The Leaning Pile of Books is a feature where I discuss books I got over the last week—old or new, bought or received in the mail for review consideration (most of which are unsolicited books from publishers). Since I hope you will find new books you’re interested in reading in these posts, I try to be as informative as possible. If I can find them, links to excerpts, author’s websites, and places where you can find more information on the […]

Thank you so much to all of last week’s guests! In case you missed any of their essays, here’s a summary with links to guest posts from last week: Swati Teerdhala (The Tiger at Midnight) wrote an homage to unlikeable heroines such as Sansa Stark, a character she admired and felt was real, and discussed her initial concern that her own heroine, who seeks revenge for her family’s murder, needed to be “likeable.” Nalini Singh (Psy-Changeling, Psy-Changeling Trinity) discussed her […]

Today’s guest is fantasy and science fiction author Fran Wilde (who was also here during Women in SF&F Month 2017)! Her work includes the Bone Universe novels, beginning with her Compton Crook and Andre Norton Award–winning debut novel Updraft; “Only Their Shining Beauty Was Left,” which appeared in The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2017; and “Clearly Lettered in a Mostly Steady Hand,” a Eugie Award winner and a Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy Awards finalist. Riverland, her first middle grade novel, was […]

Today’s guest is Nafiza Azad! She is a co-founder of The Book Wars, a website dedicated to children’s literature, and the author of the soon-to-be released YA fantasy novel The Candle and the Flame. This book—which she described on Goodreads as being “mostly about women being women in the most fantastic ways possible”—is her first novel, and it will be released on May 14! The Strong Woman: Politics of Feminine Power in THE CANDLE AND THE FLAME My maternal grandfather passed […]

Today’s guest is Hafsah Faizal! We Hunt the Flame, her YA fantasy debut novel inspired in part by ancient Arabia, has received starred reviews from Booklist and The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books. You can read chapter one on Hypable right now—and you can read the book in its entirety when We Hunt the Flame is released on May 14! Nearly every author introduces a trope into their novel at some point, whether to eventually subvert said trope, […]