A Curious Statistical Anomaly

Sometimes during the bleakness of not being able to come up with the right words, you find yourself wandering the corridors of the internet and you find something that … well, I’ll let you be the judge.

I got to admit that this one has something going for it that many of the vampire, zombie, werewolf mashup don’t — it completely skips trying to fit in with any actual books and goes for the plight of women in 1810 in high society.

Comments? Thoughts? Is violence ever the answer to boredom?

The Darcy Cousins: Scandal, Mischief, and Mayhem arrive at Pemberley… by Monica Fairview, Sourcebooks, ISBN: 978-1-4022-3700-3, pages 432.

The rift between Darcy and his aunt Lady Catherine de Bourgh has been somewhat mended since Elizabeth has given birth to an heir. Of course that doesn’t mean that Lady Catherine actually recognizes Elizabeth’s presence. But the entire family is gathering at Rosings once more for Easter. Joining the family are Robert Darcy (see The Other Mr. Darcy) and his wife and two relatives from America, Frederick Darcy and his sister Clarissa Darcy.

Georgiana is hoping that she and Clarissa will become close friends. Georgiana has been feeling that she’s in the way or not really wanted. Darcy marrying Elizabeth was definitely a good thing but where Georgiana always had her brother for company now he seems always involved with Elizabeth and their son — they don’t purposely exclude her they just don’t seem to notice.

Once Frederick and Clarissa arrive, they seem to get off on the wrong foot with Lady Catherine. While Frederick can be accepted, after all he is American, a business man, and rich. Clarissa must learn to become a lady — of course that’s the type of lady that Lady Catherine approves of, and that’s where all the trouble begins. Clarissa is neither tractable or docile.

Georgiana and Clarissa do become friends. Georgiana learns that one can be a lady and still have strong opinions and interests of her own. When Clarissa is appalled by the way everyone ignores Anne de Bourgh and has Georgiana join her in her campaign to become friends with Anne, Georgiana begins to realize that she’s always just accepted things and never looked at them from the outside. She’s also surprised by what they learn. Her eyes opened, she begins to look at other behaviors she’s always accepted.

As is usual, one things leads to another and before long Lady Catherine is convinced that Clarissa is practically the devil personified, and there to ruin the family. Once again the family finds itself rent by Lady Catherine’s insistence on her point of view. Everyone decamps for London and the season.

Georgiana struggles to find her own way in society with her new insights. She learns that Clarissa is in England for more than this visit and that there are depths to her American cousin. In fact, soon Clarissa and Georgiana find themselves interested in the same man. But is he the right man for either of them? Will their friendship last through the season?

To say any more would spoil the fun of learning all the secrets, intrigues, and adventures to be had in The Darcy Cousins. The book’s advanced press implies that the book is all about Clarissa and her problems but this is really Georgiana’s story. Clarissa is the spur that goads Georgiana to action and change. Georgiana is firmly front and center. She’s always been in the background and this time Monica Fairview gives the reader a chance to get to know her a bit better. Shy? Yes, but also she has the same strong Darcy stubbornness and loyalty. It’s a turbulent story as Georgiana becomes a person most of us would like to know better and have stand at our side in adversity.

Another excellent follow on to Pride and Prejudice that maintains the integrity of the original characters while moving the story of their lives forward.

It’s spring and thoughts do turn to new beginnings. Sometimes those new beginning are new relationships.

Here’s a video that shows that love, ingenuity, and some teamwork can conquer just about anything.

Do you think I should have given a spew warning first?

I was thrilled when Velvet of vvb32 reads told me she was naming A Curious Statistical Anomaly as One Lovely Blog. While I put a lot of thought and effort into this blog, I don’t often get a lot of feedback and it was nice to know someone (other than family) thought is was worth viewing and reading. Thanks Velvet.

