Tamora Pierce

Yay, Mrs. Brown and Lindi for keeping the dream alive. Let's keep on posting.

I'm focusing right now on fiction that features strong girls/women but that aren't romances. I'm not interested in coupledom at the moment. The Tiffany Aching books are great for that. I'm just finishing Wintersmith, and although it's not as laugh-out-loud funny as Wee Free Men, I think it's in many ways more thought-provoking.

I haven't been a big Tamora Pierce fan, but she certainly writes about non-romantic heroines. I just read the mammoth Terrior, the first of the Beka Cooper series (others haven't been published yet, but are planned). I don't care for the violence in this book, but I admired the tough young woman Beka (who is an ancestor of Alanna), persevering in her need to find the perpetrator of a series of child murders.

Teach Me

Teach Me
by R.A. Nelson is one of the best books I have read in a long time. Lately, I've been trying to rekindle my passion for books and find any kind of material that will pull me in and suck me under to the point where reality seems like the story and the book seems like reality. This book did just that. From the moment I picked it up, I was hooked. The story is a little bit riskay but sweet and gripping. Carolina "Nine" decides to take a poetry class her last term of her senior year. In this class she learns about love, obsession and Emily Dickinson from her incredibly handsome teacher, Mr. Mann.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is craving a little romance, forbidden or not. Although this book drags out, it is lengthy in a good way. It leaves one happy that the story continues past the alloted time consumed by the affair.

Tiffany Aching

I just finished Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett and loved it! Funny? Oh yes, this is truly hilarious stuff! This title is the third of his three Discworld novels which feature Tiffany Aching, a young cheesemaker and witch-in-training, in cahoots with the Nac Mac Feegle, a race of 6-inch-tall men who are blue. Now whether that is because their skin is blue or because they are so heavily tattooed is uncertain. (No one really wants to look too closely at a Feegle as they are pretty ugly, nor do you want to ask a Feegle. You would likely be attacked, and believe it or not, a Feegle attack would be fierce and chaotic. The noise alone can stop a grown man. You see, they all use different battle cries and ... oh perhaps I'm getting distracted.) Anyway, the humor catches you and drags you in, and then -- kapowie! Pratchett sneaks in his ideas about what constitutes wisdom and bravery and living a life of integrity.

The Wee Free Men
Hat Full of Sky
Wintersmith

All three are highly recommended. I mean HIGHLY!! recommended.