Georgette

Romance isn't one of my usual genres because it falls into the usual (albeit addictive) formulas that isn't mean to reflect real life. Okay, fine ... nobody reads romance because it reminds them of real life. I didn't read The Rose because it's supposed to resemble real life. I read it because the description sounded interesting and and the reviews were good.

And perhaps it's because I went in with little expectation that I was blown away by what a fantastic read this was.

Lia's parents throw her a graduation party. Because of her interest in Greek mythology, her father presents her with something called a Rose Kylix, a drinking vessel used in ceremonies dedicated to Eros in ancient Greece. Enters August Bowman, a wealthy art collector (Greek, of course) who has a fixation of acquiring the kylix and far more knowledge about it than anyone Lia knows. He offers to show her and off they went on a fantasy erotic escapade in mythological Greece.

At the same time, Lia had been running an escort service through university and her secret was about to be blown by someone from her past. He blackmailed her for an amount of money that she could only raise if she accepted August's offer to buy the Rose Kylix from her.

As part of the deal, she and August embarks on many, many sexy adventures with the help of the magical drinking vessel. Naturally he falls for her. Meanwhile, Lia has to come to grips with her blackmailer and their shared history.

The Rose is a next-generational follow-up to The Red (which is about how her parents met), which I had not read and am now dying to get my hands on. The Rose stands alone well, which is the better news.

Author Tiffany Reisz hits a lot of right notes with this book - engaging and endearing lead characters, great sex scenes, a device that makes your erotic fantasies come true. Escapism at its finest. The only part I rolled my eyes on was the part about Lia's past with her blackmailer, but I also keep forgetting that Lia is young enough not to be able to deal well with this scenario.

As for August Bowman, what leading man in a romance novel doesn't have a mysterious past? This takes the cake as far as any other mysterious pasts are concerned, but I was fully invested in the fantasy by the time the reveal came that I grinned rather than rolled my eyes.

A solid 5-star from me because I enjoyed it far more than I'm going to admit.

ARC courtesy of NetGalley.

Vianne Rocher and her young daughter Anouk sweeps into the little French town of Lansquenet one day and opens a chocolate shop across the square from the local church.[return][return]It is Lent, and parishioners are breaking their vows faster at record speed. The priest Pere Reynaud, is livid. Vianne must be a witch, he decides, and vows to run her out of town before the Chocolate Festival she is planning for Easter.[return][return]He may not be getting very much support from the villagers however. Vianne wins them over in her own quiet, uncanny way. She seems to know exactly what ails them, and which of her chocolate confection will cure them. [return][return]With the opposing teams identified, it became a battle between church and chocolate. Is Vianne a witch? Can she read minds? Will Reynaud run her out of town?[return][return]Scattered liberally around the little village are a bunch of intriguing secondary characters whose lives are changed by Vianne the battered wife Jos

I've never heard of Craig Thompson or any of his work before. When a copy of the very thick and very heavy “Blankets” landed on my desk by way of two friends, I thought it was a trade paperback of some obscure novel... until I cracked it open.

“Blankets” is Thompson's second graphic novel - an ambitious venture, judging by the length of the tome. It is also the winner of three 2004 Harvey Awards for Best Artist, Best Graphic Album of Original Work and Best Cartoonist; and winner of two 2004 Eisner Awards for Best Graphic Album and Best Writer/Artist.

The graphic novel follows the life of Craig, starting from key moments in his young life into his teens and later, his early adulthood. His early years are shared with his younger brother Phil, as two young boys who had creative ways of irritating and playing with each other while surviving school, parents and life in Wisconsin.

As a child, Craig has always been alienated by his peers.

“Something about being rejected at church camp feels so much more awful than being rejected at school.” he mused in a scene where he gets carted off to what he called a week of pretense of sharing “Christ-centered” recreational activities with other Christian youths.

Craig meets Raina at one of these church camps after he's hit the teens and his relationship with Phil takes a complete backseat in the narrative. The attraction is immediate and mutual, growing deeper after they return to their respective homes. Letters are followed by packages containing “sweet high school nothings”.

