Back in May I did a blog on books I was looking forward to for the rest of the year. Since I've read everything on that list that has been released and added a few more things to my "ooh, interesting/cool/yay book by favourite author" list, I thought I'd do an update. So here's a taste of some books I'm going to be reading in the next few months.
Cold Magic - Kate Elliott (Out now) (The world sounds intriguing and I love her Jaran books)
Graceling - Kristen Cashore (Out now) (have been meaning to read this for ages and found it at the library yesterday)
Blood of Ambrose - James Enge (read an excerpt thanks to the Big Brother so am hunting it down)
Bayou Moon - Ilona Andrews (Out today I do believe!)
Breathless - Anne Stuart (October) (Having devoured Ruthless and Reckless I'm waiting impatiently for the mailman to deliver this)
Dark Road to Darjeeling - Deanna Raybourn (October)
Butterfly Kisses - Jeanne Lin (October) (Just read Tang dynasty based fantasy by Guy Gavriel Kay so now for some Tang-y romance)
The Accidental Wedding - Anne Gracie (October) (Just scored an ARC of this but will no doubt buy it too!)
Pegasus - Robin McKinley (Not until November but new Robin is worth anticipating)
Cryoburn - Lois McMaster Bujold (November - new Miles, squee of frabjous joy)
Heaven's Spite - Lilith Saintcrow (November)
The Iron Duke - Meljean Brook (November) (Steampunk romance...intriguing!)
How to Bake a Perfect Life - Barbara O'Neal (December...which will probably push it to a Jan 11 read but it's a good way to start the year!)
Call Me Irresistible - Susan Elizabeth Phillips (January) (holy cow, that's next year...someone hit slow down on the year!)
Blood Challenge - Eileen Wilks (January)
Loose Ends - Tara Janzen (January)
What I Did For A Duke - Julie Anne Long (February)
When Beauty Tamed the Beast - Eloisa James (February)
I'm sure there are some I'm missing. I'll update as they come to me. How about everyone else? What bundle of storytelling joy are you eagerly awaiting?
September 28, 2010
September 26, 2010
Home stretch
September has been the month of very busy all the time. I have one more week of the crazy to go and then I will be officially entering the writing hermit cave until the book is done. Which is getting close. Have basically three sequences left then the climax and resolution. So hopefully it will come together fast! Ideally I want to be done mid October so I have time for a quick fine tune the prose pass before it heads off to my editor.
Then there will be pondering of book three's plot. I know the start, I'm looking forward to throwing my hero and heroine together but the rest is a vague foggy blur. Hopefully fog lamps will appear and illuminate it all when I get there!
Also after the book is done, I get to learn to use a spinning wheel. Hey, the girls in the basement think it's cool, so I'm going with it. More about that over on the crafty blog (see the link at the side). The girls like colour a LOT so I think that's part of the appeal. Plus I find watching a wheel soothing somehow. Hopefully it's as soothing when I'm the one feeding it fibre!
So blogging may be a bit scarce for the next four weeks or so but I'll try and catch up while I can!
Then there will be pondering of book three's plot. I know the start, I'm looking forward to throwing my hero and heroine together but the rest is a vague foggy blur. Hopefully fog lamps will appear and illuminate it all when I get there!
Also after the book is done, I get to learn to use a spinning wheel. Hey, the girls in the basement think it's cool, so I'm going with it. More about that over on the crafty blog (see the link at the side). The girls like colour a LOT so I think that's part of the appeal. Plus I find watching a wheel soothing somehow. Hopefully it's as soothing when I'm the one feeding it fibre!
So blogging may be a bit scarce for the next four weeks or so but I'll try and catch up while I can!
September 24, 2010
September 20, 2010
A note to me
Next time, do try and write a first draft that's less like a jigsaw puzzle. There will be less headbanging involved in the revision!
Ta
Love
Me
Ta
Love
Me
September 05, 2010
Sunday fives
A random Sunday post about things running through my brain.
