30 Day Challenge - Day 21

 

Day 21 - Favourite book from your childhood.

I chose two of my absolute favourites. The first one is my favourite of the Trixie Belden Mysteries. The Mystery of the Emeralds. The best teenage detective EVER, Trixie and her friends and family kept me company all through my childhood. I wanted to be her so badly. :) I could relate much better to the 13/14-year old Trixie than I could to 18 year old Nancy Drew who always seemed so superior and never did anything wrong. Trixie did a lot wrong. :) She lost her temper, made bad choices, and she wasn't the greatest student ever. She hated her chores. But she loved her family and friends, she wanted to help everyone, she had street smarts and intuition. And she always tried to do her best.

The second book is The White Riders by Monica Edwards. It was the first Edwards book I read back as a kid and I fell in love instantly with Tamzin, Rissa, Roger and Meryon. Then I found out it was one of a series, The Romney Marsh series. And it was connected to the Punchbowl Farm series where the foursome was friends with the Thornton family. These kids had adventures, solved mysteries, solved problems, had horses and all kinds of animals. This was how I imagined life for kids over in England. :) I read both of these series' and the Trixie books over and over again. Even to this day I will read them.

30 Day Challenge - Day 20

Day 20 - Favourite romance book.

Well, I already spoke about Highland Velvet by Jude Devereaux on Day 05 (A book that makes you happy), so I won't repeat myself, even if it is my very favourite romance.

Many, many, many years ago, probably around 1973 but maybe even earlier, I read my first Georgette Heyer, These Old Shades. I fell in love with Justin Alistair, the Duke of Avon and his spunky Leonie. I fell in love with Georgette Heyer and I fell in love with the regency romance of which Ms. Heyer is the incomparable queen.

30 Day Challenge - Day 19

     

Day 19 - Favourite book turned into a movie.

I have to say The Lord of the Rings trilogy simply because, having adored the books I was petrified at how they might turn out when made into a movie. The Ralph Bakshi movie from 1978 was interesting and back in the day, when I saw it, I was quite impressed, but when Peter Jackson's epic was announced, I was concerned. Could he do it justice, the justice my favourite deserved? Well, turns out that he most definitely could. Jackson's trilogy is as much a treat for my eyes as the books were (and remain) a treat for my brain.

So, what could have been a HUGE case of Lunchbag Letdown, ended up being something wonderful and much loved. :)

30 Day Challenge - Day 18

Day 18 - A book that disappointed you.

When I heard that Anne Rice was starting a new series, this time featuring werewolves, with a main character inspired by one of my favourite actors, Matt Bomer, I was all over it! I couldn't wait to read it, hoping that it was going to contain the same magic that her Interview with a Vampire had contained so many years ago.

To quote my review - " I don't know if she's still thinking that she's too good for an editor, but BOY, this book could have used some help. I found little of the storytelling and action that drew me to Interview With a Vampire and many of it's successors. And it could have been SO interesting! I liked her werewolf premise, I liked her characters - what we saw of them. She built a wonderful cast and then under-utilised the vast majority of them. Yes, we need to delve into the motivations and thoughts of Reuben, the MC, but I really wanted to see more of the Pack (for want of a better word) which really only gets established in the last 4 (of 40) chapters. Maybe she's hedging for a sequel? All in all, I was looking for more of a story than a character study and sadly, I feel like I got the latter."

30 Day Challenge - Day 17

Day 17 - Your favourite quote from your favourite book.

So many to choose from in this wonderful, wonderful book! I would have to say, the quote that chokes me up every time I read it, and that's even now, was said by Reverend Sykes at the end of the trial when Atticus was leaving the courtroom. -

"Miss Jean Louise. Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passing"

Another favourite from the same book comes from Atticus Finch himself when, in talking to his daughter, he gives her a perfect bit of advice. -

"If you just learn a single trick, Scout, you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it."

30 Day Challenge - Day 16

Day 16 - Favourite female character.

Believe it or not, I laid awake in bed last night mulling this one over and over. I don't have a helluva lot of favourite female characters that easily come to mind. But there are some! There's Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea and Anne of the Island. Young Anne. Remoth, the gold queen dragon from Anne McCaffrey's Dragonrider books. Aeron from Patricia Kennealy-Morrison's The Keltiad. There's also Arya from Geroge R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire. Savil from Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books.

