Alison Dare, Little Miss Adventures

On Free Comic Book day, my local comic book store, Phantom of the Attic, in the Oakland area of Pittsburgh, had a sale on comics that were stored in long boxes. One of the comics that I picked up was an Alison Dare, Little Miss Adventures. The comic was just a short glimpse into the Alison Dare world, so I looked up the title in my local library. They had two volumes of the collected Alison Dare comics. I quickly read the two books, which were just so much fun!

Alison Dare is the daughter of an female archaeologist and a male librarian. Her father has an alter ego, the Blue Scarab, a super hero who fights evil. There's also Uncle Johnny, who is a super spy, disguising himself as a variety of characters. Alison goes to a convent school with her two best friends, Wendy and Dot. Alison gets the trio into a variety of misadventures, usually centering around her mother's archaeological adventures. Unfortunately, there aren't many adventures in print. I wish that J. Torres and J. Bone would do more Alison Dare.

Menfreya in the Morning by Victoria Holt

Nobody today writes romantic suspense/gothic romances like they used to. At least, that's what I think after reading Menfreya in the Morning by Victoria Holt. As you can probably tell by the plethora of romantic suspense books in my reviews, I love a good romantic suspense. What makes a romantic suspense book good? Well, you have to have a heroine that you like, and she has to fall in love with a guy that is a handsome rake. Then you have to throw in some conflict that comes between them. Perhaps the heroine doubts the motives of the hero. Is he really in love with her? Has he married her for her money? Is there another woman? Then you have to have some mysterious circumstances, like threats to the life of the heroine. Is it coming from the hero, or from some other outside source? I want some romantic scenes, but I don't want graphic or explicit sex. Leave it to my imagination, because I can make it better than the author in most cases.

So how does Menfreya in the Morning compare to that ideal? It compares very well! Harriet Delvaney is the heroine: the only daughter of a wealthy member of Parliament. She falls in love with the Menfreya family because she doesn't really have love or attention at home. Gwennan, the younger Menfreya, becomes Harriet's BFF. Bevil, the elder son, of course, becomes Harriet's romantic interest. The Menfreyas are an interesting bunch. Women are attracted to the Menfreya men like moths to a flame, and the same goes for the women. Plain Harriet can't compare to the beautiful women and girls who fling themselves at Bevil's feet. Not only that, but the poor girl is also gimpy! Yes, she has a limp that becomes worse whenever she is trying to impress others. Harriet does not have an easy life at home, even though she is a (or will be) a wealthy heiress. Her mother died giving birth to Harriet, and her father blames Harriet for it. He can't stand the sight of Harriet, and because she knows it, she tends to be truculent when around him. When Harriet does achieve her dream of marriage to Bevil, she is still bedeviled about Bevil's motives. Did he marry her for money or love? To add to the gothic chills, there's a clock that signals the death of a Menfreya when it stops, and yep, it stops. Does that signal Harriet's possible doom? Does Bevil want to murder her to be with the governess that he might have impregnated?

All in all, I was extremely satisfied with the story and the suspense. The book was published in 1966, which makes it one of the earlier Holt books. She kept the story moving, and I think she did a great job with character and plot development. I really enjoyed reading Menfreya in the Morning, and I'm sure you will too.

Troublemaker by Janet Evanovich

I haven't read any of Janet Evanovich's books, even though I love mysteries. When I was in the library recently, I was scanning the graphic novels when I saw two volumes of Traublemaker by Evanovich. Evanovich wrote the graphic novel with her daughter, Alex, and illustrator, Joelle Jones. I gather that the graphic novel is based on Evanovich's novels, which I think I will now have to check out. Alex Barnaby, auto mechanic, and Sam Hooker, race car driver, are in Miami when they get involved in a friend's kidnapping. Before you know it, Alex (who is a woman, by the way) and Sam are tracking down the kidnapper, and get involved in voodoo and cult gangs. The story is entertaining, and the art adds to the fun of the story. If you haven't read a graphic novel, but you like mysteries/thrillers or Evanovich, you should try out Troublemaker. The graphic novel is split into two books: Traublemaker 1 and Traublemaker 2.

