Bruno, Birds, and Books

I've been a sick little person lately, which is only a partial excuse for my absence (really, one post in a whole month? What a slacker!), but that's all I've got for now, except for some pics and some thoughts on the books I've read.

First, Bruno, who can no longer sit in the chair with me because he's too big - but still effing cute as hell. He's trying, unsuccessfully, to squeeze himself into the cat bed.

Second, birds, courtesy of my son the birder...

A Mallard and a Northern Pintail - no idea which is which

A patchy Goldfinch. He'll look spectacular in a month or so

A 'Timberdoodle' aka Woodcock.

The Barred Owl who likes to hang out at my son's place

And third, the books I've read:

Spare and Found Parts by Sarah Maria Griffin

Tell the Machine Goodnight by Katie Williams

The Grimm Legacy by Polly Shulman

A Symphony of Echoes by Jodi Taylor

 I am not going to say much about the first two because I didn't love them enough to do them justice, but someone else might. I totally loved The Grimm Legacy, even though the writing wasn't perfect and it did contain that annoying bit books have where if people would just be honest a lot of problems could be averted. But it was still a wicked fun read. Finally, A Symphony of Echoes, the second book in the Chronicles of St. Mary's concerning time traveling historians, is just as much fun as the first. I'm not quite done with it but I plan on working my way through this entire series. The writing is snappy, there's seldom a dull moment, and the mc is awesome.

On the home front, I've seen crocuses, and the Red-winged Blackbirds are back whose song I adore, but it's still cold and there's snow and I'm very, very tired of it. On the positive side, 43K words into The Train to Somewhere, my current wip, a speculative tale in the vein of Station Elevan. I have also made the decision in Skyrim to join the Dark Brotherhood. My reason is this, sure, I can go back in time because you can do that in games, but in real life you have to live with the decisions you make, even when your motives were good. It will be interesting to see where this leads, because in Oblivion, the dark Brotherhood Quest was pretty awesome.

Oh! And my Average Game Score in Scrabble (on FB) is up to 376. NTS