Announcement Deferred

I thought I was going to have a bit of a personal announcement to make today but my thinking was premature. And it turns out I won't even know if I'll be able to make the announcement until Monday. Oh well, never count your beer until you've opened the can and had the first sip. Nothing major anyway.

In writing news, I’m over 15,000 words into “Under the Ember Star,” and since I don’t expect it to go much over 25,000 I’d say I’m well into the middle of the work. That almost always means a bit of a slow down for me, and it has here. But I’m still making progress and I expect to finish it by the end of June. I’d like to have it done sooner.

I finished reading two books by friends in the past week. I’ve included my reviews below.

Midnight Eyes by Sidney Williams:

Midnight Eyes is a thriller set in Louisiana, an area of the country Williams knows well, having grown up there. A serial killer is working one of the small Louisiana towns and an embattled sheriff and his FBI profiler son have to solve the case before more die. Along the way they have to deal with their own shattered relationship. The writing here is very fine and the "killer" is definitely a bit different from what the reader starts out expecting. There are some nice twists and turns along the way, and a really exciting action sequence at the end. The characters are well drawn and seem very real, including the killer. Good stuff.

Midnight Eyes for the Nook

Longarm and the Arizona Flame by Tabor Evans (Really James Reasoner):

This is what they call an “Adult Western,” which means it has sex in it. The sex is relatively graphic but not pornographic. I’ve only read a few adult westerns, and almost always because I’ve known the author, as I know James Reasoner. The key thing for me is that when James writes one of these books the book works as a “western” first and foremost. This is a very good western, in fact, and I much enjoyed it. If you haven't read any of this type of book this would be a good introduction.

Arizona Flame at Barnes & Noble

I also read my first SF book by John Ringo, called Into the Looking Glass. I liked it a lot and have already picked up a few of his other books.
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