked. Staying with him appears to be Jinx’s safest, and perhaps only, option. As Jinx’s curiosity about magic grows, he learns to listen to the trees as closely as he does to Simon’s unusual visitors. The more Jinx discovers, the more determined he becomes to explore beyond the security of well-trodden paths.

But in the Urwald, a little healthy fear is never out of place, for magic—and magicians—can be as dangerous as the forest. And soon Jinx must decide which is the greater threat.

I’ve always read a lot of middle grade fiction, especially fantasies and mysteries, and for me, the best middle grade reads are the ones that create a rich, complex world with equally rich and complex characters. It’s actually not such an easy thing to achieve with middle grade fiction – authors always have to stay aware of the age group for whom they’re writing but sometimes when they’re too focused on this, it can be to the detriment of the story they’re trying to tell.  Books like Jinx prove that you can stay true to your audience without oversimplifying your narrative and characterizations.

I really enjoyed Jinx. The characters were delightfully real – as conflicted as anyone I know in real life. Jinx, the protagonist, is smart without really knowing how smart he is, smart in a survival-savvy way that was just such a joy to read. I also enjoyed how he stayed uncertain about the adults with whom he engages, waiting until they prove themselves before he makes a decision. Given his background, you really can’t blame him for holding back from really trusting anyone.

And the adults themselves, especially the wizard Simon Magnus, have their own inner conflicts and deal with their own uncertainties. They are perhaps not quite “all good”, in the way that none of us ever can be “all good”, and certainly not infallible.

The story moves along at an engaging pace, and the world of magic that’s revealed is a credible one, firm, solid, despite all the things about it that we – and the characters – don’t know. It’s a beautiful, finely detailed world, but at the same time, there’s so much that’s shrouded in mystery; part of the fun in reading was finding out more about this strange world of Urwald and beyond.

Jinx ends on a cliffhanger-ish type of ending, but this is a cliffhanger done right: we learn the ending to the particular story that we’ve been following, and at the same time, Blackwood entices us with details about what’s to come.

Which is to say, I’m very eager to read the next book in the series, and find out where Jinx’s adventures will take him next!

So I guess book ads do work. At least, they work on me!

Although it does help if you have an eye-catching title.

I’ve seen The Demonologist compared to The Da Vinci Code, but I wouldn’t make that comparison. And no, not because I didn’t like The Da Vinci Code, because I did – I think Dan Brown’s a great storyteller, and The Da Vinci Code was a book that kept me turning the pages.

But I wouldn’t put Brown down as having a particularly good writing style; his gift lies in his storytelling, and not in the prose he uses.

Pyper’s prose is fuller, more capable; he’s very good at building up an eerie, melancholy atmosphere. And while the book ultimately does becoming more of a page turner, Pyper does it without sacrificing that atmosphere. I’ve seen other people compare The Demonologist to The Historian, which I haven’t read, but that does sound like a more likely comparison.

The Demonologist starts slowly, taking about three or four chapters before it really gets going. I usually decide whether to keep reading a book by the first few chapters at the most, but it took me a lot longer to know exactly how I felt about this one.

By the middle of the book, though, I was hooked.

So, what’s The Demonologist about?

David Ullman is an English professor, and a leading authority on demonic literature, with a specialty in Milton’s Paradise Lost. A mysterious woman shows up at his office and offers him an all-expenses paid trip to Venice in order to witness a “phenomenon”. The trip is funded by her client; she refuses to disclose anything more.

With his marriage falling apart, Ullman ends up accepting the tickets; he decides to take Tess, his twelve-year-old daughter, with him. He and Tess are very close, and the trip seems like just the thing to help them both cope with the dissolution of Ullman’s marriage.

In Venice, he follows the instructions he’s been given and ends up witnessing the rantings of a man who appears to be possessed. Disturbed by the episode, he arrives back at his hotel, only to find his daughter missing. A frantic search leads him to the hotel’s rooftop; Tess stands along the edge, poised to jump to her death. She too, appears to be possessed, but she manages to say to him, “Find me” as she jumps.

And from the last paragraph of the jacket copy:

What follows is an unimaginable journey for David Ullman from skeptic to true believer. In a terrifying quest guided by symbols and riddles from the pages of Paradise Lost, David must track the demon that has captured his daughter and discover its name. If he fails, he will lose Tess forever

Did I find The Demonologist scary? It was creepy up until about three-quarters of the book; I know at one point I was very glad I was reading it while everyone was home, doing their own thing all around me. But for some reason as I neared the ending, I wasn’t finding it nearly as creepy anymore. I’m not too certain why; it might have been because the demon started seeming more human. Still incredibly evil, but with quite human motivations, and for me it was the supernatural feel that fueled the creepiness.

If I had to pick the creepiest section, I’d have to say the scene with the Reyes sisters. I definitely wouldn’t want to read that scene late at night with no-one else around.

There were a lot of things I liked about The Demonologist. I liked O’Brien, Ullman’s friend, and Ullman’s relationship with her. There was also Ullman’s relationship with his daughter Tess – a very sweet relationship that was also believable. The Paradise Lost bits were interesting – and I’ve never read Paradise Lost, so if you haven’t, don’t let that put you off the book. You definitely don’t have to have read Paradise Lost to enjoy it.

Where the book failed to work for me was in the ending. All through the book, Ullman demonstrates that he’s definitely changed from being a skeptic to being a true believer – but the belief he demonstrates is a belief in the demonic. Who wouldn’t, with all those horrific things happening to him? But the ending is supposed to show us he’s become a believer in God, too, a believer in the goodness that opposes evil, and this transition just didn’t feel credible to me. The whole ending felt rushed, and there were so many unanswered questions. I would have liked to have seen the ending stretched out, encompass at least another chapter, if not more.

Overall, though, I did enjoy The Demonologist, and would recommend it if you’re looking for a more literary kind of horror story.