Customer Reviews

Divine Misdemeanors: A Novel (Meredith Gentry, Book 8)

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(29)
2 star:		(35)
1 star:		(47)

 

 

I started out interested in this series, and eagerly awaited each release. I stuck with it all the way through eight books, even though they really started to slip and make little sense long ago. I was first a little worried when the main problem introduced in one installment, on top of the other long-running issues, was not even solved during the book! It felt like a great waste of time, and I came out with more questions than enjoyment.

It seems that the author thinks nothing of our memory. Detailed character description fills half of each book, even repeating descriptions of the same characters several times. I couldn't count during this latest one how many times I felt the need to skip a paragraph because I already understood the qualities of Barinthus' hair. Come on, we're in book 8 now... I know all about what Frost and Doyle, her main boyfriends, look like. And on top of having to reread these descriptions over and over, they really start to flow together. If I read the books simply to imagine six-foot-plus elven dudes with flowing hair down to their ankles, I'd be in heaven, but I suppose I expect a little more story in my novels.

Conversation is awkward, and full of statements of the obvious. Magic is cool and all, but also repetitive, and solutions to conflicts just seem ridiculous. We waded through how many books to find out which guy would get her pregnant, just to see the three fathers for each twin baby solution? So much story about becoming the next queen, and having to rule with one of her many suitors, just to have the entire plotline of the previous seven books thrown away when she decides not to become queen after all? I get it, it's more fun if the story focuses on lounging about with dozens of beautiful men, having all sorts of sex - even though the sex scenes are repetitive. Every time in this book, he blah blah blah'd until she "screamed out his name." How can she keep up with the names?

At least this one wasn't full of typos, as the ones before, but I really doubt I'll pick up another one to see if the trend continues.

Let me start by saying that I've read each book of each series multiple times. I've overlooked the inconsistencies from all over, the arrogance of an author writing down to her readers, the bad (quality) sex, and the horrible reviews of others who actually have opinions that I value. I gave up my time, sleep, even money that could have been spent buying from other authors that I love. I allowed myself to truly care about the characters and what was happening in their worlds. And I was rewarded with this? *sigh*

There are several wonderful ideas throughout both of LKH's worlds. There are paths that would be fascinating to see and follow. She even walks a few steps down a couple of them. But then it dissolves into a pit of nothingness. My heart has been broken in both series.

Divine Misdemeanors like others before it had the potential to be something good. It could have been fun, adventurous, and redeeming. What it turned out to be is choppy, incomplete (and often spacey) scenes which are never cohesive. It is not the ending of a story nor the beginning of another. It's just badly disguised fluff. It is my opinion that each book in any series should further the story along. If an author comes to a time when that doesn't happen, perhaps it is time to give up the series or at the very least honor the characters you have given birth to enough to set them aside until such time as you can do them justice.

Anything further I could say would slip into the way of personal critisim of the author (because I truly am heartbroken she had destroyed characters I've come to adore) so I will conclude by saying to those who haven't read this, don't bother, especially if you are looking for the magic that once caught you.

I pre-ordered the book off this site and it arrived today, so I settled in to see if the series would return to form or continue to slide. Six hours later, I think I'm about done with this series. LKH's writing is starting to remind me of Robert Newcomb's...

Like with the last few novels, we get that big, bold, easy-to-read, double-spaced type to help pad the page count and charge more for it. Combined with the lack of actual story progress, this would barely make a `how I spent my summer vacation' essay. Which is kinda how it reads.

The dialogue often feels stilted and wooden, like they're reading off cue cards. There's also way too much info-dumping; we're constantly treated to recaps of previous events- Andais' attempt to drown her, the appearance of the Nameless, Taranis' attack on her, etc. This is the eighth book of the series- if you don't know all this stuff by now, why are you reading this?

*SPOILER ALERTS*
The so-called plot is tepid. A series of ritualistic murders amongst the fey in Los Angeles- and who could kill these hardy immortals?- brings the attention of the Grey Detective Agency, and Merry's crew in particular. The investigation leads them to a lone witness, whose story is interrupted by... Glinda, the Fairy Godmother of L.A. (rim shot!) Complete with glitter and magic wand. Seriously. Not kidding.

