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Books

50th anniversary Doctor Who book roundup

Picked up in print from Barnes and Noble, because I DO buy Kit in both formats:

  • Mountain Echoes, by C.E. Murphy. Book Eight of the Walker Papers.

Picked up from Kobo:

  • Avis de tempête and Sturmnacht, by Jim Butcher. These are the French and German translations of Storm Front, which is of course Book 1 of the Dresden Files.
  • Dhampir, Thief of Lives, and Sister of the Dead, by Barb and J.C. Hendee. These are the first three books of the Hendees’ Noble Dead series, one of the few fantasy series doing a treatment of vampires that I’d ever read anything of. I liked the first couple of them. This is me re-buying them in ebook form.

Also picked up from Kobo, but calling these out in a separate list as they’re all the ebook releases of the special 50th Anniversary editions of selected Doctor Who novels, one for each Doctor!

  • Ten Little Aliens, by Stephen Cole
  • Dreams of Empire, by Justin Richards
  • Last of the Gaderene, by Mark Gatiss
  • Festival of Death, by Jonathan Morris
  • Fear of the Dark, by Trevor Baxendale
  • Players, by Terrance Dicks
  • Remembrance of the Daleks, by Ben Aaronovitch
  • Earthworld, by Jacqueline Rayner
  • Only Human, by Gareth Roberts
  • Beautiful Chaos, by Gary Russell
  • The Silent Stars Go By, by Dan Abnett

52 for the year.

Books

Mixed-media book roundup

Picked up in print from Third Place:

  • Midnight Blue-Light Special, by userinfoseananmcguire. Book 2 of the Incryptid series. Bought for obvious reasons. 🙂

Picked up in print from the comic book store at Pike Place Market:

  • Zombie Haiku and Dawn of Zombie Haiku, by Ryan Mecum. Bought because I got the first of these to give to the team as part of this past Christmas’ white elephant gift exchange and I thought it was quite silly. So I went back and got both of these. Because yes indeed, sublimely silly!

Picked up in print from Comicon:

  • Agatha H. and the Clockwork Princess, by Phil and Kaja Foglio. Second of the Girl Genius novels.
  • Anne Steelyard: The Gate of Dreams and Starlight and Anne Steelyard: A Thousand Waters, by Barbara Hambly. The second and third of the Anne Steelyard graphic novels, which I grabbed because a) Barbara Hambly, and b) I thought the concept of a story set in an Indiana-Jones-esque timeframe but with a female lead character sounded like fun, and c) I liked the look of the art. The table I bought them from had only books 2 and 3 though so I’m going to have to swing back and get book 1.

Grabbed for free off of B&N since it was a Friday freebie:

  • The Taken, by Vicki Pettersson. Book 1 of the Celestial Blues series. Grabbed because I liked the idea of a previously deceased P.I. from the fifties having become an angel and needing to keep a modern-day rockabilly fangirl from being murdered. Sounds like it might be a nice change of pace in urban fantasy, at least enough that I’m absolutely willing to give it a shot.

And, grabbed off of my Third Place Kobo account:

  • Mountain Echoes, by userinfomizkit! Book 8 of the Walker Papers. Grabbed because, well, DUH. 😀
  • A Turn of Light, by Julie E. Czerneda. Grabbed because as I’ve posted about before, Czerneda is one of my all-time favorite SF authors. This is her first fantasy novel!

35 for the year so far.

Books

The Kobo is still shiny ebook roundup post

Latest roundup of books, particularly motivated by trying to get caught up on the releases of several of my fellow Carina authors!

Thus, from Carina Press:

  • The Magic Mirror and the Seventh Dwarf, by Tia Nevitt. The second of her fairy tale adaptations, which I had to grab pretty much because of adoring that she’s got a dwarf heroine, and let’s hear it for heroines of atypical body types!
  • Blood of the Pride, by Sheryl Nantus. This one’s urban fantasy. I liked the idea of a cat shifter who’s unable to shift being the protagonist, and this is also me supporting the SF/F side of Carina’s catalogue!
  • Golden Triangle, by David Bridger. See previous comment re: supporting Carina’s urban fantasy. This is the second of Mr. Bridger’s books.
  • Journey of Awakening, by Shawna Thomas. This is the second book from Ms. Thomas I’ve picked up from Carina, and this one’s more fantasy than her other one. I’ll want to get caught up soon on her too.

