Two of my favorite authors have released new books this season.  If we have similar tastes in fiction (fantasy, magic, strong female characters, intrigue, a suspenseful frollic that looks nothing like my life), then you may enjoy these as well.

Jim Butcher writes the very popular (and very good) Harry Dresden series, but I fell for him in his Codex Alera series, a consistant Must Read on my top 10 list.  Here is his first in a new series:

Celebrity endorsements are usually fairly meaningless, unless the celebrity is a far more famous fantasy writer (who really needs to be near the top of your list).  Patrick Rothfuss writes this about The Aeronaut’s Windlass:

So Jim Butchder is writing futuristic dystopian steampunk?  You had me at Jim Butcher, actually.  But the rest is cool too….great action scenes, a fascinating world, a characters of a sort I’ve never seen before.  Yup.  This is everything I’ve come to expecct from Jim Butcher, but in a delightful new flavor.

Outside of Rothfuss, the only other fantasy writer who truly gives me tingles and “Book Buzz” is Michael Sullivan, who I’ve raved about before.

Currently, I prefer Sullivan’s Riyria Revelation  trilogy over Rothfuss’s Kingkiller Trilogy, but it’s not quite a fair comparison since Rothfuss hasn’t published the 3rd book yet.  However, the Riyria Revelations had such a marvelous completion that it still gives me thrills to think about it.  I’m currently reading the second book, Rise of Empire, aloud to the entire family.  The kids got addicted to it by second-hand smoke—I always read it aloud to Dwayne when we drive somewhere. 

The trilogy was so perfect that it couldn’t be added to without ruining it, so he began writing really good prequels.  This is the third book of the Riyria Chronicles, and it just opened up a wormhole to another series he’s writing, taking us back in time 3000 years before Royce and Hadian accidently save the world.  It comes out next June, and I’ve already preordered my summer time buzz.

 

Happy Reading to you in 2016!

Love,

Denise

 

We live close enough to the school that I think we can pull this off.

1. My dryer works.  Did you know dryers can actually dry clothes?  I didn’t!

2. My oven works.  Did you know that ovens can pre-heat in less than an hour?  And cook food quickly?  I didn’t!

3.  And this one takes the cake.  My house is clean.  Not only is everything put away, but a wonderful cleaner came in and dusted and vacuumed.  And cleaned.  The shower is sparkling (did you know glass doors are actually transparent when they are clean?).  The mudroom is less muddy.  The kitchen floor could actually be eaten off of, which I’m sure the kids have already tried. 

 

It’s really freeing to have a clean house.  It gives me time to blog!

My Bethlehem Star, a point of light on our dark hill, was falling apart in sundry ways.  Most of the lights weren’t working, the horizontal wood was bowing toward the middle, the wire was sagging and doing the same to the lights.  I carefully reassembled it and it made it back to it’s corner of the back porch before it fell apart in the biggest way yet. 

Dwayne looked at it and said, “I’m going to build you a new one.”

He was off to the hardware store and came back with materials far sturdier (and appropriate) than the scraps I used years earlier.   With better wood and metal braces, he put the whole thing together quickly.  This one (sans lights) is going to last decades, not just years.  I love how Dwayne takes care of me!

Next time you drive up the hill to see us, look up and to your right.  Through the trees, you’ll glimpse the Star up on our back porch, wishing you a Peace and Wonderment.

For those who have read this year’s Christmas letter (posted here next week), you will either get a chuckle or a chill from this little gift a neighbor sent me. 

We’ll test my perserverance by seeing how long I can handle that legless body on my blog before I delete it.

One one-thousand, two one-thousand….

We sometimes go to story time at our local library. My kids are among the oldest, but that doesn’t stop Wesley from sucking his fingers and sitting on Kyla’s lap.  Silly boy. 

Since Brian and Sandi—and Amber—were going to be up for this weekend, but not for Christmas, so we had an early family celebration.  It was so fun!

This kind of sums up the day—babies and presents! Throw in food and wine, and that would have been our day.

I’m not going to currate this very much, as I may have overused my father’s camera, which hardly ever takes a blurry picture…a concept my camera doesn’t understand, so I had less pictures to delete.

But I have to share why I love this picture.

We all had a gift to open, and the kids had two, and we went alphabetically.  Poor Wesley really had to practice patience, hugging his gifts until it was finally his turn.

Any chance Julie is tired of cranky C?

Cecily crashed on Unicorn.

We picked up the kids Saturday morning from Grandma’s, and spent our day getting ready for the rest of the weekend. 

Then I got to don the sparkle dress again, drop off the kids with Grandma (she had all 6 grandkids that night!), and Dwayne and I got to play the night away at Keith and Brian’s 40th Super Epic Birthday Party, hosted by Julie, party extraordinaire.

My kid brothers are 40!  (Their wives are not.)

 

Rochelle isn’t 40 yet either,  but she’s still pretty awesome.

 

At first, craps intimidated the you-know-what outta me.  But I jumped in, and got pretty lucky.  It helped that Julie has the best run possible.  Then I gave Dwayne all my chips so I could go off and gossip.  He lost all that beautiful money.  Oh, well, I’ll just pretend it wasn’t real.

Happy birthday, Keith and Brian!

A whirlwind weekend began with a lovely Christmas party at the Westin in downtown Bellevue.  It was Dwayne’s work party, so I knew few people and I went as the trophy wife.  Of all the people we talked with, I was the only stay-at-home spouse.  It wasn’t too depressing, as I don’t consider myself a drain on society, and I did look good in my “sparkle” dress! 

My beloved husband booked a room in the hotel so that we could shut down the party, and since the kids were at Grandma’s, sleep until we were all sleeped out!  j

Papa Jim had the nerve to move to away, far, far away, to a place called El-ins-borg, or something like that.  So on his final Sunday here, Dwayne made another amazing dinner.  No one puts together a hamburger like he does. 

 

Sadly, we didn’t get a picture of Jim, or his burger.  But here’s Wesley trying to get his head (mouth)? around his sandwich. 

Oh, darling Jim, come back and see us soon!  Love you!