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The Vanishing Sculptor is Donita K Paul’s newest novel. It’s set in the same world as her DragonKeeper Chronicles, but takes place during a much earlier time and in a country that is far removed from the Amara we got to know in her earlier books.

The Vanishing Sculptor is a story about Tipper, a young emerlindian girl (an interesting take on elves) who is forced to sell her father’s masterful works of art in order to pay the house bills for years after her father disappeared. Unfortunately for her, and the world, it turns out that 3 of the sculptures she’s sold were carved out of one of the foundation stones of the earth! She must now set out on a quest (those pesky things, awfully uncomfortable these quests are- according to Wizard Fenworth) to retrieve these statues to prevent the total disolution of the world… and her father.

Even though I really miss Sir Dar, who, in this book, has not even been born yet, I love that Wizard Fenworth is back. Yes! There is nothing better than a wizard who drops off to sleep in mid sentence and who grows bark and leaves during his snoozes, not to mention the bizarre logic he follows that would make a sidewinder jealous with all the zigs and zags it takes.

Donita K Paul writes YA fantasy, and does it very well. The quality of her writing has improved with each book, and, surprisingly, each plot is remarkably fresh. Not all stories are particularly gripping, some are naturally better than others. But they’re all unique.

Happily, she’s gotten over her habit of over-naming things. In the first book of the DragonKeeper Chronicles, EVERYTHING had a weird name. It made it extremely difficult to follow the story, or even a train of thought. Particularly when the things being named didn’t actually have anything to do with the story at all.

This began to taper off until the last few books in the series were a good standard of fantasy naming. No more than is necessary.

In The Vanishing Sculptor, Paul continues to only name what’s necessary. There are only two things that I can really find fault with (aside from the lack of Sir Dar, which was necessary), and that’s that sometimes the quest seems a little too normal. As in, they go here, and then this happens, and then they go here.  So, in my opinion, a couple of scenes could have been removed with a mention of “they continued on to such and such, obtained such and such, and then proceeded to reach the such and such”. That would have left more room for what I consider to be the good stuff to be fleshed out a bit more.

The other thing that I take issue with is that they eat daggarts in Chiril. Which, as we know, is a common treat in Amara a few centuries later. I’m willing to forgive this point by telling myself that Wizard Fenworth and Librettowit brought daggarts back to Amara from Chiril and that’s how they became popular in Amara. Remember, Chiril and Amara are across the world from each other, and so travel is prohibitive. The odds of the same cookie-type treat being popular across the world when people didn’t travel across the world is pretty slim. It’s a minor point, I know, but it irritated me while I was reading.

If you’re interested in ordering The Vanishing Sculptor, it can be ordered directly from Random House, or from your favorite large bookstore.

Addendum: Donita K Paul answered the question “If you could say one thing to aspiring novelists, what would you say?” on Christian author C.J. Darlington’s blog.

Also, I forgot to mention my other The Vanishing Sculptor review at TitleTrakk.com

So, my friends. The hubs has finally convinced me to get a new vehicle. Granted, I flat out refused to get rid of the old one (a 93 Ford Aerostar that we bought off my mother for $1000 about 4 years ago and which has taken us to and from Florida 3 times without incident), and I wanted nothing to do with this fully loaded 97 Pontiac Trans Sport Montana, which we bought off our friend for the should-we-feel-guilty-it’s-this-low price of $1500. But, he wanted cash and didn’t want to deal with sitting around and waiting for his phone to ring and deal with prospective buyers trying to get a loan out for what it’s actually worth, etc.  So, major good deal. And since the Ford has almost 170K miles on it, we now view the 99K miles on the Pontiac as “low milage”.   Hubs refers to it as “The New Disney Cruiser”.

It’s actually pretty sweet looking, but I fought hard against it! I’m used to my Ford which when you touch the gas it GOES and when you touch the brake it STOPS. It was built on a truck chassis, so it sat high as well, which I loved. I didn’t like how low the Pontiac sat, or how soft the brake and gas pedal felt since it was built on a sedan chassis.

But, when hubs pulled up with our Doom Buggy license plate on the front, I changed my mind. It looks beautiful on that van! The price is so worth it just to have somewhere to hang our Doom Buggy plate.

In fact, the plate earned the Pontiac the nickname of “Doom Buggy” or “Buggy” for short. Though most people probably think we’re referencing the horse and buggies that are often driven around here, being Amish country and all.

And I had somewhere to put my Philharmagic license plate frame now too. It was on my Olds before I sold it, and it’s been lonely ever since.

You may not be able to see it, but we got one of those train design plates, where $15 of the cost goes to museums and such. Plus, the darker design suits us.

And to tell you the truth, I loooove the steering wheel. Perfect firmness for comfortable steering. I’m getting used to the brake and gas pedals too, but I’ve found that I’ve developed a lead foot with the firmer Ford gas pedal, and so I don’t actually realize that I’m making the Pontiac speed. Gotta watch that.  I was never a white vehicle person, but I love how it makes our special plates and plate frames stand out. I just wish there was an external antenna for me to put a Disney antenna topper on! I’m stuck looking for a non-Tinkerbell steering wheel cover.

My husband lost a sock in the wash tonight. My first thought was gremlins, but that’s so 80’s!  This is the new world now, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s only the underpants gnomes starting a new money making scheme.

You can see what I mean here, because they have embedding disabled. Poopy heads. (vid is clean)

Also, I don’t think anyone understands all the words to this, but for those who are interested, here’s a vid of the underpants gnome song. Enjoy!

Wow. What a weekend.

You know, I usually look forward to holiday weekends because it gives me a chance to really focus on my websites while hubs is at his family’s, but that’s not what I did this weekend.

