The winner of the nine books has been drawn and they are all boxed up and ready to mail! The winner is:

Misty from Texas

Congratulations, and I hope you enjoy all the books!

If you checked in here anytime between Friday afternoon and Sunday night, you would have seen a post where Maria V. Snyder talked about how she develops fantasy maps for her books.  I have decided to remove this post; if you’d like to read it, you can see it at Seeing Night Book Reviews.  In fact, I chose to remove it specifically because you can read it elsewhere.

As I explained to the publicist who contacted me about the book tour and initially offered to give me an “interview” with Maria where I could choose from a list of pre-written questions and answers, I prefer to only run original content on my blog.  I have this policy for many reasons, including that I do not want to feel that I am stealing content from another blog and that I hope when people visit Fantasy Cafe they will do so with the expectation of finding something they haven’t seen before.  Despite my expressing this preference to the publicist, they chose to send me the post you saw without informing me that it had already been published elsewhere.  I apologize to both you my readers and Seeing Night Book Reviews for using that content.

Since I have already been receiving entries for it, I am leaving the contest to win a free copy of Touch of Power up and only removing the duplicate content.

I don’t mean to make a big deal out of it, but I felt like I should explain why the post disappeared.  I’ll be back to regular reviews and updates soon, including (I hope) a review of Cold Fire!

It shouldn’t lean too much this week as there is only one new book to add to the pile! (For now. I am going to the bookstore to have coffee with a friend later today so that could change.) One unsolicited review copy showed up this week.

Seven Princes by John R. FultzSeven Princes by John R. Fultz

This is a debut novel and the first volume in a new series, Books of the Shaper. Seven Princes was just released earlier this month, and the second book Seven Kings will be coming out in early 2013. The prologue from Seven Princes is available online.

This is a book I had thought sounded interesting when I first started hearing about it, but I read this review at Staffer’s Musings recently and it made me wonder if I did actually want to read it. Maybe I’ll give it a try at some point since ages of legends can be fun, but it’s not a huge priority since I like more character-building in my novels than it sounds like this has.

It is an Age of Legends.

Under the watchful eye of the Giants, the kingdoms of Men rose to power. Now, the Giant-King has slain the last of the Serpents and ushered in an era of untold peace and prosperity. Where a fire-blackened desert once stood, golden cities flourish in verdant fields.

It is an Age of Heroes.

But the realms of Man face a new threat– an ancient sorcerer slaughters the rightful King of Yaskatha before the unbelieving eyes of his son, young Prince D’zan. With the Giant-King lost to a mysterious doom, it seems that no one has the power to stop the coming storm.

It is an Age of War.

The fugitive Prince seeks allies across the realms of Men and Giants to liberate his father’s stolen kingdom. Six foreign Princes are tied to his fate. Only one thing is certain: War is coming.

SEVEN PRINCES.

Some will seek glory.

Some will seek vengeance.

All will be legends.

Maria V Snyder Blog Tour

[Note: if you were here earlier and thought this post was longer, you’re not insane; see this post for an explanation.]

Today I am pleased to be a part of the blog tour for Maria V. Snyder’s newest book and the first book in the Healer series, Touch of Power. As part of the tour, you’ll have a chance to win a copy of Touch of Power here and there’s a contest for a $100 spa certificate on Maria V. Snyder’s contest page. The complete list of the sites participating in the blog tour is here if you want to see if any others still have contests open for winning the book.

Maria V. Snyder is the author of several books, including Poison Study, an engrossing page-turner about a woman faced with the choice of being sentenced to death or becoming a food-taster for the Commander. She, of course, chooses the latter or it would have been a rather short book. I really enjoyed that book so I’m happy to have the opportunity to give someone a copy of her new book!

AUTHOR BIO:
Maria V. Snyder switched careers from meteorologist to novelist when she began writing the New York Times best-selling Study Series (POISON STUDY, MAGIC STUDY and FIRE STUDY) about a young woman who becomes a poison taster.  When she’s not traveling, Maria lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, son, and daughter.

