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In theory, AB had their first day of school today. However, since T. is an 8th grader at RJG, and the first day of school at RJG is for 7th graders only (basically, orientation day), he did not have school. And since I noticed that A. was really warm when I was braiding her hair for her first day, and discovered she was running a fever of 100.something, she did not have school.
First day fizzle. Oh well!
I had a very long convo with my BIL J (ha! That is ambiguous. This is lawyer J not doctor J.). Great discussion of our respective vacations that overlapped partly, and then inevitably family related discussions. I am really happy to be part of a family network that really works hard to understand everyone’s perspective and work cooperatively to help each other. Very healing for me.
T. went with the sitter at 11. I had my walk with M. at 10. And I finally got around to reading _Sapphire Flames_, the latest Hidden Legacy novel by Ilona Andrews. This one (like the novella about Nevada and Rogan’s wedding) is mostly a Catalina story, who is now head of House Baylor. The explanation shows up late in the novel, but I do not think it is a spoiler. However:
SPOILERS! Warped mages will get you if you keep reading. Or something.
Basically, Nevada works herself sick, Catalina convinces the rest of the family to vote to make it so any money she earns is only for herself and does not go to the family, Nevada gets extremely angry altho she mostly understands and ultimately Catalina winds up head of the household.
Catalina delegated responsibility for Baylor security to mom. This is, obviously, a huge error. Mom at no point in any of the novels has displayed any good judgment or leadership skills. She is awesome and loving and a wonderful person and a scary good shot however, not a leader, and has terrible judgment. Most of these books are about younger people working around incompetent mom. It is really something, if you think about it, and Grandma Frida is only marginally better, and to the extent she is better, the improved leadership and judgment are wiped out by her attraction to excitement and danger.
Anyway. Someone playing a long game (and it is absolutely not clear who that is in this book) pointed Abarca at House Baylor, and Mom totally fell for it. While the characters in the book repeatedly — in the face of an astonishing amount of contrary evidence — chalk up Abarca’s security failings to incompetence, it is super obvious that this is a set up for developments in later book. Dunno who was pulling his strings; looking forward to finding out. Sort of. Heart gets called in when Abarca walks and takes the entire security team with him, and Heart lays out enough information to make it clear that Abarca was A Problem, however, it is utterly unclear that even Heart sees the full plan. I mean, if someone has been pointing Abarca at Rogan all along — like, since before Rogan earned the nickname Huaracan — that is a terrifyingly long game, and a scary opponent.
Because Abarca is so bad at keeping the House safe, there is an adorable incident at a dead mall in which Catalina deals with a lot of opponents and acquires a pet dog.
The Venenatas are the client in this book: someone killed Runa’s mom and kidnapped her sister and tried to make it look like two murders (wonder who that other body belonged to and if that will ever be addressed?). Runa’s kid brother tries to kill himself and Augustine breaches the terrible security at the warehouse to convince Catalina to rescue him. Augustine then tells Catalina not to get further involved in the case (wow, is Augustine’s recruiting tactic about as transparent as it could possibly be). Alessandro shows up and tells House Baylor not to get further involved. Eventually, it becomes clear that there is a plot against Linus Duncan, and Catalina and Alessandro go to tell him about it, and Linus tells Catalina not to get further involved — and then just pulls her alllllll the way into shenanigans.
It is a good book, however, Catalina has a pretty grim, gut it out thing going on mentally through the whole book which makes it feel like a grind. Her grim outlooks actually makes a ton of sense in context, and it is not TOO much of a grind — the book runs along at a phenomenal clip, as I expect of Ilona Andrews books, and there is a lot to think about so I am confident it will reward a prompt rereading. The final page or so of the book involve a convo between Alessandro and someone else, about the job that Alessandro is doing which is capable of dragging him away from Catalina.
As always, looking forward to more!
First day fizzle. Oh well!
I had a very long convo with my BIL J (ha! That is ambiguous. This is lawyer J not doctor J.). Great discussion of our respective vacations that overlapped partly, and then inevitably family related discussions. I am really happy to be part of a family network that really works hard to understand everyone’s perspective and work cooperatively to help each other. Very healing for me.
T. went with the sitter at 11. I had my walk with M. at 10. And I finally got around to reading _Sapphire Flames_, the latest Hidden Legacy novel by Ilona Andrews. This one (like the novella about Nevada and Rogan’s wedding) is mostly a Catalina story, who is now head of House Baylor. The explanation shows up late in the novel, but I do not think it is a spoiler. However:
SPOILERS! Warped mages will get you if you keep reading. Or something.
Basically, Nevada works herself sick, Catalina convinces the rest of the family to vote to make it so any money she earns is only for herself and does not go to the family, Nevada gets extremely angry altho she mostly understands and ultimately Catalina winds up head of the household.
Catalina delegated responsibility for Baylor security to mom. This is, obviously, a huge error. Mom at no point in any of the novels has displayed any good judgment or leadership skills. She is awesome and loving and a wonderful person and a scary good shot however, not a leader, and has terrible judgment. Most of these books are about younger people working around incompetent mom. It is really something, if you think about it, and Grandma Frida is only marginally better, and to the extent she is better, the improved leadership and judgment are wiped out by her attraction to excitement and danger.
Anyway. Someone playing a long game (and it is absolutely not clear who that is in this book) pointed Abarca at House Baylor, and Mom totally fell for it. While the characters in the book repeatedly — in the face of an astonishing amount of contrary evidence — chalk up Abarca’s security failings to incompetence, it is super obvious that this is a set up for developments in later book. Dunno who was pulling his strings; looking forward to finding out. Sort of. Heart gets called in when Abarca walks and takes the entire security team with him, and Heart lays out enough information to make it clear that Abarca was A Problem, however, it is utterly unclear that even Heart sees the full plan. I mean, if someone has been pointing Abarca at Rogan all along — like, since before Rogan earned the nickname Huaracan — that is a terrifyingly long game, and a scary opponent.
Because Abarca is so bad at keeping the House safe, there is an adorable incident at a dead mall in which Catalina deals with a lot of opponents and acquires a pet dog.
The Venenatas are the client in this book: someone killed Runa’s mom and kidnapped her sister and tried to make it look like two murders (wonder who that other body belonged to and if that will ever be addressed?). Runa’s kid brother tries to kill himself and Augustine breaches the terrible security at the warehouse to convince Catalina to rescue him. Augustine then tells Catalina not to get further involved in the case (wow, is Augustine’s recruiting tactic about as transparent as it could possibly be). Alessandro shows up and tells House Baylor not to get further involved. Eventually, it becomes clear that there is a plot against Linus Duncan, and Catalina and Alessandro go to tell him about it, and Linus tells Catalina not to get further involved — and then just pulls her alllllll the way into shenanigans.
It is a good book, however, Catalina has a pretty grim, gut it out thing going on mentally through the whole book which makes it feel like a grind. Her grim outlooks actually makes a ton of sense in context, and it is not TOO much of a grind — the book runs along at a phenomenal clip, as I expect of Ilona Andrews books, and there is a lot to think about so I am confident it will reward a prompt rereading. The final page or so of the book involve a convo between Alessandro and someone else, about the job that Alessandro is doing which is capable of dragging him away from Catalina.
As always, looking forward to more!