The Leaning Pile of Books
Aug
01
2010

Unfortunately, it may continue to be a bit quiet around here a little longer while I’m still spending most of my time not at my job moving and unpacking (and any time not doing either in an exhausted haze). In the meantime here are a couple of new books that showed up in the mail this week.

Curse of the Wolf Girl by Martin Millar

The sequel to Lonely Wolf Girl is available on Amazon, although the letter I received with it says it will be released on August 15. I hadn’t heard of either of these books, but I have heard that Millar’s Good Fairies of New York is good. Considering the pretty cover and the quote by Neil Gaiman on it, I am rather intrigued by this one now.

Kallix, a morose, laudanum-addicted, unschooled, slightly anorexic werewolf is still on the run. The youngest daughter of the Thane of the MacRinnalch Clan of werewolves, held responsible unfairly for the death of the Thane, and justifiably responsible for the deaths of a great many other werewolves, remains prohibited from returning to Scotland in order to maintain the uneasy peace that temporarily prevails in court, despite the endemic debauchery and degeneracy always threatening to again spiral out of control. Frankly, things aren’t much better for her in London than in Scotland. The love of her life is in hiding and her enemies increase in number by the day. Strong as she is when enraged, it’s becoming ever more dangerous to be her. Daniel and Moonglow, her two human friends, do what they can to keep her hidden in plain sight (who would look for a werewolf in a remedial program for high school dropouts?) and keep her fed. Millar is a true world-creator, populating Curse of the Wolf Girl with a universe of characters: fashion-designing werewolves, cross-dressing werewolves, and neurotic, psychotic, and erotic werewolves, as well as fairies, Fire Elementals, and good ole humans — whipping them in faster and faster revolutions with his thrilling, vertiginous rollercoaster narrative.

Entwined by Elisabeth Naughton

This is the second book in the Eternal Guardians series following Marked. It’s paranormal romance based on the story of Jason and the Argonauts and it just came out this week.

ZANDER—The most feared of all the Eternal Guardians. It’s rumored he can’t be killed, and he always fights like he has nothing to lose. But as a descendant of the famed hero Achilles, he’s got to have a vulnerability…somewhere.

Forces of daemons are gathering and have broken through the barriers of the Underworld. Now more than ever the Eternal Guardians are needed to protect both their own realm and the human world. Zander can’t afford to think about what might have been with the bewitching physician he once regarded as his soul mate. But with eternity stretching before him, he also can’t fathom spending his life without the one woman who makes him feel most alive. Perhaps he’s found his weakness, after all…

Giveaway: The Reluctant Mage
Jul
25
2010

Update: This giveaway is closed now and the book has been sent to its new home.

This week I got a copy of The Reluctant Mage by Karen Miller in the mail. The publisher had already sent me a copy a couple of weeks ago, so I’m not sure why I got a second one but I figured I’d give away the extra copy. So thanks to Orbit Books I am giving away one hardcover copy of the second book in the Fisherman’s Children series, which is coming out this week.

Here’s some information on The Reluctant Mage:

It’s been many months since Rafel ventured over Barl’s Mountains into the unknown, in a desperate bid to seek help for their ravaged land. With his father’s Weather Magic exhausted, there seemed no other hope. Now this too has died.

Only Deenie believes Rafel still lives, sensing her brother in tortured dreams. She also knows she must try to find him, as only Rafel’s talents could heal their land. The prospect terrifies Deenie, yet she sees no other choice.

She soon learns of a dangerous new power. Deenie comes to suspect that not only is her brother involved, but that the evil their father destroyed is somehow reborn. And if she can’t save Rafel, then through him, Morg’s vast power could once again command their world.

Contest Rules: If you would like to enter to win a copy, you can leave a comment on this post including your email address. Or if you prefer you can send an email to me at fantasycafe at novomancy.org containing your email address with the subject line “Giveaway.” Only one entry per person is allowed. Winners will be randomly selected. If you are selected as the winner and there is no email address listed, another winner will be chosen so please be sure to include an email address. Also if the winner does not respond to email with a mailing address after 5 days, a new winner will be selected. This giveaway is open worldwide and will end on Saturday July 31.

Good luck!

