I haven’t posted in forever. Mostly that was because I found I was more picky when I had reviewing in the back of my head, but also because I ran into a long line of crap books. What can I say, I just got tired of saying “this one sucks, and this one sucks, and this one sucks” (two points if you can identify the routine).
Recently I signed up for “The Fussy Librarian” and “BookBub” mailing lists. They both promote (mostly) new books and there are usually a couple of free books listed. I’m always willing to expand my horizons if it’s free! The downside is that my e-reader is in serious need of purging. Unfortunately most of these books are worth exactly what you pay for them, but here are a couple of exceptions:
A Feral Darkness – Boranna Durgin. A paranormal book for dog people, but actually a little harder than that to classify. I’m not a dog person, but this was a little bit different and good enough to make it all the way through.
The Alecto Initiative – Jordan Leah Hunter and Owen R. O’Neill. Good enough that I actually bought the next two in the trilogy. This is military sci-fi with a strong female lead character, but instead of your usual put-upon cadet trying to uphold (or redeem) the family military tradition, Kris starts off as a slave who so brutally murders her master during her rescue that we don’t even find out the details until the third book.
A few other new authors I’ve been enjoying in the paper world:
Ann Leckie has a military sci-fi series that I enjoyed. What makes this series unique is that the protagonist is the last surviving component of The Justice of Toren, a starship AI that has been destroyed under mysterious circumstances. As a result, Breq has to get used to having only one body, as well as seeking vengeance. Ancillary Justice is the first of the trilogy.
The Golden City – J. Kathleen Cheney. This is the first book in a trilogy about various magical beings living in secret in the Golden City. Not because they’re secret, but because they’ve been banned by a paranoid prince whose death has been prophesied to be at the hands of one of them. I started reading this with some doubts about whether I’d finish, but it kept me interested and I ended up reading the entire trilogy.
Serafina and the Black Cloak – Beatty, Robert. Serafina lives in the basement of a large estate with her father, the handyman, but no one knows that. This is a fun and spooky book – who is Serafina and why does her father keep her hidden away? What will happen if she reveals herself to help the children who have gone missing? There’s as much of a mystery about the characters as there is in the plot.