Tag: gosh I have a lot of books

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Ebook roundup, freebies and sales and All The Mira Grant edition

Acquired from Tor.com as a monthly freebie:

  • The Traitor Baru Cormorant, by Seth Dickinson. Fantasy. I know this got a lot of positive press when it first came out, but I know certain things about how this story plays out that make me leery to engage with it. But I’m willing to give it a shot for free.

Acquired from Subterranean Press as a freebie:

  • Kingdom of Needle and Bone, by Mira Grant. A Grant novella, dealing with a pandemic scenario. I hadn’t read this one before and you could make a good argument that maybe this isn’t the thing I want to read right this instant. But I’m also a fan of confronting personal fears through fiction! Plus, see commentary elsewhere on this list re: reading All the Grant/McGuire, and this is one of hers I haven’t read yet.

Acquired from Kobo:

  • Feedback, All the Pretty Little Horses, and Coming to You Live, all by Mira Grant. I’d read Feedback before from the library, and I’d read the other two as part of a library read of the Rise release that had all of the Grant novellas to date. But this is me finally acquiring ebook copies of all three of these, in the midst of a major Mira Grant/Seanan McGuire readathon.
  • The City of Brass, by S.A. Chakraborty. Fantasy. Grabbed this one when it was available at a discount.
  • Dreamer’s Pool, by Juliet Marillier. Fantasy. I had this on my list to read as a library book, but it went on sale for $1.99, so I went ahead and nabbed it.
  • Cold Fire and Cold Steel, by Kate Elliott. Fantasy, books 2 and 3 of her Spiritwalker Trilogy. I haven’t read book 1 yet, but these went on sale for a low price, so time to nab ’em!

Pre-ordered from Kobo:

  • The A.I. Who Loved Me, by Alyssa Cole. Sci-fi romance. I’ve already listened to this in audiobook form, but now it’s coming out in ebook, so I thought I’d nab an ebook copy too.

66 for the year.

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Book roundup, Hugo nominees edition

Apparently, when I social distance during a quarantine, I go TIME TO BUY ALL THE BOOKS.

Acquired in print from Third Place Books:

  • The Return of the Shadow, by J.R.R. Tolkien and Christopher Tolkien. This is one of the extended History of Middle-Earth series that Christopher Tolkien put together out of his father’s papers, which I got interested in after seeing the excellent character study series of posts Tor.com put up citing these books as sources. Also bought to have an excuse to order something from Third Place during the covid-19 crisis.

Acquired from Subterranean Press:

  • The Tea Master and the Detective, by Aliette de Bodard. Got this one because they were briefly offering it for free. SF/Space Opera, novella. I believe it’s also a Holmes pastiche?

Pre-ordered from Kobo:

  • The Immortal City, by May Peterson. Book 2 of her Sacred Dark series, Book 1 of which I’ve already bought but haven’t read yet. Buying Book 2 sight unseen just because fantasy romance!
  • Network Effect, by Martha Wells. The forthcoming Murderbot novel which is due out in another few weeks. I gotta get caught up on some Murderbot, clearly!

And outright bought from Kobo:

  • Horrorstör, by Grady Hendrix. Horror, but funny horror. Noted this when it came out some time ago, though the concept sounded cute. I.e., an IKEA-like store is totally haunted. Finally nabbed it at a sale price.
  • Storm of Locusts, by Rebecca Roanhorse. Urban fantasy. Book 2 of her Sixth World series. Book 1 was excellent, so I’m looking forward to reading this one!
  • The Blacksmith Queen, by G.A. Aiken. Fantasy. This one’s been talked up a lot on Smart Bitches as a fantasy with great female character interaction, and I’m for that!
  • Dread Nation, by Justina Ireland. YA horror, with zombies. Grabbed this one since it’s a post-Civil-War zombie story and I am quite interested to see how it plays out.
  • Thornfruit, by Felicia Davin. Book 1 of a fantasy romance series. Grabbed it because it was free at the time.
  • Rogue Protocol and Exit Strategy, by Martha Wells. Books 3 and 4 of the Murderbot Diaries. Grabbed because I (heart) Murderbot!
  • In an Absent Dream and Come Tumbling Down, by Seanan McGuire. Books 4 and 5 of the Wayward Children series. Looking forward in particular to Come Tumbling Down.
  • Record of a Spaceborn Few, by Becky Chambers. SF, book 3 of her Wayfarers series.
  • “A Dead Djinn in Cairo”, by P. Djèlí Clark. This is the short story that sets up the universe for The Haunting of Tram Car 015.