Gulp by Mary Roach

Mary Roach is one of my favorite non-fiction writers. Roach looks at her subjects with a scientific researcher's outlook. You will get tons of details with lots of references to read more about it. Roach's past books have looked at death, ghosts, sex, and travel to Mars. All the books were highly entertaining because Roach not only take a scientific approach to the topics, but she also looks at them humorously. Her latest book Gulp: Adventures of the Alimentary Canal looks at the digestive tract. Roach tackles all the topics that we don't like to talk about in polite society: spit (meaning saliva), farts (especially the stinky kind), and constipation. I would imagine that my mother would have publicly poo-pooed the idea of reading a book like this while devouring it in the privacy of her bedroom/bathroom. Yep, I would say that Gulp would make interesting bathroom reading. If you find yourself scheduled for a colonoscopy cleansing, which would result in an extended bathroom stay, take Gulp with you.

A few of the more interesting things I learned from Gulp:

• Cats and dogs don't like variety. The human owner likes variety in diet, but as Roach said, a cat is either a mouser or a birder.
• Laundry stain removers contain enzymes found in saliva: amylase for starches, protease for proteins, and lipase for grease.
• People find spit disgusting, even their own spit. So if you spit in a glass, you would be too disgusted to re-ingest it.
• Prisoners refer to the rectum as the "prison wallet" because of the number and variety of objects smuggled into the jail via the anus
• Doctors have you thoroughly clean out the colon for a colonoscopy to make sure that all the methane and hydrogen in your colon is cleared out. If they didn't, they might ignite a pocket of gas while using a cauterizer to remove polyps. That's also why they blow air into the colon. With the air, doctors can maneuver better in the colon and dilute any flammable gas.
• Hydrogen sulfide, the rotten egg smell in farts, can be deadly in large enough concentrations. People who work in manure pits could die if they didn't wear breathing apparatus.

Of course, this list is by no means comprehensive, and Roach's writing style is entertaining and accessible. That means that you don't have to worry about being bogged down in boring, clinical language. Roach talks to the reader in plain, old regular English, with a good sprinkling of slang. I love reading anything written by Roach because I know that I will get a thorough education on the topic, and the questions that I would ask are the ones she answers. Read Gulp. You'll enjoy it!

Thunderhead by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

I have read some of the Pendergast books written by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, and I have read the pair's standalone thrillers. However, I thought it was time to I read some of the standalone books that the pair wrote together. I started with Thunderhead. The novel was about Nora Kelly, archaeologist, whose father vanished when she was a child. Recently, her mom had died, and she and her brother, Skip, still had the family ranch home, which was now abandoned. When Nora got a call that there were kids using the house as a meeting place, she went to investigate, and instead was attacked by two half man, half wolf beings who asked where the letter was. Nora didn't know what they were talking, but fortunately, she was rescued by neighbor, Theresa, who scared off the creatures with a rifle. As Nora was rushing from the house, she knocked over a set of old mailboxes, and found an old letter from her father, dated 16 years before. That started Nora the search for Quivira, a lost city of the Anasazi that was rumored to full of gold. Nora managed to convince the head of her university, Ernest Goddard, to sponsor her search for the city. With a small group that included Goddard's daughter, Sloane, and Bill Smithback, from the Pendergast novels. Will the group find the lost city? Or will they be overtaken by the skinwalkers, the evil beings that attacked Nora in her family ranch house?

I really got engrossed in the story, and couldn't put down the book. Preston and Child have a way of getting the reader on the edge of his or her seat, wondering how the group will get out of the current predicament. Nora Kelly was a likable character, and I found myself rooting for a relationship to develop between her and Smithback. The tension really started to roll in the last third of the book, and it didn't look as if Nora and Smithback would survive the skinwalkers' attack. I definitely recommend the book, and I cannot wait to read more Preston and Child.

