How much do I love thee, Harry? Let me count the ways …

I love how you have grown more matured and less hotheaded in this the last of your adventures. I love how you patiently bid your time to reveal your last strategy towards the end. The impetous youth in your past would have rushed headlong into trouble and jeopardize the situation by being over anxious. But your sense of justice prevails as always. 

I love how you really learned to listen to Hermione this time around, and chose to act for the greater good rather than shore up your defences with what would have been the most coveted weapon. In acting thus, you again showed us how truly selfless you are. 

I love how you learnt to accept Snape’s actions and perhaps, understand why he was such a conflicted person in his love for your mother and his unwilling defence and protection of you. Reluctant though he may be, he was still shielding you from Voldemort until the very end. 

Here’s a BIG, BIG thank you to Kristie for the tip-off on this fab quiz to mark the imminent launch of Nalini’s third book in the Psy Changeling series, Caressed by Ice. 

Since I’m such a sucker for funs quizzes, and I’ve been enslaved by Nalini’s Slave to Sensation, how could I possibly give this a miss?

I’m going to start on Visions of Heat soon, but with this book coming out now, I’m wondering is I should wait.  I love reading back-to-back books in a series. While I ponder on that, here’s the result …

Few authors, IMO, have managed to steer clear of what I call the ‘middle child’ syndrome in series writing. More often than not, the follow-up to their debuts often suffer from a lack of certain oomph due to the readers’ familiarity with the world and characters that were already introduced in the first book. 

Sometimes, the new leads in the sequel fail to live up to the high standards set in the debut … something quite unavoidable as readers are wont to compare and anticipate the same level of intensity, excitement and tightness in plot and pace in the successful debut. 

I found immense pleasure in discovering that Kresley Cole and Jacquelyn Frank have not only outdone themselves with the follow-up masterpieces to their new paranormal series (The Immortals and The Nightwalkers respectively), they’ve gotten me so hooked on their series that I’m already looking eagerly forward to their next instalments, which are on my auto-buy list. 

Between A Pirate of Her Own and Me and Mr Darcy, I’d choose the latter for its timeless appeal and modern application than the rather dated pirate tale that has no new story arcs to thrill me. 

I’ve picked up A Pirate of Her Own by Kinley McGregor from the local UBS simply because I was looking for a pirate romance. Well, I wasn’t bored to death exactly, but the plot is rather dated. 

Serenity James, who’d always dreamed of being a writer and lives vicariously through the characters she reports on in her father’s newspaper, was surprised when one of her characters looked her up. Morgan Drake had feared that his identity may have been compromised by Serenity’s article and sought to determine how much the idealistic closet reformer know. When a well-meaning buddy of Morgan’s abducted her and stowed her away on his ship to avoid a bounty hunter tracking Morgan down, the story development became interesting yet predictable. Of course they fell for each other but both were stubborn about admitting it. 

I’m not going to dwell on the plot here. Suffice to say, I didn’t think this was a keeper and returned it to the store when its loan was up. 

Now, Alexandra Potter’s Me and Mr Darcy, written in the first person, proved to be fun chick lit with some lessons for the modern gal. Sharply written and laugh-out-loud funny, this feel-good romance had Emily Albright and Spike Hargreaves stepping into the roles of Elizabeth Bennett and Mr Darcy. 

Out of the three books I brought along for the trip to Sydney, I would recommend Ice Blue and Howl’s Moving Castle. [Edited]: Read Killing Time only if you have time to kill.

[Edited] Well, Anne Stuart shows why she is a master at romantic suspense works with Ice Blue, the explosive and infinitely more thrilling follow-up to Cold as Ice. I was already very intrigued by Takashi in that novel, so there was no way that I’m going to leave Ice Blue on the shelf. This time round, she paired off museum curator Summer Hawthorne with the inscrutable and cool-as-cucumber secret agent man Takashi. 

The villain, Shirosama, is a misguided spiritual leader whose Armageddon beliefs and ‘benevolent’ way of assisting the lost to find their path is horribly reflective of some of the methods practiced by modern day terrorists. That’s why the committee’s objective of thwarting and stopping him found resonance and strong support in me.

Returning to Sydney has always been a dream ever since my first visit to this lovely city in 2004, so imagine my excitement and delight when I discovered that I need to make a trip there to wrap up some matters for an ongoing web project.

My first impression of this city where majestic Victorian and other architectural beauties of a bygone era take pride of place next to modern sky scrapers was that of a laid back cosmopolitan capital. I’m glad that not much has changed yet there were improvements and new features added that made this city a really easy and tourist friendly one. Nearly every attraction is within walking distance from where I was staying in the city centre this time round. 

My friends from work took me to a few classy dining establishments, one being the Cantina, and another was Glass restaurant at the Hilton Sydney. Real swanky … that one. On another night, a dear colleague brought me to Paddington Five Ways to this charming French restaurant (whose name I’ve forgotten) where we had a wonderful dinner. 

When I’m done with the meetings on Friday, I took the monorail down to Darling Park, bought a ticket to HP movie at IMAX and just enjoyed the spectacular 3D effects of that, by now, famous finale at the department of mysteries. After the show, I took a stroll around the harbour and the park, just to soak in the cheery atmosphere – it’s the weekend and Sydneysiders came out to play, so the park was pretty lively even at the late hours of midnight.