Today I want to welcome a special guest to the blog! K.S. Villoso is the author of the soon to be released The Wolf of Oren-Yaro from Orbit. Kay is an amazing author and The Wolf of Oren-Yaro is a fantastic book. If you haven’t put it on pre-order yet you really should. You can find out more about Villoso, and her book below, along with a link to my review. Continue reading
A Ritual of Bone offers up a dark blend of fantasy and zombies for readers who like a little something different from both genres. Continue reading
This past Saturday my daughter and I went to a special book event at our local indie bookstore. Erin Morgenstern was kicking off the final wave of her U.S. book tour for The Starless Sea here in Lexington and the bookstore set up an event where Alix E. Harrow, the fabulous author of The Ten Thousand Doors of January would interview her and then they’d both have a book signing. I’ve never read anything by Morgenstern but I figured my daughter might like to try her books out, and truth be told so would I. As for Alix E. Harrow, if you follow this blog you’ll already know I’m a fan. This wasn’t my first time meeting Harrow, that was back in November at the Kentucky Book Fair where I had her sign a copy of her book for my daughter, but I still didn’t have a signed copy for myself. Continue reading
It’s been an age since I last posted about a book haul. Like…(checks calendar)…all the way back to June. I’d hoped to post about my new books a bit more often last year and didn’t do that. Obviously.
One of my blogging goals for 2020 will be to be more intentional about Book Haul posts. I’m aware that it’s possible nobody cares about the books I’ve bought or received, but I kinda like when bloggers post these because it not only puts new books in front of my eyeballs that I might not be aware of, but they also give me an idea of the blogger’s tastes. For my purposes a Book Haul post can include any book I’ve come to possess, not just those I buy, so arcs requested or just sent from publishers will be listed as well.
Today I have four books to show you from December. The first two I found on my doorstep recently, one I picked up after seeing it on Twitter, and the other I bought from the bookstore. Continue reading
For Vintage Science Fiction Month this year I decided to read The Man In The High Castle by Philip K. Dick. If you’ve never heard of Vintage Science Fiction Month, it’s a month (January) dedicated to reading, watching, blogging, or talking about anything vintage science fiction. There isn’t a hard and fast rule for what makes it “vintage” but a general guideline is if it was created in 1979 or earlier then you’re good. Some people will just choose something created before their birth year. The rules aren’t hard and fast. The point is to have fun. Continue reading
Once again I’m impressed by the quality of self-published fantasy that’s being produced these days. This shouldn’t be something I need to comment on anymore because self-published authors have been putting out great books for years, but I’m saying it anyway. And Banebringer by Carol A. Park is yet another example of the kind of exceptional stories being written by these outstanding authors.
Banebringer is a little bit magic, a little bit dark, a little bit romance, and all bits enjoyable. Continue reading
It’s the last day of the year which means it’s time for my Best Reads of 2019 post! I’d hoped to write one more review before the end of the year but that isn’t gonna happen. That’s fine though because I have what I need for this list already. And while I didn’t read as many books as I’d hoped this year I did read some really good ones!
2019 was another great year for speculative fiction. I’ve heard it said by many readers that we are in a new golden age of spec fic. I think that’s true. Much of that has to do with some great new authors being published by traditional publishing houses, but a lot of that has to do with the rise of really great books coming out of the self-published/indie publishing realm.
What follows below are those books I read this year (regardless of publication date) that I rated a 4.5 or 5 out of 5 stars. There were a total of eight books to make the list. Of this group there was one self-published title, and two formerly self-published titles that were picked up by a major publisher, one of which hasn’t actually been published yet but I read the ARC. I’ll start with the 4.5 group, move to the 5.0 group, and finish with my favorite book of the year. Apart from the final book there is no particular order to this list other than the two main groupings. Continue reading
