Books

I didn’t buy any of these books actually at at the Clallam Bay Comicon, but I did clear these out of my email queue and I’m composing the post at the Comicon, so close enough!

Picked up from Kobo Books:

• Shades of Milk and Honey, Glamour in Glass, and Without a Summer, by Mary Robinette Kowal. All three of her Glamourist books, two of which I had already in print, but I grabbed all three electronically because a) I didn’t have the third one yet, and b) Mary Robinette Kowal is just generally made of Awesome.
• Death Troopers, by Joe Schreiber. This is actually a re-buy in ebook form. It’s the zombie novel in the Star Wars universe I read a while back, and while I didn’t like it well enough to keep the paperback, I did want to keep an ebook copy around.
• Jane, by Robin Maxwell. This is Maxwell’s retelling of the Tarzan story from Jane’s point of view, which I thought was an excellent concept, and I’m quite looking forward to reading it.
• The Devil Wears Plaid, by Teresa Medeiros. Historical romance by an author I’d seen heartily recommended on Smart Bitches Trashy Books. I did in fact already plow through this novel and can attest that yeah, she’s rather fun. Nothing too serious or substantive in her storylines, and the tropes she calls upon are very familiar. But she used them well and entertainingly, and at the end of the day that’s all I ask! More in-depth review to come.

Meanwhile, picked up from Smashwords:

• Paper Woman, by Suzanne Adair. Historical mystery. Picked this up since it was a recommendation, and I elected to buy it straight from Smashwords since the author had deployed the Smashwords edition out to Kobo. So this way she gets more of my money.

129 for the year.

Picked up in print from Third Place Books:

• Bronze Gods, by A.A. Aguirre. Looks like steampunky/alt-history mystery, and grabbing this because of general support of Ann Aguirre.
• Crucible of Gold, by Naomi Novik. Already owned this electronically but Novik’s one of my “must buy in both formats” authors, and I didn’t have a paperback copy of this yet!
• Bell, Book, and Murder: The Bast Mysteries, by Rosemary Edghill. This is Edghill’s omnibus edition of her Bast mysteries, the only way I could really get a hold of the third book of the series.

Picked up electronically from Smashwords:

• Unseelie, by Meredith Spies. This is the re-isssued self-pub edition of a book previously released by Drollerie, under the author’s other name of Meredith Holmes. Did this purchase to support her.

Picked up electronically from B&N:

• The Honey Month, by Amal El-Mohtar. Not normally a poetry or short story person, but after seeing Amal El-Mohtar’s name in recent SFWA-related posts, I wanted to find something by her and buy it to show my support. This was what I found. And hey, broadening my reading horizons with a bit of honey-themed poetry and short stories might be awesome.
• Worldsoul, by Liz Williams. Because Liz Williams has been categorically awesome in everything I’ve read of hers, and I didn’t have this yet.
• Reforming Lord Ragsdale, by Carla Kelly. Historical romance. Recommended on the Smart Bitches site.

And, picked up electronically from Kobo:

• The Killing Moon, The Broken Kingdoms, The Kingdom of Gods, and The Shadowed Sun, by N.K. Jemisin. All in the general theme of “why yes, I WILL support her with buying as many of her books as possible.”
• Swan’s Braid & Other Tales of Terizan, and The Silvered by Tanya Huff. Because TANYA HUFF. Two of hers I didn’t have yet.
• Karma’s a Bitch, by Shannon Esposito. Cozy mystery. This is by one of the authors on the Paranormal Mystery list I’m on, and I thought it sounded cute and fluffy, and certainly the cover holds that up. Book 1 of the author’s Pet Psychic series.
• The Death of the Necromancer, by Martha Wells. Ebook release of one of Wells’ older fantasy novels.
• Daughter of the Sword, by Steve Bein. Urban fantasy set in Tokyo, and came highly recommended by at least one friend.
• Alif the Unseen, by G. Willow Wilson. Which also came highly recommended.
• BioShock: Rapture, by John Shirley. Tie-in novelization of the backstory of the BioShock video games. I’m not a console gamer but my housemate is, and I did enjoy what I saw of the storyline in those games. This novel takes elements from the first two games and ties them together to make a cohesive narrative about the founding of Rapture and its eventual slide into chaos. The story runs up to right before the first game starts.

109 for the year.

Because I wanted to make a dent in my wishlist, while I’m working on reading the books I actually already own, my latest round of purchases!

Picked up from Carina:

• Deep Deception, by Cathy Pegau. Because SF that features a female/female romance, woo!
• The Stolen Luck, by Shawna Reppert. Because M/M fantasy, pretty much, and to support Carina’s SF/F sales.

Picked up from B&N:

• Sweet Revenge, by Zoe Archer. Grabbed because historical romance that features a hero from the working classes, and because there’s an excellent review of it right over here on the Smart Bitches site!
• Smoketown, by Tenea D. Johnson. I read this back in 2011 as a library book and liked it quite a bit, and now it’s finally available in ebook form. So I bought my own copy.
• Let It Be Me, by Kate Noble. Historical romance. The fifth in her excellent Blue Raven series, this one features a heroine with a talent for music. Can’t get much more relevant to my interests than that. 😉

And, picked up from Kobo:

• The Firebird, by Susanna Kearsley. Historical romance. Picked up because the general principle of I’ll Buy Everything by Susanna Kearsley!
• Eucalyptus, by Murray Bail. I’ve read this one before too, but finally grabbed it in ebook to return it to my library after having sold off my print copy.
• A Good Year, by Peter Mayle. Another re-purchase in ebook form of a previously owned trade paperback. I wanted to give this another read at some point.
• The Courier’s New Bicycle, by Kim Westwood. Grabbed this one because it has some genderqueer characters and it was spoken of very well on the Outer Alliance mailing list.
• A Passion for Pleasure, by Nina Rowan. Historical romance. Book 2 of her Daring Hearts series. I liked book 1 of these quite a bit, so I wanted to give book 2 a shot.
• Thieftaker, by D.B. Jackson. Fantasy. This is another historical fantasy-type novel, and I’d been meaning to grab this one for a while after seeing it talked up on tor.com. Book 2 is imminent so I thought I’d better go ahead and get this one!

91 for the year.