Spring haiku

Last weekend we took a long drive down to southwestern Virginia to transfer custody of Dave's mom to his sister. Yay!

The weather was perfect and the scenery was gorgeous, but I was driving and couldn't take any pictures the whole first day. So instead I composed haiku in my head.

On our way home we stopped overnight just south of Washington D.C. and first thing in the morning drove into the city to see the fabled cherry blossoms. We'd never seen them before, and it was so worth it! Just gorgeous.

Here are my haiku from the trip.

Shenandoah valley
Cattle graze in spring-green fields
Trees fluffy with buds

Beautiful Blue Ridge
Gauzy layers of mountains
To infinity

Pink cherry blossoms
Reflecting in blue water
Breathtaking springtime
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Book review: Treachery in Death

I usually do my book reviews on Goodreads, and lately all in haiku, but I just had to say more about J.D. Robb's latest, Treachery in Death. It's truly amazing to me how a series with more than 30 books, almost 40 if you count the novella-length entries, can continue to provide such high quality.

And this particular one might be my favorite of the whole shebang.

Now if you're in it for the romance, there's not a whole lot of it here. A couple of pretty tame love scenes, and very little of the conflict between Eve and Roarke that makes some of the books so interesting.

And the mystery, well, you know early on who the bad guys are. But you know what? It doesn't make a damn bit of difference. It still kept me up late, wanting to see what came next.

The suspense? Hard to develop too much of that when pretty much every single reader knows Eve's going to come out on top. Even with Eve in the bad guys' crosshairs, you just know she's going to survive, and win, and kick some ass in the process.

What really blew me away about this one was the contrast in characters. Two female lieutenants, one good, one dirty. Their actions, their morals, their motives, their leadership style, the loyalty of their squads. This just couldn't have been better.

I gave it five stars, because that's the most I could. But it deserves six!

Thanks, JD/Nora, for writing brilliant books, year after year, decade after decade. You're a genius!
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