Trojan Gold by Elizabeth Peters

There aren't many books in the Vicky Bliss series, and I finally got around to number four: Trojan Gold by Elizabeth Peters. At the end of the previous book in the series, Silhouette in Scarlet, Sir John Smythe was presumed dead. At the beginning of Trojan Gold, Sir John was still among the missing, and Vicky was wondering if she would ever see him again. When a mysterious photo of a woman wearing the missing golden jewelry from Troy came in the mail for Vicky, she immediately suspected Sir John. However, Vicky noticed that the woman in the photo was Sophia Schliemann. Instead it was the wife of an innkeeper that Vicky had met the previous year. Vicky went in search of Herr Hoffman and found out that Hoffman and his wife were both dead. It was obviously that something was wrong. When Sir John finally appeared, Vicky was sure that some how he was involved in the missing Trojan gold. The others who has vacationed with Vicky also started showing up, making the hunt for the Trojan gold even more pressing. Of course, Schmidt (Vicky's boss), Vicky, and Sir John got deeply involved in the hunt for the gold, and it became urgent for them to find it ASAP as dead bodies started to pile up.

I really enjoyed Trojan Gold. The story was fast paced, and I loved the return of Sir John and the growing romance between him and Vicky. The criminal was definitely not the person I thought it would be. My only problem with the book was that the loose ends weren't all tied up in the end. I won't give away the details, but there are still some unanswered questions. I love Elizabeth Peters' heroines. Vicky is a strong, smart female. Unfortunately, she is quick to rush into danger because she doesn't think everything through. Trojan Gold was a fun read, and I am already requesting the next in the series Night Train to Memphis from the local library.

Lord of the Far Island by Victoria Holt

I love a good gothic romantic suspense book, and Lord of the Far Island by Victoria Holt was a good one! Lord of the Far Island was written in 1975, and Holt was obviously doing a great job of honing the tools of her craft. Ellen Kellaway was the typical Holt heroine: strong-willed, rambunctious, not easily contained by social protocol. Unfortunately for Ellen, she was the Poor Relation in the family. Her mother had run away from her husband when Ellen was three, and then had the nerve to die when Ellen was five. That left Ellen at the mercy of Cousin Agatha. Well, with Ellen's personality, Cousin Agatha was at Ellen's mercy. Agatha never let Ellen forget that Ellen was a Poor Relation. All the attention was to go to Agatha's daughter, Esmeralda. Esmeralda was a submissive girl, and she quickly formed a bond of friendship with Ellen. Ellen would get the pair into trouble, for which Ellen would have to do lines or tapestry as punishment. Imagine the horror that Agatha felt when the younger son of the wealthy and powerful Carrington family, Phillip, asked Ellen to marry him instead of Esmeralda. It was an escape from the threat of being governess to a miserable woman, but Ellen started to have doubts about her love for Phillip as the wedding drew near. Especially troubling was the mysterious stranger who shows up in the house that Ellen and Phillip are planning to buy. Less than a week before the wedding, Phillip was dead, supposedly a suicide. Everyone looked at Ellen for an answer, but she had none, other than the suspicion that Phillip would not kill himself. Ellen then had a near miss with a fall off the Dead Man's Leap when a railing gave way. What was going on? Since the wedding was off, Agatha tried to send Ellen off as a governess, but a letter from Ellen's father's family gave Ellen a welcome release. She was off to the Far Island to meet her guardian, Jago Kellaway, who turned out to be the mysterious stranger! Ellen was in danger, but she didn't know from which direction. She was falling in love with Jago, and he seemed to love her, or did her really just want the Far Island, to which she was the heiress? Or was there someone else who was out to end Ellen's life?

Sometimes readers say that Holt could tend to spend too much time on the back story of the heroine, and that it would ultimately lead nowhere. However, I thought Lord of the Far Island was nicely paced. The story quickly moved along, and there was just the right amount of tension through the book to keep me engrossed in the story. It didn't take me a long time to read because I didn't want to put the book down. Ellen had tons of gumption, which got her into trouble, but in the end, there is happiness and love for Ellen. It was a very enjoyable and satisfying read. Lord of the Far Island would be a good start to introduce someone to the worlds that Victoria Holt created. I would say the book is definitely at the top of my list of the best of her books.