A Year in Reading, 2012 Edition

For the past couple of years, I've posted my end of year reading summary. It's not necessarily books published only in 2012, it's simply what I've read in 2012. It's not even the best of what I've read in 2012. It's simply a reading retrospective with a few words about each. Since I've read about 75 books or more this year, this list will be a bit more summary than in previous years. (Which will probably be a good thing because in 2011 I don't believe I finished my retrospective — oh my!)

The most awesome book series I read in 2012: Grave Witch by Kaylana Price (Series title: Alex Craft, Grave Witch, Grave Dance, Grave Memory). These are great, fascinating, urban fantasy novels featuring a witch PI in a world that's not really comfortable with the overt magic it's soaked in. The fae are omnipresent, but humans would rather believe the glamour they see than reconcile the creature beneath — ditto for the witch-made charms. Top that off with the personal struggles of Alex Craft — she's estranged from her family, barely making rent, and the only thing she's good at monetizing is her Grave Sight, an ability that leaves her night blind and sometimes worse. Oh, and there's a love triangle that gets more and more and more tangled as the series continues. The closer Alex Craft gets to accepting a relationship, the more alone she finds herself.

I actually read these books before I read Kim Harrison's The Hollows/Rachel Morgan series (more on that later) but once I had, I found Grave Witch extremely similar yet much more mature in world and premise. The Grave Witch world and character development leaps into the arena that the world of the Hollows only achieves in books six and on.

Favorite YA series of the year: I was surprised to fall in love with the YA sci-fi Cold Awakening Trilogy by Robin Wasserman this year. In this not-too-far-future dystopia, a rich, spoiled, self-centered teen ends up in a near-fatal accident that leaves her “skinned” — her brain is sliced, scanned, and uploaded into a synthetic body. I have a problem with whiny teenage characters (even if the whining is realistic) but the fascinating science and technology milieu pulled me through Frozen, and once we got into the larger social and political issues of Shattered and Torn, I found myself staying up way past my bedtime to gobble up this series.

Series that made me gain over 5 lbs. in a month: I read Janet Evanovich's One for the Money because the movie looked cute. Truth. I loved this book and snapped up Two for the Dough, Three to Get Deadly, Four to Score ... all the way through Fearless Fourteen before I stopped because I realized they were all awesome, but they were all the same. I have no doubt I'll go back and visit the Berg and the Plum family, Morelli, Ranger, and Stephanie Plum's inexplicable ability to destroy cars and read through the latest Notorious Nineteen. But I had to stop reading and take a break. Take a breath. Stop my constant reading about doughnuts, fried chicken, and pot roast — a devastating trio to have on the brain in the middle of winter.

Although the endless pot roast discussion did lead me to find a great, easy, pot roast recipe for crock pot: trim roast, place in a crock pot that's been lightly coated in PAM (for clean up), and then for every 2.5 lbs. of roast add one can cream of mushroom soup and a half-packet of powdered onion soup. Cook on low for eight hours. Don't add water! The roast will create its own gravy from this concoction. And it comes out super tender. The pot roast wasn't as debilitating a factor in my Evanovich inspired weight gain, it was more the doughnuts and fried chicken cravings that did me in.

So later, when I came across The Haunted Housewives of Allister, Alabama by Susan Abel Sullivan, I immediately recognized the protagonist Cleo Tidwell as a Southern, thrice-married Stephanie Plum. The humor's spot on, the crazy-but-lovable family is there, the zany problems that emerge in the course of solving the mystery and staying alive in the process — all the things that made Janet Evanovich's novels something which I felt like I read without breathing, were there in deep fried package from Susan Abel Sullivan. I highly recommend The Haunted Housewives of Allister, Alabama to anyone who's read and enjoyed One for the Money and the other Stephanie Plum mysteries.

The series with the devastating emotional roller coaster: JC Andrijeski's Allie's War, Book Four Shadow. I've posted before about this series. Everything I know about fiction tells me this series shouldn't work, yet oh-baby does it work. I read the first three in a madcap dash then waited for book four — a whopping 200,000+ words in length — and kept biding my time to start it because these books are an emotional roller coaster. I have a copy of book five, Knight, but every time I go to start it, I take a deep breath and ask myself are you ready for this? So far, I've not been prepared. Part near-future dystopia with some aspects of a tech thriller, part paranormal romance. These books are — and this doesn't often get said about PNR — epic.