Glinda has a grudge against Merry for stealing the allegiance of L.A.'s magic folk from her, so much so that she impedes the investigation in a scene that plays out all too predictably. The good part of being back in L.A. is that we get to see characters that haven't been heard from in a while- like Uther the Jack-in-Irons and Jeremy Grey.

Everyone returns home for more info-dumps and we have new characters thrown at us ostensibly to show the new depths of cruelty that Andais and Cel had sunk to, but again- after seven books...

Recurring characters start popping up in sequential order, simply to remind us they're still around. This brings us to more of the now-standard `magic-as-an-excuse-for-sex' scenes where more fey come into their true power after experiencing Merry's Magically Blessed Vagina. Merry is so attuned to the divine that Rhys even gets his own Sithen after a turn with her! She's one big "Staples' Easy Button"!

The only interesting part of the book comes when Barinthus challenges Merry about not being the queen he thinks she needs to be. It sums up what's gone wrong with the series- this exchange went to the crux of the series so far, and some very intriguing side issues are raised, but ultimately becomes a distant sub-plot in this yawn-inducing yarn, and quickly pushed aside for more of Merry's Vagina Miracles!

The investigation continues- because it has to- with more murders happening. I had to laugh in one section because there were a couple of instances of blatant Product Placement thrust into the story; I know times are hard, but damn! The killers are discovered... that is to say, revealed... by a former associate of theirs who suddenly decides to give them up. (Detective work? We don't need no stinking detective work!) This leads to a climax that's a straight up Hollywood Cliched Standoff, after which Merry and the boys return home to cuddle.

I can't express how sorry I am to see such an initially intriguing storyline come to this. I seriously doubt she's even trying anymore- despite what she wrote in the dedication. The Meredith Gentry Series is no longer on my "to-do" list.

0 stars, and spoiler alert.

This "novel" contains no plot, drama, or tension, unless teenage angst from immortal fairy boys is dramatic tension. Let's stop kidding ourselves, if you haven't figured out that every LKH story starts with a so-called mystery and ends when Merry/Anita pulls a deus ex machina out of her vagina, you haven't been paying attention. It's impossible to separate the two universes anymore.

Phrases and descriptions from AB appear with increasing frequency in MG and the way both characters de-volve (it certainly isn't character development) are identical. In this novel, LKH can't even get past the 2nd paragraph before it starts, Merry observes "They looked like so many broken Barbie dolls...". That's Anita's line. Why don't you write, "the dead fey looked like so much meat" and get it over with?

It's not a who-dunnit about murdered demi-fey. The first murder certainly implied that, but as the story unfolded it was clear the murders only occured to prompt more info-dumps and useless speculation from Merry about what powers "they" used to have. Does anyone else get irritated when Merry includes herself when she talks about what the fey have lost over the years, when she's barely thirty?

ON "THE MYSTERY":
Hamilton writes that some magical detectives cannot detect anything, which another reviewer believes to be a dig at another author. It's interesting for LKH to say that when Merry performs NO detecting herself, unless investigating the colour of her harem's pubic hair counts as detective work. Does her harem have pubic hair? It occurs to me that LKH has missed a big opportunity here; she doesn't describe their rainbow pubes, and this could pad her novels an additional page or two.

A 3rd party contacts Merry independently to give up the killer, and Merry rides in on Harem members C and D to save the day. Nice job following clues! A god gets shot! And... nobody cares, because we already know that practically nothing can kill them anyway, and even if someone did salt and burn those bastards, Hawfyn heals all.

The idea of a human who wished to be a fairy godmother, but became an evil one, was an interesting premise, but unsurprisingly LKH botched it. She should have mentioned this fairy several novel back to lend it credibility today, but she didn't, so I assume she needed one red herring for this "hard boiled mystery".

ON EVERYTHING ELSE:
Merry walked away from the throne. Why was so much time devoted to warning "her people", and worrying about her alliances, when those issues have no importance now?

Why so much personal angst about the trials and tribulations of being a ruler, when she doesn't intend to rule? Oh right, it's not a LKH story unless it involves multiple pissing content designed to emasculate all the men. I especially enjoyed that gay men turn bi-sexual after prolonged exposure to the super-powered vagina of creation.

What is LKH's attraction to this idea of *touching*? When my friends have man problems, I do not invite them over to sleep between me and my partner, so we can all heal our wounded souls. Do you? Does anyone??? I do NOT understand the massive, boring negotiations to all physical contact. "You can come over, and snuggle, but we're not having sex, or performing X intimate acts, but we can do Y." Is this what LKH thinks a BDSM relationship is?