Also acquired from Kobo, but these ones in particular are all because they’re Hugo nominees, either for Best Novel or Best Novella:

  • To Be Taught, If Fortunate, by Becky Chambers. Same author who wrote The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, which I liked, and I have been meaning to catch up on her work. Contender for Best Novella.
  • This is How You Lose the Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. Been hearing a lot of good things about this one. Contender for Best Novella.
  • The Ten Thousand Doors of January, by Alix E. Harrow. Contender for Best Novel.
  • The Haunting of Tram Car 015, by P. Djèlí Clark. Contender for Best Novella.
  • Middlegame, by Seanan McGuire. Because boy howdy have I heard a lot of good things about this one. Contender for Best Novel.
  • A Memory Called Empire, by Arkady Martine. SF. Contender for Best Novel.

And lastly, acquired from Amazon:

  • Problem Child, by Victoria Helen Stone. Book 2 of her Jane Doe thriller series. I quite liked book 1 and will be interested to see how this one goes.

56 for the year.

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Because coronavirus sucks ebook roundup

So um, yeah, how about that pandemic then.

Like I daresay everybody else who reads my posts, I’m spending a lot of time compulsively refreshing news feeds and watching the case counts for COVID-19 go up all over the world. In Washington state, we’ve got the second highest case count in the U.S. after New York. In King County, the county I live it, we’ve got over 560 cases alone.

My household’s all okay at the moment. My day job has us all working from home. And since I am extremely grateful that I have a day job that allows me to do that, I’ve been trying to contribute what I can to fellow authors and some musicians as well. I’ll be looking at possibly signing up for some Patreons.

And for now, here’s a list of the books I just picked up. Acquired from Kobo:

  • Paper and Fire, Ash and Quill, Smoke and Iron, and Sword and Pen, Books 2-5 of Rachel Caine’s Great Library series. YA, SF dystopia. Nabbing these because not only do I have a long history of loving Caine’s books, but also because she’s undergoing a second round of cancer treatment right now and whoo boy howdy is this not a good time to have to be undergoing cancer treatment. Not like there’s ever a good time, but hey.
  • A Death of No Importance, by Mariah Fredericks. Mystery, book 1 of her Jane Prescott series. Got this one because it’s a period mystery, set in New York in 1910, and because it was on sale at the time for $2.99.
  • The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home, by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor. The third Night Vale novel. This is a pre-order because the book isn’t out yet, but it’ll be out very soon and I wanted to make sure to support the book right now. Because Night Vale has been a joy to me for years, and because the coronavirus has scuttled their ability to do their current round of touring, too.
  • Lady Helena Investigates, by Jane Steen. Mystery, book 1 of her Scott-DeQuincy series. Also a period mystery, which I went ahead and grabbed because it was on sale for 99 cents.
  • Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir. SF/space opera. Nabbed this one because a bunch of folks have been raving about it, and because the words “lesbian space necromancers” certainly caught my attention.
  • The Sun Down Motel, by Simone St. James. Mystery. Nabbed this one thanks to a splendid review of it on Smart Bitches, and because I’d recognized the author’s name as somebody who had previous books I wanted to read. I have already now read this as I write this post, and I can say I loved it. I’ll definitely be grabbing more of this author’s work now that I know I like it.
  • Turning Darkness into Light, by Marie Brennan. Fantasy. Sequel to her splendid Lady Trent series, which I adored, so naturally I needed to get my mitts on this title.

Acquired from Amazon:

  • Raven Heart, by Murphy Lawless. A.k.a. C.E. Murphy, who, as y’all know, is another longstanding favorite of mine. This is paranormal romance and I am certainly down for that from known good authors. <3 (Didn’t suck that she was handing it out for free at the time, either!)
  • The Night Girl, by James Bow. Standalone urban fantasy, set in Toronto. Picked this up on the strength of this review by James Nicoll.
  • The Richmond Thief, by Lisa Boero. Another period mystery, which I grabbed because it was on sale for 99 cents. (And fair play to Smart Bitches for their regular alerts regarding ebooks on sale!)

Acquired for free because a lot of authors are starting to offer titles for free to help tide people over during quarantine:

  • High Lonesome Sound, by Jaye Wells. Southern Gothic/horror. The author is handing out this book for free until the end of April. More details are in this tweet.

35 for the year.

