gosh I have a lot of books

Because Carina Press threw me a coupon at the last minute, and well hey, I like coupons!

Therefore, picked up electronically from Carina Press:

• The Hollow House, by Janis Patterson. Period mystery-type deal. Our heroine’s living under an assumed name, and takes on the position of companion to a wealthy recluse. Only people start dying in the household of said recluse, and our heroine must work to keep from being accused of murder!
• Dark Vow, by Shona Husk. Paranormal Western seems to be the best description for this thing, as a woman’s out to avenge the murder of her husband, and she and a man targeted by the same Arcane Bounty Hunter must go up against the Arcane Union.
• Brass and Bone, by Cynthia Gael. Steampunk novella, with added magic.

ETA: Whoops, I also forgot that I grabbed the novella Magic Gifts from Ilona Andrews’ site, the one set in the Kate Daniels universe. I need to get caught up on those before I read this, but hey, free books are awesome.

Which makes my final 2011 tally 253. Significantly lower than 2010, I believe! We’ll have to see what 2012 brings me in the way of new books.

This is likely to be my last book roundup before the end of the year, so here goes!

Picked up electronically from Barnes and Noble:

• White Tiger, by Kylie Chan. Grabbed this because it’s on sale for .99, and for that price, I’m willing to try Book 1 of quite a few things. This is urban fantasy purporting to be heavy on the Chinese mythos, though the protagonist is an Australian woman, and reviews indicate I should probably expect some Mary-Sue-ism going in. Specifically, this one was reviewed over at Smart Bitches, since there tends to be overlap between urban fantasy and paranormal romance. We’ll see where on the UF/PR spectrum this one falls.
• Phoenix Rising, by Philippa Ballantine and Tee Morris. Steampunk, #1 of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences series. I actually already have this one in mass market paperback, but I grabbed it electronically because again, .99 price point.
• Napoleon’s Pyramids, by William Dietrich. Adventure/suspense, it looks like, of the “find the mysterious historical artifact” variety. Grabbed this one since it was a NOOK freebie.
• Kitemaster and Other Stories, by Jim C. Hines. Short story collection. Grabbed this one because Jim Hines is generally awesome, and because there’s also a preview in here of his forthcoming Libriomancer novel.

And, picked up electronically from Kobo, since they sent me a 20 percent off coupon for a purchase because of being a customer there for a year:

• Kit’s Law: A Novel, by Donna Morrissey. Re-buy of a book previously owned in print, a story set in Newfoundland.

247 for the year.

So um yeah Harlequin has a coupon up today, for 50 percent off of any purchase on their ebook store. I was going to stoically refrain until I remembered OH HEY Luna is an imprint of Harlequin–and there were quite a few Luna books I wanted to look at.

Therefore, picked up electronically from Harlequin today:

• Urban Shaman, Thunderbird Falls, and Coyote Dreams, by mizkit. The first three books of the Walker Papers, which I didn’t have electronically yet.
• Hammer of the Earth and Shield of the Sky, by Susan Krinard. Fantasy, with what appears to be a Neolithic-like setting.
• Aftertime, Survivors, and Rebirth, by Sophie Littlefield. Post-apocalyptic SF, with zombies. Promises to be grim, but I liked the idea of the heroine having actually recovered from a previous zombiefied state, and being on the hunt for her stolen daughter. (NOTE: Survivors is a novella set after Book 1, and Harlequin currently has it for free on their site.)
• Cast in Shadow, by Michelle Sagara West. Fantasy. Book 1 of the Chronicles of Elantra, which I keep hearing about. I’ve read older books by her and kept meaning to check this series out.
• The Morcai Battalion, The Morcai Battalion: The Recruit, and The Morcai Battalion: Invictus, by Susan Kyle. SF of the space opera/military variety, and I snurched these since I’m not used to seeing the Luna imprint doing SF and I wish to support this with my moneys!

242 for the year.

Because it’s what I DO.

Picked up electronically from Carina Press:

• Unearthed, Unraveled, Unmasked, and Unleashed, all by C.J. Barry. These are sci-fi romance, and were all apparently previously published–by Dorchester. Those of you who follow the romance genre at all may now flinch in understanding! Ms. Barry appears to have found a new home at Carina, and I like me some skiffy romance, so I thought sure why not. And for the record, from what I’m seeing on Goodreads, Carina’s covers for these books are way nicer than Dorchester’s!

Picked up electronically from Torquere Books:

• Steam-Powered 2: More Lesbian Steampunk Stories, edited by upstart_crow, JoSelle Vanderhooft! This is the sequel to the anthology I reviewed several months ago and which I found very strong overall. Looking forward to reading this. Currently available in ebook form from Torquere Books, and if you want the paperback, keep an eye on that site for ordering. I’m also seeing the paperback listed on B&N, and both the paperback and the Kindle Edition on Amazon.

Picked up electronically from Smashwords:

• Repeating History, by mmegaera, M.M. Justus! This is a review copy and I’ll be reviewing it for her. Paranoral romance about a young man who is flung back in time and winds up impacting his own past.