Holy hell, how did I manage to ignore this series this long? Actually, I know how. Book one of Kim Harrison's Rachel Morgan/The Hollows Novels, features cover art of a half-naked red head with handcuffs dangling off the belt loop of her hip hugging leather pants. Excuse me? You want me to believe your urban fantasy is a strong ass kicking chick when she's depicted wearing a bandeau bikini top on the streets of Cincinnati? Yep. That's the idea. Except the funny part about this depiction (and my subsequent reaction to it) is that Kim Harrison actually writes the character Rachel Morgan as dressing in precisely this fashion ... and then having people try to proposition her because they think she's a hooker. Oops! In later books in the series, Rachel's vampire friends and roommate try repeatedly to class her up. Her taste level is constantly in question and Rachel's not thrilled to hear it. So I zipped on through this great nine book series (book ten out this spring) starting with Dead Witch Walking of the bikini top infamy, then up through The Outlaw Demon Wails before I took a break from the series for a bit. Even then I caught myself saying "crap on toast" anytime something went wrong in my life.

After (not a spoiler) one of the main characters dies, Rachel loses a sense of focus, and I lost a bit of my interest. But after reading a half-dozen other novels by other writers, I started to wonder what happened next. So I happily turned back to the series and cruised on through to Pale Demon. These more recent titles bring Trent back more interestingly into the picture and I actually loved the cross-country road trip which allowed us to see just how different this post-genetic-crisis world is from our own — not something we were really able to see in the previous urban Cincinnati and touristy Mackinac locations. I'm looking forward to Ever After coming out January 22, 2013.

Because fairy tales are pretty. Opal is a YA fantasy by Kristina Wojtaszek that features multiple, nested fairy tales (some of which you'll recognize) within a fantasy world. The prose is lyrical and rich. Fans of Patricia McKillip take note of this new voice in the world of fantasy and fairy tale retellings.

Books I re-read. Elizabeth Vaughn's Warprize is just an absolutely stellar example of romantic fantasy (second-world setting). The rest of the books in the trilogy don't live up to the awesomeness of this first installment. I've not read the further books set in the same world, but might yet one day.

I also re-read the Others Series by Jess Haines as Stalking the Others was coming out during summer 2012 and I could remember that I liked the series but I couldn't remember what all the rules of that particular urban fantasy world were. Hunted by the Others (book one) was just okay. It took me two years before I bothered looking around to see if there was more in the series. Books two and three get more interesting. No longer does the main character think all vampires are Evil and most werewolves are okay but really the only species you can trust are humans — sorry, but that sort of thinking in a book is boring. Anyhoodle, book three ended with a doozy of a cliffhanger: the heroine might have been changed into an otherworldly creature against her will! So I was going to relish the fourth book, damnit, and that meant re-reading, re-skimming the previous three.

Promising beginnings. Silver by Rhiannon Held is an interesting, slightly grittier, werewolf urban fantasy. The two main characters aren't your typical heroine and heroine a la paranormal romance, rather they remind me of The Fifth Element's Corbin Dallas and Leelo. (My full review of the novel can be found on NewMyths.com.) Book two, Tarnished, comes out this spring. I'm hoping this series delivers on its promising beginning.

I used to love the Katie MacAlister series with the dragons. Actual, this is her third series of books featuring the same world/characters just switching narrators. But Sparks Fly completely lost me. Maybe I skipped over the previous book, because I constantly felt like I didn't know what was going on. Maybe it'll all make sense to me if I go back and re-read all ten books...?

Another promising beginning that's petered out, is Thea Harrison's Elder Races novels. Romances set in a modern world with were-creatures that can shift into giant animals like dragons, griffons, and thunderbirds. Dragon Bound, the first in the series, was awesome. Loved it. Read Storm's Heart, the second in the series, and it was okay. Read a novella out of order that I really had no idea why I finished. Sadly, I'm done with this series that had previously shown so much promise.

Matriarchal fantasy world — a bit like Scott O'Dell meets Anne McCaffery. Shards of History by Rebecca Roland is a fresh new fantasy world where the main civilization puts one in mind of southwest Native American cultures. The heroine, Malia, finds out a truth about the hated and feared creatures that live on the fringes of their civilization, one that can save them from the dragon-riding army that's poised on the edge of the valley, waiting to kill, capture, and enslave Malia's people. Of course, if she can't get her people to believe this newly discovered truth, it'll be their destruction. Time is running out before the sky — literally — falls down on them.

