Closing the book on 2014 reading and starting my 2015 reading

I spent last week visiting Mr. Fraser's family in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Between travel time and the odd quiet moment, I was able to finish 6 books--3 in 2014 and 3 in the new year:

The last of the 2014 reading:

140) Lighting the Flames by Sarah Wendell


A Hanukkah romance set at a Jewish summer camp trying to make a go of a winter break camp to build enthusiasm between terms. The hero and heroine have known each other since childhood, but almost exclusively as campers and then counselors. They're now in their twenties, just stepping into their careers and feeling out a newfound attraction and what it means in their outside-of-camp worlds. Definitely the first book I've read where the hero is a mortician, and by the end of the book I found his career awesome rather than off-putting.

141) Yours Forever by Farrah Rochon

A fun, quick romance about an aspiring politician who wants to keep family scandals going back generations buried and a history professor who needs his family records to keep her faculty position.

142) Ancestral Journeys by Jean Manco

The simple summary: People have constantly been migrating, as DNA increasingly reveals. A little on the dry side, but worth a read if the topic is of interest to you.

And the first of 2015:

1. Yes Please by Amy Poehler


A generally entertaining and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny memoir (though it gets a bit rambly at times). The chapters on focusing on creativity above career had a lot of resonance for me.

2. The Resistance Man by Martin Walker

The latest in Walker's endearing, food-porny mystery series. I pretty much guessed the murderer--at least, I suspected him before the sleuth did, which left me feeling clever.

3. Gunpowder Alchemy by Jeannie Lin

A really excellent steampunk alternative history set in 1840's China. Plenty of adventure and a nice thread of romance.

It's already feeling a bit late to do a "best reads of 2014" list, but I might do one anyway sometime in the next week for the sake of reviewing the year and in case anyone is looking for some recommendations and, like me, doesn't have any particular compulsion to read new books the instant they appear. (Unless they're sequels to books that ended on cliffhangers, in which case GIVE GIVE GIVE NOW NOW NOW.)

For 2015, my reading goals are the same as always--read a lot, and read a good variety of genres and topics.

2014 Reading, Books 127-129

127) Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends by David Wilton

A quick, fun read that debunks almost everything you've ever read on Facebook about the origins of words and phrases. E.g. "Ring Around the Rosie" is not based on folk memory of the bubonic plague, a word which I will politely leave untyped (on Twitter I'm wont to use "rhymes with yuck!" when things go poorly for my chosen sportsball teams) is not an acronym of For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, etc. Little of it was new to me, but it was an enjoyable read nonetheless.

128) Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal

The first book in Kowal's Glamourist Histories fantasy series is very much a Austen pastiche--down to using old-fashioned spellings like "chuse" for "choose" and "shewed" for "showed." The characters and situations feel very similar, too. The heroine's parents are very Bennet-like, the villain reminds me of both Willoughby and Wickham, etc. I found myself wishing it was less Austenian in spots, since the voice made the occasional small anachronisms stand out more. That said, I enjoyed this book and plan to continue with the series.

129) Bruno and the Carol Singers by Martin Walker

A Christmas short story in the Bruno Courreges mystery series set in the French countryside. As a story it's quick, slight, and straightforward, but it was a pleasant visit with the characters and setting (these things are straight-up food and rural French living porn--reading them made me add the Dordogne to the itinerary for our Europe trip next summer). It also reminded me to search for any new full-length entries since I last read the series. There are two, and I'll be reading them soon.

2014 Reading, Books 22-24

22) Coriolanus, by William Shakespeare.

Yesterday I saw Tom Hiddleston as Coriolanus in the Donmar Warehouse production that's being shown at various art-house cinemas. Because, Tom Hiddleston. And also Shakespeare. It was a beautiful thing. In any case, I thought it behooved me to read the play first, the better to follow the action on screen.

I can see why this isn't one of Shakespeare's most famous tragedies. To me Coriolanus (the play and character alike) doesn't have the heft of a Hamlet or Macbeth or Othello. He felt more like a caricature than a person on some levels--though, that said, he's a caricature of a recognizable type, namely the brilliant, arrogant leader who feels like his accomplishments should speak for themselves and disdains the political game of appealing to the masses. I've encountered such leaders in history and even in modern politics, and in subtler form I even tend to like them--they're better than smooth-talking demagogues, at least! And now that I've seen the performance, Coriolanus as played by Hiddleston did feel like a person--a young, arrogant aristocrat gifted at war but in over his head in politics. A recognizable type indeed.

23) The Witness Wore Red, by Rebecca Musser with M. Bridget Cook.

I've always felt a certain horrified fascination for the FLDS polygamist cult, and I've read several memoirs of women who've escaped. This was a particularly fascinating account of the young woman who in her late teens became the 19th wife of elderly cult leader Rulon Jeffs, only to decide to escape after his death when his son Warren became the leader of the group and made it even more restrictive and insane. She was a key assistant to the Texas police and witness in the trials that resulted from the raids on the YFZ Ranch a few years ago.

