What We Are Reading

Welcome to September’s What We Are Reading column. Today, we have Jenny Schwartz, Maggie Mundy, Jess Anastasi and Maree Anderson.

Jenny Schwartz
~A Clockwork Christmas~Jenny Schwartz, JK Coi, PG Forte, Stacy Gail
I never seem to be the lucky reader who scores pre-release copies, so I'm thrilled to have a sneak peek of my fellow steampunk anthology authors' novellas. I'm reading "Far From Broken" by JK Coi, "This Winter Heart" by PG Forte and "Crime Wave in a Corset" by Stacy Gail, all to be found in Carina Press's "A Clockwork Christmas". You can find out more at https://www.facebook.com/AClockworkChristmas

Maggie Mundy
~Write it Forward~Bob Mayer
I bought Bob Mayer’s book at the conference. It is called Write it Forward. Like many of you I have read many books on writing and there comes a time when they all blend in with each other. This book is different in that it is more about the writer than the book you are writing and the craft. It is a book about motivation and looking at writing as a business. It tells you how to set goals, and how you have a better chance of achieving them. It also looks at the personality traits of writers and how you use them to help achieve your goals. I think some people could find the book over simplistic, and I reckon it is more valuable for people who are at a point in their writing journey where they feel lost for direction. He does not give you the direction but shows you some tools to discover it in yourself. I will give more of an update when I have finished the book. So far I am finding it helpful.

Jess Anastasi
~Definitely Dead~ Charlaine Harris
I've just finished reading Definitely Dead, book 6 in Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse series. I'll be going on to All Together Dead as soon as I can get it from the library! I'm not a big fan of 1st person POV, which is probably why I hadn't read these books sooner, despite all the good things I'd heard about them. I also happen to be a fan of the TV series, which doesn't hurt. But, I've enjoyed the differences between the books and the TV adaptation, even as I've also enjoyed the similarities. I've never read anyone who has written 1st person POV as well as Ms. Harris does. Most of the time I'm so drawn into the story that I forget I'm even reading 1st person POV, which to my mind makes a brilliant writer. I can't wait to get through the next five books to see what happens to Sookie. And since I'm firmly camped on the Team Eric side of things, I'm living in hope that sometime soon she'll end up with him for good... guess I'll have to wait and see what happens. For those of you who've been living under a rock (like me) and not got around to reading this best-selling series yet, I highly recommend it for anyone who likes vampires, werewolves and something a bit different.

Maree Anderson
~Kiss of Snow~Nalini Singh
Got Nalini’s Kiss of Snow out from the library. It’s a hardback, so it was a little out of my price-range to buy — plus, as I have all the rest of her Psy/Changeling books in paperback, it’d bug the hell out of me to have a hardback mucking up the flow of all the other paperbacks in the series on my bookshelf. (Yes, I am THAT an*l.)

The thing about hardbacks is, they’re soooo expensive to buy in New Zealand it’s a huge investment in a book — even if for me, Nalini’s books are always ALWAYS! a sure thing. My mom has bought be a few hardbacks over the years. And although I’ve not enjoyed many of them because they’re not my kind of read, I’m loath to give them away because I know how expensive they are. So me and hardbacks? Let’s just say, we don’t really get on.

All I can say after reading Kiss of Snow is that if I had just said “To hell with it!” and gone out and dropped $35 on the hardback, it would have been money incredibly well spent. And I would have happily made room for it on my bookshelf by rearranging my shelves to cope with a hardback in amongst the paperbacks. And I would not be lending this book out to anyone, in case it didn’t come back to me.

I can’t even tell you how much I loved this book. I got to have Hawke and Sienna’s story — and what a story it was! I got to revisit all my favorite Psy/Changeling characters. I got to have a secondary romance that was just perfection. I got everything I could ever want from this story and a whole heap more. Nalini is like a fine wine: Her writing just keeps getting better.

So is this hardback worth the money? Hell, yes.

(And now I have to go buy the book. And rearrange my bookshelf. Sigh….)

If you want to check out an excerpt from Kiss Of Snow, here’s a link to the page on Nalini’s website: www.nalinisingh.com/snow.php

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happy reading
Shona