A return to Jeaniene Frost. I adored the first two Cat and Bones books. Halfway to the Grave was so good it made me want to hate Jeaniene Frost for her storytelling ability coupled with her writing skills. But as the series wore on, the spin-offs and one-off novels appeared, and the vampires become and and more powerful (an annoying problem that means they have to go to extreme lengths not to have other vampires in a half-mile radius overhear their conversations), I sort of slipped away. Since Cat became a vampire, I let the series go on without me. But then along came Vlad. And more importantly, Leila. I like Leila. And I like that she's not becoming an all-powerful vampire. She doesn't know much about the vampire subculture she's been sucked into, so we get to go on the journey all over again. I'm down with that. Once Burned brought me back to the Night Huntress franchise. I look forward to Twice Tempted coming out in late-March.

Non-fiction. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot is a fabulous braided narrative of Skloot's research and her research process into the life of Henrietta Lacks — the African American woman from whom HeLa research cells were derived — and her surviving family. Henrietta never knew that she was "donnating" cells, and it would be decades before her family knew that their mother's cells had been instrumental to 20th century health science, having been key to producing a functional polio vaccine among many other advances. Skloot keeps a human interest angle to her book even when she's discussing science and legal precedents. Eminently readable and jargon-lite in spite of its science rich content.

Books I picked up for free and was happy to have found! Delilah S. Dawson's Wicked as They Come is vampire, steampunk romance FTW. The dialog is quick and witty (sometimes too quick as I love a good angsty brood), the heroine is spunky and capable, and the world of Sang is fascinating. An alternate dimension where the reasons for steampunk are simple: there's magic and vampireish Bludmen so you better lace up that stiff collar and cover your neck! Not to mention the hero is equally fascinating as our tour guide through the world. I'm willing to forgive this book its trespasses because reading it was just plain fun. The teaser scene from Blud Book #2 shows us a different first person protagonist in a different city, which saddens me only because Criminy and Tish's storyline did not feel finished. I'm holding out hope for Criminy & Tish the Sequel! I've also picked up the novella in this series, The Mysterious Madam Morpho, which is a cute, brief tale of the traveling caravan show that Criminy runs. Liked it. Will likely pick up Wicked as She Wants this April. Bludbunnies — now there's something I can't get out of my head!

The Scottish historical romance, Claire Delacroix's The Beauty Bride, was a free ebook download (I think it's still free at most major retailers and is the first in Delacroix's series). I admit that I judge books by their covers, especially in the age of free and cheap ebooks, a shoddy cover is often a sign of shoddy writing within — but don't let this cover fool you! Delacroix's writing and historical research are fabulous. I believe this ebook version is a reissue of an earlier title which was published by a major publisher, and since it went out of print the author has brought it back on her own (that's my speculation at least). I didn't expect to enjoy this book as much as I did. I didn't expect to stay up reading all night only to look at the clock and say, "How the hell did it get to be 5:00 AM?" I'll likely be seeking out the rest of the series in 2013 when the historical mood strikes me.

Books I picked up for free ... and sort of wish I hadn't. Waking Up Married. Harlequin is promoting this book as the banner carrier of their new KISS line. From all the hype I expected something youthful and fresh, like if the KISS line was a dessert, it would be a crisp and sassy, low-cal dessert. With citrus. Instead I got a Diet Coke. With lime. At the very least I expected it to feel more "youthful" because that's how it's being promoted. But except for the fact that the heroine isn't in a work/family position where she's subservient to the hero (he's her boss, etc.), this felt exactly like the PRESENTS novels I used to read. The heroine has a career. Bravo. But she didn't feel any more like a modern twenty-something than any other Harlequin heroine does (Harlequin's selling point for KISS). And I happen to be something of an expert on modern twenty-somethings: I am one.

Nora Roberts. Yes, Nora Roberts is her own category of reading. Her shelves are my go-to section of the library whenever I'm feeling glum or overwhelmed by life. I know that I can escape into her worlds and that the books are always satisfactory — they'll never rock my world, but I know they'll never disappoint me either. In 2012 she wrapped up her Inn BoonsBoro trilogy with The Last Boyfriend and The Perfect Hope. The cool part about these books? A hefty component of each is running a small business (bookstore, pizzeria  bed-and-breakfast) and decorating/building the inn. So it's a bit like reading a romance and simultaneously leafing through a home fashion magazine. Still not as cool as the Bridal Quartet which was like reading a romance and leafing through a bridal magazine.

