The Sleep Room by F.R. Tallis
The Mating Chase and The Mating Hunt by Bonnie Vanak
The Devil on Horseback by Victoria Holt
What to Buy the Shadowhunter who has Everything and The Last Stand of the New York Institute by Cassandra Clare
The Sex Diaries Project by Arianne Cohen
So here's the final tally for 2013 and it was an interesting cross section of fiction and non-fiction.
Pender's bi-op of serial killer Roy Fontaine was equal parts entertaining, frustrating, and terrifying, both in terms of what Fontaine did/how he lived and in how Pender interacted with the convicted criminal.
The Sleep Room was a bust. I feel like people should just go watch Shutter Island and they'll get the idea behind this drawn out, disappointing novel--disappointing in how the ending suddenly turned to resemble the end of this superior movie.
Cohen's research was enlitening and somewhat sad, but I'm glad that it really focused more on the different types of relationships people have/live in/experience in their lives than lots of sexual encounters. As the author suggests, I really had to make a concious effort not to put my own personal views onto the sections and simply enjoy the diarists and hopefully gain some insight from their problems.
I'm in love with Victoria Holt. I finally got around to reading this particular book (an exchange from earlier in the year) after mistakingly believeing it to be a collection of short stories, a medium I'm not fond of. This book is about one young Englishwoman and her roundabout witnessing of the French Revolution, adding in forbidden (confusing) romance and upper class intrigue. Holt wrote under a number of names--Jean Plaidy is another, and is actually the next book on my shelf, I think--and I enjoy the mystery behind her as a person.
