Either these books go really fast or I am procrastinating way too much.

Just finished reading: Death in the Devil's Acre, by Anne Perry. I enjoyed this one more than Bethlehem Road--maybe because the crime was more shocking? All the characters were much more emotionally present and developed through the course of the story. That may be because it occurs earlier in the series than BR; the author hasn't had time for the immediacy of the characters to fade. This book, like the other one, ends very abruptly right after the moment of discovery of the murderer, which really annoys me. It's almost like the author is cutting off at the highest dramatic peak without leaving you any sort of conclusion. These cases are going to linger in Thomas and Charlotte's lives; they don't stop just because the case is solved. It would have been nice to see a little of that resolution, particularly at the end of this book when Charlotte has just been involved in a fight with the murderer and is standing there disheveled. Instead, all we get is this:
Gently he put his arms around Charlotte and held her. He touched her hands, her arms, pushed back her hair.
"You look ridiculous!" he said in sudden fury when he knew she was not injured, when he felt her bones were whole, her body strong. "Good God--you look terrible! Go home! And don't you ever dare do this again! Not ever! You damn well do as you're told! Do you hear me?"
She nodded, too overwhelmed with horror and pity, and a sense of her own safety in his love, to look for any words.
That's it! Besides the fact that I think he's ridiculous for telling her to go home instead of saying that he's going to take her home, and flipping out about her appearance, this just doesn't resolve emotionally. Perry tries, with Charlotte's last reaction, but still.


I had a lovely time out with Camille and Genevieve after class on Thursday. We went out to Coldstone Creamery (ice cream for dinner, yum) and talked, and realized that Genevieve probably would have been right at home at Bryn Mawr too. I'm happy that I've found people that I know I can ask to go with me to see things like Illyria at the VA Shakespeare Festival and X-Men 3 and not feel like a total geek or something. Yay for us! Well, yay for having the chance to have a social life that suits me.