Tuesday was our 3rd anniversary (that would be May 19th if you didn’t feel like doing the math) so we took Friday off as a vacation day. Now, since we’re in save money mode, we had trouble figuring out what to do to celebrate. So, we eventually settled on doing what we did last year and spent the day in York. Yeah, I know.

So, Friday we hit both malls in York (York Galleria first because I hate crowds and I wanted to hit it before people got out of work). Got my hair cut (Weird tradition, but I’ve gotten my hair cut ON my anniversary every year since my wedding day- this year I was a bit late), bought a couple Veggie Tales DVDs, 2 Celtic music cds, 2 Disney shorts DVDs, some stuff for hubs, and so on. Had breakfast (at 1pm) at Round The Clock Diner which is da bomb. Best club sandwiches and croissant sandwiches around (also the best clam strips but we skipped those this time). And hubs insisted on hitting Toys R Us and Ollies (discount store where ya never know what you’ll find) and I insisted on hitting Borders. Duh. Me + allowed to buy anything I want = books.

OK, so it was almost 90 degrees out and high high high humidity. I had about 20 oz of water during the course of the day and hubs had a glass at breakfast, so by the time we got home we were sick as dogs from dehydration but then ordered out for filet mignon and lobster tail anyway. Oh yeah. Cuz that’s how we roll. (and that lobster tail was so good that I didn’t even use the butter!).

So, we’re still pooped from Friday, but Saturday hubs went to his brother’s to play board games. I, however, spent the whole day running around. I had to get birthday cards for both mom and dad, an anniversary card for them, and a father’s day card for pop.  Spent about an hour wandering around the local Christian bookstore debating whether I really wanted to spend $25 for that cute pink camo LTV (or is it LTC? Living Translation something) Bible or not (decided against, hoping it’s still there for my birthday- seriously, too cute!). Did the grocery shopping for the drinkables since I knew I’d be lugging in all the groceries myself later on, got home with just about enough time to eat Bagel Bites before church. Ran off to church, went straight to the grocery store and finally got home and could rest at about 10pm. Not counting putting the groceries away.

Then Sunday we went over to his parents’ house. Played frisbee in the backyard for about 45 minutes while we waited for his brother to get there. Sit down to eat only to realize that the AC wasn’t working and it was 85 degrees outside. So after dinner, hubs and I took a walk (a long walk- probably a mile or so) while we waited for the repair man to show, and then sat outside enjoying the pre-storm breeze while waiting for the house to cool off after the AC got fixed. (Note: one major problem with central air is that when it blows- you don’t have 3 other units sitting in other rooms). Up till about 3 am playing board games and then….

Today was Dad’s 68th birthday, so I rolled out of bed and went straight over to parents’ house. We went out for a nice (not fancy, just good) dinner about 45 minutes away and then spent another hour or so tooling around all the back country roads. Afterwards, mother and I went to visit my great aunt in a nursing home (she recently had a stroke, and she’s living there while they’re doing therapy with her), and then went to see either another great aunt or possibly a great great aunt, or possibly the cousin of a great aunt, or… Some other relative who was in the same nursing home whom I’ve never met before.  I’ll tell ya what, though, her room was CUTE! Loads of storage, kitchenette, huge bathroom (has to be big enough to accomodate a wheelchair), and she was pretty sweet too. I totally loved her! I wouldn’t mind being like her when I grow up. Sweet attitude, gets around pretty well, goes to all the activities, and was concerned about the other residents who went to the wine and cheese party (because of their medications, you know).  What a shame that I wasn’t introduced to her sooner.

So. Now I’ve got about an hour before bed and I’m finally online, even though I’m also cooking at the same time. And now, I’ve got to go and do some link building. Yeesh. A woman’s work is never done- even on a holiday weekend.

But coolest thing so far this weekend? Just a little bit ago my husband told me I was looking “particularly scrumptious today”. Good boy!

You know those days where you never actually wake up, and spend the whole day in one of those dreamlike dazes? You know, your limbs actually move but you don’t really feel them as being attached to them and you’re surprised to find yourself technically functional because you’re sure you didn’t make your legs move to walk you across the room?

Oh yeah, it’s one of those days. In fact, I would think that I were still asleep if it weren’t for the fact that my husband’s head hasn’t morphed into a turkey and I haven’t managed to teleport to the school bus naked. Yet.

I woke up with my ear clogged, a sneezy nose and itchy eyes. I’ve been having allergy symptoms pretty bad for over a week now, and in fact, I think I broke the skin on the side of my right eye from rubbing. Yesterday I had the itchy eyes and the “I’m gonna pass out any minute now” feeling all day, but today is at least twice as bad.

I haven’t had much to blog about. Most of what I’ve been doing is building niche sites and link building, which doesn’t exactly lead to exciting conversation unless you find “WHY HASN’T GOOGLE INDEXED ME YET!!!!!” to be a real ice breaker. And if you do love that kind of convo, DM me so I can stop bugging the people who I have been screaming that at.

On the upside, for the first time, I’ve truly felt the StumbleUpon love by receiving more hits on my un-indexed site than I would have gotten if I’d been ranked number 1 for my term. Ad clicks too! I’ve finally reached my AdSense payout level! Woot!

Now, I need to go do some more link building, but in the meantime, I sought out a video of the song that closest matches my health level right now.

OK, they changed a couple of the lyrics, so don’t hold me to that….
BTW, if anyone’s interested in a holistic nutrition degree, feel free to check out that link.

I was browsing Paper Cuts! Glorious Paper Cuts! today, and came across this promotional video from a debut author- it’s her singing her version of some pop song.   What, like you expect me to know anything pop? Puh-leeze.

Anyway, I thought this might be a great idea for upcoming debut novelist C.J. Darlington who’s first novel is coming out later this year. Come on, you know T could help you pick out something great.