The Literate Kitty

So. I'm back home safe and sound (as of last night, about 10:45 p.m.) from my most-recent Big Adventure (to the Pacific Northwest), only to find myself thrown most unceremoniously back into the fray, as it were. Did "life" have the basic decency to grant me a little reprieve, kinda letting me ease back into the groove? Um, no. [Cue crazed/maniacal laughter.] Not even close . Paperwork is stacked up several inches high. A half-dozen orders were waiting for me to pack and ship. (As in today, chop-chop, whatdoyoumeanyouhave "jetlag"?!?) More taxes are due. (Taxes are always due.) Payroll is past due. I don't think I'm actually behind on any bills... but I better check; it's just tempting fate to say that I'm all caught up, you know? To top it all off, my house is a wreck. One man and one cat, left to their own devices for a measly 5 days, can wreak utter and absolute havoc on what was previously a more-or-less clean abode. I am appalled, but t...

Give me a great bunch of characters, and I’m willing to read about them doing nearly anything. Take, for example, the following characters... The pair of unexpectedly-harmless vampires--one, the metrosexual mentor (sort of a Nathan Lane-meets-Martha Stewart type); and the other, his innocent, boy-next-door protege who’s shy around girls. Then there’s the archdemon (a former angel who fell from grace, to you and I), who oversees all of the destined-for-the-Underworld residents in his area--just as cranky, imperious, and scary as you’d think (though ruining that image just a tad by dint of his quirky decision to go around looking like John Cusack’s identical twin). The still-in-divine-favor angel--who dresses in the very best Seattle grunge-wear, circa 1990, and (in a totally-unexpected twist) also happens to be the aforementioned archdemon’s BFF. A nephilim--the archdemon’s bastard child (the result of his fall-from-grace, as it happens), impossibly hunky but a touch, shall we say, pric...

Crack open an Elizabeth George book, and you can count on a few things. One, you might as well plan on devoting a couple of entire days to it--or spending at least a week leisurely wending your way through it--because the volume you’ve just sat down with will most assuredly be a hefty tome. Two, it will be such an intricately-plotted and intimately-personal tale that you’d swear you’re reading a combination of eyewitness and first-person accounts of actual events (rather than figments of a writer’s vivid and somewhat twisted imagination). And, third, you’ll get the pleasure of catching up with a sublimely-motley assortment of old friends (plus a handful of annoying acquaintances, the likes of which none of us seem able to escape) if you’re an old fan of her stories... or you’ll find the thrill of meeting them all for the very first time, if you’ve somehow never taken the plunge.  George is actually something of an anomaly in her field; she’s an American author--not an ex-pat, eithe...