No, not Shakespeare's, but Elaine Cunningham's. Recently the recipient of a less-than-pleased review, I am happy to report that this is not the case with the author's Winter Witch. In fact, I am enjoying this book even more on the second read. And check out the awesome Advance Reader Copy with the beautiful Jesper Esjing cover! I won that from an Atomic Array contest, and have been meaning to give it to my daughter ever since. Yeah...it's not easy letting go -- maybe after this reading, since I did the first one out of the mass market paperback that came with my subscription. I'll wait to give my final grade once I finish, but for now, I'm loving the setup and lots of little details that I did not notice in my first reading, when I gobbled the story up. I can't help but think that there's a lot of little Easter eggs and nods in here. Oh, and some fellow named Dave Gross apparently chipped in. Maybe you've seen him around. So, thanks to this Pathfinder Tale, I'm coping with all the crazy warm weather down here in South Texas that keeps it from feeling like winter.
On the finished front, I've now read through the three Waterdeep books in the first Ed Greenwood Presents omnibus. Blackstaff Tower, Mistshore, and Downshadow. All are quite enjoyable, in spite of the setting later than I prefer and all the Spellplague business (more prominent in the last two novels). I'm not sure I'm going to grade these. For now, let me just say that it is hard to choose between Blackstaff Tower and Downshadow, but all were pretty strong on character, which seems to me one of the pitfalls of the genre, and my annoyance with timeline and Spellplague were overcome by the characterization and plots. The latter, while not particularly ambitious, ranged from serviceable to more than serviceable. So, I'll be on the lookout for the second Waterdeep series. All fodder for future Tomeful Tuesdays. Happy reading!
