Angieville

As my children keep reminding me, it's Halloween Eve today. Such a momentous occasion deserves a list, don't you think? I thought we'd go with my favorite creepy crawlies. These are my favorites , you understand. I already did a best of the Big Bads (the ones you run from screaming like a banshee). This lot are horses of a different color. These ones can be scary as hell when they want to be, but they're also the ones I return to over and over again because of the love. They are the heroes, the antiheroes, the you're-never-quite-sure-of-them-but-there's-something-about-them-you-can't-walk-away-from ones. So. In no particular order, my favorite Things That Go Bump in the Night: Werewolf Adam Hauptman from the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs You saw this one coming, I know. But I really can't help it. Adam is just . . . Adam. He lets Mercy be herself while threatening to eat her cat if it strays onto his property once more. Full disclosur...

A couple of months ago Ty over at  The Lit Connection  wrote a post on her favorite villains . What made me smile were the reasons she gave for crushing on these dastardly dudes so, among them because a good villain lives forever and because they have the best lines and are known for being the best dressers. You gotta respect those reasons. I started musing about who would make my own list, but the thing is these aren't just bad boys--these are the villains. These are the ones you run from not to. So I was firm with myself. This list must be comprised of characters I love to hate. Not characters I hate, then love. Or fall for in any way. That's not to say that my feelings about them are completely black or white; the best ones inspire a lot of gray. But these are villains and should be treated with utmost caution. So here they are, my top ten big bads, in the order in which I discovered them: The White Witch She was one of the first really big bads I ever encountered an...

Let's set aside the fact that I can't believe I'm old enough to actually have a daughter on which to muse about this topic (though she is years and years away from dating--thank goodness) and focus on the possibilities. Yesterday I ran across PW's Shelf Talker post on this subject and was delighted with several of the literary characters mentioned in the comments as being approved daughter dating material. I mean, they included pretty much every Tamora Pierce and Robin McKinley male lead, as well as Aragorn from Lord of the Rings and Colin from An Abundance of Katherines . I love all of these men. Though, as much as I love Colin, the hapless boy really does have a rather bad track record and I like him where he is right now, thank you very much. Equally interesting were the characters people said they would warn their daughters away from, having had experience with them, so to speak. Anyone else surprised Heathcliff handily topped that list? I didn't think so. ...

A couple of days ago Kmont over at Lurv a la Mode posed the question: What's with all the crappy parenting in YA novels? I had to smile when I read her thought-provoking post as it's an old, familiar trope of young adult literature--remove the parental units and BANG! You've got free reign. It makes sense to a certain degree, right? In the absence of authority figures and/or the adults in the teen's life most likely to object to all manner of shenanigans, your protagonist can get up to scads of mischief, thus providing the crisis/plot/problem what have you. Better yet, kill off or mysteriously disappear one parent and you've got some juicy material for teen angst and conflict. This is an old trope stretching back to when orphans were prime protagonists in young people's literature and I do think things have changed over the years. But it does seem to still hold true in a large section of YA fantasy novels, since a kind, involved, non-self absorbed set of paren...