Sizzling Sixteen by Janet Evanovich
These books are lifesavers. Even now when I’m not in a very good mood, most of these books can still get me in a better mood at least for a time. In fact, this might be one of my very favorites among the Stephanie Plum-mysteries. Actually, as anyone who’s read even one of these books knows, they’re a bit more comedy than mystery. Sure there’s action too, but it’s not the kind of action that has you on the edge of your seat. The reason this is probably one of my favorites is that there is a LOTR connection. I’ll just mention one word HOBBITS!
Other than that, Stephanie’s boss at the bonds office/bounty hunter headquarters, Vinnie the pervert, has been abducted, but that turns out to be just the beginning of everyone’s troubles.
Also, Stephanie has inherited a supposedly lucky red glass bottle, so that gets taken along on all assignments for a while. That’s not all there is to the bottle either but you only find that out at the very end.
Stink bombs also play a part in this book.
As most of the other books in the series, this one is full of fun, sex and action. I don’t think I’ll need to go into more about the plot because as you might know, plot is the least part of these books. Sure, it works fine, there’s nothing to complain about when it comes to the plot, but there’s so much more to the series than that.
If you need cheering up read one book or more in this series. In fact, even if you don’t, you’ll probably enjoy it anyway. I might not want to continue reading this series forever, but so far I haven’t found any reason to stop, so I’m going to read the next couple of books as well, at least.
The Librarians (2014)
The series can be described as a combination of Indiana Jones (or rather The Young Indiana Jones), MacGyver and Doctor Who/Torchwood. It’s fun and filled with action. The underlying idea is fascinating – a magical library that is more or less infiitely big, that you can reach from more than one place (The Annex), but also a portal that opens just about anywhere so the Librarian can get where the magical action is.
The first episode starts with a woman, Eve Baird, working for an antiterrorist unit who runs into a mysterious excentrically dressed man who is expert in disarming traps (but not the usual kind of bomb trap). She is puzzled but impressed. Soon she receives a mysterious invitation to begin work at the Metropolitan library and finds out about the huge underground library. However, the Librarian (at that time there’s only one) isn’t at all happy to see her. He claims to be able to get by very well without a Guardian (that is the Librarian’s body guard). Circumstances move fast though and Eve (the Guardian) and Flynn (the Librarian) are pulled into a complicated case, fighting a group of ninja warriors. It seems someone is killing off Librarian candidates. Although traditionally there’s only ever been one Librarian and one Guiardian it seems now there’s need for more.
From the second episode there are three Librarians-in-training, protected by the Guardian and a mysterious older man, Jenkins, who seems to be living in the Annex (a sort of add-on to the Library), doing research and keeping an eye on the team of amateurish future Librarians. There’s young amoral thief Exekiel Jones, Cassandra Cillian who is a genius rather like Sherlock, but unfortunately she owes her genius to a tumor in her brain and finally a sort of cowboy who is a genius too – and extremely well educated in archaeology, history and languages.
Like I said, this is a fun, action filled series, with all kinds of supernatural and magical enemies, but I can’t help wishing there was more depth. If they’d only taken the time to write more ‘serious’ and deep episodes I would have been happier. It feels a little llike a YA series with rather hurried plots. Some episodes are downright annoying like the one about Santa, who insists on referring ot himself in the third person. Others, are far more interesting, like one about a town where fairy tales come to life, with dangerous consequences.
So far I’ve seen one season, but apparently there will be another, so at least that’s good. I don’t think I’ll be writing any fan fiction based on this series, but it’s definitely good enough to distract you from your life for a while.
