Night Study is the 5th book in the Study series.  It continues right were Night Study left off, after Yelena’s big reveal to Valek  .  Yelena continues to deal with her loss of magic. This has a huge impact on her, as you can imagine and she realizes just how dependent on it she has been. Tensions between Ixia and Sitia are growing worse, and war seems to be imminent. The Commander is, well, not quite himself and Valek seems to have mysteriously lost his trust. I will admit, I do not read a lot of books labeled Young Adult, so I may be off base on some of my assumptions. One thing I do feel is unique about this series (at least from my experience with YA), is that the last two books in the series take place after a good amount of time has passed from the first three. What that means is that the main characters have aged and are more “adults” than they are “young adults”. I believe they are in their late 20s, Valek may actually be in his thirties. But, the overall tone of the book and content is very much in line with what I…

Here’s a rundown of the books we think you should look out for in coming in the week. See any that you are really looking forward to? Find any you had not heard of yet? Know of books we missed? We know we don’t have everything and would love to hear what you feel we may have overlooked.   FANTASY          SCIENCE FICTION      FANTASY           SCIENCE FICTION           FANTASY              SCIENCE FICTION  

A very thought provoking and insightful book that makes you question the way things are in the world, as well as how they could be (and if that “other way” would really be better or worse). The Just City is an experiment carried out with by a Goddess. Her goal was to create perfectly balanced society where its citizens are judged solely on their own merits and abilities. There is to be no preferential treatment, people there should want to be their best selves and strive to do right by the city. If everyone lives by this code, then the city should thrive. The adults (or “masters”) in the city were all prayed to Pallas Athene for exactly this opportunity. They expressed a desire and interest to come to this. Many of them are people famous for their ideas and efforts during their times in history. The children however, were brought to the city under different circumstances. The city needed children for the experiment to work, but there was controversy over how to best do this. How can you best populate a new city with over ten thousand 10 year olds? It makes for an interesting dynamic. Since the masters…

Here’s a rundown of the books we think you should look out for in coming in the week. See any that you are really looking forward to? Find any you had not heard of yet? Know of books we missed? We know we don’t have everything and would love to hear what you feel we may have overlooked.   FANTASY          URBAN FANTASY           SCIENCE FICTION      FANTASY       URBAN FANTASY       SCIENCE FICTION     FANTASY          URBAN FANTASY           SCIENCE FICTION  

So amidst all the lists at the end of the year, we wanted to focus on some of the books we’ve read that we really think need a bit more love and attention. I asked each of our contributors to highlight a few of their favorite reads of the year that they feel fell under the radar. Some of these rated high enough to make our Best of 2015 list, and some of them were nominated/ranked in the list we used for the Best Of list, but just didn’t quite make the final cut. Books that only one of us read were at a bit of a disadvantage. So this is a great chance for each of us to highlight books we felt were wonderful reads and deserve another mention as the year draws to a close.   BOB’S PICKS         LISA’S PICKS           LYNN’S PICKS             STEPHENIE’S PICKS           TAMMY’S PICKS   .  

Today we’re pleased to welcome Anna Kashina to talk about Romance in Speculative Fiction! Also be sure to check out our giveaway for the first two books in her Majat Code series. The third one, Assassin’s Queen, releases this June. Hope you enjoy!       Romance plays a big role in our everyday life. Because of that, I find it to be a very natural element of fiction as well. In fact, I have been writing for quite a few years before I realized that my adventure fantasy books tend to have prominent romance elements, often skirting the border between fantasy and romance. By now, writing fantasy seems unthinkable to me without putting at least some elements of romance into it. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that I have been born and raised in Russia, where the word “novel” is actually the same as the word “romance” (in Russian “roman”, used equally in both senses). While I have switched languages since then and now write solely in English, it is possible that this word play in itself has affected my mind set early on. So did my reading. When I grew up, every book I read had a…

Monstress is absolutely stunning comic with a dark story and artwork that is simply gorgeous. I really can’t stress enough how much I loved all the imagery. I will readily admit to being a complete novice when it comes to comics, having read pretty much just Saga and Locke and Key, but even as a novice I feel secure in saying that this is one comic that you just can’t miss. Even if you are not into comics, it is worth picking up, maybe discover a love for a different style of story telling.  And, as an added bonus (because quite frankly I would want to read this just for the art), the story is definitely quite intriguing as well. Maika may look human, but there is more to her than originally meets the eye. We are introduced to her as she is being auctioned off as a monster, the auctioneer touting her unique human appearance. The only flaw they mention her missing half an arm. So, we have a beautiful protagonist with a disability, labeled as a monster and a mysterious background! Definitely peaked my interest. In this first issue, we are introduced to a fantastic world that is portrayed…

The concept behind Dead Ringers is definitely a bit creepy and as you get further into the book, there are some seriously haunting scenes. The thought of suddenly coming across another person that is so identical to yourself, to the point that even close family can not tell the difference is strange. I will admit at times something about this tested my willing suspension of disbelief, I think because it happened to a number of characters. But really I think the reason I was not as easily swayed had more to do with the number of central characters. Horror books really rely on the readers emotions for them to be fully effective. The best way to get a very emotional reaction from the reader is to get them to really, really care about the characters. There were more perspectives in this than there tend to be with horror (pretty sure there were 4), and while I understand the need, I do feel like it put a little bit of a barrier for the reader to really get attached to any of them just because the pages were split amongst several people which gives the author less time to form that…

Here’s a rundown of the books we think you should look out for in coming in the week. See any that you are really looking forward to? Find any you had not heard of yet? Know of books we missed? We know we don’t have everything and would love to hear what you feel we may have overlooked. December is a slower month for releases, but that doesn’t mean there’s not new books worth checking out! Instead of doing the normal weekly posting schedule for this feature, I am featuring two weeks at a time for the month, so keep a look out for our post listing the books still to release this year.   FANTASY          SCIENCE FICTION FANTASY         SCIENCE FICTION           FANTASY              SCIENCE FICTION        

With Angel of Storms, the Millenium’s Rule series continues to fascinate me. While I enjoyed The Black Magician Trilogy, I will confess to never loving it. This trilogy is turning out to be a much better match for me. Perhaps this is mainly because The Black Magician trilogy is young adult, where as this one,  I believe is not. Regardless of the reason, I tend to be captivated by this series and find it incredibly fun to read. This is the second in the trilogy, and while I felt like there was a good deal of progression in this book including wonderful details about the world, there is still so much left to resolve that I actually had to verify if this was a trilogy or a longer series. And it is definitely listed as a trilogy, so I suspect that final book is going to be packed with lots of excitement! For readers of the first book, I know many were hoping for a quick joining of Rielle’s and Tyen’s story lines in this book. For those that are new to the series, the first book, Thief’s Magic, is told through those two POVs with no apparent connection  between them. In the first book…