The story just collapsed into the standard description of Merry's harem (skin, eyes, hair, clothes, wang size, powers), living situation, how hard is is to be a socialite/celebrity with a "day job", and, oh noes, a princess to boot! At first it seemed like a sensible sub-plot; Merry has a real dilemma, she has a large group to support but not enough money, and her socialite/celebrity/ status has rendered her ineffective at her former job.

Yet, how can you pity Merry for these circumstances? She chooses to dress in revealing clothing, she chooses to surround herself with ridiculous looking "guards", she chooses to leave Fairy, she chooses to hold press conferences about her sex life. Her "staff" COULD make money but choose not to. And then piss and moan about being paparazzi fodder with uncertain futures? Could LKH craft a more unsympathetic premise if she tried?

Some passages were just plain WEIRD; the wind likes my hair, glimmer porn, and Richard 2.0 (excuse me, Barinthus), sending the Black Coach to rescue the troops in Iraq, parking an SUV, Maeve Reed's house decor AGAIN, and the sithean apartment building which sprang from Merry's vagina. Let me off the WTF train now please.

I predict the next book will have Merry's harem star in porn to raise funds. LKH was oh-so-subtle in introducing the idea that fey enjoy porn. She is now openly promoting pedophilia and writing about fey with childish bodies having sex with adults. That is OFFENSIVE.

The only mysteries that remain in the Merry-verse that I can find are:

1. Why do her male characters, either vampires who have lived for a few hundred years, or sidhe who have lived thousands of years, and fall in love with a modern women; why do these men with so much life experience always have temper tantrums and sulk?

2. Why didn't Prince Essus invest his money in something? He lived for thousands of years, and left the court, and you expect us to believe that all-knowing-Daddy-Jesus couldn't invest his income to take care of his daughter?

3. Why is Andais still alive? Doesn't the wild hunt destroy oath-breakers?

4. Why should pregnant fairies avoid upsetting crime scenes, for the sake of the litter, but it's okay to have rough sex which involves being THROWN to the floor. How does that work exactly?

5. Why doesn't LKH use a spell check? Why does the exact same paragraph show up multiple times in one novel?

6. And who cleans all that fairy hair out of the shower drain? Oooh, maybe book 10 will include 5 chapters of Galen cleaning the bathroom with multiple product placements.

The increasingly ridiculous situations caused giggles to spill from my lips, as my auburn hair (which resembles a piece of Titanite with red impurities spun into hair) did not move in the wind, though it foamed down my back. As my mirth grew, my blue eyes bled to grey. At that point my boyfriend commented "When you read and laugh at the same time I know you're reading LKH!" which caused me to convulse so hard my vagina swallowed the moon. Then I mounted him, and we woke up the next day with awesome new powers.

THE END.

Hamilton has mentioned several times that she reads Robert B Parker so I would assume she would have a good idea what a makes a good mystery, guess not. She blogged that Divine Misdemeanors is a "hard-boiled mystery" and that mystery is the "spine" of the book. She was wrong.

Yes there were three or four crime scenes with dead demi-fae strewn around but those scenes were more to show how difficult the press' and public's obsession with Merry and her stud farm has made her life. Merry seems to spend more time debating which guards to take with her to the crime scene, getting through the crowds at the crime scene and leaving the crime scene, than she does at the scene itself.

Most of the book is a series of scenes between Merry and her guards. They spend an amazing amount of pages talking about who will sleep with Merry, who should guard Merry, why Merry shouldn't do this, that or the other because she is pregnant, why Merry should do this, that, or the other because she's pregnant, clothes and hair, food, and sex.

I guess I should mention the sex. It's there. Hamilton once again manages to create all the sexual tension of a Hallmark greeting card. She serves up the usual pre-sex talk, the after-sex talk,and in between she coyly inserts a little actual physical sex complete with her standard screaming, spilling, scratching, glowing, painting, screaming, spilling...yes I am repeating. Why not? Hamilton does it all the time.

During one episode Rhys and Merry create a new sithen which is mentioned in passing once or twice afterwards and then dropped.