The rules for accepting the award are:

1) Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award and his or her blog link
2) Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you’ve newly discovered.
3) Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

As readers of my blog know, I’m pretty eclectic in my taste. Personally I have a lot of interests and often get taken in by the shiny things of life: science, philosophy, computer science, astronomy, reading, writing, reviewing, crafts (knitting, spinning), literature, publishing, and just about anything that catches my fancy and teaches me something or gives me a peak at new ideas, thoughts or way of looking at life and the world around me.

Thus, here are blogs that are rather new, according to my dysfunctional time-sense, in being added to my reading lists — in no particular order as I pull them out of my bookmarks — I think they are all exceptional.):

1.) Elspeth Thompson’s Weblog
2.) Joy’s Road Blog Ahead
3.) Jeff VanderMeer’s Ecstatic Days
4.) Dovegreyreader scribbles
5.) DP Lyle’s The Writer’s Forensics Blog
6.) Jane Brocket’s Yarn Storm
7.) Sheepish Annie
8.) Carol’s Go Knit in Your Hat
9) Internet Writing Workshops Blog
10.) Anne’s KnitSpot
11.) Lene’s Dances With Wool
12.) Lucy’s Attic24
13.) The Dodo Blog
14.) Franklin’s The Panopticon
15.) Pepperknit

I was going to say why I chose each of these blogs but I’ll leave it up to you to decide for yourself as you check out the links. Each of the blogs touches my heart/mind in someway: beautiful images, wonderful writing, witty observations on life/books/crafts/politics/society/whatever, and an openness and sharing of themselves with their readers.

I’m only sorry I had to leave so many of my recently found and favorites off the list. I hope you find at least some of these blogs worth adding to your own bookmarks.

And Velvet, thanks again for thinking of my blog as One Lovely Blog.

I got a link to this video today from a friend.  It’s on “The Future of Publishing”.    If you’ve been seeing the recent bru-ha-ha about ebooks and their various readers and the pricing of ebooks for consumers, it’s possible to get the impression that books and reading are a thing of the past.  Roll this belief in with the belief that young people  don’t read, have short attention spans and don’t know anything about the world around them .  This set of ideas and beliefs are what seem to be driving much of today’s marketing.

I enjoyed the video.  Using the  same message to express two totally opposite points of view is amazingly well done.  It feed into the widely held beliefs and then turns them on their head.

Publishing isn’t dead.  I’ve got a Kindle and I love it.  I’ve  also got tons of  traditional books. I say tons because in the last move we had more books in boxes to move than the total of all other items we moved from our apartment to our house.  I love reading and can’t imagine a time when I won’t read.  If my eyes fail me — I’ll get the Kindle to read to me with its Hawking’s voice (imagine having a great physicist read to you).

What is most likely to kill publishing is the unwillingness of the industry to move forward.  The world has changed.  They way people live their lives has changed and they need to change with it.  I’ll still read books on paper but the Kindle is what I take when I travel.  As a computer programmer/software analyst who has helped put together a book or two to be published — I know that an electronic books should not be priced more than a paperback.  There’s a big difference between making a paper-book only and then using the same file to create an electronic version and not having storage and distribution issues.

I had several books on my electronic wish list at Amazon until the pricing thing happened.  Now those books are too expensive.  I’ll buy them at a library sale or in a used books store.  Electronic would have been nice but I’m not paying nearly hardcover sale prices for an electronic book.  It’s the same reason I don’t buy DVD until they hit the below $10 sales (they should never cost more than $10 anyway). Corporations should make a profit off their work but since the creative artists aren’t the ones reaping the benefits of these too-high prices — it’s the must-make-even-more-profit that’s driving the bus.  People will buy your product but only when it’s useful, usable, and priced appropriately.  Otherwise most of us can find other ways to spend our money.

Companies should learn to listen to their customers.  You know the people who actually buy or are expected to buy the products you produce.  Listen and learn.

As readers of this blog may or may not know, we collect bears.  We also have a number of Tigers living in our house.  If any of you also have stuffed furry friends in their abodes, you may know just how often having a few critters about can be handy when things go wrong or are out of place — after all they’re home all day when you’re not.

