Post-Monday Musings: Things that are c-c-c-cold!

I tend to repeat myself.  Especially when I've settled on an opinion on something as often talked about as the weather.  And in the winter months, the weather opinions people are most likely to hear from are these:

1. If it's going to be this cold, it might as well snow.  At least it'll look pretty. 
2. Snow is fantastic.  It's the ice that I hate.
3. It actually wouldn't be that uncomfortable outside - if it weren't for the wind!

Winter has officially arrived in Nebraska.  We got our second snowfall of the year over the weekend, and it stuck.  And then it crusted with ice.  It is pretty to look at, if not entirely fun to be out in.  Having grown up in tropical climes, I find that my ambulatory coordination on ice and snow leaves something to be desired.  Apparently my ice-handling reflexes are as reluctant to consider 8+ years in the Midwest as a permanent relocation as my "I'm from . . ." responses.

Monday may have been a frigid, gray, slightly miserable day, but the week is redeeming itself already.  It is perhaps a rather odd thing to be as happy as I am to get "hold notice" emails from the local library - but they're a little bit like mini-Christmases to me!  Especially as this week I'll be able to pick up the 3rd book in a series that I started reading last week.

Blood Rights and Flesh and Blood by Kristen Painter
The saying goes "don't judge a book by it's cover" and although I know that to be true, as a lover of both books and illustration, I must admit that it is often the cover art that creates the initial fascination which then leads to the chance that I'll read the book.  This was the case with the House of Comarre series.  Written by Kristen Painter, the series thus far includes Blood Rights, Flesh and Blood, and a third book - Bad Blood - which is sitting on my hold shelf at the library as I type this.

Vampire stories abound in popular fiction today.  Movies, t.v. shows, and a ridiculous number of books iterate and attempt to reinvent the idea of vampires.  I was a fan of Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the subsequent spin-off: Angel; I've waded through a good portion of Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series; I fell in love with The Historian (probably one of my favorite books of all time); I thoroughly enjoyed the Blade and Underworld movie trilogies.  But with the arrival of a new wave of "vampire" aficianados freshly born out of the Twilight saga - I've become extremely wary of any new additions to the genre.  It is, in my opinion, a somewhat glutted market, filled with work featuring a great deal of angst and some dubious sensationalism - but not a great deal of worthy story.

I could wax eloquent on the subject for some time - but I'll resist.  The point is that despite the warning flags that now go up in my mind every time I see the word "vampire" featured as a main plot point or complication on a dust jacket, or a back cover, the artwork of these books kept catching my attention over weeks of B&N visits, so when I saw them on the new arrivals shelf at the library, my resistance had been worn sufficiently thin.

I was pleasantly surprised by how good these books turned out to be!  Kristen Painter sets up an interesting kind of world and shadow-world, the kind of setting that a fantasy fan like myself usually associates more with novels about the fae. In Painter's story - vampires tend to live quite separately from humans, and those who chose to live in the mortal world are considered abominations.  The main character of the House of Comarre series is a woman named Chrysabelle, who is part of a specially trained and bred race of - for lack of a better word - humans, who live in the vampire world and serve as the vampire's sustenance - a sort of blood geisha.  The comarre are secretive about their training and abilities, at home in the vampire world, and highly treasured by the single vampire to whom the belong.  While it sounds like a master/slave arrangement - it isn't quite - and the difference is difficult to explain without giving away the mystery of the story.

The story moves at a lovely, flowing pace - just quickly enough to catch and hold attention, but with a slow, building reveal that answers questions while skillfully introducing new ones.  I would class the House of Comarre series as urban fantasy romance - but thus far the "romance" part of that classification has been handled without the typical page upon page of non-plot-advancing porn that tends to crowbar its way into every third chapter of most of the genre. I'm looking forward to finding out what happens next!

Phew!
I had intended to also review a steampunk novel which I read this past week - however I realize that this post is rather on the long side already! So I pose the following questions to those who read my blog (Yes you, I'm asking you to stop lurking for just a moment.):

1. Should I post my Monday Musings/Week in Review lists separately from my book reviews?  
2. If so, would it be better if I limited each book review post to one series, book or genre?

Thank you in advance for your input!