Books read in April

It hadn't really clicked that it was the last day of April until I saw that other people had done their April run-down of books. Tomorrow, it seems, is the 1st. of May. Goodness.

Before I go any further I must apologise that I've had to turn the word verification thing back on. The spam was getting out of control again so I'll leave it on for a week or so and then see if I can turn it off.

Anyway, without further ado, the five books I read in April:

20. Black Cherry Blues by James Lee Burke

21. The Gift of Rivers edited by Pamela Michael.

22. The Glass Guardian by Linda Gillard

23. The Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb

And lastly -

24. Blood Oath by Christopher Farnsworth.

I'm nabbing the synopsis from Amazon for this: Sharp and ambitious, Zach Barrows is on his way up. But when he gets a call from the White House, it's not quite the promotion he expected. Zach is to be the new political liaison officer to America's best kept secret: Nathaniel Cade. The President's vampire. And Cade is the world's only hope against a horrifying new terrorist threat advancing from the Middle East. The fight is deadlier than ever, and time is running out...

This one did exactly what it says on the tin. It was a face paced thriller with a vampire. For me it was a 'so-so' book. Elements of the plot were cleverly devised... the mad scientist who was making mindless, powerful soldiers from body parts of actual dead soldiers was very convincing: I found the idea very scary. I liked the idea that the President has his very own vampire to solve his terrorist problems! How cool would that be? LOL. What was weak about the book, in my opinion, was characterisation. I felt the author could have worked a bit harder on making the vampire, Nathaniel Cade, a lot more interesting. He was a tad boring to be honest and that's quite sad. Other characters were also lacking in depth, a missed opportunity, but there you go, you can't win 'em all. And it could easily be that subsequent books provide more in the way of characterisation and depth.

So, five books this month. Pleased with that, as one of them was very long and could easily have taken me all month to read if I was in the middle of a slow reading period. My two favourite reads were The Glass Guardian by Linda Gillard and The Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb. Just for those two books alone I would consider this a good reading month.

My current book is Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch, book two of his 'Rivers of London' series. It continues on from where it left off with book one, so it was just like meeting up with an old friend. I love the author's wonderful sly sense of humour. Little bits like this take you completely by surprise and have me spluttering with laughter:

'Inside, the mortuary was much the same as the rest of the hospital only with fewer people complaining about the state of the NHS.'

The background to the plot of this one is jazz music. *Not at all* my thing but a good author can make you read about things you never knew you were interested in and make you want more. Quite a talent that.

Happy reading in May.
~~~oOo~~~