So, did you ever wonder what they get up to when you’re not home?

Well, I work at home so I’m here most of the time.  But, I’ve noticed that things go missing.  Things are often not where I put them.  I swear I put things back after I use them but somehow I have to search the whole house to find what should have been on my table/desk or near my reading chair.

So, imagine my surprise last week when I went upstairs to get my phone (I’d left it on the shelf by the bed) to find this little scenario.

Well, this finally explains the missing knitting needles, yarn, and the occasional pattern book.  What I really can’t figure out is why I don’t have extra hand-knit (excuse me tigger-knit) socks in my drawer.

Sometimes I think I live in an alternate dimension — or the Twilight Zone without the weird music.

Finally, and in a blaze of stress and last minute finangling, the online magazine are up.

SFReuv: science fiction and fantasy books review along with a review of Skin Horse Volume 1, and some suggestions for Hugo Nominations for short form.

Gumshoe Review: Has an interview with Rhys Bowen and a review of her new book, The Last Illusion. There’s also an original work of fiction, “Negative Reaction” by Lee Hammerschmidt.  Then there’s the usual assortment of reviews.
Check them out and I hope you enjoy them.

Cowboy Trouble by Joanne Kennedy. ISBN: 978-1-4022-3668-6, 416 pages. $6.99 mass market paperback/ $4.79 Kindle edition. On sale March 2, 2010.

Libby Brown always wanted to have a farm. That was definitely impractical while working as a journalist in Atlanta — not much scope in farming on your balcony. However, when her love life goes up in flames, she decides “chickens will never break your heart” and buys a ranch and heads to Wyoming. She barely arrives before her next door (but miles away) neighbor show up to welcome her to the area. Luke Rawlins makes a fine first impression even though he’s decked out like a cliché movie cowboy. But she welcomes the help and the information and who wouldn’t want to spend time with those eyes and the dimples. There’s a lot to learn about running a ranch with a herd of chickens while holding down a job on the local paper.

She begins to meet the people of Lackaduck, Wyoming. There’s the handsome sheriff who seems very committed to his job and is definitely making an effort to get to know Libby. Luke seems to always be around and the tension between the sheriff and Luke is palpable. When Libby hears that there’s next to no crime in Lackaduck but there is an unsolved murder still on the books, her journalistic juices start to flow.

I’d never read anything by Joanne Kennedy before but she sure got my attention with Cowboy Trouble. The story moves at a snappy pace with the point of view shifting smoothly from Libby to Luke to fill in some background information and keep the reader in the information loop. The unsolved mystery drives the story as Libby uses all her skills to identify the killer or at least to turn up some new evidence in the case.

On the level of a mystery, the story is top notch. Kennedy plays fair with the reader and the clues are all there to be collected so that the reader should be able to figure out what’s going on. Of course, the fact that Libby is a bit slower than the reader just adds to the tension. We can guess what’s going to happen but no matter how much you yell at the page, Libby just does her own thing.

The book is billed as a romance and there’s definitely all the expected tropes of a romance. Kennedy has a light touch and even while ratcheting up the tension on the mystery, she keeps the romance boiling and the humor unexpected but appropriate and a welcome tension reliever. Though I must warn you that even though the sex is very low key and more vague innuendo than exactingly detail (vague is good, and Kennedy is great at this) some of those scenes sizzle so much I thought the book was going to spontaneously combust.

All in all this is one heck of a good book when you just want to put your cares on the back-burner and forget about your problems for a few hours. Libby is strong, independent, witty, and definitely not to be trifled with. Kennedy manages to write Libby as a fully developed character who doesn’t do dumb things just to move the plot along. She does occasionally do some real dumb things, but always with solid reasoning behind the acts — you could imagine if you were Libby you’d do something similar.

Reading Cowboy Trouble by Joanne Kennedy is like stepping into another world and being the proverbial fly on the wall. If you enjoy mystery, romance, or a bit of both — you’ll want to add this to your To Be Read stack (and maybe bump it to the top).