Blogs, blogs everywhere and Enthralled

One of the puzzles that I have constantly faced with the explosion of social media is why in the world would anybody care what I have to say or what I am doing a particular day.  I admit to being relatively faithful about entering books on my Goodreads shelf but that is more of a selfish act because I read so many stories that I am likely to forget the premise of a particular series no matter how much I like it.  There is only so much room on my mental “shelf” and as I age, the shelf seems to be decreasing in size.  I am always amazed by the breadth of information that our brains are capable of holding, just think of the songs that you remember from your late teens that you can hear the first few notes of and know immediately whether the melody line is correct, let alone the artist singing or the words being sung.  Just think of how much information that is and how many songs that you learned in a single year!  And we are not even beginning to use the potential capacity of our brains.  But, as usual, I digress.  Each blog that I have looked at has links to several others.  Clicking on the links leads me to other sites and giveaways that require comments which necessitate your logging in or registering on yet another site...which leads to additional e-mail...and one could spend hours lost in the blogiverse without appreciably accomplishing everything.  However, I am a person who enters contests for everything...which one year led us to actually traveling to Michigan on a private plane (with the other winners) and watching a NASCAR race...I can only surmise that I must have been aiming for the second prize (probably a large screen television) because that is not a prize I would have ever been aiming for.  Anyway, what I am getting at is that not only do blogs give you interesting snippets about the blogger but the bribes for reading and commenting can be quite entertaining...but that is not a characteristic of my blog...yet.  One of these days I may actually get a follower but of course I will have to let people know it exists and link it to my Goodreads, Night Owl Reviews and LibraryThing accounts.  I seem to be acquiring “friends” on Goodreads somehow without really trying so maybe this will eventually take on a life of its own since I am usually relatively reticent about trying to attract attention.

Enthralled is an anthology edited by the prolific and entertaining Kelley Armstrong and new to me author Melissa Marr.  I have read and enjoyed most of Armstrong’s works since she began the Otherworld series and leapt at the chance to review this work when I noted that both she and Rachel Caine (another author that I have followed since her Weather Warden series started) were contributors.  This is a work that is virtually impossible to swallow at a single sitting and I had to take breaks and allow my mind to uncrinkle enough to absorb the next story since each conjures up its own reality and disparate characters.  Very thought-provoking and sometimes icky (to me) storylines...being bait for cannibalistic Girl Scouts who are trying to earn their badges, vampires in drag, harpies who want a finger as payment, etc. but always entertaining and well-written.  A great addition to several young adult series without being essential to the series themselves, i.e. a nice bonus to read but there will not be a significant gap in the series if you miss this work (temporarily, I hope).   Ok, hopefully I will get back before the week is up to post my thoughts on the new anthology featuring J.D. Robb and friends, The Unquiet, but let me say that I was really sad to get to the end of the book...all of those tales were quite enjoyable as well!