Somewhere in the middle of this muddle Barinthus has the required hissy fit. One man per book per series has a hissy fit to pad the pages. Once Hamilton has reduced a seven foot tall sea god to a whining five year old we find out Barinthus really loved Merry's father but was afraid to declare his love. He is also mighty upset that Merry and Doyle chose Frost over the Unseelie thrones.

But by now we all realize that Hamilton would never, ever kill off any of her main characters. Only the bad guys and blonde women die. Thus creating the suspense of an afternoon nap.

A surreal moment is provided by the Black Coach which has changed into a black Hummer and is running around the mid-east rescuing American soldiers. This seems to be so Merry can acquire the rare power of dream traveling and then appearing physically at the place she dreamed.

Finally after this mess of a book has meandered all over in search of maybe a plot, a friend of the crazed killer shows up at Merry's office and tells all. Merry and her men, men who haved lived and fought for hundreds of years, set a trap that one crazed fae and one crazed human neatly avoid. Then there is blood and death because it's easier that way and Hamilton's publisher was reminding her that it was October already and where is the book.

Disjointed, rushed, and without a plot or point big enough to carry a whole book. If you must read it try the library or buy used.

I swear this was a sad regurgitation of LKH's previous Merry Gentry novels. If I hear that Frost has 'hair like tinsel' one more time I'll scream. We are eight books into the series, and she feels the need to reintroduce every character, complete with background bios several pages long. Even the sex scenes are retreads, with Merry constantly screaming and scratching every lover that comes her way, and bestowing magical gifts as if her vagina were a pinata. Just pound it a few times and goodies spill out. Yeesh!
In addition to reusing every tired phrase she has ever used in previous novels, we are treated to the the usual plot issues so prevalent among LHK books like 1)traumatized alpha males who need the female lead to heal them even as they challenge her authority or ability to make decisions for herself about risk 2)elaborate explanations of the politics of fairies/vampires (depending on which series you read) and how deadly the whole game is 3)rehashed plot exposition of how bad the bad guys really are by torturing/killing/maiming their underlings and generally forcing them to do bad, bad, things for a long time, since most of them are immortal. And 4) the female lead is the only one who can really save everybody, but she's too busy banging her harem to go about doing it, and won't be persuaded otherwise until 'her back is against the wall'. Oh, and most of the men are really tall while our heroine is a little tiny thing able to accommodate any amount of pain or penis size imaginable in the name of sexual pleasure.
What else, oh, yes, large type, filler nonsense about hair tangling or not and lots of detail about technicolor irises.

Really LKH aren't you wealthy enough yet? Did you make some x number of book deals with your publisher that you are having difficulties filling? Please, if you're going to right further on this series and make it worth our while, try releasing just one book a year, give a thought to advancing the primary plot line, and discover new adjectives for the act of fornication, for all our sakes!

Oh, did I fail to mention any comment on the specific plot of this novel? Really? Ok, here it is: there is a serial fairy killer out there, and only by putting herself in hideous danger can Merry save the day. The murderer is a nut-job with an enabling love interest. The end.

I would like to say that I read this installment in the Merry Gentry series in 2 days because I enjoyed it, but the truth is... I read it because I am can't stand to not finish a book or series I have started. Many times I was tempted to just toss it aside and give it a "Did Not Finish" tag. At first I wondered if I was set to not like this because I had followed along with Hamilton's tweets and blog posts.... so I knew how fast this book was thrown together and how much she appear to dislike writing it. However much I wish this was the case, I don't think it is.

Merry is a sidhe princess who has gathered a harem of men over the years, many of which I could do without. Doyle keeps me reading this series, he is oh so dark and yummy. Divine Misdemeanors picks up not long after book 7 leaves off. Merry is pregnant with twins, fathered by 6 of the men in her harem. She is now living in Los Angeles with a gathering of fey who have left the fairy mounds in St. Louis. She is back to working with the detective agency and we follow her as she is called in by the LAPD to help solve the case of a serial killer who is targeting fey.

I am not even sure where to start when discussing how bad this story is. The writing is awkward, the sex scenes drag on and are unexciting.

Seriously, "painted my orgasm on his skin" was used at least twice and it is a cheezy line to begin with. Secondly, no one orgasms as fast as Merry and surely not just from the sheer size of a man's junk. Add that together with the this absolutely horrid line from one of Merry's new men, "Not as tight as she was before I had my turn," and I was rolling my eyes instead of needing a cold shower.