Also in the Nora Roberts category this year, I read the Key Trilogy and most of the Dreams Trilogy. The Key books involve three women helping otherworldly creatures free three women who are sort of trapped in a sleeping beauty spell and was among the more memorable of Nora Roberts stuff (although when it comes to her novels with paranormal elements, my favorite is still The Jewels of the Sun trilogy).

The unmemorable odds and ends. I picked up The Wrangler as part of a free promotion. I'd never read a western romance before. It's not likely to become my genre of choice. Marked by Elisabeth Naughton is another title that I only know I read because I wrote it down on my list of finished books. I vaguely recall something about the Greek gods. Another paranormal romance that's selling well that didn't catch my fancy. Ditto for Goblin King  and Kiss of the Goblin Prince by Shona Husk. I will give these goblin books props for choosing a more original  paranormal creature (the goblin) than the majority of casting for paranormal heroes and heroines out there.

There were other books I read in 2012. I've recently started but not finished Clean by Alex Hughes which seems promising. I can't forget to mention all the ghost stories I read in 2012, published and submitted for publication, as I worked on editing the anthology Specter Spectacular: 13 Ghostly Tales. There are books of poetry such as Jay Nicorvo's Deadbeat and the poem a day I get to open courtesy of NPR's Writer's Almanac, along with numerous short stories from Daily SF and other magazines and anthologies.

What of note have you read in 2012? 

How Many Days Till Christmas?

According to the sudden overcrowding of my email inbox, today is the last day to buy online with assured delivery before Christmas. Or so at least twelve different emails told me this morning. Then there were a few more that sported digital gifts and the "It's never too late for a digital gift" slogan. 'Tis the season.

But what I want to mention today is another beautiful Christmas surprise. This week, World Weaver Press released their first novella, Opal, a gorgeous, lyrical retwisting of the Snow White tale by Kristina Wojtaszek, which both fairy tale lovers and YA fantasy readers will find reason to enjoy.

Writer's Digest editor Zachary Petit called it:

“A fairy tale within a fairy tale within a fairy tale — the narratives fit together like interlocking pieces of a puzzle, beautifully told.”

This is a tale that reaches from the frozen tundra, to the snow filled woods, thick and deep with the secrets of the shape-shifting Fae, back to the world of men. It's the journey of the daughter of an owl, a girl who is the key to unlocking the prison that holds a king. It's the perfect, quick, winter read.

The moment I started reading the first few pages, I was put in mind of the fairy tale novels of Patricia McKillip and Robin McKinley.

White as snow, stained with blood, her talons black as ebony… In this retwisting of the classic Snow White tale, the daughter of an owl is forced into human shape by a wizard who’s come to guide her from her wintry tundra home down to the colorful world of men and Fae, and the father she’s never known. She struggles with her human shape and grieves for her dead mother — a mother whose past she must unravel if men and Fae are to live peacefully together.

It's out now as an ebook for Kindle, Nook, and Kobo. And a paperback from Amazon ... which they're quick to assure everyone you can still have delivered by Christmas.

Haunted Housewives Goodreads Giveaway

Susan Abel Sullivan and World Weaver Press are giving away a SIGNED paperback copy of The Haunted Housewives of Allister, Alabama -- enter this week for your chance to win!

“Grab a peanut butter and banana sandwich and settle in for a cozy mystery full of zany characters, haunted paintings, and a big dose of Southern humor.” — Heidi Ruby Miller

Who knew one gaudy Velvet Elvis could lead to such a heap of haunted trouble?

When Cleo Tidwell said, “I do,” for the third time, she had no idea her marriage vows would be tested by a tacky piece of art. But Cleo’s not the kind of woman to let a velvet-offense-against-good-taste just hang — oh no, she’s on a mission to oust the King. Trouble is, Elvis won’t leave the building. And he’s attractin’ all manner of kooks, fanatics, and lookie loos to Cleo’s doorstep, including the entire congregation of the Church of the Blue Suede Shoes.

Everyone wants a piece of the painting, but Cleo’s starting to suspect that whatever’s haunting the Velvet Elvis wants a piece of her husband. Why else would her hubby trade in his car for a ’56 pink Caddy, moonlight as an Elvis impersonator, and develop a sudden hankering for fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches? Certainly it can’t be anything as simple as a mid-life crisis, because Cleo is not getting divorced again — her mother would never let her hear the end of it.

