We're nearing the end of March and I have one last book to read for my Reading Assignment Challenge.  Which pretty much means that I mean to get my last Amanda Quick book read for the month no matter the prompt for my next Snakes and Ladders roll.

Meanwhile, the dreaded cold seems to have made its round to my household, and everyone around me is getting sick, myself included.  Though, fortunately, I seem to be recovering quite nicely.  Nonetheless, I shall take advantage of this time to lay back on my couch with a comfy microfiber throw, a cup of honeyed tea, and a few snacks, as I finish reading my book.

Onward to the next dice roll!

Is this not just THE luckiest roll ever!  With a roll of 4 + 6 = 10, I landed on Square 79: 'Main character is a woman.'  This square is a guaranteed two dice roll just because of all the romance books I read.  Even the historical mysteries I've been reading are mainly female protagonists!

Of course, the book has two main characters as a romance novel, one male and one female, but I'm still going to count it.  After all, it's not like they aren't allowed to share, right?  With this, I'm a little further up the board, and slowly making my way to the end.  With a new month around the corner, I'll have more options open to me without feeling like I'm running out of time to meet reading obligations.

So off we go!  Wee!

Currently Reading

Books Read Pending Square Selection

Nothing here!

My Progress

Dino Baby Snakes and Ladders Marker "I 'Rawr', but I do it my way."

Dates for each dice roll corresponds with respective update post.
Book titles link to reviews if written.
Completed books' covers (read and used for squares) following table.

The Dragon and the Pearl

by Jeannie Lin
Book 2 of Tang Dynasty

I want to say that I think this book suffers from pacing.  And maybe the romance was a little hard for me to root for at the beginning.  And also, the ending felt a bit rushed.

But otherwise, I DID find myself enjoying a good third of the story, specifically the middle third of it, after both Suyin and Li Tao kind of let their guards down around each other and become intimately involved.  The beginning had a fairly decent start up until the mind games between Suyin and Li Tao dragged on a bit longer than I would have liked.  Then the story picks up slightly when the romance starts... and then tapers off again as that part of the story dragged on for a while.  And then the last third of the book inserted a lot of action that felt slightly out of place and rushed, bringing about an ending that felt a little off kilter.

In a way, I kind of enjoyed the quiet, banal happenings during the beginning of the book that had been used to show the relationship between our main couple changing day by day.  But I also felt a bit squicky about how their sexual relationship starts off, and didn't really care for the fact that Suyin felt more like an accessory to Li Tao's story than actually being part of the story herself.  Especially considering the significance Suyin's flashbacks, contemplating her role throughout her life.  After all of that--the fact that she'd spent her life being used and owned by men--I would have liked to have seen more for Suyin.

If anything, I kind of wish we could have developed Suyin's character a bit more, instead of just having her be the "One True Love Cure All for Li Tao's Darkness and Problems."  Ling Suyin has a lot of history and complexity all on her own that I wished had been explored more.

My final complaint would be the loose ends and random tangential story lines that felt inconclusive.

Otherwise, the writing is just as beautiful as I remember Jeannie Lin's writing being.  And even in spite of Suyin's underdeveloped character, I really, really liked her a lot.  Given more substance, I think she would have been a wonderful character with a wonderful story to tell, not shadowed by the main male character in this book.

So there was more socializing had with my Dad's birthday and my brother driving into town to be here for it.  But really, the socializing is a bit more minimal compared to socializing with friends (last weekend), since my brothers and I are people of few words.  Nonetheless, that means that I, once again, took my sweet time reading a book that shouldn't have taken that much time to read.

No matter, though!  Once I got into it, it was a breeze through and now we're onto the next roll.

Dice Roll #11 got me a simple 3, which took me to Square #69: 'Something related to travel on the cover.'

In keeping with my Historical fiction requirements, this particular square's prompt took a bit of research, as I had to round up a bunch of books on several lists, look for anything historical, and then decide whether or not the cover felt like it pertained to travel.  The unfortunate news is that I had little luck, really only finding about three books that would fit the bill.  Mind you, this was also a filtered list of books I was personally interested in as well.  (This also doesn't include books I'd originally planned on reading for Reading Assignment this month, but I'm flexible and now plans are changing...)

On the amusingly positive side of things, in doing my search, I ended up adding about a million more historical mystery series to my TBR...

I finally decided on A Most Extraordinary Pursuit by Juliana Gray.  The other books I'd considered were This Side of Murder by Anna Lee Huber, and Murder on the Lusitania by Conrad Allen, one of which was not immediately accessible to me.  Like A Most Extraordinary Pursuit, the cover for This Side of Murder features a woman with a suitcase, looking as if she's waiting on a ship or something... at least that's how I'm seeing it.  And Murder on the Lusitania is pretty self-explanatory (not that the other two aren't), what with it's bit ship and all.  It's just a little harder to see the suitcase in Huber's book's cover.  Oh yes, but all three book covers have ships, which are pretty much a travel thing.

