Sweet Things -- like pretty cakes and. . . a starred review!!!!!

Yippee, a starred review in Kirkus!! Here it is:

*STAR* Taylor, Laini. Faeries of Dreamdark: Blackbringer. (Putnam 978-0-399-24630-2)

Featuring both an uncommonly well-conceived setting and buckets of high-energy action, Taylor’s debut tale of a thumb-sized devil hunter who comes this close to meeting her match belongs at the top of everyone’s fantasy must-read list. Having discovered that ignorant humans are actually releasing brutish devils from the enchanted bottles into which they had been forced 25,000 years ago, young Magpie Windwitch has set herself to flitting about the planet with a bevy of ageless crows to recapture them. But devil number 24 turns out to be a different sort of proposition altogether—a shapeless mass of darkness and hatred that “uncreates” its victims and is out to unweave the warp and weft of the world itself. By the time devil and hunter have squared off in Dreamdark, a bespelled wood that hides the last great Faerie settlement, ’Pie has discovered that she has more abilities, and a role to play in larger events, than she had ever dreamed. Taylor carries her Faerie world well beyond its recognizably Victorian base, and crafts a memorably clever, intrepid insect-winged heroine to save it.

Yippeee! Don't you think that review, aside from being really positive, is really well-written? I think so. Hurray!

Jim and I got together with Kelly and John last night at the ravishing Pix Patisserie. Kelly was the first blogger I ever met in person, because she actually lived in my city, but then John went and got himself accepted to a school in Oakland, so they moved away! But they were up visiting and had time for some decadent confections.

Note to new or would-be artists: peruse Kelly's archives for the past year and a half or so, and you can witness something rare: someone becoming an artist from scratch and just bursting forth on the scene, overflowing with exuberance and spirit and talent and having the world sort of unfold itself for her. She's been art-making for only a small sliver of her life so far, but you'd never guess it to meet her. She's a born artist who I guess just kept it in for a long time. Now, not much more than a year after she first started making collages and picked up a paintbrush? She's got a book in the works with North Light Books! I can't wait to see it.

Ah, and the cakes, they were delicious. Something strange happened to me that occasionally happens in the presence of chocolate: I found myself drawn toward something un-chocolate. Weird. Who knows why these alien impulses come upon me. I had a lemony gingery raspberry-y cheesecake thingy, and it was blue by the way. Jim had an "Amelie" cake, and that was chocolate. And there was port, champagne, coffee, of course. Click on the link above and check out the decadence of Pix. It's fabulous. And there's a monkey hanging from the ceiling. What more could you want?

P.S. I just heard that 7 people died in a tornado in Kansas today. My heart goes out to the residents of Greenburg, whose town was demolished, and to the families of the victims.