Hello all,

Slow month of reading for moi.

1. POISON SLEEP, T. A. Pratt. The second in a series of "urban fantasy" novels (the first was BLOOD ENGINES), this one's set in sorcerer Marla Mason's home town of Felport, where she is chief sorcerer and where strange happenings are occurring, starting with an attempted breakout at the insane sorcerer's hospital outside of town. Except that the intended escapee ends up NOT escaping, but another inmate does - a sorceress with the power to "reweave" reality. She's insane, her mental instability brought on by a rape at a very young age, and her magical abilities are creating havoc in Felport, which is becoming increasingly difficult to contain. Meanwhile someone has taken out a contract on Marla's life, and intrigue abounds in the sorcerers' clandestine interactions. Pratt has written a very vibrant story with deep characters and vivid settings. This sort of fantasy is usually not my cup of tea, not my first choice for reading, but I have really enjoyed these two books. 8.5 of 10 (I had a journal entry dedicated to POISON SLEEP here

2. PERSEPOLIS, Marjane Satrapi. Actually a pair of graphic novels (I and II) detailing a woman's life in first the post revolution and then war-torn Iran in the late 1970's, through the late 1990's into the 2000's. An insightful look at a culture that few of us know much about beyond the junk we hear in our media. Well worth the read. Very fast read. No rating, since it's non-fiction...

3. ANOTHER THING TO FALL, Laura Lippman. Very good, but not great, Tess Monaghan mystery set in Baltimore. Tess is working security on the set of a TV show, and bad things, small but escalating, are happening to the production. Finally the run of bad luck culminates in the murder of a production assistant, and Tess sets her mind to figuring out just what's happening around here. Tons of mystery, good misdirections and the usual vibrant setting make this a worthy read. Not as good as her last couple of books, in my opinion, but that's not necessarily bad - I really liked them a LOT. This one, for some reason, had trouble grabbing me and pulling me in like Lippman usually does. Maybe it was the less than attractive characters. It was hard to like many of them. Still, it was a very good read, written with Lippman's usual attention to detail and to her plotting. I rate it somewhere between an 8 and 8.5.

That's my three books for May. Hoping to do better in June. I'm off to a good start.