Title: Lord Perfect
Author: Loretta Chase
Publication Info: Penguin Group, March 2006
Genre: Regency Romance
Rating: <3 <3 <3 <3

Short, spirited and well-written, Lord Perfect is a must read for any Regency Romance Lover. Indeed, it has been recommended by many readers over at Smart Bitches as a funny, super-absorbing, HEA-packed love story. I found the story, my first by Ms. Chase, to be delightful and I fully intend to read the rest of her repertoire in the coming months.

Benedict Carsington, Viscount Rathbourne, is known to the Ton as Lord Perfect for his impeccable self-conduct and for elevating the haughty aristocrat to an art form. Always the responsible one, he has taken over watch of his young nephew Peregrine. Bathsheba Wingate is a social outcast despite her blueblood and general responsibleness, simply for being related to the crooked branch of the DeLucey family. Her daughter Olivia inherited her relatives’ high spirited and iniquitous methods, and she hatches an Idea to run away to find the legendary family treasure, with Peregrine in tow. Hilarity ensues. Benedict and Bathsheba are forced together to find the missing children, despite their need to stay away from each other to fight the flames of passion that threaten to erupt.

Beneath his icy exterior, Benedict turns out to be a dashing hero and an excellent dad for Oliva. Bathsheba makes the typical romance heroine’s attempt to set Benedict free so that he doesn’t ruin his life by falling madly in love with her. He. in turn, makes the typical hero response of ignoring her well-meaning rebuttals and embracing the wuv, true wuv. The character that I love most in this book is Olivia. She’s charming, clever, and devious. My heart was all a-flutter at the deliciousness of the HEA. I recommend this book to all!

Title: Angel Rogue
Author: Mary Jo Putney
Series: Fallen Angels Series
Publication Info: Penguin Group, reissue November 2006
Genre: Regency Romance
Rating: <3 <3 <3

A delightful Regency adventure! I strongly recommend this book to Regency Romance Lovers, though I have two reservations that lead me to give it a rating of three hearts instead of four. Still, I have to like a book a lot to blog about it at all. This is my first book by Ms. Putney, and of course not the first in the Fallen Angels Series, so sue me. Reading it out of order was fine.

Lord Robert Andreville, known to his friends as Robin, is a charming, cheerful, magic-trick weilding, steal-your-heart hero whose happy-go-lucky air hides a wellspring of guilt and torment over his spy past. Maxima Collins, known to her friends as Maxie, is the daughter of the errant second son of an English Viscount and a Mohawk mother. She travels to England with her father to meet her unwelcoming English country cousins, and her father dies unexpectedly during a trip to London. Overhearing a conversation that suggests her father’s death wasn’t natural, she decides to run away, dressed as a boy, and walk to london. She literally trips over Robin as he is sleeping in the woods on his brother’s estate, and he appoints himself guardian in her quest. During their trek they outwit highway robbers, escape hired thugs, and get into brilliantly endearing capers. Maxima’s aunt and Robin’s brother search the countryside for the pair and end up falling in love in a very sweet secondary romance.

Things I love about the book: Robin. Ooo yum! Daring, honorable, funny, darling man! And the adventure crossing the country is great. The secondary romance in nice too.

Things that could have been better: Maxie uses stereotypical “listen to the wind” Native American magic to heal Robin’s soul. Cliche alert! The story lines are wrapped up blindingly fast and tight at the end of the book. They should have been more gently and naturally brought to conclusion.

I intend to read many more books by Ms. Putney, especially the rest of the Fallen Angels books so that I can get more Robin-goodness.

Yesterday will go down in history with the opening of the Seattle South Lake Union Trolley, the first streetcar line in 25 years. Buy your tee shirt here or visit Kapow Coffee in South Lake Union when you ride. Solving all the cities transportation woes, the S.L.U.T. connects Paul Allentown with Westlake Mall, cutting what would be a half-hour walk into a 10 minute ride in this a high commute area. During December the streetcar is free: making the Seattle S.L.U.T. a Cheap Trick. It was a smooth ride with full carriages as Seattlites flocked to try the new toy. Your intrepid reporter and sometime city planner Ciaralira was there in the trenches to take the maiden voyage and report back to her eager fans.

Great things about the S.L.U.T.:

It was free. It was clean. It didn’t smell like a bus, but like a new car. A barbershop quartet serenaded me at the South Lake Union Park stop. Starbucks gave me a free sample peppermint hot chocolate at the end of my ride. Some salon gave me a goodie bag at the end of my ride in the other direction. I got free stickers.

Not-So-Great things about the S.L.U.T.:

There will never be a time when I will need to travel between Allentown and Westlake. It gets stuck in traffic too. The real traffic tangles- I-5, the 520 floating bridge, Ballard- will be completely unaffected by the S.L.U.T.

IF the city were to put in trolley lines all over, connecting the major commuter routes and especially the high density areas that it has created with commercial hubs, then…well then Seattle could really be considered a first class city, not a frontier town of highly-caffeinated computer nerds. There used to be streetcar lines all over the city and many of the streets are still extra-wide to accommodate them. Currently the city has no funding plans for further development. Separately, the city of Shoreline is putting in Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) along Aurora Blvd (aka highway 99) and King County Executive Ron Sims has promised to put in BRT lines through the county connecting poor neglected Ballard, which voters approved in the last election. Sound Transit is still building it’s single light rail line from Northgate to the airport, with plans to connect the University of Washington eventually.

