I think if ever Kylie Chan were to try writing another genre, she would excel at writing suspense.

For that’s what she’s been doing with her three novels in the Dark Heavens trilogy.  Just when you were all psyched up for an ending that will see all evil vanquished and Emma Donahoe and John finally settling down to set up hose, some big unknown badass villain would do something to twist the story and spoil the peaceful, never mind HEA for I think that’ll be a long way coming for the pair of demon butt kicking kung-fu masters.

I’ve got to admit, Blue Dragon was even more melodramatic, convoluted and action packed than its two predecessors, with an even more surprising twist in the end. You have to hand it to Ms Chan for weaving the sentimental angst and complicated combination of honour, integrity and selfless love so prevalent in Asian pugilistic novels into this epic fantasy series that has found a niche audience amongst readers over the world.

The book glutton in me simple couldn’t resist snucking into Borders a couple of evenings ago to haul back more tomes to decorate the shelf.

There’s Mr Cavendish, I Presume by Julia Quinn, an auto-buy for me which I’ve finished. While I couldn’t locate David Gemmell’s Troy series, these other surprises made up for that little disappointment:

Camelot’s Blood by Sarah Zettel, the long awaited finale to her Camelot series, which I’m reading now;

Hades’ Daughter by Sara Douglass;

The Wedding Challenge by Candace Camp (nice cover);

Scandal Becomes Her by Shirlee Busbee, who’s new to me;

And The Last Mermaid by Shana Abé

While I’m trying to get myself unstuck from reading Paul Theroux’s Blinding Light, here’s a collective review of three delightful liitleblackdress books, a publisher I’m beginning to like, I read recently.

Let’s begin with Rachel Gibson’s last two romances which complete the series on four writer friends.  I’m talking about ‘Tangled up in You’ and ‘Not Another Bad Date’, of course.

Tangled brought true crime writer Maddie Jones back to her hometown to confront her own horrifically tragic past.  In an attempt to exorcise the lingering tragedy and repercussions of her mother’s terrible murder at the hands of her lover’s enraged wife, she decided to trace back the crime to the surviving kids of the other family, who have since grown up, and write a book about it.  Only she didn’t count on her shaking the skeletons out of a few closets to get the whole town of Truly, Idaho so upset.

Any fellow reader looking at my bookshelf may wonder why there are so more tomes on the Arthurian legend than any other myths or fairy tales, with versions of the Trojan war/ Iliad coming a close second.

Well, I guess my love of tales of the legendary King and his noble Knights of the Round Table stem from the fact that my very first story book was a volume of Tales of the British Isles.  In it, as you would have guessed, are stories of Arthur, Merlin, Galahad, Gawain, Tristan, Percival, and other popular anecdotes surrounding this bunch of noble warriors of a bygone era that grew more mythical with each telling. Growing up, one of my favourite books is Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Mists of Avalon, which offers a different perspective of the legend, which was subsequently made into a tele-movie, watched and loved by yours truly over the years.

So, when it came to Mary Stewart’s saga beginning with The Crystal Cave, then The Hollow Hills and followed by The Last Enchantment, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the series is written in the first person, with Merlin as the narrator.  The Crystal Cave recounts young Merlin’s childhood, and takes one through his formative years in his Roman father’s army, right until his father’s death.  The Hollow Hills follows Merlin abroad while he waited for Arthur to grow into the magnificent King and ends in his triumph and coronation as High King.

Book buying on overseas trips seems to be developing into a habit. During the last two business trips to Taipei and Shanghai, I ended up browsing in the bookstores (again!) at the airport to pass the time, and landed these additions to the shelf:

The Last Empress by Anchee Min

Not Another Bad Date by Rachel Gibson (another littleblackdress book)

 It wasn’t for lack of trying.  In fact, I barely resisted adding some of the interesting new authors, after failing to locate the new releases from Nalini Singh, Jacquelyn Frank and Kresly Cole. It helped that there was limited space in my luggage, thus limiting the damage additional books would have done to my wallet.

Upon return, however, I gratified the inner itch of acquisition with these fab finds:

The Lost Duke of Wyndham by Julia Quinn (the Piatkus edition)  – hmm, love the cover

Eldest by Christopher Paolini

Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen

A Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks

I’ve been hearing so much about Nicholas Sparks, and quite a number of his books have been turned into movies, the latest of which is Nights in Rodanthe, so I finally caved and bought Walk to Remember. As for the rest, they were purely impulse buys.

Alright, I know I’m way overdue with the book review posts, and in getting acquainted with Hardy Cates and Liberty Jones. But with all the craziness that’s going on at work, I’m glad I have this blog to release a bit of that pressure.

A while back – gee, was it only just last year – when Lisa Kleypas announced a change of publisher, there was quite a bit of speculation amongst romance fans on how her writing would evolve.  One thing’s for sure … I like the covers of her books published under the Piatkus label.  They sure know how to dress up a book and make it upscale.

As for how Ms Kleypas’ writing has evolved, now that she’s dabbling in a bit more contemporary writing than her previous career at Avon, I can only say that I’m really looking forward to more of her works, although I’m not a huge fan of first-person narratives.