Finally found a swanky place to release ‘Pandora’ by Jilly Cooper. Was attending a launch at the posh Regent Hotel in town, and decided to leave the book on the reading shelf at the left wing of the lobby while waiting for my colleague to join me.

Now, the waiting begins …

Adopt the pace of nature:
her secret is patience.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

More quotes on the virtue of Patience.

While reading Jane Austen’s ‘Emma’, I was led astray by another half-demon, a fiery-haired lass this time and no dog ears. Just a dark broody male for a hero protector.

At first glance, the innocuous-looking cover of ‘The Demon’s Daughter’ (excerpt here) by Emma Holly reads like another paranormal tale of the eternal struggle between human and demon, good and evil. Suffering from withdrawal of my favourite half dog-demon anime series, I succumbed to the temptation and rented the book home for a read. Only when I’ve reached home and taken a good look at the synopsis did I realise that this is an erotica romance set in Avvar, a make-believe city not unlike Victorian London.

I picked up ‘She’s Got Issues’ after reading the Daily Candy review of this debut novel by Stephanie Lessing.

Written in the first person, this suspiciously part autobiographical light romance chronicles idealistic Chloe Rose’s bumbling climb up the corporate ladder at Issues Magazine. Everything seems rosy when she first accepted the position of Assistant to the Promotions Assistant: everyone seems so nice to her, she’s got her own key to the shoe closet, and she’s attracting the attention of the cutest guy, Dan the Editor-in-Chief – she mistook his name for Stan – at the office.

But wait, why does she get this feeling that the editorial staff don’t really like her as much as she thought? And why is it that she’s always being assigned menial tasks – photocopying, filing receipts, getting coffee that has to be the perfect shade of caramel for her superior? Equally puzzling: is the publisher following her around, spying on her or assessing her capability? And could that bitchy piece in the latest edition about an unscrupulous, idea (and shoe) stealing assistant ousting her idiot of a superior by snitching to the bosses be her? And why is it that her creative ideas are always rejected by her immediate boss only to show up disguised in another form?

I’ve short-listed a few more books to be released in the next two weeks and these are:

1. ‘Switcheroo’ by Olivia Goldsmith: this funny though frothy book has hilarious twists and some solemn moments that kept me entertained, and at turns reminded me of the most basic human emotion and its immense power to heal — Love. Read the journal entry on Bookcrossing .

2. ‘The Selkie’ by Charles Sheffield and David Bischoff: a rather disturbing tale of the mysterious half human half seal supernatural being that has pervaded Scottish folklore since time immemorial, and how one woman was lured into surrendering more than her will to this dark and terrible figure. Journal entry tells you more.

3. ‘Pandora’ by Jilly Cooper: this novel is a riot, I’ll tell you. I’ve read Jilly Cooper’s ‘Riders’, ‘Rivals’ and ‘Polo’- all set in the competitive world of show-jumping. And enjoyed them tremendously. She doesn’t hold back on her language, and her narrative is very tightly paced, so it’ll be a good jaunt through the pages before you realised you’re hooked. And I adore the suave Rupert Campbell-Black and the kind-hearted Taggie he marries, the two central characters in this series. ‘Polo’ is a little more intense but I guarantee that you won’t be bored with Jilly. Her wicked prose and raunchy plot keeps you entertained. Look up her bibliography for her other great works.

Warning: this is a long post!

Between the last post and this, I have been jumping back and forth between modern and medieval Japan, pursuing the adventures of a certain modern teenage girl, Kagome, and a silver-haired half-breed dog demon, Inuyasha.

If anyone had told me two months ago that I would fall in love with Anime (Japanese animation, pronounced a-nee-may) series and manga (comics, graphic novel), I would have laughed my head off. But ever since I caught my first episode of the animated series – episode 39 in season two of the series’ screening on local television – I became possessed. That’s right, there’s no other word to describe my indecent obsession with the two characters and their adventures. My husband taunted my feverish pursuit of this ‘cartoon series’. Hah, what does he know? Anyway, I have his niece to thank for introducing me to this exasperating and reluctant half-demon hero.