I'm free

It's over. I closed the book this morning, having reached the last page after getting up an hour early with the intent to finish this thing! I am immensely thankful that Jacqueline Carey doesn't pump out books every few months or my own productivity would be seriously hampered.

As it stands, Naamah's Curse is to blame for:
• My sunburned back--I was too busy reading and forgot to roll over when I was supposed to.
• Several hours of missed sleep
• My garage sale being delayed a day--I was too busy reading to get out to price and set things up yesterday.
• A bird almost hitting my daughter--I was attempting to be interactive while reading and so sat on a quite secluded bench on my desk which I infrequently use so I could 'watch' my daughter pick seeds from my prolific lilies to sell in the garage sale. A cardinal flew over the bush behind me and, finding me invading the bird feeder space, freaked out and flew off at top speed, missing my daughters face by a mere inch. At least she thought it was cool.
• A sore back. I discovered reading while laying on my stomach isn't as comfortable as I remember it being. I think I'm too used to sitting at a computer these days. Unfortuately, use of the late night reading light demands I use that postition for optimal extension of the 'turn that freakin light off already' factor.

Beyond my list of grievences, I feel it was good to have my children witness me in full reading frenzy with an actual book. I read on my computer all the time, but I could just as well be surfing the web for all they know. They both remarked several times how much I must really like the book to be reading it so much. Darn right. Now go read one of your own!

There are very few books that allow me to lose myself in them without that infernal internal editing voice piping up every few paragraphs and my hand twitching to make notes. Perhaps spending so much of the last two years critiquing others hasn't been entirely a good thing. I'm happy to say, this was a most enjoyable read. As if you hadn't figured that out already.

I laughed. I cried. I cried several times to be honest. There is a lot of emotion packed into this story and all her others. The characters may change, and with the second trilogy, that was a little jarring, but with this, the third, knowing she will take good care of me as a reader, I'm much more accepting. I was not let down.

Unlike many authors of long series, she hasn't fallen into predictable or come to rely on a formula. As much as I might enjoy a two or three books by an author, if the one reads too much like the other, I'm done with it. Enjoyable as they might be, I'd rather read something new. With these, the adventure continues, swirling about the world in new places with new challenges. The only predicable thing I've come to find is that when a character says they are happy, they won't be by the next page. The good thing is I never know why until it happens.

My one regret with this novel is that I won't get it signed. When Naamah's Kiss was released, I had the pleasure of meeting Jacqueline Carey at a book signing (I got lucky with a book tour stop only five minutes away!). She was very kind... and patient with whom I discovered were several other fellow aspriring authors who also lingered in the seats lined up in front of her table. Between signings she answered all our questions, telling us of her practice novels, getting her first novel published and the best wisdom of all, "you'll never know if your novel will get published unless you start sending it out."

Having been stuck in an endless cycle of revision--as it seemed so was the rest of the endless question lobbing group--this was exactly what I needed to be smacked upside the head with.

Yes ma'am. I'm sending it out!