Let’s not even mention the Monorail. (Shown passing the S.L.U.T. overhead at left.)

What makes mass transit effective? It needs to be Reliable – to get commuters where they want to go when they want to get there. It needs to be Affordable – cheaper than taking a car. It needs to be Efficient – to get commuters there faster than taking a car. Why would a person take mass transit if driving a car can get you there in half the time? Studies have shown that commuters are unwilling to make multiple transfers on multiple different forms of transportation. This is the problem. The state, the county, the city of Seattle and the surrounding cities need to work TOGETHER for ONE, EFFICIENT, RELIABLE, and AFFORDABLE system.

But, hey, I gave up saving the world through smart planning. I’m left to make snarky comments, sing jesting songs, and enjoy my time riding the Seattle S.L.U.T.

Our imaginations, our base of knowledge, even our personalities have been shaped, amended, built by the books we have consumed over our lives. They are the food of our intellect. My parents read to me before bed every night until the beginning of high school. I was never very interested in television; we didn’t even have one when I was little, nor did my parents get cable until I left for college. But I Loved Books. These are the books that made a Big Impression on me, and I still reread them and recommend them to others.

What books have been influential in your life?

Children’s Books:

The Lorax by Dr. Seuss

Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney

The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munch

People by Peter Speir

Middle Books:

The BFG by Roald Dahl

Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank Gilbreth and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey

The Dark is Rising Sequence: Over Sea Under Sky, The Dark is Rising, Greenwitch, The Grey King, and Silver on the Tree by Susan Cooper

The Enchanted Forest Chronicles: Dealing with Dragons, Searching for Dragons, Calling on Dragons, and Talking to Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede

Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell

Juniper and Wise Child by Monica Furlong

Matilda by Roald Dahl

My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George

Peter Pan by Sir J. M. Barrie

A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, and A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L’Engle

Y.A. and Adult Books (What’s the difference really?):

The Abhorsen Trilogy: Sabriel, Liriel, and Abhorsen by Garth Nix

His Dark Materials Trilogy: The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass by Phil Pullman

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Watership Down by Richard Adams

Early this morning, braving the cold and a few lazy snowflakes, thousands of hearty Seattlites descended on downtown Seattle to participate in the 2007 Arthritis Foundation Jingle Bell 5K Run & Walk. Santa led the race in a yellow sports car (he’s a twenty-first century elf). It was a sea of red and green; hats sporting Christmas trees, antlers, elf ears, holiday viking horns, Santa caps, Grinch wigs, and even a menorah; Reindeer pushing little elves in sleigh-strollers; winged Sugar Plum Fairies dancing with a flurry of Snowflakes; Felt christmas trees and a gingerbread man. The air was filled with the jingle of bells tied to our running shoes and palpable cheer, warming the chilly air. I got positively overheated by the middle of the race. We ran along the I-5 express lanes, jumping the cracks and holes of the broken pavement. Hundreds of voices bounced off the tunnel walls as the crowd burst into a spontaneous rendition of “Jingle Bells”. This is what the Christmas Spirit is to me: neighbors and strangers joining together by the thousands to celebrate the season and raise money for a worthy cause. Happy Holidays!

In response to Lilith Saint Crow’s post today on Avoidance! I’ll offer my own two cents. I am a Champion Procrastinator. In college I would wait until the day before a paper was due, then clean all my laundry, wash the dishes, and call my parents before I could finally start writing. Once I start writing and get back in the groove I love it; but I’ll clip my cat’s toenails, dust the hummels and catalogue my pencils before I can make myself sit down and get to work. Everyday this week I’ve justified not writing, because I can’t see the top of my desk, and in order to see the top of my desk I have to clean my desk and in order to clean my desk I need to clear a path through the office to get to my desk and before I can clear a path through the office to get to my desk I need to clean the kitchen and before I can do that I need to….till I’m exhausted just thinking about it and collapse on the sofa with Eloisa James’ latest book. My hubby is finally coming home from a week-long business trip today, so I really do have to clean. NOW I’m all about working on my novel- in order to procrastinate cleaning!

I can’t remember the last time I saw the sun. I feel like a mole. Or a dwarf. Maybe a vampire. It’s been dark, damp, and thoroughly depressing for DAYS. It is very hard to be creative when it’s so dreary. The constant deluge has caused flooding- see the photo at right from today’s Seattle Times. It’s nar-sty.

I’ve been reading all of Eloisa James’ books recently: the 4-book series on the Essex sisters (Much Ado About You, Kiss Me Annabelle, Taming the Duke, and Pleasure for Pleasure), Your Wicked Ways (in which the Earl of Mayne loses his heart, refered to in the Essex sister’s books), The Duchess in Love, Midnight Pleasures, Desperate Duchess, and An Affair Before Christmas. The latter two are Ms. James’ foray into pre-Regency historical romance. They are set in the late 1700s, when men wore high heels and decorative facial patches. Oooo sexy?

Today I watched the 4-part interview with Ms. James on RomanceTv.com. It’s a great site for procrastinating.

PS: ENCHANTED IS AWESOME!!!! I saw it twice. My husband even liked it!