End of September ebook roundup post

Acquired from Kobo:

  • The entire Themis Files trilogy (Sleeping Giants, Waking Gods, and Only Human) by Sylvain Neuvel. SF. Grabbed this because I got book 1 as a freebie a while back in paperback, and I liked it, and the ebook went on sale. So I went ahead and got all three of them.
  • Beach Read, by Emily Henry. Contemporary romance. Grabbed this because Smart Bitches reviewed it quite positively, and while I don’t normally read contemporaries, this sounded kind of delightful. In no small part because of the schtick of both the heroine and hero being writers and challenging each other to write each other’s genres.
  • The Duke Who Didn’t, by Courtney Milan. Historical romance. Acquired for general “because Courtney Milan” reasons, but also, I’m quite interested to see how she sets up a historical set in Britain but with protagonists of color.
  • The Case of the Missing Marquess, by Nancy Springer. Book 1 of her Enola Holmes series, which I nabbed since we just watched the new movie adaptation on Netflix. I found it quite charming, and the ebook was on sale for $2.99, so I snapped it up.

Acquired from Amazon:

  • Chaos Reigning, by Jessie Mihalik. Book 3 of her Consortium Rebellion series, sci-fi romance. Nabbed it because it went on sale price and I did like book 1, so.

And last but not least, acquired from John Scalzi:

  • Clash of the Geeks, by John Scalzi and other authors. Chapbook parody fantasy, with stories explaining exactly what’s going on in a painting depicting Scalzi as an orc, fighting Wil Wheaton who’s riding a unicorn pegasus kitten. As you do! Scalzi posted about it on his Whatever blog, and offered freebie copies of the chapbook to readers, so I took him up on that. Because this year? This year definitely calls for some supremely silly reading.

Pre-orders that showed up:

  • When No One is Watching, by Alyssa Cole

150 for the year.

Whoops I missed a post ebook roundup

Found a draft of an ebook roundup post marooned in my Drafts folder, oops. So I’m merging a couple of earlier acquired titles with more recently acquired titles in this post now!

Acquired from Kobo:

  • Devolution, by Max Brooks. Horror. I nabbed this on the strength of the name Max Brooks, since I totally adored World War Z. I can also report that I’ve actually gone ahead and read this since I originally bought it. I did not like this one as much as I liked World War Z, but I’m not sorry I read it. I still found it an enjoyable read, even though I was a little disappointed that it wasn’t nearly as brilliant as his first book.
  • Prince of Shadows, by Rachel Caine. Fantasy, alternate telling of Romeo and Juliet. Nabbed this in no small part because Caine is dealing with serious cancer treatments right now and I wanted to try to buy more of her titles in support.
  • Honor Among Thieves, Honor Bound, and Honor Lost, by Rachel Caine and Ann Aguirre. SF YA. Nabbed this entire trilogy partly because see previous commentary re: Caine, but also because I also like Ann Aguirre’s work and the two of them together promise to be entertaining.

Pre-ordered from Kobo:

  • Soulstar and The Midnight Bargain, by C.L. Polk. Fantasy. Grabbed both of these because I quite liked Witchmark, and Soulstar is the closing book of that trilogy.

Acquired from Amazon:

  • Bitter Falls, by Rachel Caine. Book 4 of her Stillhouse Lake series of thrillers. Acquired from Amazon because the series is available in ebook only for Kindle.

Pre-ordered from Amazon:

  • Heartbreak Bay, by Rachel Caine. Book 5 of her Stillhouse Lake series of thrillers.

Previous pre-orders that showed up but which I’ve counted on the yearly tally already:

  • Raybearer, by Jordan Ifueko.

142 for the year.

Oh hey look another ebook roundup post

Because I may have been doing a lot of Kobo lately!

Pre-orders for The Relentless Moon, Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Shadow of Kyoshi, The Immortal City, and Harrow the Ninth all showed up. It’s PREORDERPALOOZA up in here. But I’ve already counted all these titles on totals, so I won’t count them again here.

Newly pre-ordered from Kobo:

  • When No One is Watching, by Alyssa Cole. Nabbed this because I already know I love Cole’s work, and I love her in particular because she’s excellent at handling various sub-genres of romance. It’ll be interesting to see how she handles writing a thriller!