Cleo’s life is all shook up by crazies with death threats, psychic warnings “from beyond,” kidnapping attempts, invitations to join the Blue Shoe Loonies, and even murder! Cleo’s in a fight for her life, her marriage, and the perseverance of good taste everywhere.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Haunted Housewives of Allister, Alabama

by Susan Abel Sullivan

Giveaway ends November 29, 2012.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

“Prepare for the read of your life! ... Sullivan is the new mistress of humor in horror.” — Perpetual Motion Machine

Specter Spectacular takes on a special sale price

I recently edited a slim and spooky anthology of ghost stories, Specter Spectacular: 13 Ghostly Tales. And for the month of November only, you (or anyone) can grab the ebook version for the never-will-it-be-this-low-again price of $2.99. (You can also order a print version from Amazon -- sadly, not available in stores.)

All Shook Up

I've never been an Elvis fan -- I should preface this post with that -- but I've also never been an Elvis hater. In fact I never really thought about the King of Rock and Roll except for the passing mention in The Outsiders where the uptown kids love the Beatles and the greaser boys think that Elvis is way better.

So when the manuscript came across my desk for The Haunted Housewives of Allister, Alabama, a tale of an upper-middle class housewife who has a haunted Velvet Elvis forced into her possession, I didn't entirely know what I was getting into Elvis-wise. But the writing was fabulously witty and the main character, Cleo Tidwell, was enchanting. In fact, Cleo Tidwell quickly put me in mind of Stephanie Plum, a character I'd consumed with ravenous speed one winter. So I dove on in to the world of ghost Elvis and possessed Velvet Elvis. And it was a riot.

I've learned so many wacky Elvis factoids in the process of editing and publishing this book. When you finish the novel and realize how much true Elvis stuff falls in the realm of the strange, it's hard not to imagine it as the perfect basis for this kind of fun, witty, cozy mystery with a paranormal twist. Susan Abel Sullivan did her research -- fried peanut butter and banana sandwich, anyone? Apparently there's a knack to making these sandwiches. If I'd have tried, I'd have not thought to make the paste, so the result would have been ... different, I'm sure.

If you enjoy Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum, or more generally cozy mysteries, Southern humor, and witty writing, you can grab the ebook of The Haunted Housewives of Allister, Alabama today (early release) or the trade paperback on October 30. Or perhaps just warm up to the novel with the sneak peek of chapter one on the publisher's website.

Friday night frights

The title of this post might be misleading. Specter Spectacular is an anthology released this week that I edited, and while it opens with a pleasantly eerie story ("My Rest a Stone" by Amanda C. Davis) and a straight up frightening story ("Alabaster" by Jaime Rand), the anthology as a whole isn't one fright after another. It's a fabulous mix of the frightful and fanciful. The eerie and the romantic. The horrific and the humorous.

Putting this together, I must admit that my favorite tale to come across my desk was "Wendigo" by Shannon Robinson. The tale appeals to my young-working-woman mindset with a quirky family, yet it enthralls, horrifies, and triumphs.  It's about addiction, but not merely in the substance sense of the term.

Yet I also had so much fun with funny stories like "The Haunts of Albert Einstein" -- hey, if Einstein is stuck on the ghostly plane, you think he'll sit back and do nothing? -- and "Cooter, Ass-much, and Me" -- as the title implies, it's damn funny ... and a little bit chilling.

Ghosts are fascinating creatures. But I admit to approaching horror tentatively. There's so much gore-fest out there in cinema that horror has earned a "I don't like that" rep from many people. I'd like to think that Specter Spectacular transcends that and invites in those who love the slightly mystic as well as the horrific and the otherworldly. People who enjoy folk lore and romantic tales. People who may or may not believe in "ghosts" but who are willing, in the course of a fabulous short story or two, to explore their potential.

Available as an ebook from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Kobo, as well as in print, Specter Spectacular: 13 Ghostly Tales is out now from World Weaver Press, just in time for your Halloween reading pleasure. Find a dark, chilling evening one night soon, and curl up with this anthology ... but maybe keep a flashlight close at hand. Just in case.

Review: Silver by Rhiannon Held

My review of the new novel Silver is up at the magazine New Myths. And yes, there's a few typos, but hey, at least it's just a few. Here's the first half of the review:

Writers like Patricia Briggs and Kelley Armstrong have taught us that wolf pack politics is a tricky thing—one part subtle machinations and two parts brute force. Rhiannon Held continues in this tradition with her debut novel Silver.

