I read a book by an imaginary person.

Earlier this week I finished Heat Rises. In case you're wondering, that book is in fact written by the fictional Richard Castle of the television show Castle.

Castle is the only TV show I make time to watch each week. If it's Tuesday night and I still haven't seen we make time. There's nothing else on the PVR that I'd rather watch. I like it because even though the premise of a writer shadowing his muse on the police force sounds like the stupidest idea ever, it somehow works. And I have a total crush on Nathan Fillion. It's just one of those cop shows that has enough humour and drama to keep it going without falling into the same old routines and cliches other shows do. I'm not going to say it's the most brilliant show out there because it probably isn't, but it's my favourite, and definitely fills my beginning of the week television needs. 

So I picked up Heat Rising from the used bookstore this summer to see if it was actually any good. There are actually two books before it about Heat, but I didn't miss much going straight into the third one. There were some definite similarities to the show that I noticed. I wasn't too surprised because the books are going to be bought by fans of the show so making some sort of relationship there isn't a bad idea. A lot of the characters from the show had their fictional book counterparts. Different names, slightly different back stories, but I had no problem imagining the actors from the show portraying their fictional type characters in the book. If that even makes sense.

As far as crime/mystery novels go I enjoyed it. Considering the last book I read like this was Déjà Dead this was very refreshing. No graphic sexual violence or gore. Yep, I was definitely more impressed with the Castle books than I was with the Bones ones, if the one of each are anything to go by. I would read another book by the fictitious Richard Castle, but I will never read another book by the real life Kathy Reichs.

So Heat Rises was a good, entertaining story. It had twists, it had turns, it had intrigue. Fun times. The one thing it had that made me really happy was a Firefly reference. Yes, I'm a huge nerd, but it's true.

I finished Heat Rises on Monday and started reading Let's Pretend this Never Happened. It is hysterical. It's also a little awkward. Just kidding, it's really awkward. I'm only about halfway through, but already I've found myself snickering into my peanut butter and jam at the lunch table hoping no one notices. She swears a lot, might be a little offensive, and then complete blindsides you by talking about some really serious things (like losing children). It's not the best written book in that it's kind of all over the place. It's written by a blogger, though, and it's pretty clear that the intention is not to be the next Shakespeare.

To be totally honest, I don't read her blog. I'm afraid I'll get caught at work reading something really inappropriate and be shamed. The only one of her posts I've read is this one and you probably should, too. I decided that taking her book out from the library was a much safer way to read what she had to say.

This book is making my addled brain happy right now, and it's a nice break from the epic fantasy I'll likely get into next.