Bought straight up from Kobo:

  • Haunted, by Cathy Pegau. Not sure if this is mystery, paranormal romance, or maybe a little bit of both, but it sounds charming and I told Cathy straight up on Twitter that I loved the cover.
  • Interference, by Sue Burke. SF. Nabbed this because it’s the second half of the duology that started with Semiosis. While I wasn’t a hundred percent in love with that book, it did still stand out in my mind as one of the more original SF novels I’ve read lately, and I want to see where this storyline goes next.
  • Seven Devils, by Laura Lam and Elizabeth May. SF, and in particular, self-described as “feminist space opera”, which I am HERE FOR. Also was totally sold by the authors pitching it on Twitter thusly: “If you wished Guardians of the Galaxy and Star Wars had more murder, women, and sapphic moments, we wrote this for you. IF YOU WANT TO SEE ASSHOLE FASCISTS GET PUNCHED IN THE FACE, we wrote this for you”. SOLD.
  • The Consuming Fire, by John Scalzi. SF, book 2 of his Interdependency series. Nabbed this because I also know I already like Scalzi’s work, and I enjoyed book 1 of this series in particular, The Last Emperox. I know this one’s been out for a while, but I finally got it when it went briefly on sale for $2.99.

And oh yes, can’t forget this either:

  • Silver in the Wood, by Emily Tesh. Fantasy. Grabbed this one from Tor.com’s freebie ebook of the month club. I’d had half an eye on this one, so was pleased to see it available as a freebie!

133 for the year.

Because I fixed crossposting ebook roundup

Latest ebooks I’ve acquired, you all know the drill.

Picked up from Kobo:

  • Upright Women Wanted, by Sarah Gailey. Had my eye on this one as a post-apocalyptic Western-flavored thing starring queer women serving as Librarians–charged with taking books to communities in the oppressive society they live in.
  • Reborn Yesterday, by Tessa Bailey. Paranormal romance featuring vampires. The Bitchery seemed to like this one and it was on sale for 99 cents, and I liked the cover and the sample I read. So thought I’d give it a go.
  • Chilling Effect, by Valerie Valdes. SF. This one was also on sale, and I nabbed it in part because the protagonist appears to be Latinx and this has an impact on the dialogue. Plus I am intrigued by her ship having to deliver a cargo of superintelligent telepathic cats, and since the blurb is setting it up as humorous space opera, I’m here for that.
  • Santa Olivia, by Jacqueline Carey. This one’s actually been out a while, and I had my eye on it as it’s a superhero story set in the American Southwest. Grabbed it finally as it was on sale for $1.99.

Pre-ordered from Kobo:

  • The Conductors, by Nicole Glover. Historical/urban fantasy with protagonists of color and this one does seem like fun. More info on the book can be found on the author’s site here.

127 for the year.

Ebook roundup, Storybundle edition

I saw three different sets of books being promoted via Storybundle on Twitter today, so I decided to splurge and get all three of ’em. As of this writing the bundles are still available, so if any of these sound interesting to you, you should check them out!

I’m not going to list every single title here, otherwise the post would be way too damned long. But I will link you up with the actual pages on storybundle.com!

These bundles are timed offers, so if any of them sound interesting to you, get on it:

SFWA Fantastic Beasts Bundle, good for another 11 days, 15 books if you pay at least $15

Pride 2020 Bundle, good for another 25 days, 11 books if you pay at least $15

African Speculative Fiction Bundle, good for another five days, 10 titles if you pay at least $15; note that these are all anthologies/collections of shorter works

122 total for the year.

Ebook roundup, anti-racism edition

Trying a new thing with this particular book roundup, and including actual purchase links for all the titles. In case any of you all want to buy these titles for yourselves, particularly the anti-racism reading, I thought it might behoove me to make it a little easier for you.

For almost all titles, I have included the link off to Kobo where I bought them from, but I have also included the link to the title on Bookshop.org. If you’re not familiar with that site, it’s an aggregate site for indie booksellers, and I encourage you to look into it if you’d like to buy print books from somewhere that isn’t Amazon.