Five things I'm lusting after right now:
1. An e-reader
2. A spinning wheel
3. Some sort of sneaker/trail shoe as comfy as my hiking boots (yeah, my feet are sore from yesterday) for the warmer weather
4. New carpet
5. A new iPhone
Five things I'm over:
1. The election
2. Football
3. My current klutzy phase
4. Weird tasting mouthwash
5. Things that are weird on my Windows netbook
Five things I am thinking about:
1. How to do six different first person POVs in three books and get them right
2. Drop spindling (including wondering if the girl I saw spindling at AussieCon was American because I've never seen anyone spindling in public in Australia before outside a fibrey type event)
3. Various AussieCon4 food for thought from panels
4. Music I like (thanks to a Facebook meme)
5. The next chapter in my book
If I had five wishes right now I'd:
1. Have a finished draft of book 2
2. Have a free two months in my schedule & the money to spend it traveling and relaxing doing various crafty and writing buddy things
3. Have a personal chef/maid/butler/trainer
4. Have a mac that is not sick
5. Live on a planet that wasn't going crazy with the weather and causing many people lots of grief
6. Solve the e-reader format wars & geographic restrictions/pricing weirdness overnight (okay, that's six but hey it's my blog)
Five things I need right now:
1. More caffeine
2. To find some bridesmaid shoes in the next few weeks
3. To write
4. To wrap my Dad's Father's Day present
5. September to magically expand to be about sixty days long so I can fit everything in!
Five things I'm happy about:
1. Lunch with the folks coming up
2. My spindling is improving
3. Having a backup computer
4. My book going pretty well
5. Spring!
What's on your mind this Sunday?
Five things I'm lusting after right now:
1. An e-reader
2. A spinning wheel
3. Some sort of sneaker/trail shoe as comfy as my hiking boots (yeah, my feet are sore from yesterday) for the warmer weather
4. New carpet
5. A new iPhone
Five things I'm over:
1. The election
2. Football
3. My current klutzy phase
4. Weird tasting mouthwash
5. Things that are weird on my Windows netbook
Five things I am thinking about:
1. How to do six different first person POVs in three books and get them right
2. Drop spindling (including wondering if the girl I saw spindling at AussieCon was American because I've never seen anyone spindling in public in Australia before outside a fibrey type event)
3. Various AussieCon4 food for thought from panels
4. Music I like (thanks to a Facebook meme)
5. The next chapter in my book
If I had five wishes right now I'd:
1. Have a finished draft of book 2
2. Have a free two months in my schedule & the money to spend it traveling and relaxing doing various crafty and writing buddy things
3. Have a personal chef/maid/butler/trainer
4. Have a mac that is not sick
5. Live on a planet that wasn't going crazy with the weather and causing many people lots of grief
6. Solve the e-reader format wars & geographic restrictions/pricing weirdness overnight (okay, that's six but hey it's my blog)
Five things I need right now:
1. More caffeine
2. To find some bridesmaid shoes in the next few weeks
3. To write
4. To wrap my Dad's Father's Day present
5. September to magically expand to be about sixty days long so I can fit everything in!
Five things I'm happy about:
1. Lunch with the folks coming up
2. My spindling is improving
3. Having a backup computer
4. My book going pretty well
5. Spring!
What's on your mind this Sunday?
September 03, 2010
August contest winner
The winner of my August contest is Aik!
Aik, you get a copy of Barbara O'Neal's The Lost Recipe for Happiness.
I'll be in touch with you shortly.
Aik, you get a copy of Barbara O'Neal's The Lost Recipe for Happiness.
I'll be in touch with you shortly.
September 01, 2010
September contest
It's Spring! Yay! Time for a new contest to go with the glorious (or rather soggy so far) turn of the season. Spring is my favourite time of year, so goodby winter! Hello blossoms and (hopefully) warmer days.
This month, we're taking a turn into YA. Well, kind of YA. This is one of those books that I think is classified as YA but really, if I didn't know that, I'd just call it fantasy. The hero is said to be young at the start but never definitely how young and given what he does, he can't be THAT young. But regardless of the classification, it's a fabulous book. Which is, by the way, The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner.
