From Star Wars: X-Wing to Star Wars: The Old Republic, high-profile Star Wars video games have been inspiring their own novel tie-ins for many years. In the spring of 2015, gamers and readers everywhere were delighted to learn that the highly anticipated Star Wars Battlefront will be getting the same treatment. This book, titled Battlefront: Twilight Company, tells the story of the eponymous Rebel Alliance army unit also known as the Sixty-First Mobile Infantry. Recruited from all over the galaxy, the men and women of this ragtag outfit have very little in common, save for one thing – a fervent desire to fight the Empire. In the wake of the Alliance’s first major victory at the Battle of Yavin, the rebels are pressing their advantage, making the push into Imperial territory. However, the enemy has increased its presence on the Mid Rim worlds, ready to stamp out even the tiniest spark of resistance before it can spread, and Twilight Company has little choice but to fall back. The central character of this novel is Sergeant Hazram Namir. While other units have perished, Twilight Company has always survived by rallying around their charismatic commander Captain Micha “Howl” Evon, whom Namir dislikes…

I read a whopping number of books last year. Like, the final tally was probably somewhere close to 200. And out of the dozens upon dozens of books, do you know which one stood out to me the most? Juliet Marillier’s Dreamer’s Pool. It should come as no surprise then, that its sequel Tower of Thorns is hands down my most anticipated novel this fall. Heck, most anticipated novel this year. We’re talking, if there’s one book I need to read in 2015, THIS. IS. IT. So, please understand now when I say I need a moment to pull myself together. I’m still trying desperately to come up with the words to describe how I felt about this novel, without coming off as a gushing, fangirly lunatic. After all, it’s not every day that I get to read a book that I’ve been dying for, only to have that book exceed all my expectations. What can I say? Tower of Thorns, you were utter perfection. Juliet Marillier, you are truly amazing. Yeah, that whole trying-not-to-be-a-gushy-fangirl thing. Not really working out, is it? Let me start again, all proper-like this time. Tower of Thorns is the direct sequel to Dreamer’s Pool….

Funny how I’m generally not big on anthropomorphism but at the same time I do seem to love a lot of books featuring fluffy, furry adorable sentient animals (Redwall, Watership Down, Mouse Guard, etc.) Thus the draw of Daniel Polansky’s The Builders won out, and it was also perfect because I’ve been meaning to check out his work for a long time. The animals in this book are far from soft and cuddly, though. A mouse, a stoat, an opossum, a badger, a salamander, a mole, and an owl all walk into a bar. This however is not the beginning of a joke but a start of a Kill Bill-style tale of vengeance and bloody destruction. One upon a time, all of them stood united against a common enemy, until treachery destroyed the group from within. The last job they were all on together didn’t end so well, so now the battle-hardened mouse known as the Captain is rounding up his old pals again for one last hurrah. But alas, you know what they say about the best laid schemes of mice and men. Before long, both bullets and fur will fly in abundance, as the Captain and his ragtag…

Last year, I became a big fan of Cassandra Rose Clarke after reading her adult novel debut The Mad Scientist’s Daughter, an emotional tale about love, loss and androids that shattered my heart to pieces and left me pining for more. So ever since I learned about her new book Our Lady of the Ice, I have been counting the days. Its premise sounded captivating too, a mystery drama unfolding inside a city encapsulated by a glass dome, the only protection against the frigid darkness of an Antarctic winter raging outside. The novel also features an intriguing cast. Eliana Gomez is a female PI, taking on as many jobs as she can in the hopes of scraping together enough money to get out of Hope City and head for the mainland. Her boyfriend Diego Amitrano is the adopted son of and right-hand man of Ignacio Cabrera, the city’s most notorious crime boss. Lady Marianella Luna is an Argentinian aristocrat and the celebrity face of an independence movement to build agricultural domes, a project which would help free Antarctica from the control of the mainland. Last but not least is Sofia, an android fighting for a different kind of freedom, envisioning Antarctica as…

Julia Knight is also Francis Knight, an author whose name has been on my radar since her Rojan Dizon trilogy, though this is the first time I’ve read her work. As soon as I found out about Swords and Scoundrels I knew it was going to be just right for me. As it happens, I’m a super mega fan of anything to do with swashbuckling duelists, and I could always use more scoundrels in my life. That and the cover is stunning too, not to mention the tagline made me chuckle. Plus, a brother-sister team? Count me in. Older sister Kacha has devoted a lifetime to the training and mastery of sword fighting while growing up in the Duelist’s Guild, but she’s not content with being just good – she wants to be the best. Problem is, so does Vocho, whose whole life spent in his big sister’s shadow grates on him something fierce. Neither skill nor reputation would come to much use though, when both of them get thrown out of the guild for an infraction, and the siblings are forced to turn to banditry in order to make a living. One day, a routine stick-up of a carriage…

A lot of the books that I’m excited for in 2015 are actually releasing quite late this year, so as we sauntered into fall and said good bye to summer, I was getting ready to say hello to a couple of my most anticipated titles. Shadows of Self was most definitely near the top of that list. I’m a big fan of Brandon Sanderson, and I absolutely loved The Alloy of Law – probably more than all three books of the original Mistborn trilogy put together, so small wonder that I was really looking forward to this follow-up. If there’s one thing I can never resist, it’s a good Fantasy meets Western setting. Three centuries after the events at the end of The Hero of Ages, the world of Mistborn has transformed into something altogether different. We’re on the cusp of an era similar to the industrial revolution, and all around are new inventions giving rise to mild hints of steampunk. On the outskirts of the built-up city of Elendel is a dusty, lawless territory known as the Roughs, where our protagonist Lord Waxillium Ladrian made his name as a lawman-for-hire. Magic, however, is alive and well. Allomancy and Feruchemy…