The urban fantasy Silver has a certain grit and intelligence to it which is apparent from the get-go. Someone has performed unspeakable acts of experimentation and torture on an entire pack of werewolves, systematically burning them with silver and injecting it into their veins. The only werewolf to escape is a young woman who’s retreated so far into herself, she can’t recall her own name and adopts the moniker Silver. Andrew Dare, a pack enforcer, tracks Silver down when she crosses his pack’s territory. Andrew expects to have to meet the stray werewolf with violence and threats, instead he meets the half-crazy, rambling, injured Silver, which sets Andrew down the track of finding the person who hurt her and killed her pack. But first he has to find out who Silver really is and where she came from. Read the second half of the review...

Short version: I liked Silver. Is this novel going to revolutionize urban fantasy? Probably not. But it's an interesting new chapter in personable-but-aggressive werewolf fiction.

[Silver by Rhiannon Held came out from Tor, June 2012. I received a complimentary advanced proof via New Myths to complete this review.]

Press release: Forthcoming title from World Weaver Press

New York, NY (July 2, 2012) – World Weaver Press (Eileen Wiedbrauk, Editor-in-Chief) has announced Shards of History, debut novel by author Rebecca Roland and their first full-length publication as a small press, will be available as a digital edition on Tuesday, August 21, 2012. 

“I'm incredibly pleased that our first novel is such a great story featuring a strong heroine who doesn't shirk responsibility even when a perfect storm of conflicts and disasters descends on her,” commented Wiedbrauk. “Shards of History is a fast, interesting read that I hope readers will love as much as I do. Rebecca Roland is a strong new voice in the field of fantasy fiction.”

Like all Taakwa, Malia fears the fierce winged creatures known as Jeguduns who live in the cliffs surrounding her valley. When the river dries up and Malia is forced to scavenge farther from the village than normal, she discovers a Jegudun, injured and in need of help. 

Malia’s existence--her status as clan mother in training, her marriage, her very life in the village--is threatened by her choice to befriend the Jegudun. But she’s the only Taakwa who knows the truth: that the threat to her people is much bigger and much more malicious than the Jeguduns who’ve lived alongside them for decades. Lurking on the edge of the valley is an Outsider army seeking to plunder and destroy the Taakwa, and it’s only a matter of time before the Outsiders find a way through the magic that protects the valley--a magic that can only be created by Taakwa and Jeguduns working together.

Rebecca Roland lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she writes primarily fantasy and horror. Her short fiction has appeared in Uncle John’s Flush Fiction and in Stupefying Stories, and she is a graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop. When she’s not writing, she’s usually spending time with her family, torturing patients as a physical therapist, or eating way too much chocolate. You can find her online at Spice of Life, her blog, or follow her on Twitter @rebecca_roland. 


World Weaver Press is a publisher of fantasy, science fiction, and nonfiction, dedicated to producing quality novels, novellas, collections, and anthologies. As a small press, World Weaver seeks to produce books that engage the mind and ensnare the story-loving soul.

End table dilemma

I love/hate having a great stack of great books to read on the table beside my couch.

That's where they live while waiting for me to read them, by the way. My TBR or "to be read" pile doesn't live beside my bed or on my nightstand. Oh no. It lives on the end table beside the couch. That's where they wait for my attention. Because let me tell you, it's only when a book grips my interest enough to keep me from sleep that I invite it into bed for a little pre-slumber reading.

Right now, the end table poses a delimma. I have an assortment of books I want to read and must pick who I read next.

The book that's been sitting on my end table the longest is Stephen King's Gunslinger. I've never read The Dark Tower series and I want to! But at the same time I don't know much about the series other than that it's good. And that lack is the difference between want to and really want to.

I also have a beautifully fluffy novel called Sparks Fly by Katie MacAlister. The impetus to read now is simple: this is a library book with multiple holds on it. Other people want it and if I hold onto it too long I can't renew my checkout. The novel is the third in the Light Dragons series which itself is the third series in Katie MacAlister's dragon world which I previously wrote about here.

But the fourth book in "The Others" series by Jess Haines is coming out July 3! And it's been sooo freaking long since I read the three books previous -- okay it's been about a year -- that I'm thinking I should really reread them before I jump into Stalking the Others. And trust me, before I jump into Stalking the Others I'm going to want to reread the three previous novels.

