Today’s guest is fantasy writer, poet, and blogger Sara Letourneau! I’ve enjoyed reading her thoughts on books on her website and blog, and as an added bonus, we seem to share similar taste in speculative fiction (she also had a high opinion of Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone and Naomi Novik’s Uprooted, among other works I love). Because of that, I’m thrilled she’s here this month discussing some favorite fantasy heroines with a common character trait! Profiles of Courage: Compelling Female […]

Today’s guest is Ilana C. Myer, whose debut novel Last Song Before Night was released last year. I read this epic fantasy a few months ago and found it so absorbing I had difficulty putting it down for inconvenient necessities like laundry and sleep. In particular, I enjoyed following the various characters’ journeys, especially the heroines Lin and Rianna, and I’m very much looking forward to reading Ilana C. Myer’s next book! It turns out, when you publish a fantasy […]

Today’s guest is Zen Cho, whose recent debut novel Sorcerer to the Crown was selected for several notable Best of 2015 lists, nominated for a RT Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best Fantasy Novel, and longlisted for both the BSFA Awards and the Tiptree Award. It’s an enjoyable and thoughtfully written story containing humor and insight, and I especially appreciated how it captured the complexities of human emotion through its two main protagonists. She is also the author of the Crawford Award-winning short story collection […]

The book being given away this week is one of my personal favorites: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin (who wrote a Women in SF&F Month post titled “Don’t Fear the Unicorn” in 2012). I’m far from the only one who loves this book—after the book recommendations from 2015 were added to the list of recommended SFF books by women begun by Renay, it became the single most recommended book with a total of 29 recommendations! The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is a special […]

Today’s guest is novelist, poet, and short fiction writer Beth Cato! Three of the books in her steampunk fantasy series have received nominations for various awards: The Clockwork Dagger was a Locus finalist for Best First Novel, The Clockwork Crown was an RT Reviewers’ Choice Finalist, and the novella Wings of Sorrow and Bone is a 2015 Nebula nominee. Her third novel, Breath of Earth, will be released in August of this year (and it sounds fantastic!). The Healer as […]

Today’s guest is io9.com editor-in-chief and award-winning author Charlie Jane Anders. Her recently released fantasy/science fiction novel All the Birds in the Sky has been garnering fantastic reviews, and I’m looking forward to reading it myself—especially after being completely enchanted by what I did read when I took a peek at the first chapter! She’s also written the Lambda Literary Award-winning fiction novel The Choir Boy and numerous short stories, including the compelling Hugo Award-winning novelette “Six Months, Three Days” (which can […]