The Dream-Maker's Magic

by Sharon Shinn

Grade: Good

The Truth Teller one is still my favourite in this series, although this one was good too.

And I can't think of much else to say. Gryffin was nice. Kellen's boy-girl stuff was treated nicely.

The Truth-Teller's Tale

by Sharon Shinn

Grade: Good

Much better than the first one. (Apparently the last one is the best of all.) And I actually liked the romantic hero! What on earth is happening to me? Maybe because he had a beard, and he wasn't nearly as handsome as his assistant, who didn't even end up with the heroine's sister? Maybe because his name was Gregory? I don't know. But I liked him a lot more than I expected.

And the rest of the characters were great too. Not quite fascinating enough to own ever. But good.

The Safe-Keeper's Secret

by Sharon Shinn

Grade: All right

The romance was strange in this one. I have no problem with cousins marrying--in fact, often I like it (see Rose in Bloom, etc.). But in this case... even at the end, Reed said, "I wish you weren't my sister." So he obviously still saw her as his sister the whole time. Yeah, it's weird.

Besides that, it was pretty good. I think it would have been far better in Robin McKinley's hands. It should have been longer, with maybe a bit more about some of the secondary characters.

But I've heard the others in this series are better. I'll definitely pick them up.

Oh, and I had a thought. We have actual safe-keepers in reality, in the form of priests hearing confessions. Priests of course have the power to tell those secrets, but they never ever do, and safe-keepers might be able to do that too (it was a little vague on that).

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

by Shirley Jackson

Grade: All right

Not quite my style of creepy. Perhaps because I guessed almost right away who the real murderer was? Although I don't think that was quite the point. The point was Merricat and her insanity. Which was cool, but I was rather glad  it was a short book, as it wasn't always gripping.
But it was extremely well written, I think, and worth it in the end.

The Singing Sands

by Josephine Tey

Grade: To Own

Too bad she died. Much too bad.

The character stuff was much better this time. Really, really good, in fact. I loved all the claustrophobia stuff. And Grant talking to himself.

The descriptions of the outer Hebrides were fascinating to me, as usual. Her long descriptive passages are quite awesome, although they sometimes make it hard to read. I think I put "To Own" for the descriptions of claustrophobia and the islands alone.

Oh, I wish she had written more...

A Shilling for Candles

by Josephine Tey

Grade: Good

She has a rather unusual writing style, but I think I like it. It was a bit hard to get through, however. I like Inspector Grant, I just wish there was more about him character-wise.

The Demon's Covenant

by Sarah Rees Brennan

Grade: All right

Oo, this is hard to grade it "All right". The parts that were good were so breathtakingly good. It's just...the parts that were bad I really didn't like. So I  skipped lots of stuff near the end. But Alan! Oh, I wanted to hug him and tell him it will be all be all right in the end. I think they call those people "woobies" or something like that. At least on the television tropes website.

If there's a sequel, I might read it. I'll probably just skim through it.

(See the first book, The Demon's Lexicon, and the third book, The Demon's Surrender.)

Poison Study

by Maria V. Snyder

Grade: Good

I'm still not totally sure what I think. I really loved Valek, but their relationship at the end went rather fast and far for my liking. Still, he was cool, and he reminded me vaguely of Vetinari, what with the V name, the black clothes, and the assassin training.

But, as a matter of fact, Yelena was cool too. She was "a strong female character", but she wasn't as annoying as they tend to be. The fact the she was a woman wasn't emphasized over and over again.

I think I'll have to read the sequels before I know what I really think about it.

Valiant

by Holly Black

Grade: Unfinished
Read: The first 8 pages.

Read the first 8 pages yourself and see why I didn't finish. (Except that I'm talking to myself, and so you've already the read the first 8 pages... but anyway...)
It's too bad, really. The synopsis on the front cover actually looks interesting for once.

The Demon's Lexicon

by Sarah Rees Brennan

Grade: Good

I loved Alan. I loved him so much, that a dark haired, handsome, tall and muscular main character didn't stop me reading this. Nor a fierce beautiful heroine who obviously liked aforementioned main character.

It helped that the two of them were brothers. I love brothers so much. And Nick wasn't the ordinary dark and handsome hero, either. That was actually quite cool.

The other two siblings bugged me a bit. Ah well. The sequel is written from Mae's point of view, so we'll see how it goes.

(See the next two books: The Demon's Covenant and The Demon's Surrender.)

The Murders of Richard III

by Elizabeth Peters

Grade: To Own

To Own to start a Richard III collection or something.

There are several parts I wanted to quote, but I'm too lazy.