Oooo, and look at that pretty book cover? Doesn't it just want to leap into your shopping cart? Major, major improvement over previous covers, particularly book two where the heroine looked more like a stripper.

Regardless of their bad covers, I need to revisit books one through three before embarking on this beauty. ... and hey, I was planning to write all of this out for the O post of my A to Z challenge which I never reached. Correction: have not yet reached ... because I'm not done. I'm just a snail. A busy, easily distracted snail.

Book one, Hunted by the Others, was just  an okay read, in fact I was disappointed that it wasn't trashier than it was despite having a hot werewolf and a hot vampire character, nonevermind that the main character is freaked the fuck out by the evilness of the vampire. I read it shortly after it came out and then forgot about it for a while. Then, more than a year later, I was in the mood for an urban fantasy and I was at the point where I was caught up on all my favorite series and I was down to the point of picking up a mediocre urban fantasy that I knew a bit about or an urban fantasy that I knew nothing about which could be mediocre or could suck or could be pretty good. I went with the evil I knew -- and I was not disappointed. While Hunted by the Others was just okay, it set up a really cool world that books two and three engage with in a hot damn! sort of way. The main character's relationship with the vampire world (previously seen as soulless evil) gets a bit more gray, and her relationship with the werewolf world gets ... complicated. The end of book three leaves us with one helluva cliffhanger. The kind where I'm enthralled and pissed off and salivating for the next book all at the same time. So I want to make the most of book four, and that means rereading books 1-3 to remember everything from character names to places and relationships, because frankly, it's all gotten fuzzy in the intervening months.

Stripper cover, yes? Anyone care to argue that its not? She's even carrying her own pole. Sorry art department, that's not a crime fighter, that's a receptacle for one dollar bills. 

So now, here I am, mid-June with a reading dilemma on my hands or, um, on my end table.

Immortals

For the 2012 blogging from A to Z challenge, I'm writing to the theme of book series that I love. Mostly science fiction and fantasy, with a few others thrown in.

Oh hell yes, that's right. The A to Z challenge is back. I know it was a month of April challenge, but I didn't finish it and I had an entire freaking alphabet of series novels planned to discuss. So I'm going to finish it by golly.

And if you make me say "by golly" then I'm going to do it because seriously, how often do I fling around phrases that old?

The Immortals was the second series out of the realm of Tortall by Tamora Pierce. I completely and totally fell in love with Alanna in the Song of the Lioness Quartet when I was a preteen and so I gobbled up the Immortals when they arrived on the shelves even thought Alanna was way cooler. I've recently discovered that in the intervening decades, during which time moved on to not-so-YA reading, Tamora Pierce has put out several other Tortall-based series the most recent of which I understand is a prequel some many, many years before the Alanna books.

Where I loved the fact that Alanna cross-dressed as a boy to get what she wanted in a man's world and then eventually became the most successful "man" while completely in control of her gender identity as a woman (whoa, I think I just outlined a conference paper thesis), Daine of the Immortals series deals with gender roles and socio-economic roles in a different way.

While Daine never cross-dresses, she's often mistaken for a boy, both because of her appearance and her rough skills as someone who can live among the wild lands and has an uncanny way with horses. More than that, Daine can talk to most animals. It's wild magic passed to her by the Immortals of realms beyond their own, not the safe, human magic most people of Tortall are used to. Daine deals with the prejudice of small town life until her (unwed) mother dies and then strikes off on her own and discovers a whole host of more worldly, more educated, more privileged, and more understanding people. (And I think I just outlined a second conference paper thesis.)

The series teams up her and the horse handler Onua and the magician Numair. Alanna also makes appearances throughout the series as well as characters from her quartet of books now in their more "grown up" roles.

The cover art above absolutely does not appeal to me. But it appears the books have been through several editions/rebrandings. I remember a series with gorgeous illustrations like these at right. And I remember oh, so well, after all these years a line from the fourth installment of the Immortals: Love's fair wondrous. Where's the harm?

What can I say? I'm drawn to those moments of pivotal emotion brought on by a great awareness of emotion throughout the entire novel/series.

I'm more of a fan of the Song of the Lioness Quartet than the Immortals series, but sadly this will be the only Tamora Pierce mention in my A to Z of fantasy and sci-fi series so I've got to get in my read the song of the lioness! plug now. It's also THE BOOK to give to your 11-14 year-old niece.