From Kobo & Third Place, for the new reader:

  • Sweet Deception, by Heather Snow. Historical romance. I read book 1 of her series not terribly long ago, rather liked it, and am picking up book 2.
  • Mark of the Lion, Stalking Ivory, and The Serpent’s Daughter, by Suzanne Arruda. These are all re-buys, and are the first three books of the historical mystery series featuring Jade del Cameron.
  • The Man in the Queue, by Josephine Tey. Mystery. First of her Inspector Alan Grant series. Grabbed because the fifth of these, The Daughter of Time, was recently highly spoken of on tor.com.
  • The Spiral Hunt, by Margaret Ronald. Urban fantasy. Grabbed because I’d seen this spoken well of on Whatever, because it’s urban fantasy with scent-based magic, and because Kobo currently has it listed for .99.
  • Still Life With Murder, by P.B. Ryan. This was a recommendation, in the realm of historical mystery, and Kobo has this one for .99 right now too.
  • The Hanover Square Affair, by Ashley Gardner. Another recommendation of the historical mystery variety. And, again, .99 right now on Kobo!

In print, from Third Place:

  • The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey. Book 5 of the aforementioned Alan Grant series. Bought in print specifically because of being happy with Third Place’s customer service, and also because of the aforementioned positive review on tor.com.
  • Blackveil, by Kristen Britain. Fantasy. Book 4 of her series about the Green Riders, picking up at last because my previous copies of books in these series were all in mass market paperback and the book’s finally out in that form.

Last but not last, from B&N for the Nook:

  • If I Fall, by Kate Noble. Historical romance. Book 4 of her Blue Raven series.

26 now for the year.

Books

The oh HEY I have a whole new ereader book roundup

But this is not to say I haven’t bought books lately in print as well, because I have!

Picked up in print from Third Place:

  • Cold Days by Jim Butcher, which I have of course already read, but I hadn’t yet picked up my paperback copy to add to my collection. Because oh my YES Mr. Butcher is on the “must have both electronically and in print in case of zombie apocalypse and OHNOEZ NO MORE ELECTRICITY” list.
  • The Inexplicables, by Cherie Priest. The latest one in her Clockwork Century series–looking forward to this one since it takes the action back to steampunky, zombie-infested Seattle!

Meanwhile, as I have posted about earlier, I’ve picked up a Kobo Mini in my effort to start shifting my ebook purchases over to support Third Place. A big part of this is motivated by the desire to support said store, though there’s a considerable amount here as well of being disgruntled with Barnes and Nobles’ customer service. I’ve never had any particular issues with the Nook as a device; the hardware is lovely and the current edition of the software on mine is simple and doesn’t screw up what I want it to do, i.e., let me read books. But I’ve never been happy with B&N’s customer support, especially in regards to supporting Mac users.

(The Nook desktop app is still broken on Mountain Lion, for example, and I’ve never heard yet if they’re planning to bother to fix it any time in the next few years. Every time I google about it, I see a whole bunch of cranky Mac users posting to the B&N forums.)

So yeah. That I can support Third Place now with my purchases is lovely and from what I’ve seen so far, responsive customer support on Kobo’s part is bonus. These things together have combined to get several shiny new ebooks showing up on my shiny new Kobo Mini, several of which have been on the Rebuy list for a while. But not all!

So, picked up from Third Place/Kobo:

  • The Duchess War, by Courtney Milan. Grabbing this one because I’ve quite liked her historical romances, and this one’s starting a whole new series. ALSO, Kobo’s selling it for real cheap right now, but if you act super-fast, i.e., by the 20th, you can use a coupon to knock 50% off the price. How shiny is that? Thank you, Smart Bitches Trashy Books!
  • The Wounded Sky, by Diane Duane. Because this is one of my favorite Star Trek novels from the first big run of them. We have a physical copy in our library but I wanted an ebook too.
  • Strangers from the Sky, by Margaret Wander Bonanno. Another Trek novel. This is one I’d actually grabbed a German edition of when I’d grabbed a compilation from the Kobo set, one which included Vonda McIntyre’s Enterprise: The First Adventure–so I wanted the original English edition of this too!
  • Murder with Peacocks and Murder with Puffins, by Donna Andrews. These are rebuys, the first two books of her Meg Lanslow series. Decided I wanted them back in ebook form.

But–it’s important to note that I’m not actually going to bail entirely on my B&N account for now. For organizational purposes, if I started buying a series on B&N, I’m going to continue to do so. Like, say:

  • Victory of Eagles, by Naomi Novik. This is book five of the Temeraire series. Which I did actually already own in hardback, so I clearly needed an ebook copy! Once I finish doing some beta reading for userinfokisanthe, I’m going to jump back into my mad dash through the rest of this series, prepping for Book 8 to drop this summer!

Total of 11 for the year, so far.

Books

Overlapping years book roundup

Picked up in print:

  • The Wild Ways, by Tanya Huff. Book 2 of her Gale Women series. Just finished Book 1 and enjoyed it immensely, so had to scarf this one up ASAP.

