Shannon L. Yarbrough's profile

Nothing Dead About This Book!, July 10, 2009

I'm a late bloomer to the True Blood series. I watched Season 1 on DVD just in time to get in on Season 2. I loved the series so I wanted to read the books it spawned from. Dead Until Dark is the first. And though there are extreme differences between the series and the book, I still thought it was a good read. In some cases, I thought the plot twists in the series were even better than what's in the book, but like I said, still a good read.

Charlaine Harris writes in a very simple manner that's easy to relate to, sometimes too easy if you are a more complex mystery reader. I am not. I finished this book in just 6 days. I stumbled on some of the dialogue in some places… Read more

A Glimpse of the Dragon, July 6, 2009

I love an adventure story. I'm not talking about the jarring action packed adventure with lots of guns and running, destined for an R rating if it makes the big screen, but instead a personal kind of adventure for one person that ends up being a life changing personal journey for them. And that's exactly what happened to Janis Letts.

On page one, she's living in the Australia "bush" in the Central Queensland Gemfields as a tour guide for an underground sapphire mine. A historical cottage infested with white ants is where she makes her home. She best sums up her livelihood like this:

"The greatest strength of the community is its people, an abundance of… Read more

Fickle Winds, June 24, 2009

I admire historical fiction that draws from real facts from our history books and presents new theories on events or fills in the gaps history skipped over. S. G. Cardin has written such a book called Across the Fickle Winds of History. Now, with a title and book cover like that, I knew I wanted to read it.

The book focuses on the last years of the Imperial Russian Family known as the Romanovs. Those of you who enjoyed the 1997 animated film called Anastasia will be quite familiar with this story. Although Anastasia was the youngest daughter of Czar Nicholas II, Cardin focuses on the eldest daughter, Olga.

The story spans from 1913 to 1918 and is told through… Read more