Written in Red by Anne Bishop

When I bought this book in the closeout section of my grocery store for 50 cents, I wasn't expecting much more than a quick read of some brain candy.  Written in Red sat on my to read pile for a couple of weeks until I was between library books and decided to read it.  

Between Charles deLint, Jim Butcher and Seanan Maguire, I have a high bar set for new urban fantasy series.  I read lots of them and enjoy most of them, but I haven't fallen for a book like this in a while.  I devoured Written in Red in under 24 hours and made a point to stop at the library on the way to an oil change this morning to get the next book in the series.

The world-building is excellent, the characters are three-dimensional, the action is gripping and I'm halfway through Murder of Crows and annoyed that I'm going to have to wait for Vision in Silver.

Basically, if you're looking for an impressive urban fantasy series with characters that are real people and is a reminder that vampires and werewolves are not respectively cuddly and sparkly would-be lovers of humans, this is the series to try.

An early and wonderful Mother's Day

Mom was going to be at the lake this weekend with her sister, but my aunt didn't feel well, so Mom went up for the day on Thursday.  That meant she was free today, so we spent most of the morning working on law office stuff, and then headed out around 11.

First we went to the bank, then we went to pick up the map.  I have to give a huge hand to the framing shop at the Hudson Joann Fabrics.  Keri did an amazing job of helping me pick out the frame and then getting the map framed and ready to go, and it looks even better than I thought it would.  While Mom was pulling the car around, I grabbed a fake lavender arrangement she wanted but put back and bought it as a spur-of-the-moment Mother's Day gift.

After the map, we grabbed some lunch at a local Thai place (yum!).  Dad has been working diligently all week to get electronic bits and bobs that he'll never use out of the basement, and he filled six banker's boxes.  I took those and a stray remote and a non-working laptop to the city electronics recycling today, and then Mom and I went plant shopping.

To my dismay, Cochran's was completely sold out of basil, and man, I suck at growing it from seed.  I may have to see if Marc's has a couple plants tomorrow when I do my grocery shopping.  I ordinarily don't do that because I've learned that the chain stores, even local chains, don't treat their suppliers very well and do not stand behind the products at all.  However, for basil and homemade pesto, I will set aside my scruples.

After Mom had picked out two verbena, a sweet potato vine and two Roma tomato seedlings and I had picked out lamium, verbena, petunias, licorice plant, heliotrope and two cherry tomato seedlings, we had our annual argument over who was buying Mom's plants.  This year, she won, because she said the fake plant counted.  No problem, I'll win next year. :-)

Then we headed over to Casa de Jammies and unloaded the map from Mom's car and put it in the living room.  No pictures yet, as it's going to stay wrapped up until Dad comes over to hang it.  Then Little Miss Piggie Pie and I had a nap, and then dinner, and then I watched RuPaul's Drag Race while emptying four boxes of books.

I hugged Mom today, twice, and I will think of that every time I help someone handle their mom's estate.  I am lucky as hell to have such a lovely mother and to still have her here with me.