5 inch strappy Buffalo sandals - barefeet

Just a short post for all lovers of bare feet in strappy high heel sandals ;). As it is actually not the right time for wearing sandals barefeet - this is something special I just thought I have to post these photos for you...
A friend of mine just bought this amazing 5 inch high sandals as her new ballroom-shoes. When trying them on at home I just took some photos of her wearing her new shoes. They are 5 inch high strappy sandals from Buffalo (they really make cool high heels) with a half inch high platform wich makes them very comfortable. She is used to high heels but still has to practice a bit dancing with them ;). Maybe I can show you some photos of her wearing these heels at the ball next weekend.
Hope you like her feet and high heels, too.

High Heeled Greetings & Kisses
- Vivian

"The Hawk and His Boy" by Christopher Bunn (Reviewed by Liviu Suciu)

Order "The Hawk and His Boy" HERE

INTRODUCTION: "One night in the city of Hearne, a young thief named Jute is instructed to break into a wizard's house and steal an old wooden box. It sounds like a straightforward job. Climb down the chimney, creep through the house, find the thing and get out fast. Unbeknownst to the boy, however, the box contains the knife that killed the Wind. Overcome with curiosity, Jute opens the box and sets off a chain of events that soon has him on the run from the wizard, his old masters in the Thieves Guild, and their client, who happens to be the Lord of Darkness himself. On his odyssey of escape, Jute is aided by an unlikely assortment of friends, including a guilt-ridden assassin, a reluctant wizard, and a hawk who just might be able to teach him how to fly. But the Darkness will do anything to find Jute, even if it means plunging the whole land into war."

The debut of the independent Tormay fantasy trilogy, of which both next books are written and in editing with plans to be published in 2011, The Hawk and His Boy was a big positive surprise for me.

I found out about it from a review inquiry on FBC and while the blurb seemed standard, though on the intriguing side for me, I checked the online Amazon sample and I really liked what I read there so I bought the ebook and it immediately moved to the top of my reading list. I felt compelled to turn the next page when finishing the current one, so I read it in almost one sitting the first moment in recent times I had some extended reading time/energy and I am really looking forward to the next two books. I also included it as a later addition in my 2010 recommended novels.

OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: The blurb above does not really do justice to the complexity of the tale that starts in "The Hawk and His Boy". Jute's thread while reasonably well described is only a part of a tapestry that contains - a rogue scholar/wizard, a mysterious woman, a young noble who dreams of her ancestors and may have magic powers on her own as she seems to understand the living world, a nasty death-dealing creature, a young girl that survived an attack that destroyed her village, an officer of the city guard and more.

Starting the novel I expected a storyline in the vein of recent young thief offerings - some of which I quite enjoyed - and then when Levoreth Callas the niece and heir of Duke Dolan of a remote semi-independent province, made her appearance with her dreams about the past and her famed namesake, a long ago heroine of legend, I thought, well we will have two threads, one with the boy and one with the girl...

Imagine my surprise when more and more characters started appearing and having their own threads, the rogue scholar Nio, the dreaded assassin Ronan "The Knife" who actually dreams only of retiring to his birthplace and the rest. There are missing books of magic, a past conflict that pitted wizards against the secular power allied with mysterious dark forces, conflict that may reverberate/rekindle today, a magic system based on the four elements and words of power and overall much more depth than I expected.

The first book is in some ways an introduction with stuff starting to happen and plot-lines introduced, but the book achieves a great sense of balance and I never felt the scatter in other similar many-threaded books. There are no narrative walls and the threads transitions are handled so well, you never notice it, while the prose flows smoothly. I cannot emphasize how important an achievement is this since way too many books that started promising quickly foundered on either too much scatter or too much focus on one storyline at the expense of others.

Despite being an independent book, I never really noticed editing problems - there may be some but nothing that jars or throws one out of the story - and to my surprise I enjoyed this one considerably more than I expected. The one niggle is that the world building is a bit naive and idealistic - dukes hanging out with farmers and such - but no more than in most fantasies with a similar pre-industrial setting, so it was not a big deal.

