Book review- The Chinese Alchemist

I celebrated the  Chinese New Year with Chinese food, and Lyn Hamilton's wonderful The Chinese Alchemist.  This is a very interesting read- lots of Chinese culture and history, which made it perfect for Chinese New Year!  I love this kind of mystery, where one learns a great deal about a subject one might not otherwise  know about.  Most of the book takes place in China, as the main character, Lara McClintoch, an antiques dealer, tracks down  a T'ang dynasty silver box.  Interesting back story woven into the book gives a insight to Chinese culture and history.  I thought the back story was nicely done, blending in smoothly with the present day narrative.  The depictions  of the places in China that McClintoch visits- Beijing, and Xi'an, are beautifully described.  I thought the characters were well drawn  as well.

 I was sad to find out that this is the last book in this series- Ms. Hamilton passed away not long after this book was published.  There are eleven books altogether in her Archaeological Mystery series.  I look forward to reading other books in this series.

The Lara McClintoch Archaeological Mysteries:
The Xibalba Murders (1997)
The Maltese Goddess (1998)
The Moche Warrior (1999)
The Celtic Riddle (2000)
The African Quest (2001)
The Etruscan Chimera (2002)
The Thai Amulet (2003)
The Magyar Venus (2004)
The Moai Murders (2005)
The Orkney Scroll (2006)
The Chinese Alchemist (2007)

New blog- same blog-

Why the new blog?  I ran into technical difficulties with the old one.  Rather than spend hours and hours trying to track down what was wrong with the old one, it made more sense to just start again with Google Blogger.  So if you see the old "Books and Bones" blog- yeah, that's me, Ive just moved to a new space.

Happy Lunar New-Year!

Traditionally, people start new projects, resolutions, etc, on the New Year- that is, the new year on the calender.   Because I'm now 3 weeks behind the traditional new year, I'm starting with the Lunar (or Chinese) New Year.

This year I'm looking forward to reading new works- lots of great new stuff out there.  I have also "opened the vault" and will be reading and reviewing old classics, but also some great books that have often been overlooked.  I'll also look at some quirky books, that might not make any best sellers list, but have a certain charm of their own.

 My resolution is to be a better blogger, which means actually writing the blog and not getting behind on it.  Also, I resolve to get a better grip on technology so I don't have to call tech support quite so often.  Luckily, my tech support consists of my husband and my son, both of whom know more about  technology than I ever will, and both of whom have always been terrific about  helping me.

I also want to be a better reviewer of books.  In addition to saying- "This is a great book, you should read it!"  I want to be able to say, "This is why."  My focus is the mystery genre- though I'll read anything thats good.  I want to look at different trends in the mystery world- both for readers and writers.  There's lots of interesting trends and topics.

I believe that the Year of the Dragon is going to be wonderful!