Anyway, it is entirely possible that I may end up reading Huber's book, though, as I already know I like her writing style... and also because there is a prequel novella that precedes A Most Extraordinary Pursuit (chronologically and by publication date), and I'm loathe to read books out of order (even novellas).  Although, on the other hand, as a novella, I may give it a pass until I can get a hold of it, since it is also a book not readily accessible to me.  It wouldn't be the first time I'd done so, and according to sources, the prequel novella doesn't really contribute to this first book in the series.

Decisions, decisions...

Currently Reading

Books Read Pending Square Selection

Nothing here!

My Progress

Dates for each dice roll corresponds with respective update post.
Book titles link to reviews if written.
Completed books' covers (read and used for squares) following table.

Furry Logic: The Physics of Animal Life

by Matin Durrani & Liz Kalaugher


Chapter 4: Sound: Good Vibrations

I wanna say that this chapter wasn't as exciting as the previous ones, if only because I don't remember a whole lot about it aside from the term "stealth echolocation."  I admit, it could have also been my own issue that had my mind wandering while reading about sounds and vibrations.

The peacock thing was pretty interesting as well, but only because the amusing emphasis on peacock mating made for a nice chuckle.  And also, elephants are cool, what with their triangulation of sound to determine distance and direction.

The chattiness of the authors' writing styles seems to have ebbed a bit... either that, or I've just gotten used to it enough that it doesn't bother me anymore.  So this book is coming along quite nicely.

Nevertheless, this is what I highlighted in this chapter as the most memorable:

The conflict between the physics working against the bat and its good hearing means there's a 'sweet spot' for ultrasound at a particular noise level where the bat's just near enough to echolocate the moth and the moth's just near enough to hear the bat.  At this position the bat's better hearing exactly compensates for the echo it receives being weaker (because of the extra attenuation) than the sound going directly to the moth.  Bat 0, Moth 0.  If, however, the bat beams out ultrasound louder than this noise level, it's a 'moth win' as the moth hears the bat from further away, whilst the bat can't detect the echo, and the insect flies away.  Bat 0, Moth 1.  Only by beaming out ultrasound more faintly than this threshold can the sharp-eared barbastelle detect the eared moth without the moth hearing.  Bat 1, Moth 0.  The ultrasound pulse from the bat is quiet and the echo that bounces back is quieter still, but the bat sense it because its hearing is so good.  The sound reaching the moth is louder, as it has only travelled one way.  But, being a cloth-ears, the moth can't detect it.  Unlucky, eared moth: you're dinner.

So while The Dragon and the Pearl was a fairly short book, it took a bit longer to read than I had thought it would.  Of course, this has been fairly routine for me these days, and unless I get a full day or two to myself, I rarely inhale books as quickly as I used to anymore.

Which is fine since I've been doing a lot of other non-bookish activities, as I've mentioned a couple times before.  The real-life socializing stuff came to an end, though, so that gave me a little bit more hours to do some serious reading.  =P  Between a good friend flying into town to visit, and taking my parents shopping for formal wear for my brother's wedding, it had been an overall great weekend!

And now onto the next dice roll!

I'm progressing quite well up the board, I think, and having only hit one snake so far (a fairly harmless one, at that), I think my luck is at least holding.

My next roll got me a 7, which lands me on Square 59: ' Was published more than 10 years ago.'  For this book, I am utilizing the last book I've got hoarded for future use, Ride the Fire by Pamela Clare, which was published back in 2005, a good fourteen years ago.

Onward and upward!  With that square fulfilled, I went ahead and rolled once more and got another 7... with the same combination of numbers.  Interesting...  This took me to Square 66: 'Part of a series that is more than 10 books long.'

So this particular prompt took a little more research than I would have liked, but I came up with several options I haven't quite decided on yet.  My biggest requirement was that I wanted to stick to my Reading Assignment Challenge needs.  I've already read the one Professor Mix-It-Up book for this month.  And Professor AuthorLuv won't work either because Amanda Quick only has one long running 10+ book series, and I've already finished it.  So I did a cursory search for Historical fiction to satisfy the Professor Genre course, and it wasn't hard to find a bunch of historical mysteries ranging past 10 books.

The hard part was choosing which book I wanted to read, so I had to resort to a book draw after narrowing down to three possibilities:  Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters, The Cater Street Hangman by Anne Perry, and Murder on Astor Place by Victoria Thompson.  I had also briefly considered reading the next historical romance in the Maiden Lane series by Elizabeth Hoyt, but decided against it, on account of I was feeling more interested in the above three.

Using my all-purpose monkey post-its (not pictured here, sorry, maybe next time because I'm too lazy), I ended up choosing Murder on Astor Place.  This seems like an interesting historical/cozy mystery, set during "turn-of-the-century New York," which will be a new experience for me in the Historical fiction department.  If it turns out good, I'll have another series on my reading list to read from!

Currently Reading

Books Read Pending Square Selection

Nothing here!

My Progress

Dates for each dice roll corresponds with respective update post.
Book titles link to reviews if written.
Completed books' covers (read and used for squares) following table.