"The Dead Remembered"

When she was 11 years old, Liz Sherman burned the whole neighborhood to the ground, and killed her father and mother.

"I'd hidden it for months -- the fires, these little accidents -- but right before I killed her, she knew what I was..."

This 3-issue story tells of her early days with the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense. She is very angry, mostly with herself. The only person she lets be her friend is HellBoy, who convinces Professor Bruttenholm that she needs to go out into the world. So the Professor takes her on a mission that turns out to be more than a simple case of haunting, and where she learns to face what she is.

"Elizabeth... Life has presented you a strange obstacle. You did not ask for it. You did not invite the burden. What you did in Kansas is not what you are. It's not you I distrust -- but the fire. Master it. Then what you do with your life will define you."

John Cleese on Sarah Palin

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMyNk8J1c8g )

"Shades of Milk and Honey"

Jane’s father worries about when he’ll die. His home, being entailed, will be passed on to his brother’s oldest son, and what will happen to his family? The situation isn’t helped by his hypochondriac wife’s desperate attempts at matchmaking for Jane’s much prettier young sister, Melody.

Yes, Mary Robinette Kowal indeed is a Regency novel.
With quite a difference.

The drawing room already had a simple theme of palm trees and egrets designed to complement its Egyptian revival furniture. For the better part of an hour, Jane and Melody pulled and twisted folds of glamour out of the ether. Some of the older threads of glamour in the palm trees had become frayed, making the images lose their resolution. In other places, Jane added more depth to the illusion by creating a breeze to ruffle the fronds of the glamour. Though her breath came quickly and she felt light-headed with the effort of placing so many folds, the effort was well worth such a trifling strain.

Placed in pairs in the corners of the room, the trees seemed to brush the coffered ceiling, accenting its height with their graceful forms. Between each tree, an egret posed in a pool of glamour, waiting an eternity for the copper fish hinted at below its reflection. Simpler folds brought the warm glow of an Egyptian sunset to the room, and the subtle scent of honeysuckle kissed the breeze.

Recommended.
I'm looking forward to followup novel "Glamour and Glass".

the poop deck

ME TODAY: "I wonder if the team would like my being as unresponsive as they are."
BOSS: "Of course not! Would be much better I know if everyone was just as responsive."

Well, why don't you DO something about it?