The Friday Harbor Series, or Watching an Author Experiment

I read Lisa Kleypas's Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor over the holidays and enjoyed it. It was a fairly typical contemporary romance, and the male protagonist had two brothers who were just as cynical about love as he was, a dead giveaway for a trilogy, and since I thought the youngest brother was especially interesting, I sought out the other books.

Rainshadow Road is the second in the series, about the middle brother and a glass artist he falls in love with. Kleypas veered away from the contemporary romance category to add touches of magic realism: Lucy's glass creations come to life when she feels a strong emotion, and Sam, a vintner, could talk to plants. It was fine, and I liked the complicated relationship Lucy had with her family (although problems were resolved too quickly), but I would have appreciated more of a commitment to the magic realism, one of my favorite genres.

Maybe the third book, Dream Lake, would do more? Nope -- this one was a straight-up ghost story. Alex, the brother that intrigued me, is haunted by a ghost who needs to resolve a mistake from his past involving the love of his live, conveniently a relative of the chef Alex falls in love with (who can manipulate emotions somewhat with her cooking, like a lesser Tita from Como agua para chocolate). Unfortunately, the ghost's story (har) took away from the character development I wanted to see with Alex.

Not content to stop with a trilogy around the three brothers, Kleypas wrote a fourth novel, this one a paranormal romance. Justine, Zoe's employer, is a witch who learns she was long ago cursed to never find love; Jason is a tech bro (ugh) with no soul ( ... ) looking for a way to solve his predicament. This was the weakest of the lot, because the two fell in love way too quickly (although I appreciated the way they communicated straighforwardly) and because the central conflict didn't make a whole lot of sense. The curse and its attendant reversal and correction was needlessly complicated, and Jason lacking a soul didn't seem to matter too much in the end. For one thing, he could live without a soul, and make moral (or not) decisions; we were told there would be no afterlife for him without one, but no one seemed too concerned about that.

Kleypas has said she is contemplating a fifth novel in the series, presumably about Jason's assistant Priscilla who comes from a family of witches whose husbands all die early deaths. I look forward to seeing what sub-genre she tackles next!

Book Round-Up

Letter Perfect: the Marvelous History of our Alphabet from A-Z by David Sacks: A fascinating book that traces the evolution of the alphabet from the earliest carvings by Semitic soldiers or workers in Egypt to the latest uses in 21st century culture, going letter by letter. Full of lots of fun trivia.

Grange House by Sarah Blake: A critically-acclaimed gothic novel that left me cold, mainly because the protagonist was annoying. She claimed to want to discover the tragic secrets of the titular House, but every time someone tried to talk to her, she'd interrupt him, cut her off, or literally turn her back; in fact, I half expected her to stick her fingers in her ears and go "la la la I can't hear you."

A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny: The second novel in the highly regarded Inspector Gamache series, and the second one I read (the first one being the 3rd; oops). I can see why readers and critics love her novels, at least the first few; they are smarter and more complex than most mystery series, but there is a secondary plotline that runs through the whole series that I find alternately boring and depressing, which might keep me from reading the rest.

Spring Earrings

Long delicate chains of Swarovski crystals:

A stretch bracelet made of pastel glass spacer beads:

(It reminds me of those candy necklaces from my childhood.)

A few free beads and charm I got with a purchase:

I'm not actually Irish, though, nor do I have a particular attachment to St. Patrick. Perhaps I'll give it to someone who is/does.

Take a Stitch Tuesday

Sharon at Pintangle has had a long-running SAL called Take a Stitch Tuesday, and I've joined it this year. Every week I embroider an inchie with that week's stitch; sometimes two, if I decide to also use the Beyond TAST suggestion for more experienced stitchers.

Weeks 1-7 (FYI, I am continually unhappy with the macro photos from my iPhone):

Chain, fly, and knotted fly

 

Buttonhole and reversed buttonhole bar

Stem and Portuguese stem

Feather, and feather and chain

Detached chain and barred chain

Herringbone and raised close herringbone

The inchies make this an ideal project -- just a little bit every week, which is about all I can manage.

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

January's pick for the Inspired by Reading book club was The Starless Sea, a novel which I had fortuitously bought for myself as a birthday present the previous month. It's a story about stories and the truths they tell or hide. Grad student Zachary finds a mysterious book on the shelves of the library that contains several tales about a giant library below the world where all stories are kept, including the tale of how a young Zachary found a door to that library and almost went through it but didn't -- an event he never told anyone about.

I loved this book so much. It's a lovely paean to storytelling, filled with rich and vivid imagery -- bees and keys and swords abound, and honey lemon cookies and cats and dollhouses and trees and doors appearing everywhere. There's a millenia-old love story, and another sweet, more recent one. There are endings and beginnings and second chances and lost opportunities, and through it all the thrill of a well-told tale.

There were also some narrative problems. A sinister secret society becomes quite dangerous early on before fizzling out completely; another secret society ends up not having much of a role at all. One of Zachary's friends takes over part of the narration at the end of the book and she's wildly entertaining but she feels like she belongs in another novel entirely. And I would have liked some variation in the voice of all the non-Zachary tales, to reflect the fact that the underworld library is supposed to hold all kinds of stories told in all kinds of manners. But on the whole I could not get enough of the world Morgenstern created. Maybe a sequel centered on Kat?

I went with the obvious when it came to making the jewelry:

I attached a bee, sword, and key to a black filigree base, and attached that to a matching chain. A second strand of amber chips to evoke the honey of the Starless Sea adds a little textural interest.

But I didn't stop there!

Using a deep indigo strip of silk I picked up at Allegory Gallery a few years ago, I attached a big brass ring with a slip knot and added an assortment of charms, beads, and another hunk of honey-colored amber. this is my favorite of the two, and I will keep it for myself. The other I will list in my etsy store.

New Year, New Projects

I'm generally not one who marks the New Year, but for some reason I'm feeling all energized and organized and excited about my crafty projects for the year.

My long-neglected Tree of Stitches:

Keeping it in the cart by my chair should inspire me to pick it up more often than I have; and once I do, it really doesn't take long to do a section of specialty stitches.

Pintangle's annual TAST:

I wasn't kidding when I said I loved making inchies. I'm stitching roughly an inch square for each week. Once done, I'll back them with interface and cut them out, and make some sort of collage.

Monet's flowers:

The pattern calls for four flowers at the ends of a lariat but lariats aren't my thing. Do I make (very large, possibly heavy) earrings, or a shorter necklace (haven't figured out the clasp)?

A cellini rick rack star:

I don't have the called-for experience with rick rack beadweaving patterns, but I think I'll do ok.

Beadboy3's quilt:

This will be a sampler of his interests -- trains, Legos, Spider-man, cats, crayons, and Minecraft.

Flowers of the Month design from Just Cross Stitch:

I know I said I'd cut down on cross stitch for the year, but I adore the colors. I don't have enough fabric to make each design separately, so I will stitch it as one large grid, 4 by 3.

This should keep me busy for a while ...

Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirlees

I signed up for Julia's fall book box last year, and received a pretty edition of Lud-in-the-Mist in addition to some fun little treats. I'd read the book before -- it's a lovely fantasy that manages to be very English and very magical at the same time.

The book cover was a pretty pick and green floral design, so pretty I was inspired to stitch it:

I think I'm starting a new series where I replicate different floral book covers; next up is Quartet in Autumn, the Plume paperback edition of which had a striking pattern.