June Reading Round-up

Alright, I’m WAY behind on blog posts (sorry) and quite frankly barely have time to knock out my reading round up. I know, I know; if I have time to read, I should have time to type up a quick breakdown...but those two activities come from wildly different energy reserves, and the writing well is running a bit low. I poured what little time I had into knocking out my billionth edit of The Night Chemist, received some devastating agent feedback (which I am taking with a grain of salt; her reason for passing on the full request—which came less than 24 hours after requesting it based off my pitch alone—was in direct opposition to comments I received on that same particular topic by every single beta reader plus my harshest critique partner...I highly suspect she did not read past the first paragraph; and then two hours later made a social media post advertising paid services to fix precisely what she said was wrong in my manuscript she didn’t read). Anyway, so for a few weeks that killed my writing motivation, but it also prompted me to make a new plan.

So anyway, that’s why I’m behind on blog posts. Well, that and the fact that we only just got the final 1/3 of our stuff last Friday, so my house is a hot mess and full of boxes, and only about half the furniture is in its final resting place (we’re also getting some floors redone to replace some gnarly old carpets, so we can’t put stuff in those rooms yet). ANYWAY anyway, I read three & a half books in the month of June. I’m only going to type up some quick thoughts on the ones I actually finished, because that fourth book is the sequel to the third. I’ll address Shattered Pillars next month.

Lauren Palphreyman, The Wolf King and The Night Prince 

I wanted something lighter and fun to read, because I’m still emotionally recovering from Kushiel’s Dart. These did the trick for sure. I mean, you had me at werewolves in kilts, really. The plot/relationships were a little predictable, but in the funnest way. I am absolutely planning on picking up the next book in the series when it comes out, and I was disappointed when I finished The Night Prince when I realized I would have to wait. Hopefully not too long; I think the next book comes out this fall? I don’t remember, but I looked it up when I first finished reading. Favorite character by far is Blake, so I’m glad his presence increases (and is set to keep increasing) as the series progresses further.

Elizabeth Bear, Range of Ghosts 

I am a sucker for any kind of speculative approach to steppe nomads, if you couldn’t tell from the fact that I’m writing about them myself in The Night Chemist (working title) and that the existence of warrior women among them was the basis of my doctoral dissertation. Scythians, Mongols, Turks...can’t get enough. Anyway, so as soon as I figured out that the MMC of Bear’s Eternal Sky series was essentially a Mongol (here, Qersnyk), I was sold. Bear just may have become one of my new favorite authors, and I wish I’d discovered her writing earlier. She has a heck of a publication history in both fantasy and science fiction, so I look forward to adding even more of her work to my TBR once I finish this particular series. Anyway, I’ll give this book a more thorough review next month (sorry you have to wait) because I want to round it up with a review of the whole series, which I anticipate finishing in July.