LINKS:

ABOUT TOUCH OF POWER:

Touch of Power by Maria V. Snyder

Laying hands upon the injured and dying, Avry of Kazan absorbs their wounds and diseases into herself. But rather than being honored for her skills, she is hunted. Healers like Avry are accused of spreading the plague that has decimated the Territories, leaving the survivors in a state of chaos. Stressed and tired from hiding, Avry is abducted by a band of rogues who, shockingly, value her gift above the golden bounty offered for her capture. Their leader, an enigmatic captor-protector with powers of his own, is unequivocal in his demands: Avry must heal a plague-stricken prince—leader of a campaign against her people. As they traverse the daunting Nine Mountains, beset by mercenaries and magical dangers, Avry must decide who is worth healing and what is worth dying for. Because the price of peace may well be her life….

GIVEAWAY:

Courtesy of Harlequin, I have one copy of Touch of Power to give away!

Giveaway Rules: To be entered in the giveaway for a copy of Touch of Power, fill out the form below. One entry per person.  This giveaway is open in North America only. The giveaway will be open until the end of the day on Saturday, January 21.  A winner will be randomly selected and contacted by email. This winner then has 24 hours to respond once contacted, and if I don’t hear from them by then a new winner will be chosen (who will also have 24 hours to respond until someone gets back to me with a North American address to send the book to).

Please note email addresses will only be used for the purpose of contacting the winner. Once the giveaway is over all the emails will be deleted.

Good luck!

Update: Now that the giveaway is over, the form has been removed.

The Shadow Reader
by Sandy Williams
307pp (Paperback)
My Rating: 6/10
LibraryThing Rating: 4.32/5
Goodreads Rating: 4.15/5
 

The Shadow Reader is a debut novel by Sandy Williams and the first book in a new urban fantasy series, McKenzie Lewis. The second book, titled The Shattered Dark, will be out in November of this year.

Ever since McKenzie’s ability to read the shadows and track fae was discovered, the fae have disrupted her ability to lead a normal life. Her random disappearances to aid the king and his sword-master Kyol in the fae war makes keeping friends difficult. Her family thinks she is crazy, and the fae won’t leave her alone for long enough to earn her college degree. All she asked was to be left alone for just a few hours so she could take her last final, but before she can finish the fae appear to warn her that she is in grave danger – the rebels have found her and they are coming for her.

McKenzie is captured by the rebels and left to worry about the fate of Kyol, who had been the one to warn her. For years, McKenzie has been in love with Kyol. While he seems to return her feelings, he cannot be with her since it’s against the rules for him to be with a human. However, these are not rules held by the rebels and McKenzie finds herself drawn to the one who kidnapped her, Aren.

The rebels teach her their language, which has also been forbidden to her, and show her that they may not be as bad as she was lead to believe. As McKenzie is drawn more into the war between the two sides, she doesn’t know what to believe or who she should trust. Yet she must choose, both which side in the war to aid and which man to give her heart to.

The Shadow Reader is fun and fast-paced. While I do have some reservations about McKenzie herself and the ending, I think it’s very promising considering it is both a debut and the first book in a series. I’m not yet certain whether or not I’ll buy and read the next one just because there are so many books I want to read, but I am considering it for two reasons. First of all, I thought the second half was better than the first half in general, mostly because it dealt more with the fae war than the details of McKenzie’s kidnapping by the rebels in the war. Since I thought the depiction of both sides of the war was the best part of the book, I’m also curious after reading on the author’s website that the next book will reveal more about the fae war. However, I was extremely irritated with McKenzie at the end so I will probably wait for reviews of the next book before deciding whether or not to continue.

The book gets going immediately, as Kyol shows up on page one and by page two McKenzie realizes she needs to drop everything and run because the rebels have found her. It only very slowly reveals all the details of what’s going on, and as we find out after she is kidnapped by the rebels, McKenzie herself may even be in the dark about a lot of the details of the fae war. The focus on the two sides of the war was very well done because it was difficult to tell which side to root for and whether Aren or Kyol were telling McKenzie the truth about their respective side. While one side did have some people who seemed somewhat more ruthless, both sides were capable of atrocities. At the same time, both sides had people capable of goodness who were just doing what they believed in for the good of their people.

The Shadow Reader is very readable, but McKenzie herself kept me from enjoying the novel quite as much as I wanted to. For most of the book, I didn’t mind her as a character. She’s not the tough fighter type, but she’s also not a helpless woman who just waits to be rescued. She tries to rescue herself when she can and that’s admirable. In addition, she seems to have a good heart.