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Recent ebook roundup

Picked up from Kobo:

  • The Unleashing, by Shelly Laurenston. Urban fantasy/paranormal romance. Book 1 of her Call of Crows series. Nabbed this because of it going on sale, and because I keep hearing this series get gushed about on Smart Bitches as an example of a series with excellent camaraderie between female characters. (I really wish the cover wasn’t a shirtless dude in a hoodie, if there’s that much emphasis on female relationships, but hey, romance marketers don’t listen to me!) Also a heaping helping of Norse-based worldbuilding going on in this series, and I’m here for that.
  • An Illusion of Thieves, by Cate Glass. Fantasy. Book 1 of her Chimera series. This has gotten a lot of buzz about being essentially a heist story, but in a fantasy setting. It sounds fun, so when it went on sale I snapped it up.
  • Untamed Shore, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. This is Moreno-Garcia’s first thriller, and I thought the plot sounded intriguing. Plus, I’ve read a little bit by this author before and I want to read more of her.
  • The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco. Nabbed this by spending some Super Points on my Kobo account, and because we’re reading this in book club.
  • Stormsong, by C.L. Polk. Book 2 of her Kingston Cycle series. Nabbed this because I really enjoyed Witchmark, and I’m looking forward to this second book in the series, starring the sister of the hero from the first one. And an F/F romance too!
  • The Unspoken Name, by A.K. Larkwood. Fantasy, book 1 of The Serpent Gate. Grabbed this one on the strength of this review at Tor.com, and because LESBIAN. ORC. ASSASSIN. Yes please I’ll have some!
  • The Dragonbone Chair, The Stone of Farewell, and To Green Angel Tower, by Tad Williams. Books 1-3 of the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy. Fantasy, a series I’ve read before and which I own in print. Nabbing these in ebook because my print copies of these are gigantic hardbacks and I’d rather like to read these again.

Picked up from Comixology:

  • Harleen, by Stjepan Šejić. Graphic novel. This is a retelling of Harley Quinn’s origin story, which I nabbed in digital form after seeing it mentioned in the comments on the Tor.com review of Birds of Prey. Since I enjoyed the movie quite a bit, I was very much in the mood to check out this graphic novel. And I burned through it as soon as I bought it, because the art is gorgeous and the story is thoroughly engrossing.

And, pre-ordered from Kobo:

  • The Shadow of Kyoshi, by F.C. Yee. Book 2 of the Kyoshi duology from the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Book 1 rocked and I am VERY on board for book 2. :D
  • Mexican Gothic, also by Silvia Morena-Garcia. Saw this mentioned when I went looking for the author’s Twitter account and went ZOMG at the description of it as a re-invention of the Gothic horror/suspense novel. This one’s set in 1950’s Mexico, and the author’s page for it includes an endorsement that compares it to Mary Stewart . I need it in my brain RIGHT NOW.

21 for the year.

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Now commencing the 2020 ebook roundups

I’ve been doing website juggling what with having to transfer my main author site operations from angelahighland.com to angelahighland.info. Which means my more non-writing related posts are going up on annathepiper.org instead!

Like my book purchase roundups. Here’s the first for 2020.

Acquired from Kobo:

  • Destiny’s Embrace, Destiny’s Surrender, and Destiny’s Captive, all by Beverly Jenkins. These are all historical romances, and specifically featuring protagonists of color in Civil-War-era (and I think post-Civil-War?) America. Jenkins has been on the Smart Bitches podcast a couple of times, and she seems delightful, so I finally bought a few of her books when I saw them on sale for $1.99 each.
  • Truthwitch, by Susan Dennard. YA fantasy. Grabbed this because I had liked the cover when I first saw this one come out a couple of years ago, and because it went on sale for $2.99. (And I was slightly chagrined to see that shortly after that, Tor.com offered this as their free book for the month for January.)
  • Lord of the Last Heartbeat, by May Peterson. Fantasy romance. Grabbed this because a) hey, it’s another Carina author writing fantasy romance, and b) one of the protagonists is non-binary. Awesome. \0/

Acquired from Amazon:

Grabbed all three of these because they’re titles that were pulled out of the RITAs due to the big scandal with RWA over the tail end of December and the beginning of this month. There was a nice roundup page on Amazon with links off to the titles to buy and support the authors, and these were all ones that looked interesting.

  • The Magnolia Sword: A Ballad of Mulan, by Sherry Thomas. I’ve read some Thomas (her Lady Sherlock series), and I’d like to see her take on Mulan.
  • The Orchid Throne, by Jeffe Kennedy. Fantasy romance. I know of Kennedy via Carina as well! And I’ve been meaning to read her work for a while now.
  • Polaris Rising, by Jessie Mihalik. SF romance. Grabbed this one, I’ll say straight out, because of the similarity of title to Jupiter Ascending. If this book hits the same sort of “big silly fun” sweet spot that movie did for me, I’ll enjoy it immensely.

