November is turning out to be a crazy month, but I’m hoping to get a review of Resenting the Hero by Moira J. Moore started today and up sometime this week. I just needed to read something fun last weekend and ended up picking that based on what I had heard – and it was just what I was in the mood for.
This week brought three review copies and one ARC, plus my husband bought an e-book a couple of weeks ago that he reminded me I forgot to mention.
The Sea Thy Mistress by Elizabeth Bear
The third book in the Edda of Burdens will be available in hardcover in February 2011. I loved both All the Wind-wracked Stars (review) and By the Mountain Bound (review) so of course I immediately said yes when I was asked if I wanted an ARC of the third book. The Sea Thy Mistress is a direct sequel to All the Wind-wracked Stars (the middle book, By the Mountain Bound, is a prequel). The cover is not available on any of the sites I normally get covers from, but if you want to see the whole cover spread, Elizabeth Bear posted it on her blog a little while ago. I decided not to post the blurb here because it contains a lot of spoilers for All the Wind-wracked Stars, but here is the publisher’s description of the The Sea Thy Mistress if you do want to read it.
This omnibus contains Blood Ties, Deep Water and Full Circle and is huge – over 1200 pages in trade paperback. I was thrilled to get a copy since I’ve been curious about the first book in this trilogy for a while now and recently decided I definitely wanted to read it after I saw Sarah’s review of it at Bookworm Blues. All the individual books are currently available, and this collection containing all three will be available in December. The first chapter of Blood Ties can be read online.
A thousand years ago, the Eleven Domains were invaded and the original inhabitants were driven onto the road as Travelers, belonging nowhere, welcomed by no one. Now the Domains are governed with an iron fist by the Warlords, but there are wilder elements in the landscape that cannot be controlled and that may prove the Warlords’ undoing. Some are spirits of place – of water and air and fire and earth. Some are greater than these. And some are human.
Bramble: A village girl whom no one living can tame, forced to flee her home for a crime she did not commit.
Ash: A safeguarder’s apprentice who must kill for an employer he cannot escape.
Saker: An enchanter who will not rest until the land is returned to his people.
As their three stories unfold, along with the stories of those whose lives they touch, it becomes clear that they are bound together in ways that not even a stonecaster could have foreseen – by their past, their future, and their blood.This omnibus edition includes all three novels – Blood Ties, Deep Water, and Full Circle – together for the first time.
The third book in the Griffin Mage trilogy will be released in December. Both the previous books, Lord of the Changing Winds and Land of the Burning Sands, were published earlier this year. I haven’t read Lord of the Changing Winds yet, but I have been wanting to start this trilogy so hopefully I will read it at some point.
In Feierabiand, in the wide green Delta, far from the burning heat of the griffin’s desert, Mienthe’s peaceful life has been shaken. Tan – clever, cynical, and an experienced spy – has brought a deadly secret out of the neighboring country of Linularinum.
Now, as three countries and two species rush toward destruction, Mienthe fears that even her powerful cousin Bertaud may be neither able nor even willing to find a safe path between the secret Linularinum would kill to preserve and the desperate ferocity of the griffins. But can Mienthe?
And, in the end, will Tan help her . . . or do everything in his power to stand in her way?
The second book in the Necromancer Chronicles will be available in December. Last year I read the first book, The Drowning City, and had very mixed feelings about it (review). I liked the prose but could not connect with the characters, and I only found myself enjoying the last third of the book. It’s not a book I would have bought myself, but since it was sent to me I might try it at some point although it won’t be a high priority with all the other books there are to read. I am a bit curious since I liked what I read of the beginning and I saw this was on the Publishers Weekly Best Books of 2010 list for Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror. Plus the cover quote by Jacqueline Carey is taunting me (although the main reason I read the last one was the cover quote by Elizabeth Bear, whose writing I love).
Death is no stranger in the city of Erisín– but some deaths attract more attention than others.
When a prostitute dies carrying a royal signet, Isyllt Iskaldur, necromancer and agent of the Crown, is called to investigate. Her search leads to desecrated tombs below the palace, and the lightless vaults of the vampiric vrykoloi deep beneath the city. But worse things than vampires are plotting in Erisín…As a sorcerous plague sweeps the city and demons stalk the streets, Isyllt must decide who she’s prepared to betray, before the city built on bones falls into blood and fire.
This is the e-book I forgot to mention a little while back. My husband bought the newest Tiffany Aching book (in the young adult Discworld series) and has already read it. I haven’t read any of these books yet (actually, I haven’t read the latest in the main Discworld series yet either), but he has been enjoying them. The previous books in the series are, in the following order: Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky and Wintersmith.
It starts with whispers.
Then someone picks up a stone.
Finally, the fires begin.
When people turn on witches, the innocents suffer. . . .
Tiffany Aching has spent years studying with senior witches, and now she is on her own. As the witch of the Chalk, she performs the bits of witchcraft that aren’t sparkly, aren’t fun, don’t involve any kind of wand, and that people seldom ever hear about: She does the unglamorous work of caring for the needy.
But someone—or something—is igniting fear, inculcating dark thoughts and angry murmurs against witches. Aided by her tiny blue allies, the Wee Free Men, Tiffany must find the source of this unrest and defeat the evil at its root—before it takes her life. Because if Tiffany falls, the whole Chalk falls with her.
Chilling drama combines with laughout-loud humor and searing insight as beloved and bestselling author Terry Pratchett tells the high-stakes story of a young witch who stands in the gap between good and evil.