The serial killer plot of the book was weak. It felt like an afterthought, yet there was no real plot that took the forefront. There were only minor developments in the story of Merry and her men and most of the book felt like boring filler. Too often I found myself wondering why certain paragraphs or phrases were thrown in. There wasn't even a scene with Merry and Doyle or Frost getting it on! How could there a Merry book without Doyle loving.....? Blasphemy.

Divine Misdemeanors was hugely disappointing. I am not even sure if my love of Doyle will have me picking up the next version. I am ashamed to say that I kind of wish Hamilton had ended the series with book 7, Swallowing Darkness. It was obvious that the series had to end or go in a new direction after Swallowing Darkness, but Divine Misdemeanors does nothing to encourage the reader that it is worth continuing on with.

The synopsis for Divine Misdemeanors was so promising that I purchased the book against my better judgement, only to be hugely disappointed (though unsurprised) by the contents. The so-called "hard-boiled mystery"--the murder of some demi-fey--was practically non-existent. Like many other readers, I'd figured out the identity of the killer by the time I'd finished the first couple of chapters. Of course that *did* leave me free to tackle the REAL mystery--"What happened to the plot?".

There are a couple of mentions of the murders (which are "solved" in the lamest way possible, and NOT by Merry & Co.) and a couple of brief mentions of the`"fairy godmother", Glenda. The rest of the book is filled with cut-n-paste descriptions: Merry & her men talking about/pouting about/having sex, descriptions of the men & their hair/eye color, and the aquistion of a yet another metaphysical something springing from Merry's magical whoo-whoo (in this case, an apartment building). Merry has a psuedo-ingenue moment in which she is "shocked" that Doyle's killed people--giving an excuse to explain (for the millionth time) that Doyle was the captain of the Queen's guard just so the "Where is my Dorkness?" phrase could be trotted out. We are treated to more of Merry & her men talking about/pouting about/having sex. Oh, and there was a magic car that takes Merry to Iraq to rescue some soldiers. And sprinkled all throughout, all beings of all "flavors" singing hosannahs to the greatness that is Merry. The only part of the book that showed promise was some friction between Merry and Barinthus about her giving up the Unseelie crown, but that quickly degenerated into a pout fest and the last little flicker of plot was snuffed out for good.

If the book had lived up to the promise of its synopsis, it would have been really good. As it is, the book is so bad that I'm half convinced I could successfully sue for false advertising. It's an insult to the reader when authors put out books like this. She obviously doesn't care about the quality of her work, as it reads like an unedited first draft--which apparently it is, since the book was not completed until very shortly before its publication date. And after reading,I believe.

I have read all of the books in the Meredith Gentry series. And I have never been so disappointed.

Divine Misdemeanors covers the time that Merry and her guards spend in Los Angeles as she investigates a murder case against the fey. For the most part, the book is tedious and full of simple fluff meant to, I presume, keep the reader entertained until the next larger installment. I just keep thinking "boring" the whole time I read this. Ex: Merry and her guards go to a coffee shop, then they are lounging around on a Sunday with a magical tree in the front yard, the author describes how one guard prefers his steak, etc. Taken within the context of the series, almost nothing pivotal happens in this book and there is little of the charm and intensity that characterized the earlier books in the series (I enjoyed Swallowing Darkness, as well, when the opposite was the case and everything was perhaps too frenzied - the action redeemed the weak plot points).

She even throws out the good fun of the murder mystery. Instead of speculating on the investigation and providing enough clues for the reader to come to his / her own conclusions as you would find in an Agatha Christie story, the murderer is revealed by a "friend." So much for the challenge. Hamilton wrote on her blog that people who had trouble with her books were simple and couldn't take a challenge. But the only challenge I see here is the mere struggle of finishing her book without falling asleep or getting peeved at the redundant adjectives.


All of the old plot devices from her former books come back. Merry returns with the pinata p*#&@ to spray more candy upon her chosen guards, especially Rhys. The Goddess always helps her out - it's becoming a deus ex machina and lessens the tension of the story - who can lose with a goddess on her side? A short excerpt about Merry in the black coach (now a military vehicle that *magically* appears in her dreams to save a few soldiers) doesn't jive at all with the rest of the story, but at least it's unique. There is an unclear relationship between Merry and the other fey - at times Merry considers herself a queen of Fairy, while at other times she regards herself as an outcast who escaped to protect her men and unborn children. I wish the author would make up her mind.