I'm not sure whether I first heard this book mentioned on Justine Larbalestier's blog or on Sarah Rees Brennan's blog (or twitter feed) but I do know it popped up several times in rapid succession in seemingly unrelated places in one of those weird moments of universal synchronicity some time last year. I didn't know much about the book but decided to check it out from the library. Then promptly went out and bought it and the next two in the series (The Queen of Attolia and The King of Attolia). I've since read all three several times, hooked my mother on them too and today am very happy because I just got Book 4 (A Conspiracy of Kings) from the library (which I will definitely be buying but not until it comes out in paperback...not because I wouldn't pay hardcover price for it but because I am weird and like my series to be all in the same format wherever possible and I have the other three in paper. Yes. I am strange. You should know this by now).
I love The Thief and the other books because they have one of the all time greatest ever trickster heros (Gen is so clever he's in danger of cutting himself) who is also remarkably human, it has a glorious difficult romance, some pretty ruthless politics and more twists and turns and surprises than one can poke the proverbial stick at. All written is a beautifully sparse style that somehow still manages to evoke the very unique world gorgeously. One of those series that makes you groan and bang your head on the desk because you'll never be quite so brilliant. So comment away on the blog posts this month to win (and if you don't, hie yourself to the nearest bookstore or library and get your hands on them).
I should also mention that Megan seems to have gotten herself some seriously good cover karma (or else an in with the good cover fairy) because the covers for the whole series are beautiful! If I was her I'd have probably died of happiness when I laid eyes on the first one. But luckily I'm not and so we have more than one book to enjoy!
As usual, explanation of why the contest is here.
Rules are simple, comment on any blog post this month to score an entry. Winner has one week after being announced here and on Twitter and Facebook to get back to me to claim the prize, after which I will re-draw.
This month, we're taking a turn into YA. Well, kind of YA. This is one of those books that I think is classified as YA but really, if I didn't know that, I'd just call it fantasy. The hero is said to be young at the start but never definitely how young and given what he does, he can't be THAT young. But regardless of the classification, it's a fabulous book. Which is, by the way, The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner.
I'm not sure whether I first heard this book mentioned on Justine Larbalestier's blog or on Sarah Rees Brennan's blog (or twitter feed) but I do know it popped up several times in rapid succession in seemingly unrelated places in one of those weird moments of universal synchronicity some time last year. I didn't know much about the book but decided to check it out from the library. Then promptly went out and bought it and the next two in the series (The Queen of Attolia and The King of Attolia). I've since read all three several times, hooked my mother on them too and today am very happy because I just got Book 4 (A Conspiracy of Kings) from the library (which I will definitely be buying but not until it comes out in paperback...not because I wouldn't pay hardcover price for it but because I am weird and like my series to be all in the same format wherever possible and I have the other three in paper. Yes. I am strange. You should know this by now).
I love The Thief and the other books because they have one of the all time greatest ever trickster heros (Gen is so clever he's in danger of cutting himself) who is also remarkably human, it has a glorious difficult romance, some pretty ruthless politics and more twists and turns and surprises than one can poke the proverbial stick at. All written is a beautifully sparse style that somehow still manages to evoke the very unique world gorgeously. One of those series that makes you groan and bang your head on the desk because you'll never be quite so brilliant. So comment away on the blog posts this month to win (and if you don't, hie yourself to the nearest bookstore or library and get your hands on them).
I should also mention that Megan seems to have gotten herself some seriously good cover karma (or else an in with the good cover fairy) because the covers for the whole series are beautiful! If I was her I'd have probably died of happiness when I laid eyes on the first one. But luckily I'm not and so we have more than one book to enjoy!
As usual, explanation of why the contest is here.
Rules are simple, comment on any blog post this month to score an entry. Winner has one week after being announced here and on Twitter and Facebook to get back to me to claim the prize, after which I will re-draw.
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