And, picked up electronically from Barnes and Noble:

• The Habitation of the Blessed, by Catherynne M. Valente. This was a B&N freebie a couple weeks ago, and I’d been meaning to read it anyway, so *yoink*! This is Valente’s story about Prester John, from Night Shade Books.
• Lucky’s Lady, Cry Wolf, A Thin Dark Line, and Still Waters, all by Tami Hoag. These are various suspense novels I’d previously owned in paperback, rebought electronically.
• The Color of Magic, by Terry Pratchett. This is of course the first Discworld novel, and I’m picking it up because a) it’s high time I read it, and b) it’s on sale for .99 on for Nook readers all throughout November.

228 for the year.

Picked up in print, as of today, ordered for me courtesy of the awesome cow:

• Bilbo le hobbit, the French-language edition of The Hobbit
• Avis de tempête, the French-language edition of Storm Front, the first book of the Dresden Files!

Meanwhile, from Barnes and Noble, I grabbed the ebook editions of all my previously owned X-Files novels:

• Whirlwind, by Charles Grant
• Antibodies, by Kevin J. Anderson
• Skin, by Ben Mezrich
• Goblins, by Charles Grant
• Ruins, by Kevin J. Anderson
• Ground Zero, by Kevin J. Anderson

I also have grabbed three more books from Carina Press, to wit:

• Altered Destiny, by Shawna Thomas. SF/romance, it looks like.
• Rulebreaker, by Cathy Pegau. SF. Grabbed this one very, very specifically because it’s an F/F story, and those are so thin on the ground outside of specifically LGBT presses that it ain’t even funny! If you’re looking for F/F SF (with a likely heap o’ romantic interest on the side), I’d encourage making a point of checking this one out so’s to encourage Carina Press to sell more.
• Dangerous Magic, by Alix Rickloff. Historical/paranormal romance. The heroine’s a witch, and she’s rescued a smuggler with the intent of convincing him to father her a child. Hoping it’ll be fun!

Here’s a freebie I snarfed the other day without remembering to attribute it before–got the heads up about this one, I think, from the Smart Bitches:

• The Inconvenient Duchess, by Christine Merrill. Historical romance. I have no idea if I’ll like it, but hey, it was free!

Last but not least, the aforementioned 501 French Verbs. The 3rd edition was the version in print that maellenkleth sent me, and the 6th edition is the one I’ve bought for the Nook!

Counting the verbs book twice for two different editions, that’s 216 for the year! J’ai lu un nombre ridicule de livres, indeed!

Back from V-CON, and a full post on that will be forthcoming, but before I do that here’s a quick roundup of books recently acquired!

Picked up electronically:

• Lord and Lady Spy, by Shana Galen. Historical romance. Nabbed this because of Smart Bitch Sarah alerting the Bitchery that it was on sale for .99 for the Nook, and I figured what the hell, I’m willing to spend 99 cents on this. It’s a historical romance version of the “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” spy scenario, and it sounds like fun!

Picked up in print, separately from V-CON:

• Ganymede, by Cherie Priest. The next book in her Clockwork Century series, for GREAT ZOMBIE STEAMPUNK JUSTICE. ‘Nuff said!

Picked up in print, at V-CON:

• Matriarch, by Karen Traviss. SF. This is Book 4 in her Wess’Har series, which I happened to grab because I saw it in a free books pile in the con suite. Woo!
• Heroes Die Young, by T.M. Hunter. Bought from the nice ladies at the Champagne Books table, who even told me that if I liked this book, I could email her and say “Hey I got this at V-CON, can I have the ebook?”, and she’d let me have it! How awesome is that? As for what the book’s actually about, it’s a short space-opera type thing, with a hero in the mold of Han Solo. Which, as y’all should know by now, is very, very relevant to my interests!
• The Bloodlight Chronicles: Reconciliation, by Steve Stanton. SF technothriller, bought from the SF Canada table (they appear to be a Canadian analog of SFWA). This is about an alien virus that vastly prolongs life, and a man desperately searching for its source so that he may grant eternal life to his son, who doesn’t have the virus.
• Dance of Knives, by Donna McMahon. Also bought from the SF Canada table, and this one’s an SF novel about a futuristic Vancouver controlled by tongs and gangs. I was intrigued to note that this one was previously published by Tor, and the author has since gotten her rights back (due to low sales numbers) and has self-pubbed it and the sequel.
• Forbidden Cargo, by Rebecca K. Rowe. SF, picked up from the EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing table. This one’s about the creator of a virtual system that allows instant access to all of humanity’s knowledge uncovering a plot to prove the existence of an illegally engineered race.
• And last but definitely not least, Dirk Danger Loves Life, by Chris Rothe. Bought from the nice gentleman at the Atomic Fez Publishing table, because a) I’d heard of this book, b) Atomic Fez is an AWESOME name for a publishing company, and c) the book’s a comedy, and I’m down with the funny right now. I can’t do better than the blurb in telling you what it’s about: “a not-so-typical coming of age story involving scuba gear, terrible poetry, a fish eulogy, a walrus, pop music, terrible puns, marijuana, a fake attorney, homelessness, death, and far, far too much pornography”.

202 for the year!