On to the books! Purchased from Kobo for purposes of educating myself about systemic racism in this country:

  • Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?, by Beverly Daniel Tatum. [Kobo] [Bookshop]
  • When They Call You a Terrorist, by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele. [Kobo] [Bookshop]
  • Eloquent Rage, by Brittney Cooper. [Kobo] [Bookshop]
  • So You Want to Talk About Race, by Ijeoma Oluo. I’ve actually already read this, but I read it as a library book before, and under the current circumstances I feel it important to own a copy. I can definitely recommend this as critical reading. [Kobo] [Bookshop]

Purchased from Kobo because I wanted to support some authors of color:

  • A Song of Wraiths and Ruin, by Roseanne A. Brown. YA Fantasy. Nabbed this because the title is awesome. [Kobo] [Bookshop]
  • Raybearer, by Jordan Ifueko. YA Fantasy. Nabbed this because its cover is gorgeous, because I liked what I read in the sample. [Kobo] [Bookshop]
  • A Song Below Water, by Bethany C. Morrow. YA Fantasy. Nabbed this because mermaids are cool. [Kobo] [Bookshop]
  • The City We Became, by N.K. Jemisin. Urban fantasy. Nabbed this because I already knew N.K. Jemisin is an amazing writer, and because I read the original short work on Tor.com that precipitated this novel. [Kobo] [Bookshop]

Also purchased from Kobo:

  • Wanderers, by Chuck Wendig. Apocalyptic SF. Grabbed this one because I already know I like Wendig’s work, and because I’m half in the mood for this kind of story given current national and world events. [Kobo] [Bookshop]
  • Blood Shot, by Tanya Huff. Urban fantasy. This is a collection of short stories featuring Vicki Nelson, post-dating the main Blood series. Only available in ebook form, I think? [Kobo]

And lastly, purchased from Amazon:

  • Knit One, Girl Two, by Shira Glassman. F/F romance. Grabbed this because a) I think the title is adorable, b) it got some positive buzz on Smart Bitches, and c) the world is a flaming trash fire right now and every so often I just need a sweet little novella about two nice girls who like each other. Only available on Amazon for the Kindle, though. Sorry, anybody who reads on other platforms! [Amazon]
  • Conquest, by Celeste Harte. Futuristic sci-fi fantasy. This is another author of color, and I saw her work getting plugged on Twitter so I decided to check it out. She thanked me directly and was very sweet about it. <3 Go give her book a look, won’t you? [Amazon] [Bookshop]
  • The Undoing, by Shelly Laurenston. Paranormal romance/urban fantasy, book 2 of her Call of Crows series. Nabbed it because it went on sale for $1.99 for a little bit there, though it appears to no longer be on sale at that price. [Amazon] [Bookshop]

86 for the year.

Mid-May ebook roundup

Acquired from Tor.com:

  • The Way of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson. Fantasy. This was a freebie from their ebook club mailing list.

Acquired from Amazon:

  • Aurora Blazing, by Jessie Mihalik. Book 2 of her Consortium Rebellion sci-fi romance series. Nabbed this one because it was cheap, even though I haven’t read book 1 yet. But I love the titles, I love the cover, and I love what I’m seeing in the blurbs on these so I anticipate liking these quite a bit. And I’ll freely admit I like the similarity of vibe to Jupiter Ascending given off by this series’ book titles. I’m hoping the actual books will have a similarly fun vibe.

Pre-ordered from Kobo:

  • The Relentless Moon, by Mary Robinette Kowal. SF, book 3 of her Lady Astronaut series. Because fuck yeah, I want to read this one! Books 1 and 2 were awesome. <3
  • Harrow the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir. Book 2 of her Locked Tomb trilogy, which I pre-ordered the fuck out of as soon as I finished Gideon the Ninth, Book 1. Because goddamn that book rocked.

Bought from Kobo:

  • Truthseeker, by C.E. Murphy. I have this one already in print, and I’ve already read it, but now it’s finally out in ebook form. Yay!
  • Chimera, by Mira Grant. Book 3 of her Parasitology series, which I’m finally ready to read now that I’ve re-read books 1 and 2!
  • The Broken Girls, by Simone St. James. Nabbed this one because I really enjoyed the other book I recently read by her, and because this went on sale.

73 for the year.

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.

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.

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.