Meanwhile, picked up electronically:

  • Touched by Magic and Wolverine’s Daughter, both by Doranna Durgin. I have paperback copies of both of these, but Durgin has made them available until the 15th for free out of her backlist, so I took the opportunity to scarf them down. Touched by Magic is one of my long-standing favorites of hers, and I definitely recommend it!

And these two were the last two ebooks I picked up to close out 2012:

  • Mariana and The Shadowy Horses, by Susanna Kearsley. These were on sale for .99 each, so I snagged ’em even though I own copies of both in paperback.

That finishes off the 2012 count at 148, and starts off 2013 at 3.

Books

A great big YAY I have a new computer book roundup

And now, a great big ebook roundup because I haven’t had one in a while, and I grabbed quite a few more things off my backlogged wishlist! Had this sitting in my Drafts folder for a while, long enough that I even went through all of this week’s computer fun before I got around to actually finishing this post!

And now I get to finish reorganizing all my ebooks, too, now that my Fictionwise library has finally shown up in my B&N account. BUT! I’m still pulling in some new books too!

Grabbed from B&N, I give you:

  • Night Sins and Guilty as Sin, a thriller duology by Tami Hoag. Rebought in ebook form and chances are high I’ll be re-reading these sometime soon.
  • A Great Deliverance, by Elizabeth George. Book 1 of the redoubtable Inspector Lynley series, rebought in ebook form. Because there are a whole lot of these and I needed to clear up my shelf space!
  • A Flaw in the Blood, by Stephanie Barron. Period mystery from the same author who did the Jane Austen mystery series I liked. I hadn’t actually read this yet but am re-buying in ebook form since I had to get rid of the trade paperback to clear up shelf space.
  • Cowboys & Aliens, by Joan D. Vinge. Novelization of the movie, bought because I respect Joan Vinge’s writing and want to see what she did with the first novel she’s written in years.
  • Blood Bargain, by Maria Lima. Book 2 of her urban fantasy series, picked up finally since I did like book 1!
  • Northern Lights, by Nora Roberts. Standalone romantic suspense, because I do love me some Nora and I haven’t read this one yet.
  • Angels Fall, by Nora Roberts. Again, romantic suspense, but this is a re-buy of a book previously owned in paperback.
  • Killing Time, by Della Van Hise. Star Trek novelization, #24 of the original run of TOS novels. I particularly liked this one for being an alternate timeline in which Spock was Captain of the Enterprise and Kirk was a pissed-off Ensign. Will be re-reading soon, since I’m re-buying it for my collection.
  • The Hidden Goddess, by M.K. Hobson. Book 2 of her steampunk/romance series, picked up since I quite liked Book 1, and I supported her Kickstarter for Book 3, so I really kinda oughtta read Book 2 as well. 😀
  • Flip This Zombie, by Jesse Petersen. Because zombies + comedy = love, and because the first book was fun and I’m looking forward to reading this one!
  • Chasing Fire, by Nora Roberts. Yet another Nora romantic suspense, because apparently I’m feeling a shortage of that lately in my life.
  • Alpha and Omega, by Patricia Briggs. This is her novella that launched the Alpha and Omega series, which I’m buying in standalone ebook even though I’ve already read it as part of the On the Prowl anthology.
  • Why Mermaids Sing and Where Serpents Sleep, by C.S. Harris. Period mystery. Books 3 and 4 of her Sebastian St. Cyr series, which I’m looking forward to continuing.
  • Farthing, by Jo Walton. SF. Because I’ve been wanting to read this for a while.

And from Harlequin’s ebook store, because yeah, I can be seduced with the blandishments of a 50 percent off coupon:

  • Survival Instinct, by Doranna Durgin. One of her Silhouette Bombshells I’d been meaning to get for a while.
  • Checkmate, by Doranna Durgin. Another Bombshell, though this one is in the Athena Force series, which I was already interested in!
  • Sentinels: Kodiak Chained, yet again by Doranna Durgin. Because I like her Sentinels shapeshifters series, and this is the latest in same. Let’s see if she makes werebears sexy!
  • The Pirate Bride, by Shannon Drake. Because PIRATES. YARR.
  • Midnight Caller, by Leslie Tentler. I thought this sounded like a fun romantic suspense a while back, and I only just got around to picking it up now.

139 for the year.

Books

Quick book roundup

Because I need to put a dent in my inbox!

Grabbed from B&N, in ebook form:

  • The Inexplicables, by Cherie Priest. Latest novel in her Clockwork Century series, which as you all know, I quite adore.

And grabbed from Angry Robot since they were offering a nice coupon for it:

  • Seven Wonders, by Adam Christopher. Because fun with superheroes!

118 for the year.