Acquired from Gutenberg.org:

  • A Vindication of the Rights of Woman / With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, by Mary Wollstonecraft. Pulled this down from Gutenberg because we’re going to read this for book club.

Acquired so far for the year: 9

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A reread of Lord of the Rings is imminent ebook roundup

The Children of Hurin
The Children of Hurin

Picked up from Kobo recently:

  • Please Do Not Taunt the Octopus, by Mira Grant. Because, well, duh, Mira Grant. This is the latest novella in the Newsflesh universe, and as I have in fact already plowed through it, I can attest that it was delightful. It clues us in on the fate of two particular notable characters following the conclusion of the main trilogy, and it does not disappoint. And there is in fact an octopus.
  • The Lord of the Rings, The Children of Húrin, Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-Earth, and The Silmarillion, all of course by J.R.R. Tolkien. Picking all these up in ebook form on the general grounds that I’ve just finally finished re-watching The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, and it’s kindled in me a MIGHTY NEED to re-read LoTR. And since my print copy of the trilogy is a single-volume huge honking brick of a book, it’s a bit much to carry to work and back with me. So onto the ereaders it goes! And while I’m at it, I snarfed up the others since UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES am I taking my beautiful hardback of Children of Hurin out of the house, and my paperback of The Silmarillion is pretty ragged! And I need to re-read Unfinished Tales, too!

This puts me at 45 for the year.

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Yule comes early!

I would like to issue public thanks to userinfomaellenkleth for the kind gift of a couple of 32GB memory cards, suitable for use in my nook!

This now means that the Nookronomicon is now outfitted with a TON more space. I’m thinking I’m going to put the Read books on the memory card, since access to files on it is noticeably slower than in main memory–but that’s fine since those will be lower priority books. The Read non-B&N books, anyway; I’m not sure if I want to bother to put the B&N books I’ve read there, since I’ve been just marking those as Archived on the device, which automatically removes them, and if I want them back I can just unarchive them. And I’ve got local copies on my computer.

This should be nifty, though! And now clearly I need LOTS MORE BOOKS to fill out all this nifty space. :D

Thanks very much, userinfomaellenkleth!

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Tonight’s amusing conversation with the Handsome Marketboy

So there I am stopping by my marketboys on the way home for my evening round of tasty!fruit when I find that my favorite Handsome Marketboy has the stand all to himself. Hurray, I’m thinking, as he says hi and asks me how my day has gone.

I tell him I have to work tonight but a nice man is about to sell me blackberries and an avocado, so hey! And he asks me what I do with all the money.

Buy books, mostly, I say–because as you know, my children, some women buy purses or shoes, but me, I buy books!

Handsome Marketboy looks a bit boggled and asks, have I not heard of the library? It’s like Netflix, only for books! I explain that I want to Own All of the Books, because this man clearly has no conception of how much I read. I am, obviously, going to have to explain this to him. ;)

(After, of course, I buy All of the Blackberries. Because nom.)

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Last book roundup of 2010

I’ve been wrestling with a cold the last few days, but today I finally got to the point where I was able to head out and do some errands. Among these was a run to Third Place to drop off several books that got nominated for the Return and Re-Buy as Ebooks list, which snagged me a tasty bit of store credit to turn around and then spend on stuff specifically not available electronically. So I got:

  • Prince of Fire and Ashes, by Katya Reimann. Book 3 of a fantasy trilogy that I started ages ago because I met the author once, via a mutual connection to !
  • Golden Witchbreed, by Mary Gentle. SF. Bought because it’s the predecessor to Ancient Light, a book I’d read without realizing it was a sequel. So I wanted to swing back and read this one.
  • Corelli’s Mandolin, by Louis de Bernières. Bought because it was recommended.
  • Trick of the Mind, by Cassandra Chan. Mystery. Bought because while it’s book 3 of a series and I don’t want to start in the middle of a series, I saw Cassandra Chan spoken well of elsewhere and the premise of this book sounded fun.

and I also received a book as a gift from , to wit:

  • Dara: A Victorian Novel, by Anonymous. Gifted, presumably, because of the title. ;)

Meanwhile, picked up from Kobo because of spending some coupon codes:

  • Preincarnate, by Shaun Micallef. This is a novella and was on their list of ‘here have some cheap ebooks’. Thought it sounded fun.
  • The Year of the Flood, by Margaret Atwood. SF. Have already read this one as a library book, but bought it because I felt it deserved a place in my library.