But my true favourite is my namesake, Evaine MacRorie Thuryn of Katherine Kurtz's The Legends of Camber of Culdi and The Heirs of Saint Camber trilogies. From her first appearance as a young girl through her growth as a young woman, a wife, a mother and all the while a most learned academic and most powerful sorceress, she owns the pages. She's like the actress that steals every scene she's in, even if she only has one line. A terrific character whose name I'm proud to borrow. :)

30 Day Challenge - Day 15

Day 15 - Favourite male character.

Well... this is a toughie. I spoke about Benjamin January in previous posts. There's Silk from the David Edding's Belgariad series. John Clark from the Tom Clancy novels. F'nor from Anne McCaffrey's dragon books. Athos from Dumas' The Three Musketeers and later books. Michael Geste from Beau Geste and sequels. Rhys Thuryn and Joram MacRorie from the Camber books by Katherine Kurtz. Mikhail Vasilyovitch Bayul from Amy Lane's Promise series (and yes, I must use his FULL name.). Tyrion Lannister from George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series.

I guess my favourite, after all these years, rereads, books under the bridge and all, would be Alaric Anthony Morgan, Earl of Culdi, from Katherine Kurtz's Deryni series. I fell in love with him when I was a teenager and at 56, I'm still in love with him. :)

30 Day Challenge - Day 14

Day 14 - Favourite books of your favourite writer.

My favourite mystery writer is Barbara Hambly and the series that made her my favourite mystery writer is the Benjamin January series. My favourite books of hers would be the first one in the series, A Free Man of Color, because it's where I was introduced to the world of Benjamin January. We meet Benjamin, we meet his best friend, Hannibal Sefton who is quite the character. (I think he's my favourite in the series.). We are also introduced to Benjamin's family, his mother, his sister and his half-sister; his possible love interest as well as the characters that all mysteries need, the authorities. The cop.. his name is Abishag Shaw. Is that not a NAME?

The mystery is good too. I lifted this synopses from Wikipedia: "Newly arrived in New Orleans after spending most of his adult life in Paris, Benjamin is accused of the murder of a placée named Angelique when he is the last known person to see her alive. Benjamin struggles to find the real killer before he is jailed and executed for the murder. He also tries to help the widow of Angelique's former protector, a white woman who may have had her own reasons for wanting Angelique dead.".

The books are all wonderful, really, and again, I highly recommend them to fans of mysteries and historical novels both. :)

30 Day Challenge - Day 13

          

Day 13 - Your Favourite Writer

So this category sort of replicates the favourite series and favourite book etc.. that we've done earlier, so I'm going to go with my favourite mystery writer. :)

That would be Barbara Hambly. Along with some well-known fantasy novels, Barbara also writes the Benjamin January series of books. The books are set in and around New Orleans in the 1830s. Benjamin is a free man of colour and the series opens when he returns from France after a very long absence. (Benjamin's Wikipedia entry: Mixed-race former slave, freed as a child by his mother's lover. He was trained in Paris as a surgeon, but works primarily as a piano player. He is very tall, and very dark-skinned, which is a significant impediment to his medical career in pre-Civil War New Orleans. He lived in France for many years, but returned to New Orleans when his first wife died.)

Barbara does her homework and the books are rich in history and atmosphere but that never gets in the way of the story-telling. Her characters are full and real and some of them you love, some of them you hate. The mysteries are well-plotted and definitely not just excuses for the story of Benjamin's life. The two twine wonderfully well.

Whenever I learn that someone enjoys mysteries, I immediately recommend this series. It's terrific!

30 Day Challenge - Day 12

    

   

       

 Day 12 - A book you used to love but don't anymore.

This is a very difficult one. Most books that I have loved over my reading life I still love but for different reasons. Take for instance, the Mary Stewart thrillers. The Moonspinners, The Gabriel Hounds, Nine Coaches Waiting, My Brother, Michael etc... These were some of my favourite books back when I was a young teenager, they introduced me to the world of romance and suspense. I graduated to them from Trixie Belden and Nancy Drew. They were exciting and new and romantic and I loved them to bits.

Today all of these novels are very dated and the heroines anything but modern, but I still love them for their snapshot of a time period and for the nostalgia of where I was in my reading life and the doors they opened for me. The Moonspinners is still one of my favourite books and I still love Mary Stewart.

So I used to love them as only a 14 year old girl can love books and today, 40+ years later, I love them for what they did for that 14 year-old and for the warm, cozy feeling they give me.