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End of 2019 book roundup

This post is going up as my first in 2020, but it’s all the remaining books acquired during 2019, so these count to 2019’s overall count!

Acquired from Audible in audiobook form:

  • The A.I. Who Loved Me, by Alyssa Cole. Contemporary romance. Grabbed this one as I’ve been very fond of Cole’s work lately, and also because this is an audio-only release.
  • Signal, by Tony Peak. SF. Grabbed this one just because I had a free credit to spend from Audible due to the settlement they had to do, and there was apparently a limited number of titles to choose from, so I grabbed an SF story I didn’t recognize. Hopefully it’ll be good?

Acquired from Tor.com:

  • Wild Cards I, edited by George R.R. Martin. This is the long-running superheroes series that George R.R. Martin has to his credit, I believe as primary creator and editor? This was a recent freebie on the Tor.com monthly ebook club.

Acquired from Amazon:

  • The Deep, by Rivers Solomon, Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, and Jonathan Snipes. Fantasy. Got this in both novella and audiobook form, in no small part because Daveed Diggs apparently does the reading. And now that I’ve finally fallen in love with the Hamilton soundtrack, I was VERY interested to hear about this story as he does the audiobook narration. Plus, the story sounds pretty amazing: a race of mermaids is descended from pregnant African women who threw themselves overboard to escape slavery. And a female of this race, who’s charged with being the keeper of her people’s memories, rediscovers the surface world. Yowza. (I’m only counting this title once for the count, even though I got it in two formats.)
  • In the Dark, by Loreth Anne White. Thriller/romantic suspense. Got this one because I was able to get it for $1.99, and because I’ve read the author before and liked a previous title of hers.
  • The Vine Witch, by Luanne G. Smith. Fantasy. Nabbed this one because it sounds charming, a historical-type fantasy set in France and centered around magically-powered winemaking.
  • Daughter of Shadows, Son of Solace, and Ashes of Chadanar, by Mirren Hogan. Fantasy/fantasy romance. Grabbed this entire trilogy as I got word via the Romance Alliance discord server that author Mirren Hogan had lost her home in the fires going on down in Australia. 🙁 So I donated a little to the GoFundMe set up for her, and grabbed a few of her books as well.
  • The Melding, The Nameless Knight, and The Call of Aven-Ra, by Claire Ryan. Fantasy/fantasy romance. Grabbed this entire trilogy because of Claire Ryan doing splendid work compiling the massive timeline of events in the RWA scandal that broke just before Christmas.

Acquired from Kobo:

  • Parable of the Talents, by Octavia E. Butler. SF. Part 2 of the duology that starts with Parable of the Sower. Nabbed this because I already had book 1, and we wanted to read the pair of them in our little book club.
  • A Prince on Paper, by Alyssa Cole. Romance. Book 3 of her Reluctant Royals series, which I am enjoying immensely.
  • Talk Sweetly to Me, Once Upon a Marquess, A Kiss for Midwinter, Proof by Seduction, and Trial by Desire, all by Courtney Milan. Historical romance. Also Hold Me and Trade Me by same. Bought all of these to show my support for her in the aforementioned RWA scandal. Because DAMN.
  • Magic for Liars, by Sarah Gailey. Grabbed this because I like their hippo books and because it was on sale at the time.

Acquired in print as a Christmas gift:

  • Sauron Defeated, by J.R.R. Tolkien and Christopher Tolkien. This is book 9 of the History of Middle-Earth series, a bunch more analysis and supplementary material for the entire Middle-Earth legendarium. I’ve gotten more interested in acquiring these books due to Tor.com’s ongoing series People of Middle-Earth, looking in depth at various lesser-known characters. The writer of these posts is pulling considerably out of the History of Middle-Earth series, so yeah, I want to have a look at them myself.

86 for the year.

Books, Other People's Books

Yet another ebook roundup

So yeah, it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything besides an ebook report, I know! This post is not actually going to change that, but it’s taken me several days to compose it and I really need to get it out of my queue. So here you go!

The Candle and the Flame

The Candle and the Flame

Acquired from Kobo:

The Widow of Rose House, by Diana Biller. Gothic/historical romance. Nabbed it because of this excellent review over on Smart Bitches Trashy Books.

Palimpsest, Speak Easy, and The Refrigerator Monologues, all by Catherynne Valente. Fantasy and superheroes. Nabbed them partly because she’s just generally an excellent author, and partly also because I saw word going around on Twitter that her family got hard-hit by recent storm action. So I thought I’d make a point of grabbing a few of her titles I didn’t have already.

The City in the Middle of the Night, by Charlie Jane Anders. SF. Grabbed because I like the premise, and because it went briefly on sale for reduced price.

The Candle and the Flame, by Nafiza Azad. Fantasy. Gotten because good lord that cover is gorgeous, and because I was drawn in by the sample I read on Kobo. And by the protagonist playing an oud! (As y’all know, I am very partial to musician protagonists, and hey, I have even SEEN an oud.)

