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Book #12 – Grave Intent by Deborah LeBlanc

My memory maybe faulty, but I think I read the first part of this novel in early draft form long ago when I was a member of an online horror writers group.  I seem to remember a first chapter involving gypsies, gold coins, and an impending curse.  It was solidly written and a compelling beginning.  Personally, I’ve always been intrigued by gypsy culture especially in the contemporary US.

About the first third of Grave Intent does a good job of setting up Roma culture…and then we leave that group of people behind and only deal with the victims of the curse.  The details of the curse are left pretty vague aside from the general rules.  Many different things happen to the characters with no indication to the significance these things might have in gypsy culture.  They’re just a bunch of scary events.  Except, not so scary.  The obiquitous advice “show, don’t tell” is only partially correct.  It’s more like “manipulate then tell.”  LeBlanc shows, but I didn’t feel anything.  She told, but still, nothing.  The writing is technically solid, the story was okay, but there was just a spark missing.

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Home from the Nebraska.

I came back with:

• two books: Julia by Peter Straub (from The Antiquiarium for 48 cents) and The Usual Mistakes by Erin Flanagan (given to me by my brother).
• a bra, hair do-dads, nail polish bought when I walked alone to Kmart on Thursday.  I just had to get away.
• a Rob Zombie concert shirt, also from my brother.
• a pair of black slacks and a cute tennis skirt from Shopko, bought for my by my grandma.
• a cold and a rash of some sort on my neck.

It was an okay trip.  My people behaved well, though it was a bit of a shock seeing my brother.  We did have a pretty nice day together on Friday.  We had lunch, shopped and saw 28 Weeks Later.  Fairly good movie.  Great misleading trailer and I’m glad they resisted putting name American actors in it.  My grandma is doing pretty good.  While I was there, she washed all her windows and went shopping with me.  She’s eating better too.  Oh, circus peanuts were had, but the grilled chicken sandwich was eaten when I know she likes the crunchy better.  Despite her protests that life is now too much work, she was far from depressed.  Spent lots of time with Dad.  Watching monster trucks.  But that wasn’t bad.

No disc was played.  I did get the pages up for women’s league.  Man, Tim doesn’t know how to put together teams.  The Lime team will go undefeated.  That’s my prediction.  Unless half the girls don’t show up.  Hopefully, disc today, even though I’m hacking up great globs of green goo.