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!

Five I'm Still Thinking about - Jeffe's picks for interesting reads of the year

Our first real snow hit last night and this morning's sunrise showed in spectacular glory, a promise of the solstice and the turn of the year, it seemed.

The topic at the Bordello this week is the Five Most Engaging/Interesting Books Read in 2014. I like how this one is phrased - not necessarily our favorite books, but the ones that stood out. It can be an important distinction, especially for writers, because we tend to be friends with other writers and, outside of that, personally know many of the authors of the books we read. Reading a book can be infused - positively or negatively - with how we feel about that person. Picking a favorite of the year can be even worse, because which of your wonderful friends do you pick? It's often easier for me to pick a book written by someone I don't know, than to choose from among my friends' books.

That said, I tend to read a lot of my friends' books, sometimes via crit or as a beta reader, or just so I can have nice things to say. In 2014 (so far!) I've read 119 books. Yes, I've been keeping track, because I had a goal of reading at least two books a week, to try to get back into reading again. For someone who used to read about a book a day, that's not much. But I also caught up on a lot of "meaning to" reads.

One of those was Thea Harrison's Elder Races series. I've been hearing about these books for several years, but had never read. I confess it was partly because they're labeled as Paranormal Romance. I should totally know better, how these hairs are split, but PNR has sadly come to mean questionable worldbuilding to me. Not so with these books! Some are stronger than others, but the series is a fantastic take on our modern world, but with the addition of living monsters like gryphons, harpies and dragons. Much like Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series as it used to be, with better romance and way less crazy. In particular I found Serpent's Kiss and Kinked to be engaging stories that have stuck with me.

I also read and write a fair amount of erotic romance. My friend Anne Calhoun came out with Afternoon Delight this year. She's one of those authors I stalked and made be my friend after I read her work. Her books stay with me long after I finish them and this was no different. The recovery from grief, the heroine who runs a food truck, the afternoons of lazy sex...this book lingers in my mind like the memory of a perfect meal in a beautiful place with my favorite person.

I caught up on the last of my Neil Gaiman backlog this year, and read his 2013 release, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, and I finally sat down with the box set of his graphic novel series The Sandman: Book of Dreams, which I received for my birthday a year ago.(I SAID I'm behind on my reading, okay??) Both carry Gaiman's trademark dreamy darkness. I thought I was going to say that I didn't enjoy Ocean, which I finished just last night - but by the end he had me as usual.

On the SFWA forums, I met MCA Hogarth, who is self-publishing most of her work these days as, like me, she doesn't write books that neatly slot into genres. I read her Even the Wingless and that book has continued to haunt me. Her voice is also dark and dreamy, the world she created dense and provocative. I love a well-constructed alien society that stays true to its own mores and doesn't bow to the standards of the one we live in. This book is a far cry from a romance and yet got to my heart anyway.

Finally, my go-to when I'm asked to pick my favorite book of the year, I've been saying Magic Breaks, by Ilona Andrews. This is the seventh novel in the Kate Daniels urban fantasy series.
I've been keeping up with that series since book 2 and I think it's one of the best out there. It's not easy to keep a series like that, especially with an ongoing and developing romance, vital and fresh.
This seventh book lives up to its magical number with a searing story and developments that catapult the overall arc into a whole new realm. Amazing accomplishment.