Picked up from Fictionwise because they had a tasty, tasty 60 percent off coupon active over Christmas weekend:

  • The Bone Doll’s Twin, Hidden Warrior, and The Oracle’s Queen, by (Lynn Flewelling). Fantasy. Bought because I’ve traded a few tweets with her courtesy of the Outer Alliance!
  • The Study Series Bundle, by Maria V. Snyder. Fantasy. Bought because Fictionwise was selling all three of these books as one big ebook, and I figured what the hell, pretty much.
  • Inside Out, also by Maria V. Snyder. YA/SF.
  • Havemercy, by Danielle Bennett and Jaida Jones. Fantasy. Bought because it’s got queer romance in it.
  • The White Garden: A Novel of Virginia Woolf, by Stephanie Barron. Mystery. Bought because I like the author’s “Jane Austen solves mysteries” novels.
  • Unholy Ghosts by Stacia Kane. Urban fantasy. Bought because while I didn’t go for her book Personal Demons, this sounds more like it might be my cup of tea.
  • Midsummer Moon and The Prince of Midnight, by Laura Kinsale. Romance. Bought because the fine ladies over at Smart Bitches keep speaking well of this author!
  • A Kiss to Remember, by Teresa Medeiros. Romance. Again bought because of the Smart Bitches, and okay yeah fine, I’m a sucker for an amnesia plot. ;)
  • Dark Road to Darjeeling, by Deanna Raybourn. Romance/mystery. Book 4 of the author’s Julia Gray series, which I’ve enjoyed so far.

And this, my children, brings me to 404 total for the year. Which’ll be it for 2010, I expect. We’ll see if I top this total for 2011!

ETA 9:07pm: No wait I forgot one! The End: Five Queer Kids Save the World, by my fellow Outer Alliance author Nora Olsen. It’s about pretty much what it says on the tin: five queer kids saving the world from nuclear apocalypse. Bought because YA queer fic for the win. 405!

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YAY more ebooks!

Because I got a bonus on this paycheck, doncha know. And because I wanted to hit a slew of non-B&N places to pick up various titles I’ve been interested in, for a while!

From Baen’s Webscription site:

  • Carousel Tides, by Sharon Lee. Urban fantasy. Bought in ebook because I didn’t want to put down for a trade paperback, and this was much cheaper. Also, because this sounds like old-school urban fantasy that’s a lot more up my alley these days. (Note: if you want this one electronically, Baen’s site is your best bet.)
  • The Stardance Trilogy, by Spider and Jeanne Robinson. SF. Because I’d been meaning to get this ever since Jeanne Robinson passed away, pretty much, and also because I’d never read it anyway.

From Carina Press:

  • Like Clockwork, by Bonnie Dee. For GREAT STEAMPUNK JUSTICE! And probably also smooching.
  • Storm Warning and Sea of Suspicion, by Toni Anderson. Romantic suspense set in Scotland? Sign me up!
  • Trash Course, by Penny Drake. Mystery, and the premise sounded interesting: a woman must investigate the deaths of a couple of old women who were hoarders.
  • Should We Drown in Feathered Sleep, by Michael Merriam. Fantasy, and a novella at that; the title seized my attention, and the post-apocalyptic premise sounded haunting and intriguing as well. The heroine is disabled, and she’s chosen to be the sacrifice to save the dying loons in a Minnesota lake.
  • Motor City Witch, by Cindy Spencer Pape. Book 2 of her Urban Arcana series.

From Drollerie Press:

  • Ivan and Marya, by Anna Kashina. Russian-themed fantasy.
  • Sorrow, by John Lawson. Fantasy with a killer on the loose.
  • Stormy Bamboo, by Tamara Sheehan. Samurai-themed fantasy.
  • Kinlea Keeper, by E. Grace Diehl. YA fantasy.

From Kobo, my very first two purchases from there:

  • The Winter Sea and Season of Storms by Susanna Kearsley. Romance and romantic suspense, respectively. I actually own both of these novels in print, but I wanted electronic copies anyway because my print copy of the former is a big brick of a book, and because Kearsley is on my list of authors I’ll buy in both formats. :D

And from Amazon, spending that $7 credit I had, finally (I’d thought I’d spent it on The Zombies of Lake Woebegotten but I was apparently mistaken):

  • The Cardinal’s Blades, by Pierre Pevel. Translated from the original French, and it’s got swashbuckling, 17th-century adventure, and dragons! Bought from Amazon since it’s not available for the nook.

Though all that above said, I did also grab this as a freebie from B&N:

  • Selected Stories of O. Henry, by O. Henry. Because why not!

Which brings me to 385 for the year.