The Phoenix Unchained.

Or a book I thoroughly loved, by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory. This is the first book in The Enduring Flame, a sequel series to The Obsidian Trilogy. If you haven't read that, I don't recommend this. I recommend going back and reading the earlier series. (The Outstretched Shadow, To Light a Candle, When Darkness Falls.)

The Phoenix Unchained starts about a thousand years after the earlier series, when the events of that series have become legend among the cities of man. The book itself is good, interesting, and believable, but what gave me great joy (and a lot to laugh at) was the fact that the authors actually allowed and made believable changes to the world and the story of the previous books over that time. Oh, they have it soooo wrong. And yet, not so wrong, in some ways. But when I heard what the characters in this book call one of the characters in the earlier books, I almost fell over laughing. Literally. And I got to read it several times, and I giggled every time. And yet...it totally makes sense that the story would have gotten warped that way over time.

It was funny, it was a good story, it was gleeful and fun. Unfortunately, it's also fairly new. I want the next book now, for I am a greedy Laura. But because this one just came out in October, I don't think I get the next one for quite some while yet. Alas! I can't even find out what the title of the next one will be.

Well, the package got here.

The package I ordered from the Vermont Country Store arrived safe and sound; it was just shipped with a slow option. I would have known not to worry if their email telling me it had shipped had included even a hint of information but all it said was the day shipped, not how or when to expect it.

Still don't have my account back. Don't actually expect to, either. The latest email said that if I didn't want to order from a guest account, I could phone an order in.

Er, because that would make the details more accessible to me online? And the number isn't even toll-free. Whatever.