Exuberant and entertaining writing, memorable characters and generally interesting setting with much expansion potential - are things that catapult a novel to favorite, "I want next book now" status, and "The Hawk and His Boy" has them...

The ending arrives at a good stopping point in most threads though the book needs the next installments for full appreciation since it is not a "series standalone" but a clear first chapter in a large novel. The good news is that the next books will be available soon, with The Shadow at the Gate expected early this year and the conclusion later in 2011, so a huge bonus here of a complete series in a short time.

The Hawk and His Boy (A+) is quite traditional fantasy but very interesting and with surprising depth while the series has great potential *if the next two books keep delivering* - now the high expectations kick in for me and as noted quite a few times that is always double-edged. On the plus side though I know that when the author releases The Shadow at the Gate, I plan to read it as soon as I can...

"The Soul Mirror" by Carol Berg (Reviewed by Liviu Suciu)

Order "The Soul Mirror" HERE

Official Carol Berg Website
Read FBC Review of The Spirit Lens

INTRODUCTION: "The Spirit Lens" was the first novel by the author that I read completely and I quite liked it. Towards last January's review of it, I said:

"After I got into the style of the novel and its happenings started hooking me, its main attraction were the twists and turns and the characters about whom slowly we start having quite different impressions than at the start. Revelations from the past coupled to traits that come at fore only after a while mean that what we believe at the beginning will be quite changed by the end. This unpredictability raised The Spirit Lens most in my estimation since in so many genre books the characters are marked: "the destined one, the sidekick, the love interest, the villain, the noble but doomed one", while here there is much more subtlety and even at the end when we seemingly know a lot more, there is a lot of uncertainty at least with regard to the big picture."

As time passed, The Spirit Lens stayed much more in memory than other books I seemingly enjoyed more on first read, so it got a place in my recommended books of 2010, while its sequel "The Soul Mirror" became a high expectation novel for 2011. And it delivered!

The following part will have spoilers for The Spirit Lens, so beware if you have not read it so far.

OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: The first thing to know about "The Soul Mirror" is that while a first person narration as The Spirit Lens, it switches narrators from Portier to Anne du Vernase who was a relatively minor character in the first novel, though her actions are quite important at the end of it.

Four years after the end of The Spirit Lens, 22 year old Anne du Vernase, goddaughter of King Philippe is trying hard to keep her family estate going with a disappeared father condemned in large part by her testimony as murderer and traitor, a mad mother now in keeping of her brothers far away, an imprisoned brother and a magician younger sister whose discoveries kill her just before the novel starts - at the magical College at Seravain where the 17 year old was studying. And they don't even let Anne inside when she goes to collect her sister's belongings.

The hated Portier, the investigator who broke open the big treason/necromancy case in The Spirit Lens and was the prosecutor in the King's name at the trial in-absentia of her father and his accomplices, arrives with a royal warrant demanding Anne to come as a maid of honor - aka "noble servant" - to Queen Eugenie's palace in Merona while also announcing the dispossession of the Vernase estates for the treason of the king's former bosom friend.

Portier is now the chief of the Queen's household administration, his former friend/helper Dante is the Queen's magician and a figure of dread and darkness, Ilario is still playing the fool, and the Queen's (adopted) mother and former Regent, Antonia is playing an "I want power" manipulation game with the Queen and her semi-estranged and pretty much always away husband King, while portents of dread and magic are continually seen in Merona.

Anne is thrown into the fray where nothing is at is seems, friends and enemies are hard to discern, while the Aspirant (supposedly her vanished traitor father) and his clique are ready to take the final step in the plans laid so long ago and that were only partly thwarted in The Spirit Lens...

If this description does not hook you let's talk about the other strengths of the novel. The narration of Anne is pitch perfect and seemed to me much smoother than Portier's from the first page. It may just be that I got used with the author' style in this series, but the pages really turned by themselves and the book hits no narrative walls.

