Back to work

The break in my writing habits for the last couple of weeks has really taken a toll on my overall progress. I'm looking forward to getting back on track this week. Here's the current word count:

10,755 / 100,000 (10.8%)

In other news, I've finished two good books since I last posted. The much anticipated STRAY by Rachel Vincent and BELLADONNA by Anne Bishop.

Stray was fantastic. I believe the official on-sale date is tomorrow, and you should definitely find a few minutes to stop at your local bookstore to pick up a copy. Rachel's voice is strong and her writing is tight. Stray was a delight to read, pleasing both my writer's as well as my reader's mind. I loved the characters. The story kept me up after my bedtime and had me praying for traffic so I could read longer on the bus. It was a truly great read -- the kind of book that leaves me in a brief mourning period when it's over. I'm not much of a reviewer or synopsis writer, so I'll let the blurb from her website do the talking:

Faythe Sanders likes to pretend she's a normal college co-ed, but that's only half the truth. It's the other half that matters when her former lover appears on campus, sent to pull her back into a life her classmates could never understand, or even imagine. He has come to take her home, to where hunting doesn’t involve guns, the night isn’t for sleeping, and fur is much more than just a fashion statement.

Female werecats are disappearing from all over the south, and the Pride is helpless to find its missing members and stop the stray responsible. Confined to home for her own protection, Faythe must face everything she went to school to escape: the family she left behind, the love she turned her back on, and the destiny tradition says she's bound to fulfill. And when it all becomes too much to handle, an emotionally charged error in judgment leads her into the unsheathed claws of the stray himself. Now, armed with nothing but animal instinct and a serious attitude, Faythe must free herself and stop the kidnappers before their horrific plot robs her Pride of its most valuable asset: its own continued existence.

Anne Bishop's Belladonna was also a great read. Belladonna is the second book in the Ephemera duology, the first being Sebastian. Bishop has an imagination for worldbuilding that few can compare to. If you haven't read the Black Jewels books, I highly recommend them. The world building and characterization are top notch, in my opinion. I also loved the world of Ephemera and I'm sorry that this is the last planned story set in it. The main characters of the Ephemera duology followed the same basic archetypes as those in the Black Jewels stories but I loved them so much, I didn't mind seeing different versions of them again here. The best recommendation I can give Belladonna is that I really, truly wanted to write earlier today and the book just plain wouldn't let me. :) I simply had to finish it before I could do anything else. That's good stuff.