Update
Jul
24
2010

Unfortunately, it’s been pretty quiet here lately since my main writing time has been absorbed by new home ownership activities (starting to move, buying new stuff for the home and in a few minutes the more major moving back – finally!). Usually I write most of my reviews on the weekend, but I haven’t had a lot of spare time during the weekends lately. I’ve been finding this week that trying to write in the evenings after my brain is thoroughly fried after work doesn’t work out very well. Hopefully after this weekend I’ll be able to write more, although I am also working on a couple of things that will not be up until next month…

Right now I’m working on a review of The Devil in Green by Mark Chadbourn. Other books in the review queue are:

The Lord of the White Hell: Book One by Ginn Hale (this isn’t out until August so I won’t be reviewing it until then but I loved it)
Naamah’s Curse by Jacqueline Carey (just finished it last night and really liked it)

The OCD part of me had to put up a new book since I just finished one. I haven’t officially started it yet so maybe it will change but right now I’m planning to start The Last Stormlord by Glenda Larke. It was a tough choice between that and The King’s Bastard by Rowena Cory Daniells (I had been thinking about starting Death Most Definite by Trent Jamieson but decided it was too short for the amount I’m behind right now).

There, I Fixed It
Jul
20
2010

No, this post is not some link to yet another site in the vast and ever-growing Cheezburger network that threatens to consume the web like some bastard child of Rick Astley and Walmart (well, I guess it is now). It’s a mea culpa from the guy who didn’t adapt a site design to fit Blogger’s broken CSS/templating system three years ago, causing an annoying bug that was only visible at 800×600 resolution. My argument was: how many people browse the web at 800×600 the better part of a decade into the new millennium? Even my flying car has a higher resolution web browser than that.

So much for that argument. Since somebody recently mentioned it–and now that Blogger is a bit more flexible in their templating–it can be fixed. The coffee cup graphic down in the corner should no longer eat text when browsing with a narrow window. Sorry for the inconvenience folks, my fault, not Kristen’s!

The Leaning Pile of Books
Jul
18
2010

This week was much lower key than the giant pile from last week; I received one ARC. (And it’s another October book – there are so many books on the review pile that look good coming out that month!)

The Spirit Thief by Rachel Aaron

This is Rachel Aaron’s debut novel and the first book in the Legend of Eli Monpress series. It will be released in October and it will be quickly followed by the next two books – The Spirit Rebellion in November and The Spirit Eater in December. On her website, the author mentions she is currently working on a fourth book, The Spirit War, which is supposed to be available next year. I was pretty happy to get a copy of this since it sounds like fun (thieves do often make for some pretty entertaining reading) and I was sad to hear I missed it at BEA. The first two chapters can be read online.

Eli Monpress is talented. He’s charming. And he’s a thief.

But not just any thief. He’s the greatest thief of the age – and he’s also a wizard. And with the help of his partners – a swordsman with the most powerful magic sword in the world but no magical ability of his own, and a demonseed who can step through shadows and punch through walls – he’s going to put his plan into effect.

The first step is to increase the size of the bounty on his head, so he’ll need to steal some big things. But he’ll start small for now. He’ll just steal something that no one will miss – at least for a while.

Like a king.

Favorites of 2010: First Half of the Year
Jul
16
2010

Now that I’ve written reviews for all books read during the first half of 2010 it’s time for the favorites list! This list is composed of all books read regardless of publication date since only 8 of the 26 books read by the end of June were published this year. I’ll probably do a list of both at the end of the year since I expect that number to climb due to the number of books on the review pile for later this year that I really want to read. Plus I’m on my eleventh book published this year now.

It has been a fantastic reading year so far – much, much better than the first half of last year was. I’ve discovered some great new authors who dominate the top of my list.

This list does not include the two books I’ve read so far this month – if it did, one of them would definitely be on it. Favorites of the first half of the year are as follows:

1. The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner (Review)
2. Magic Strikes by Ilona Andrews (Review)
3. Magic Bleeds by Ilona Andrews (Review)
4. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin (Review)
5. Naamah’s Kiss by Jacqueline Carey (Review)
6. Changeless by Gail Carriger (Review)
7. A Local Habitation by Seanan McGuire (Review)
8. World’s End by Joan D. Vinge (Review)
9. Mirror Dance by Lois McMaster Bujold (Review)
10. Bone Crossed by Patricia Briggs (Review)

What are your favorite books read in 2010 so far?