The characters of The Spirit Lens are now seen through Anne's quite different perspective and I greatly enjoyed the glimpses we got of Portier and Ilario, while Dante becomes the truly dominant character - even as an object of fear and dread for Anne - that Portier's narration could not really portray him. We encounter other old friends and sometimes quite different facets of them than in The Spirit Lens, while the nasty and power-hungry Antonia is enjoyably loathsome and naive new Queen's physician Roussel, a kindly middle-aged commoner may be Anne's only friend at the court, or at least this is what she believes...

The Soul Mirror takes place in a shorter period of time than The Spirit Lens - as in there chapters are named by day/time - and the tension builds inexorably towards a powerful action filled last part that is awesome. Twists and turns abound and while some are of "could it really be?" far-fetched ones that experienced fantasy readers always enjoy guessing, others are more easily discernible, though all-in-all they keep the reader on his or her toes all the time.

The only minor niggle I has was that the author truly puts a lot on Anne's shoulders and at some point, I was thinking, enough, let the girl have a break, though she proves more than adept to handle her known enemies.

The world building is even better than in the first novel - again familiarity helps, but The Soul Mirror brings quite a lot of new things to what we know from The Spirit Lens - and there are quite a few moments that make one want to revisit the book quite a few times.

A novel that stakes an early claim to my Top 10 list of 2011 - currently at #2-#3 - The Soul Mirror (A++) takes the Collegia Magica series to the next level with a gripping tale that essentially ends all the threads from The Spirit Lens, though enough loose ends are left so new series books can follow. Magic, science, family feuds, a kingdom and maybe even a world - or at least its laws of nature - in peril, a great heroine with a superb cast and traditional fantasy does not get better than this!

2010_In_Books_Liviu

Here I plan to link all posts on the theme of 2010 releases and reads and index this post on the "Best of" widget. As of today January 3, 2011, I plan to add one more post discussing non-2010 releases I read.

I will include the two Goodreads comprehensive lists dealing with this subject, while for some books I tried and did not care for to continue, a general list is HERE, with books I have and may read at any time listed HERE and HERE.

I am including also the final 94-book list of 2010 Anticipated books of which I finally have/took a look at all. Of them 81 are read so far, 11 are on the reading pile and two I decided I do not want to read.

********************************************************


1. More-or less comprehensive list of books I read in 2010 HERE

********************************************************


2. 2010 releases read by me whatever the year read in (2009-10-11) HERE
this will be updated automatically as needed

********************************************************


3. 2010 reads in covers - up to early December actually but close enough; full list 1 above

********************************************************


4. Top 55 Novels in Covers; top 25 ranked, the next 30 in more or less chronological order of listing them as obtained on Goodreads; to those 30 I would add one more book I finished on December 29

********************************************************


4a (added Jan 2011). Top Independent Novels of 2010; 6 highly recommended and 6 more discussed

********************************************************


5. 10 Disappointing 2010 Novels - not necessarily the worst, just the ones I had high expectations which did not pan out; see post for more novels I did not care for but for which expectations were not that high either

********************************************************


6. Top 5 2010 releases versus Top 5 older novels read in 2010 - up to late November; some changes may appear in my final list of older books read in 2010

********************************************************


7. Top 10 expected novels from the rest of 2010 - with updated comments as they came; original post in May, updates along the way, final version in October

********************************************************


8. 2010 at Half

********************************************************


9. 2010 Anticipated Final Post which I will update anytime I read/discard any of the remaining 11/94 books there still on my pile

Classic Red Stiletto Pumps and Fishnet Stockings....

Happy new year on my High Heels Blog!! Hope all of you had great holidays so far?! For the first post in 2011 - here are some detailed photos of my red high heels show on my last post. They are 4.5 inch classic red stiletto pumps from Seduce. As the are not very high - they are comfortable for partying a whole night out without getting hurting feet. In glossy red leather these pumps are really eye-catchers ;). Especially together with fishnet-stockings and a quite short mini-skirt like I wear it on this photos. It's always nice to see men looking down my legs and then their look gets stuck on my shoes ;). Although my feet look really small on these photos - my shoe-size is a european 37.5 - which is a US 7 (I guess 50% of all women have my size - so I'm actually a "standard woman).

Happy high-heeled New Years Greetings
- Vivian