Happy reading, everyone!

It’s November and NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writing Month! I am participating this year, as I have a story that needs to get a draft out as soon as possible. If you want to be a writing buddy, I am under Pixie Beldona. The nanowrimo site appears to be down at the moment, so there must be a ton of writers planning to participate, which is awesome.

As I want to get a good start on the new story, it may be a couple extra days before getting out my reviews for episodes 9 and 10 of The Smile Has Left Your Eyes. The pace of the series is picking up as Yoo Jin Kang finds herself, despite her abhorrence, falling for the psychopath Kim Moo Young. She seems to believe that perhaps Moo Young can turn a corner and be a better person, but I don’t see that happening at all, and so we’re in for a roller coaster ride that will likely end in tragedy.

On the reading side, I got about halfway through Caleb Carr’s lauded The Alienist, and gave up as it was far too wordy with so much unnecessary detail. Some writers are writers and some are storytellers. Carr is not a storyteller, from what I can tell, and even managed to make the seedy side of NYC in the 1890s kind of, well, boring. He’s probably a very good historian, but this novel is likely hit more due to the fact it was recently made into the TV series, and the subject matter, which is a trendy subject among the virtue signaling set, than for his writing or storytelling. For a better series about a psychologist detective, try A Death in Vienna by Frank Tallis. The fourth book was a bit much for me, but the first three books, I thought the mysteries excellent and the setting great. Warning, your mouth may water from his descriptions of the food.