The Queen of Rhodia, Daughter of the Sun, and The Queen of Ieflaria, by Effie Calvin. SF/SF Romance, and specifically F/F as well. Book 1 of this series, The Queen of Ieflaria, originally came across my radar because of how pretty I found the cover. But the series came up again in discussion on Smart Bitches, and I was pleased enough by what I heard there that I went ahead and got all three of these.

Acquired from Amazon:

Search Image, by Julie E. Czerneda. SF. Got this one because Amazon offered me a small credit against the purchase price for recently buying something else by Czerneda. Also because I love her books.

Fortuna, by Kristyn Merbeth. SF/Space opera. Nabbed this one because I won it in a Goodreads giveaway, yo.

The Immortals, by Jordanna Max Brodsky. Urban fantasy. Nabbed this one because it’s book 1 of a series featuring Greek mythology–and in particular, starring Artemis. Partial to Greek mythos, as y’all may recall! And this book was on sale for $1.99 when I nabbed it.

Acquired from Tor.com’s Ebook of the Month mailing promotion:

The Tiger’s Daughter, by K Arsenault Rivera. Fantasy. Gotten for free as I’m on Tor.com’s periodic “here have a free ebook” promotional list.

63 for the year.

Books

Breaking radio silence book roundup

So it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, and I’ve gotten quite a few books lately from various sources. Time for another roundup post!

First up, I’ve seen some Romanceland brouhaha going around Twitter this week about yet another round of “but but but THERE WEREN’T ANY BLACK PEOPLE IN THE REGENCY!” One of the many tweets I happened to see from author Courtney Milan on the topic was an RT of a link to Black London: Life before Emancipation, a book from Rutgers University Press that delves into the history of people of color in London. The link offers the book in multiple formats, including the ability to read it online. And, it’s free.

So I nabbed it in EPUB and in MOBI form, because I definitely want to educate myself on this.

Next, from Tor.com:

The Murders of Molly Southbourne, by Tade Thompson. Nabbed this one because it was the free download of the month from the Tor.com mailing list, last month.

From Kobo:

  • The Only Thing to Fear, by Julie E. Czerneda. A novella in her Web Shifter series, which I grabbed because I am sorely behind on reading her things!
  • Mixed Signals and Signal Boost, by Alyssa Cole. Books 2 and 3 of her Off the Grid series from Carina. Nabbing these because I finally read book 1, so I’m in to give books 2 and 3 a go. Liking that from what I’m seeing, this seems like a post-apocalyptic story in which there is in fact a recovery from the apocalypse, and I’m very down with that little glimmer of hope.
  • Rosewater, by Tade Thompson. Nabbed this as I spotted it on sale, and because it’s SF set in Nigeria.
  • Her Royal Spyness, by Rhys Bowen. Book 1 of the series of the same name, period mysteries starring a young British aristocrat in 1932. She’s nowhere near the throne in the line of succession, and she’s penniless, so what’s she to do? Solve murders, naturally! Grabbed this one as another one I spotted on sale.
  • Beneath the Sugar Sky, by Seanan McGuire. Book 3 of her Wayward Children series.
  • Named of the Dragon, by Susanna Kearsley. This is one of hers I’ve already read, but in print and it hasn’t been high on my list to re-read. But the ebook went on sale for cheap, so I nabbed it. Want to give this one another shot as I didn’t quite care for it the first time and I want to see if it reads better a second time through. Having it in ebook form will bump up the chances I’ll take another look.
  • Artificial Condition, by Martha Wells. SF. Book 2 of The Murderbot Diaries. MURDERBOT! <3
  • The Toll, by Cherie Priest. A new Gothic by Priest? OH HELL YES sign me up.
  • The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics, by Olivia Waite. Book 1 of her Feminine Pursuits series, which I am nabbing because OH HELL YES F/F historical romance sign me up for that too. 😀 And I find both the title and the cover rather charming.

From Amazon:

Wolfhunter River, by Rachel Caine. Book 3 of her Stillhouse Lake thriller series. Plowed through books 1 and 2 very quickly, as I am wont to do with pretty much anything of hers I read, so I had to nab this one too. Got it from Amazon as it’s exclusively sold there.

42 for the year.

Other People's Books

Post-Norwescon ebook roundup

Gotten from Tor.com’s monthly ebook promotion:

Walkaway, by Cory Doctorow. SF. A tale about a group of people who decide to walk away from their futuristic society and what happens when they go off the grid.

Gotten from Kobo:

The Cardinal Rule, by C.E. Murphy. Romantic suspense. This is a book I bought ages ago when it was published under the pen name Cate Dermody. Catie has now revised it and re-released it, now that she’s gotten the rights back. I remember liking this the first time through and will be interested to see how this version is different!

The Raven Tower, by Ann Leckie. Fantasy. This is Leckie’s first fantasy novel, and since I have quite liked her Ancillary books so far, I wanted to give this a shot too.

