Having never been to [the] French capital in springtime, I was really looking forward to my business trip, although my colleagues there warned me that it’d been raining quite a bit.

Well, the journey there via London was uneventful but the beautiful and sunny Sunday afternoon was partially wasted due to a baggage delay. But I managed to get out in the evening for dinner and a little stroll.  This time round, I put up in this charming, urban chic boutique hotel – Arvour St. Georges, not too far from the Montmarte area.

The friendly hotel staff was helpful in suggesting where to go, but I was contented to just wander around aimlessly just soaking in the Parisian night air. The second night, my colleagues took us to Queen, the hippest, most popular disco in, where else but, Champs Elysees, which looked really different from my last visit in December, less festive perhaps but still dazzling with its plethora of brand names and luxury boutiques. It was a good thing we had that wonderful evening, because the next night it rained, so I was more or less confined to the neighbourhood of the hotel.

I didn’t have the luxury of time to wander around the city this round, but it was good to see a different side of the city in slightly warmer climes.

I made a mistake by watching the movie first before I finished reading the multiple award-winning, critically acclaimed novel Atonement by Ian McEwan.  Admittedly, the movie moved the story along a little faster, and intrigued me from the beginning with its casting of Keira Knightley as the lead actress, long before I set eyes on the novel itself.

But when I picked up the novel and read this synopsis on the back of the book:

On the hottest day of the summer 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of her country house. Watching her is Robbie Turner, her childhood friend, who, like Cecilia, has recently come down from Cambridge.

By the end of that day, the liver of all three will have been changed for ever.  Robbie and Cecilia will have crossed a boundary they had not even imagined at its start, and will have become victims of the younger girl’s imagination.  Briony will have witnessed mysteries and committed a crime for which she will spend the rest of life trying to atone.

I decided to plough ahead with the reading. However, halfway through chapter six, unable to withstand the suspense, I succumbed to temptation and put the video on.  The pace and dramatic tension sped up quite a bit in the film, and I like how it stuck pretty much close to the book and retain the use of the three main characters’ perspectives and flashbacks to bring the story across. The only difference was in the way Briony chose to reveal the truth at the end.

For a long time now, I’ve resisted ‘talking shop’ on my blog.  I mean, enough of talking about online marketing at work already … I should give it a rest when I’m back home, shouldn’t I?

But when I see how vibrant the book publishing industry is becoming, with readers, publishers and authors getting into the act, my fingers simply itched to pen down my thoughts and share.

I shall start off with this great news from the team who created Shelfari.  In case you haven’t been yet, the book community site has gotten a new look and added some new features. For one, photos and book covers are bigger.  I just love how my virtual shelf looks now.  Oh, and there are other stuff that they’ve done.  What I like is that they listened to what their users asked for.  Kudos to the team for getting closer to the hearts of the community population.  I didn’t mind the ads, which are tucked unobtrusively at the bottom and the side. Check their blog out for the full details.  I’m going to occupy myself this weekend updating my shelf.

After two more weeks of tinkling and monitoring, I’m finally pleased to announce that In My Books is finally comment spam free and hacks free. Great big thank you to Keishon for sending through this great plug-in to keep the spammers away. 

And to the users at WP forums for all the advice and sharing their paths to freedom from spam and hacks. Just in time too, for the third blogiversary is just round the corner. 

The month of May was as much about celebrating differences as fantasy serials. The three paranormal/ fantasy romance reads I finished had relationships that involved protagonists who come from different worlds/ races and time/ century.

Elijah is the third in the Nightwalkers paranormal romance series by Jacquelyn Frank and boy did she have a bombshell of a surprise waiting for the captain of King Noah’s elite guard. Two people from inherently different heritage, social rank and stature, not to mention temperament, whose people co-exist in uneasy truce wrought after several centuries of violent warring that would make the feud between the Montagues and Capulets seem childish by comparison. After all, he was responsible for the death of Siena’s royal father.

From page one, where Elijah is ambushed by a group of necromancers and in dire danger of being vanquished, right to the last chapter when Siena finally accepted their inevitable union and learn to live with him as her equal, Ms Frank held me in thrall with her engaging characters, breathless pace of action (the necromancers are hard to vanquish, now they have one of Nightwalkers to direct them), and the sheer sensuality of the lovebirds’ passion. Both central characters being proud, powerful and stubborn characters, the conflicts were an interesting subplot that builds up the central plot. I’m looking very much forward to the next instalment when Damien and Syreena take centrestage.  Now, that’s an even more interesting pairing.