He decides to go and spend two weeks at with Raina and her family in Michigan, without mentioning to his own fundamentalist mother that Raina's good Christian parents are getting a divorce. His timing is a little awkward for her parents but was a balm for Raina, who has to struggle to care for her adopted siblings and unwanted niece.

Raina gives Craig a hand-made quilt, patched together from patterns that reminded her of him. This blanket became an underlaying theme, fusing together patterns that appeared through out the book.

The third and most consistant of Craig's relationship is the one with God. One of the things that drew him and Raina together is that they shared the same delimma with this whole God thing - they've been raised Christians but found causes to doubt. This also made a few funny pages featuring Craig when Raina said to him, “Come to bed with me.”

“Blankets” is semi-autobiographical tale where nothing terribly dramatic or superhero-like happens, but it doesn't take away the fact that it's still a very interesting read. It's almost like watching a movie.

The beauty of the comic medium is that things that will require a few paragraphs of description can be relayed in two panels. Thompson puts this to full use. A picture paints a thousand words.

Where words are required, he doesn't fall short. There are lines that are so beautiful and so true that it'll bring tears to your eyes. As both the writer and the artist of “Blankets”, Thompson had the advantage of writing or drawing exactly what he wants.

If you enjoyed the movie “Saved!”, you might want to keep an eye out for this book. While “Blankets” has a more subtle approach and is less satirical than that movie, it tells the same story about people who only want to be human.

(Note: This graphic novel is for mature readers. Small children and big babies need not apply.)

(2006)

When it comes to children's classics, nobody does it better than the incomparable Roald Dahl. ‘The Witches' is a story about real witches, none of that broomstick-riding rubbish. Nor are there any black cloaks and pointy hats in the picture.

In fact, witches look like perfectly nice, ordinary ladies... except that they are out to get rid of children.

The book tells us within the first few pages: “A real witch gets the same pleasure from squelching a child as you get from eating a plateful of strawberries and thick cream.”

It also lists down how to identify a witch: they are always women. They wear gloves to hide their clawed fingers. They have no toes. They wear wigs. The rims of their nostrils are pink and curvy. Their spit is blue. In fact, they use it as ink. The next time you see someone lick the nib of their pen, you better steer clear.

When an orphan boy finds himself trapped in a room full of witches during the Witches Annual Meeting, he becomes one of the first to fall under the Grand High Witch's latest scheme to rid the world of children. The grandly-named Formula 86 Delayed Action Mouse-Maker will turn the little brats into mice, which will then be killed by their own horrified and unknowing parents.

The boy survives the encounter, and takes his transformation into a mouse in stride. His grandmother does too, since she's Norwegian and they take things like this better then the English.

Although his grandmother is a witchophile (a person who studies witches), she could not reverse the spell set upon him. However, the both of them are quick to take advantage of the situation and hatch a plan to rid the world of children-hating witches.

Dahl is wonderfully descriptive and delightfully wicked with his prose. Children smell like dog's droppings to witches after the have a bath? I can see kids using this as an excuse not to take a bath. (Don't worry, kids. Witches aren't real... hehehe.)

(2006)

I strongly suspect that the reason I enjoyed this book so much is because we all have worked in a soul-sucking company and have to put up with hostility, gaslighting, sexism and career sabotage. We rarely get to act on our fantasies of burning it all to the ground together with all the people who made work life a misery for us.

That's The Escape Room in a nutshell. Four ruthless investment bankers found themselves tricked into an escape room scenario in an elevator. Faced with clues that alluded to people who were once part of their team, their secrets boiled to the surface as they tried to solve the mystery of getting out of the room and who could have possibly set them up to this slow torture of each other's company.

This book was easy to read and hard to put down. While it required the type of suspension of belief that you need to watch most movies, there was satisfaction in watching deserving individuals get their comeuppance with no clue where it's coming from. Revenge is a dish best serve cold indeed.

ARC courtesy of NetGalley.