Total for the year: 29

Books, Other People's Books

A holy crap have I really not posted since July?! ebook roundup

So yeah y’all may or may not have noticed I’ve been really behind on getting things posted around here. I’ve got a lot of things I just petered out on completely, and I’ve been trying to explore new ways of dealing with that.

But in the meantime, yes, hi, this blog still exists, so here, have a quick ebook roundup post!

Purchased from Amazon:

Stillhouse Lake and Killman Creek, by Rachel Caine. I have a long history of loving Caine’s work, though these two are a change of pace: they’re thrillers in which the heroine has to deal with discovering her husband is a serial killer. (YIKES!) I will probably have to be in the right headspace to read these, and I don’t know when that’s going to be. But I got them because a) Caine! and b) they were on sale.

I also nabbed them from Amazon specifically because this particular series is in fact _only_ available on Amazon. For favorite authors, I will in fact purchase from Amazon if that’s the only way I can get their work.

And back in the land where I usually purchase my ebooks, i.e., Kobo:

A Conspiracy in Belgravia, by Sherry Thomas. This is book 2 of her Lady Sherlock series, which I grabbed again because it was on sale, and also because this series has gotten talked up a lot on the Smart Bitches podcast. Thomas is a delightful interviewee, and that as well as just being fond of Sherlock Holmes pastiches drove me to go ahead and pick up book 1 earlier. Now I’ve got book 2 as well.

(And for those of you unfamiliar with this particular series, it’s still Victorian England, but ‘Sherlock Holmes’ is a cover identity of a young lady of the gentry, Charlotte Holmes. I’m reading book 1 right now as of this writing, and so far, I’m pretty intrigued by her backstory. But I’m anxious to get to the part where she’s actively solving crimes.)

Wonderful, by Jill Barnett. Historical romance. This had been hanging out for some time on my wishlist, until I recently discovered that the author had new editions of the trilogy. And also that book 1 was free. I like free! So I finally nabbed this one.

The Fall of Gondolin, by J.R.R. and Christopher Tolkien. And absolutely NONE of you should be surprised I nabbed this. This is going to possibly be the last volume of the truly great stories out of The Silmarillion edited by J.R.R. Tolkien’s son Christopher, if nothing else just due to Christopher Tolkien’s advanced years. But I’m very much looking forward to diving into this. I always felt that the fall of Gondolin was a story given short shrift in The Silmarillion!

(It should also surprise none of you I will also be picking this up in print. The print edition is currently hanging out on my Amazon wishlist. We’ll see if it shows up around Yuletide this year.)

Pre-orders which have shown up now but which I counted already:

The Fated Sky, by Mary Robinette Kowal. Now that I’ve read The Calculating Stars, I’m VERY much looking forward to diving into this.

The Girl in the Green Silk Gown, by Seanan McGuire. Another book 2 I’m looking forward to, after an excellent book 1.

This brings me up to 49 for the year.

Other People's Books

End of June 2018 ebook roundup

Because I forgot to note that I nabbed it as Tor.com’s May freebie, here’s that for the ebook roundup:

The Quantum Thief, by Hannu Rajaniemi. SF.

Also, two of my pre-orders mentioned in the last roundup post came in, yay! Looking forward to reading Witchmark and Trail of Lightning!

But meanwhile, I also nabbed all three of Tanya Huff’s Peacekeeper trilogy from Kobo, now that Book 3 has dropped. This is of course military SF and I grabbed ’em on general “Because Tanya Huff needs more of my money” principles, and because I’ve liked the Torin Kerr books that came before these. These books are An Ancient Peace, A Peace Divided, and The Privilege of Peace.

42 for the year (I’ve already counted Trail of Lightning and Witchmark).

Other People's Books

Mid June 2018 ebook roundup

This month’s free ebook from Tor.com’s ebook club was V.E. Schwab’s A Darker Shade of Magic, so I nabbed that one. Because hey, free!

Nabbed from Kobo, because they were on sale:

Provenance, by Ann Leckie. I’ve been enjoying the Ancillary novels quite a bit (I’ve read the first two, still need to read the third), so I wanted this one as well.

Space Opera, by Catherynne M. Valente. Because if you tell me a book is essentially “Eurovision IN SPACE”, then why yes you HAVE MY ATTENTION. ;D

And pre-ordered from Kobo, because all of these are relevant to my interests:

The Calculating Stars and The Fated Sky, by Mary Robinette Kowal. Pair of novels set in the same universe as her excellent short story “The Lady Astronaut of Mars”. VERY much looking forward to these.

Trail of Lightning, by Rebecca Roanhorse. Urban fantasy. Nabbing this one because a) it’s urban fantasy utilizing Navaho mythos, and b) written by an actual Native American author. Also VERY much looking forward to this one. 😀

Witchmark, by C.L. Polk. Fantasy. All the buzz about this one talks about this one as very reminiscent of Howl’s Moving Castle in terms of the culture it’s set in. But it’s also got a queer romance in it, and all in all, from what I’ve seen in reading excerpts and descriptions, there’s a high likelihood of this being charming. I particularly like the heavy emphasis on bicycles being important to this book’s culture!

38 for the year.