What I've been reading lately

So, I've had a bit of a reading drought the past couple weeks, partly because I went back and read Captain Vorpatril's Alliance again slowly, to savor it properly after bolting through it the first time around.  I do that a lot with Bujold's books--they just get richer on re-reading.

That said, I have a few novellas and graphic novels to add to my 2012 reading count:

59) Slow Summer Kisses, by Shannon Stacey. A contemporary romance novella with a heroine decompressing from a downsizing at her grandparents' summer cabin and a hero who downsized himself a long time ago. I'm not usually a huge fan of small town contemporary romances, but this story really worked for me, and also did a great job convincing me of the characters' compatibility and hopes for happiness despite the relatively short length--I finished it in three half-hour sessions over lunch last week.


60) Serenity: Better Days, by Joss Whedon, Brett Matthews, and Will Conrad. This graphic novel read just like an episode of Firefly--a fun one, but not one of my all-time favorites from that 'verse.

61) Serenity: The Shepherd's Tale, by Joss Whedon, Zack Whedon, and Chris Samnee. Shepherd Book's backstory. I liked this one better than the previous one, but it still felt a bit...incomplete, I guess. I would've liked a bit more of Book's post-conversion life, and some of his childhood hardships seemed a little obvious, but I still enjoyed it.

62) Kilts & Kraken, by Cindy Spencer Pape. Another Carina novella, this one a mid-19th century steampunk romance set in Scotland. I'm not inherently into steampunk, but I enjoyed this book, which like Slow Summer Kisses managed plenty of character development in its short length. (I'm working on a novella now myself, so I suppose I'm studying the form.)