Catalyst - Review

Title: Catalyst: A Tale of the Barque Cats
Authors: Anne McCaffrey & Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
Series: Barque Cats

Synopsis: “Pilot, engineer, doctor – ship’s cat? Since the early days of interstellar travel, the so-called Barque Cats have become essential to the well-staffed space vessel. Assisted by humans – Cat Persons – with whom they share a deep and loving bond, the Barque Cats are responsible for keeping spacecraft free of vermin, for alerting crews to environmental hazards, and for acting as morale officers.
“But a widespread epidemic affecting livestock on numerous planets throws the felines’ future into doubt. Suddenly the galactic government announces a plan to impound and possibly destroy all exposed animals, including the Barque Cats. With the clock racing against them, a handful of very special kittens and their humans will join forces to save the Barque Cats, and quite possibly the universe as they know it, from total destruction.”

Review: I should know better than to start reading an Anne McCaffrey book at bedtime. I stayed up all night last night reading. Plus, it’s about cats (in case you haven’t noticed I love cats), cats that are in danger. There was no way I could have stopped reading after I started. I became so emotionally involved in this story that even if my apartment had been on fire I would have been reading, holding the book in one hand and my cat in the other, as I ran out. Catalyst is a wonderful novel with vibrant characters that dragged me into the story. It takes a special novel to force me to become emotionally involved. I usually maintain a detached calm (with books and life). I highly recommend this novel and can’t wait to buy the next one.

Publisher: Del Rey
ISBN: 978-0345513779

If you like this book you may want to read:



No One Noticed the Cat by Anne McCaffrey (ISBN: 978-1557423245)



Arrows of the Queen by Mercedes Lackey (ISBN: 978-0886773786)

The Court of the Air - Review

Title: The Court of the Air
Author: Stephen Hunt
Synopsis: “When streetwise Molly Templar witnesses a brutal murder at the brothel she has recently been apprenticed to, her first instinct is to run back to the poorhouse where she grew up. But there she finds her fellow orphans butchered, and it slowly dawns on her that she was the real target of the attack.
Oliver Brooks has led a sheltered existence in the backwater home of his merchant uncle. But when he is framed for murder he flees for his life, accompanied by an agent of the mysterious Court of the Air. Chased across the country, Oliver finds himself in the company of thieves, outlaws, and spies.
Soon Molly and Oliver will find themselves battling a grave threat to civilization, an ancient power thought to have been quelled millennia ago. Their enemies are ruthless and myriad, but the two orphans are also aided by indomitable friends in this endlessly inventive tale full of drama, intrigue, and adventure.”

Review: I love steampunk. The mix of mechanical and magic fascinates me. This novel was full of both. Molly and Oliver are lovable characters, whose struggles tugged at my heartstrings and kept me reading until past my bedtime. In the midst of a civil war, in which they are both valuable commodities, these orphans are struggling to find a purpose for their lives. Molly searches for meaning with the mechanical men that she has a mysterious affinity for and Oliver struggles to accept his forbidden magic.

The Court of the Air is one-part coming of age story and one-part adventure. Because of the multiple story lines and the introduction of a vast new world this novel is both rich and complex. The complexity of this novel was both fascinating and distracting, at times I found myself going back and rereading sections because I felt I had missed something. Despite this, I loved this book, and look forward to reading more of Hunt’s novels.

Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 978-0765360229

If you like this book you may also want to read:



Soulless by Gail Carriger (ISBN: 978-0316056632)



The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (ISBN: 978-1597801584)

Upcoming Reviews

After a long absence it's time to get back to business! Here are some of the reviews that will be coming up soon here at BookGirl's BookNook:

New School, New Germs

So, I know that I've been absent from the blogging world for several weeks. I want to offer a heartfelt "Thank you" to all of you who emailed me asking if I was okay and wondering what was going on. I have been sick. Not once. Not twice. I have been sick with multiple illnesses. First I had strep throat. Then I had the stomach flu. Twice. Then I had a sinus infection, followed by an allergic reaction to the antibiotics I was taking for said sinus infection. Another bout with stomach flu followed the allergic reaction. Needless to say it was a struggle just to keep up with work and school. Keeping up with my blog, no matter how fun it is, was just too much for me to handle during this time. I've decided that I have never been sick this much in my life, and that it must be a combination of a new school, with it's new germs, and the stress that I've been under. I'm back now though, and I hope to keep up more regularly with my blog.

Here is what readers can expect to see coming up:

I have a few new books that I'm looking forward to reading:




And I've started a Sims 3 Challenge that I will be blogging about.

Here is a link to the rules of the Challenge



Happy blogging!

Mid-terms

I've been having a bad couple of weeks. I'm sorry for the lack of postings, I have a bunch of reviews that I need to write up and I promise to do that soon. I had my last midterm today, so the semester is officially half over. My apartment is trashed. I know that's something that people say without meaning it, but it's true. There's something funky growing in the bathtub, I had to wash dishes because the kitchen was starting to smell funny, and I couldn't find any clean socks today. I can't see the kitchen table (which I use like a desk) because there is a whole mountain range of clutter on it (from my seat on the couch I can see bills, junk mail, catalogs, books, a bag of cookies, a sweatshirt or maybe two, two boxes of kleenex, a bag of rice that needs to go in the pantry and my purse). Oh, and Sims 3 Late Night was released yesterday so I didn't even study for my midterm today. Scarily I still think that I did all right. So, I hope to get all of this mess cleaned up and be back to regular posting again soon.

Sims 3 - Vampires

The vampires in Sims 3 are going to be awesome! A producer at EA games apparently feels the same way I do about, ahem, sparkling vampires because they started the most recent press release with this statement:

"Let’s get a few things clear – Vampires in The Sims 3 Late Night do not twinkle, sparkle, or cry. Vampire men look like men and vampire women, well, they’re clearly girls. When in daylight they smolder with fire and are in deep trouble as they should be. They aren’t “beautiful” in the eyes of silly, adolescent girls."

Check out the full release here!


That's freaking fabulous! I thought that the first thing I would do would be to have a sim create a band and become a celebrity. After reading this press release I think that the first thing I will do will have to be having a sim become a vampire.

Did I mention that I took October 26th off from work so that I will be able to stay home and play Late Night all day? The sad thing is that I will be knee deep in mid-terms that week. Think I'll find any time for studying?

Teaser Tuesday #2

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should be Reading Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read

Open to a random page

Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

After two disappointing reads this week I decided to reread an old favorite that I knew wouldn't let me down.

BookGirl's Teaser:
"I cried out as a pulse of ecstasy shot through me from the lingering effects of the vampire saliva. The bleeding had slowed, and I wondered if it was from Jenk's pixy dust."
---From Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison