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Belated short and Holmesian book roundup

Bought electronically for the Nook:

  • The House of Silk: A Sherlock Holmes Novel, by Anthony Horowitz. Grabbed this since it’s the new authorized-by-one-of-the-Doyle-estates Holmes novel, the one that’s supposed to be considered an addition to the canon. Have heard good things about it, so I’ll be checking it out.

And bought from Kobo:

  • Sherlock Holmes: The Breath of God and Sherlock Holmes: The Army of Doctor Moreau, by Guy Adams. Other Sherlock Holmes adventures. I unfortunately had to return the first of these as Kobo had the wrong book associated with that title in the database, so I’ll have to see if I can get a copy via alternate purchasing means.

This puts me at 116 for the year.

November 15, 2012 by
Books

Fast ebook roundup

Picked up from B&N for my Nook:

  • Island of Bones, by Imogen Robertson. Mystery, #3 in her Crowther and Westerman series, which I am enjoying immensely! Bought this as soon as it hit the US market in ebook form.
  • Beautiful Sacrifice, by Elizabeth Lowell. Romantic suspense, this time around playing on the whole Ohnoez Mayan Ending of the World in 2012 thing.
  • Jane Carver of Waar, by Nathan Long. This was the freebie for this past Friday for the Nook, and I scarfed it since it’s a parody of the John Carter novels. Thought it might be entertaining to check it out.

114 for the year!

October 14, 2012 by
Books

Because indie authors are love book roundup post

Only one book to report for this post, and I’m doing it anyway because I need to clear out my inbox!

I commend to your all’s attention True Gold by M.M. Justus, a.k.a. userinfommegaera, same ID on Dreamwidth! I quite liked her first independent release, which was Repeating History. So if you like historical romance with Western flavor to it, and you’re an ebook person, go check her out, mmkay? Nice and cheap at just $3.99 for either book on Smashwords.

109 for the year!

ETA: Oops, I totally forgot that I also picked up two things in print–userinfoseanan_mcguire‘s latest Toby Daye, Ashes of Honor, and the final Sirantha Jax book by Ann Aguirre, Endgame! So that actually puts me at 111 for the year.

September 15, 2012 by
Books

I love it when this happens

In the genres I habitually read, it’s not often that I can pick up a book and have it throw me words I’d never seen before. It’s even rarer that a book will throw me more than one word I don’t know. Elizabeth George is one author who’s done this, with her Inspector Lynley mysteries.

And now Chaz Brenchley is another author. I just had the pleasure of finishing his House of Doors, and even aside from quite liking it (moody, atmospheric haunted-house type story, just the sort of haunted-house story I like), I was delighted to find nine words in it I’d never seen before.

Here, for your amusement and edification, I present them: blench, exeat, hurly, ukase, inutile, landaulet, bruit, pedicle, and inculcate!

Bruit was particularly amusing to me as I had recognized that as a word in the title of one of the albums in my Quebecois music collection, namely, Le Bruit court dans la ville.

September 9, 2012 by
Books

Resuming long overdue book review posts

Anybody miss my book review posts? I’ve certainly missed doing them, and I’m severely behind on ’em. I’ve been so busy over the last many months that it’s been impossible for me to review books in a timely fashion, I’m afraid. I have been regularly rating them on Goodreads, but that’s just not the same, I think. Apologies for my chronic tardiness on this, especially to my fellow authors to whom I promised book reviews a LONG time ago.

So this is your all’s notice that I’m going to try to get a bit more caught up. I have overdue reviews from both 2011 AND 2012, so don’t be confused if you see Book Log posts showing up for both years. I’m going to alternate between them to try to close the gaps!

I’ll be picking up again with reviews from June of 2011. Next up: Trash Course, a mystery from Carina Press!

August 28, 2012 by
Books

A bilingual book roundup post!

I just made the delightful discovery that several of the French SF/F books I wanted to get are in fact available for the Nook–so I indulged myself and grabbed them! They’re ones that I THINK are all available from the same publisher, which might explain why I found them on bn.com. The publisher in question is Alire–who stand out for me with their covers because of a distinctive way of showing the author’s last name in a vertical block of white text on black. So here are the books of theirs I grabbed! Most of these are titles I grabbed off the lists of recent Aurora Award winners and/or nominees, so they seemed like excellent examples of Francophone SF/F authors to check out. And Esther Rochon I grabbed because of her being recommended by userinfocow!

  • La saga d’Illyge, by Sylvie Bérard
  • La Tueuse de dragons, by Héloïse Côté (also because dragons!)
  • Lame (Les Chroniques infernales #1), by Esther Rochon (important note: ‘Lame’ here actually means ‘blade’, NOT the same word as in English)
  • RESET – Le Voile de lumière, by Joël Champetier
  • Montréel, by Éric Gauthier

So yeah, those ought to keep me occupied for some time!

Meanwhile, I had Dara pick this up for me from Amazon, in print:

  • Traditional Songs from Quebec, for English-Speakers, by Josie Mendelsohn. Grabbed this because it came highly recommended by Dejah Leger and the others in the local Quebec music crowd, and to further my general immersion in the genre! VERY much looking forward to diving into this.

And I grabbed this in print because I’ve needed to grab a copy for a while, and because of the general awesomeness of Smart Bitches Trashy Books:

  • Everything I Know about Love I Learned from Romance Novels, by Sarah Wendell. This is the second book from the SB’s, and should be quite fun. As I understand it, this’ll be a strong callback to the recurring SB-TB site feature of romance-based advice posts

And last but not least, from Carina Press on general grounds of their awesomeness AND because they sent me a coupon:

  • The Superheroes Union: Dynama, by Ruth Diaz. Grabbed because 1) superheros! and 2) it’s an F/F romance! And I am all over supporting Carina publishing F/F titles!
  • Ten Ruby Trick and The Pirate’s Lady, by Julia Knight. Because PIRATES. Yarr!

This brings me to 108 for the year!

August 27, 2012 by
Books

And now some really awesome things on a book roundup type post

This is a book roundup post made entirely of awesomeness, since it features four of my favorite authors!

Picked up in print:

  • Seawitch, by userinfokatatomic (Kat Richardson). Book Seven of the Greywalker books, which I’m quite looking forward to reading! Also bought in ebook because Kat is indeed at the top of my buying list and is Just. That. Awesome.
  • Two Weeks’ Notice, by userinforachelcaine. Book Two of her Revivalists series, which I am also quite looking forward to!

And, picked up electronically:

  • Seawitch, as previously mentioned!
  • Sentinels: Tiger Bound, by Doranna Durgin. Paranormal romance, the latest in her ongoing Sentinels series, which I’ve posted about before. I leapt all over this one since it features Maks, a Sentinel who transforms into a Siberian tiger, and I was quite partial to him with his brief appearances in earlier books since he’s very much the taciturn and earnest type that pushes my buttons in novels. I’ve already read this one, too, and it was great fun.
  • Libriomancer, by userinfojimhines (Jim C. Hines). HUGELY looking forward to reading this one–this is the first of Jim’s new series, about a guy who’s gifted in book-related magic! This is possibly THE best way to design a magic system for Relevance to My Interests EVER. Except maybe if you make a magic system around playing the bouzouki. 😀

98 for the year! And counting Seawitch twice since I DID buy it both formats!

August 18, 2012 by