Yet I found it hard to love her because she didn’t have much personality. The story is told entirely in the first person present tense from her perspective, and she doesn’t have a very strong voice. She tells us what’s happening and what she’s thinking, but she doesn’t inject a lot of humor or personality into her narration. I couldn’t help but compare her to my personal trinity of awesome urban fantasy heroines consisting of Kate Daniels, Mercy Thompson, and Toby Daye. They all have such wonderful voices and their personality just shines through and leaps off the page, making them feel very real. Being in each of their heads is a delight because of how they word their thoughts and think about what’s happening around them. To me, McKenzie was missing that extra zing that makes being in her head a fun experience. Perhaps she’s just more serious, but I like my urban fantasy heroines to have more of a sense of humor and fun approach in their narrative.

McKenzie was in the middle of a love triangle, and I found it hard to understand why either man was that interested in her. It’s not that she didn’t have good personality traits; it’s just that she didn’t have much that set her apart as someone special or interesting. Her ability to read the shadows and track where fae go when they teleport is rare and desirable to both sides of the war, but it didn’t seem like she had a lot of intrinsic qualities that made her endearing. With Kyol, she at least had a ten-year history so I could see him having the time to grow attached to her while working together so closely. Aren seemed to develop a very quick attachment to McKenzie, though. It seemed to be based on her spunk and ingenuity in trying to escape her kidnappers, but that didn’t seem like enough reason to like her when he was surrounded by brave rebel women he’d known longer. I just kept getting the feeling that both Kyol and Aren could probably do a lot better than McKenzie.

The rest of my problems with McKenzie as a character are entirely tied to some of her ways of thinking and the choice she ended up making in the end. Because these are impossible to talk about in detail without spoilers and ranting, they are behind spoiler tags so you can skip them if you do not want to be spoiled (or ranted at).

These two things really bothered me, especially because there were times when it seemed McKenzie was quick-thinking. I seem to be in the minority for feeling that way about McKenzie’s choice, though!

The Shadow Reader was enjoyable and kept me turning the pages, and I do think it was a decent debut. Sandy Williams did an excellent job with portraying both sides of the fae war and making both Kyol and Aren’s positions in the war sympathetic even though they were on opposite sides. There was also a bit of mystery with what was actually going on and whether or not one or both men were trustworthy that was well-handled. However, I wanted a little more from the main character, who needed a bit more personality and some better decision-making skills. Reading The Shadow Reader certainly not a bad way to pass the time, but I’m undecided on whether or not to continue the series since there were times the main character got on my nerves – especially at the end, which caused EPIC RANTING.

My Rating: 6/10

Where I got my reading copy: It was a Christmas gift from books on my wishlist.

Read an Excerpt

Other Reviews:

It always makes me a little sad to leave out readers from some countries in giveaways, but unfortunately I’ve found shipping for just one book to other countries can get really expensive so I’m a little afraid of the rates for a box full of books. But I don’t want to leave out those of you outside my country completely so here is a giveaway that is open to everyone. It’s not quite as exciting but you do get to choose the book you want from one of the following books so it may be even more exciting if there’s a book you really want here:

  • Blood Rights by Kristen Painter (ARC)
  • Immortal Rider by Larissa Ione
  • Slayers by C. J. Hill
  • Angel by Nicole “Coco” Marrow and Laura Hayden
  • Wereworld: Rise of the Wolf by Curtis Jobling (ARC)
  • Hungry for Your Love: An Anthology of Zombie Romance edited by Lori Perkins
  • Darkness Falls (Immortal Beloved #2) by Cate Tiernan (ARC)
  • Dark Victory (Lady Lazarus #2) by Michele Lang

All of these books are unread and are the finished copy unless it says otherwise.

Giveaway Rules: To be entered in the giveaway for one of these books, fill out the form below. One entry per person.  This giveaway is open to anyone in any country. The giveaway will be open until the end of the day on Wednesday, January 18.  The winner has 24 hours to respond once contacted via email, and if I don’t hear from them by then a new winner will be chosen (who will also have 24 hours to respond until someone gets back to me with a place to send the books to and the title of the book of choice).

Please note email addresses will only be used for the purpose of contacting the winner. Once the giveaway is over all the emails will be deleted.

Good luck!

Update: Now that the giveaway is over, the form has been removed.