Anticipated Releases of 2016!

A rare photo of my stepsister Hope. She's not on social media (*gasp*) and so doesn't appear in my sharing. We became stepsisters as adults, though we knew each other in high school. (My mother and her father, however, did not know each other until MUCH later, so it's not nearly as weird as it sounds.) At any rate, as an only child for most of my life, I count myself privileged to have a sister now - especially one  I like so well. And not only because we share a deep affection for Starbucks.

(In a total aside, another friend of ours who grew up on the same block with us, now works at Starbucks corporate and invented the Flat White, which we also love. Great neighborhood, huh?)

This is the best part of the holidays for me - meeting up with the wonderful people who make my life whole, but who I only occasionally get to see.

But that's not what I'm here to talk about today. Instead I'm to address this week's topic of 2016 Releases I'm excited about.

I'm a total fangirl of Grace Draven, both personally and professionally. Early 2016 promises to bring us the sequel to her brilliant novel, RADIANCE. Brishen and Ildiko's story will continue in EIDOLON and should be wonderful. I get to beta-read, so I'm feeling particularly grabby-handed about this one. Here's the preliminary blurb:

In a bid for more power, the Shadow Queen of Haradis has unleashed a malignant force into the world. Her son Brishen, younger prince of the Kai royal house, suddenly finds himself ruler of a kingdom blighted by a diseased darkness and on the brink of war. His human wife Ildiko must decide if she will give up the man she loves in order to secure his throne.

Three enemy kingdoms must unite to save each other, and a one-eyed, reluctant king must raise an army of the dead to defeat an army of the damned.

A tale of alliance and sacrifice.

I also love the writing team Ilona Andrews and have rabidly followed their Kate Daniels series from the very beginning. Their new Hidden Legacy series looks to be equally transporting. BURN FOR ME came out in October 2014 and we've been semi-patiently waiting for the sequel, WHITE HOT. Here's a fervent wish that 2016 will give it to us nao! I'd also love to see MAGIC BINDS, the next Kate Daniels release, but that looks unlikely and I wouldn't want to be TOO greedy.

I would be falsely modest if I pretended I wasn't excited about some of my own releases. The year will start out quietly release-wise for me, then we get a wham-bam triple-threat release slam!

April 26 will see the release of THE DEVIL'S DOORBELL. This is an anthology of some of my favorite writers of erotic fiction, all ruminating on the euphemism that the clitoris is the devil's doorbell. I've already read the stories from Anne Calhoun, Megan Hart and Megan Mulry. So much awesome there, people.

On May 1, Grace Draven and I plan to release our first duology, FOR CROWN AND KINGDOM. We don't *quite* have a cover yet, but the book will contain her story, THE KING OF HEL, and mine, THE CROWN OF THE QUEEN. Mine is the story of the aftermath of THE TALON OF THE HAWK, the final TWELVE KINGDOMS book, as so many have asked to have. Really excited for everyone to read it!

Finally, on May 31, THE PAGES OF THE MIND, finally will hit the shelves! This is Dafne the librarian's story, and launches the overall tale's next phase, THE UNCHARTED REALMS.

AN ORPHAN’S THRONE
 
Magic has broken free over the Twelve Kingdoms. The population is beset by shapeshifters and portents, landscapes that migrate, uncanny allies who are not quite human…and enemies eager to take advantage of the chaos.

Dafne Mailloux is no adventurer—she’s a librarian. But the High Queen trusts Dafne’s ability with languages, her way of winnowing the useful facts from a dusty scroll, and even more important, the subtlety and guile that three decades under the thumb of a tyrant taught her.

Dafne never thought to need those skills again. But she accepts her duty. Until her journey drops her into the arms of a barbarian king. He speaks no tongue she knows but that of power, yet he recognizes his captive as a valuable pawn. Dafne must submit to a wedding of alliance, becoming a prisoner-queen in a court she does not understand. If she is to save herself and her country, she will have to learn to read the heart of a wild stranger. And there are more secrets written there than even Dafne could suspect…

Should be an awesome year!

Jeffe's Top Three Most Memorable Books of 2015

This week on Word Whores, we're discussing the Three Most Memorable Books You Read in 2015.

I like that way of putting it - the most memorable, not necessarily our favorites. It's an interesting lens. However, to do this post, I still started with my Goodreads report for 2015. I like Goodreads for that, how they can give me a decent sample of my reading year. It is, however, only a sample.

I added 47 books so far to Goodreads for 2015, while I have 114 on my personal spreadsheet. This is because I only add the books I'll be rating highly - OR that I didn't read for other reasons, such as for a contest or for crit. Thus, 29 of those 47 have five-star ratings. Definitely a skewed sample.

To determine most memorable reads, then, I looked at my personal spreadsheet. This was fun exercise, because I went through and highlighted the ones that stood out most strongly in my memory. (Or that I remembered at all - several I couldn't dredge up any details in my mind.

I initially highlighted six books as the ones that stood out most. Two were easy to eliminate from my top three because one I DNF'd (did not finish) because I hated it so much. (And it was a much lauded book, so that was just me.) The other I hated because it didn't have an ending. (The author calls it a cliffhanger, but it's really the story stopping in the middle of the arc.) I'm not about the hate, so I didn't want to discuss those. Other people loved those books, so it's all good.

Of the remaining four, I gave Grace Draven's RADIANCE honorable mention. (Though top billing with the cover above.) The main reason for this is, of my top four, two were books not published in 2015, which means I can't nominate them for any awards. For 2016 I'm going to make a concerted effort to prioritize books written in that year, so I *can* give them nominations boosts. Hopefully the new TBR spreadsheet will help with that effort! Anyway, RADIANCE is up for Best Fantasy Romance of 2015, so it's getting love.

Thus, my picks for three most memorable!

THE ART OF ASKING

I loved Amanda Palmer's TED talk on this topic and the book is even better. I've gushed about it in a number of places, especially as jewels come back to me. I really think every creative, and maybe everyone who thinks they aren't creative, should absolutely read this book. If you have an aspiring writer on your holiday list, give them a copy of this book. They'll thank you for it.

PRINCE OF SHADOWS

 I read this book *very* early in 2015, entirely because reader/reviewers I trust recommended it so highly. And WOW! I loved this book so hard. I would never have picked it up on my own from the description. It's a retelling of Romeo and Juliet from Benvolio's point of view, which does nothing to tell you how freaking compelling this book is. Just ... go read it and then we can squeal together, okay?








THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS

 This is another book I picked up on recommendation. Okay, the recommendation might have said something like "slow burn romance with a Spock hero" and I was instantly sold. What can I say? Star Trek shaped my pre-adolescent brain and I'm weak. Then the opening blew me away. It's a wonderful, unusual science fiction story. I can't praise it enough.