Today, I’m delighted to welcome Cass Morris! From Unseen Fire, her debut novel and the beginning of a new epic fantasy series based on Roman history, will be released on April 17—exactly one week from today. While waiting for its approaching publication date, you can read an excerpt from the opening of From Unseen Fire on the Penguin Random House website (as well as her essay below, of course!). Historical Resonance Politics deeply divided between two parties. Rampantly rising inflation, and […]

As has become the tradition since she first began the ongoing recommendation list project in 2013, Renay is once again opening this month’s series of guest posts! Renay writes for the wonderful blog Lady Business, the 2017 Hugo Award winner for Best Fanzine and one of my personal favorite sites for science fiction and fantasy-related recommendations. She also co-hosts the Fangirl Happy Hour podcast—one of this year’s Hugo Award finalists for Best Fancast! My journey with diversifying my reading started small—read more […]

Since 2012, the month of April at Fantasy Cafe has been dedicated to highlighting the wonderful work women have been doing in speculative fiction. When closing last year’s series, I mentioned that it may be the last series of April guest posts—but I’m happy to say that 2017 will not be the last one and the seventh annual Women in SF&F event begins tomorrow! However, it will be slightly different since I did make the possible adjustment also mentioned in that post […]

Daughters of the Storm, a sequel to the novella “The Crown of Rowan,” is the first novel in the Blood and Gold series by five-time Aurealis Award–winning author Kim Wilkins. Both this and Sisters of Fire, the second book in this epic fantasy series, were finalists for the Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Novel during their respective publication years. About four years after its initial release in Australia, Daughters of the Storm was released in the United States for the […]

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 (usually unsolicited). 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 book are included. Happy Easter to […]