Hamilton is also a lazy writer, or maybe she was just pressed for time. She reuses the same words and descriptions throughout the book. I have stopped feeling anything for Doyle or Frost because the author puts simple, predictable responses into their dialogue and they have become cookie cutter characters. Sex follows the same withered formula: Merry and the guard / s start glowing and the author remarks on their pretty eyes, then Merry screams with ecstasy and some more magical candy comes shooting out - and half the time she scratches up the guy's back with her nails. Sounds like fun (sarc).

The one guy Hamilton takes a risk with, Barinthus, is painted as a raving mad man who threatens to torture one of Merry's kindest guards, Galen. It is completely out of character for him and not handled well. She throws in speculation that Barinthus had a relationship with Merry's father and Merry has a long conversation with a gay friend who works for the police investigation, which I read as a boring nod to PC as these insights don't serve any other part of the story.

There are huge errors in the book, in chronology (I understand her blog mentions that her books aren't organized, but when characters disappear then reappear at random and plot directions are left hanging or unexplored those are not characteristic of bad books no matter where you come from?)

In short, this book takes few risks with her characters or the story line. Most shocking are the grammatical errors. I'm not very good at proper English, but the author spelled "destroy" as "distroy" in one part and put in "or" when the sentence required "for." Those kind of mistakes shouldn't happen in the books of a novice, much less a bestselling author. Where is her editor? I'm piss poor at spelling yet even I can see those errors.

I feel like the author threw in a lot of simple crap and destroyed the characters I knew. Maybe she is on a deadline - but even her "bad" books are more enjoyable than Divine Misdemeanors. When I first started the series the books were great; later on I put aside her issues with characterization because this tripe was at least entertaining for the good sex scenes, delicate intrigue or violence at the court. I loved the power struggles. I was even a big fan of Mistral's cheesy one-line hit, "Do you want to ride the storm?" that came in a few books ago (My answer: Yes, yes! And make it thunder!). But the series has taken a slide with this most recent installment. It's enough to keep me from reading the series again, unless something monumental takes place.

What a disappointment, to invest in a character and then lose her to bad writing.
I didn't read Divine Misdemeanors to know which guard likes his steak well-done or to hear about the same half-moon marks Merry leaves in her lovers' backs. But that's what I got.

Unless you want to see the bad writing for yourself, I suggest you wait for a better installment or sack the series all together. I suggest that you look for a better author who is reliable.

Originally, the Merry Gentry series was supposed to have a fixed story arc. It seems that the author has either come to love her latest creation too much to leave her or she's come to love the money she's making too much to stop. A pity.

One can get away with an endless mystery series because there will always be another case, but even a mystery series has to have growth in the characters and change in their major circumstances, or it gets boring. Merry is getting boring.

In this book, Barinthus is unhappy with Merry, accusing her of caring more for Frost (his happy return to the world was related in the previous book) than for the good of her people. It's worse than that, of course, because Frost's life was never at stake. If he had to spend a couple of centuries running around as a stag, that would not have resulted in lasting harm to him, but leaving Andais as Queen is definitely harming Faerie. Barinthus is clearly correct. Merry, however, remains imperious in the smug knowledge that love conquers all. Meanwhile, Andais is torturing everybody around her. Merry claims that the Sidhe can leave the Sithen and come to her if they don't like it, but within a couple of sentences it's stated that many of them have been imprisoned and cannot leave.

Merry will risk her life for her people but Laurell Hamilton won't risk ending her series, so we're going to spin this idiocy out until all of her fans finally leave her in disgust. Meanwhile, the supposed main conflict is the murder of a series of fey, which we return to now and then for a few brief pages in between sex and the domestic arrangements of Merry and her men.

The author has seemingly grown too big to be edited. The structure of this book was absurd. Merry is called to the murder scene but spends most of her time talking with Julian (have we met him before this book? I don't remember...) about his sad love life. We have the usual sex with all sorts of people, described at long, boring length and the mystery is neatly wrapped up in a couple of pages.

Maybe in the next one, Merry will throw a party and have some sex. Oh, wait, we've already done that. Well, why not do it again. Could anything be more fun? For her, maybe...not for the reader.