24) The Stolen Luck, by Shawna Reppert.

This male/male fantasy romance is a lovely, well-balanced, well-paced story. The human hero, James, wins elven slave Loren in a game of cards. Even though he is morally opposed to slavery, he needs the elf's help to win back the stolen "Luck" of the title--a talisman that ensures the productivity of his lands and therefore his family and dependents' future. He swears to free Loren so he can return to his own lands and people...but only when the Luck is back in his hands. Attraction and trust very gradually grows between the two men, but neither is willing to act on their feelings while Loren remains a slave.

I love the subtlety of this story. The fantasy world feels lived-in and plausible without a lot of extraneous detail. While the stakes are hugely important to the characters--James needs to save his estates and Loren longs to be free--this isn't a Save the World! story. I enjoy a Save the World! story as much as the next reader, but I also like variety. And I love that James and Loren never let their feelings for each other get the better of their integrity and honor.

2013 Reading, Books 76-78

76) A More Unbending Battle, by Peter N. Nelson.

An account of the Harlem Hellfighters (i.e. the 369th Infantry Regiment), an African American regiment who fought as part of a French division in 1917-18. They quickly gained a reputation for valor and were treated well by both their French brothers-in-arms and the civilian population--but weren't as welcome at home afterward.

77) Assassin's Gambit, by Amy Raby.

This is a fantasy romance, wherein a young woman from a conquered land has trained from childhood to assassinate an emperor, only to discover upon getting close to her target that both he and his nation's political situation are more complex than she realized. I liked it a whole lot and was intrigued by the setting--reminiscent of imperial Rome, but with magic and roughly 18th-century military technology. My only issue--and I feel guilty for saying this because I write romance novels myself and love the genre--is that I think I would've enjoyed it more if it had been a romantic fantasy instead of a fantasy romance. (By romantic fantasy I mean something like Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel series, which are both sexy and romantic, but where the romance plot comes second to the political intrigue and war.) Because there are few things I love more than a well-constructed fantasy world, and Raby hinted at so much interesting history and magic and intrigue and war that I wished she had more room for that side of the story.

(Incidentally, this book warrants a bit of a content warning. To go into detail would be to spoil a major plot point, but suffice it to say the heroine's past has some sexual trauma we eventually revisit on the page.)

78) The Bookseller's Daughter, by Pam Rosenthal.

For the 2013 TBR Challenge. Detailed post to come.

Welcome, Shawna Reppert!

Today's guest on my blog is fellow Carina author Shawna Reppert, whose m/m fantasy romance The Stolen Luck released this week! By the way, isn't that a gorgeous cover? Carina consistently provides quality covers, but I think they've outdone themselves this time.

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue
(On Worldbuilding)

In some ways, writing an original-world fantasy is easy.  No need to scour the web for reference photos and old maps, no need to worry about getting caught out by a reader who knows that Main Street in Nameatown runs east/west, not north/south.
On the other hand, you face the daunting task of making a world up entirely out of your own imagination.  It needs to be detailed enough to feel real, and it needs to make sense.
In the opening of The Stolen Luck, my protagonist, James Dupree, is travelling through an area that he doesn’t particularly care for, a land where slavery is legal.  I had already decided, arbitrarily, that his own estate is in the North.  I realized that put the opening in the South would add unintended political and historical resonances, even though the novel is set in a fantasy world vaguely equivalent to late medieval/early Renaissance Europe in technology and feel.
So, he’s travelling through the Midlands.  To give the world a more complete feel I make mention of the South by implying that the Dupree wines must be famous indeed to be traded that far.  I reference the East by implying that fine horses have a touch of Eastern blood, a detail borrowed from our own world, where hotter, finer-boned horses descend at least distantly from Arab and Barb breeds.
I actually borrow quite a bit from our world.  The rolling vineyards surrounded by tall forests will feel familiar to any of my neighbors.  The weather on the journey from the Dupree manor to the elven sanctuary of the Lands Between fall in similar patterns to those I’ve come to respect on the mountain where I keep my horse.  The north wind in winter brings bitter cold, dry weather; the winds from the west bring rain and snow.
I wanted the magical elements of the novel to have an almost fairytale feel, and so the Lands Between the Worlds bear a resemblance to cnuc na Sidhe, the faerie underworld of Celtic myths and legends.  At the same time, I wanted to give the world something unique and original.  Cloaks of invisibility, magic swords, elixirs that heal wounds, all these have been done and done again.  I decided that the chief function of the Luck, the talisman in my novel that James will do almost anything to recover, is to make vineyards thrive and make the wine from those vineyards exemplary beyond all others.  (It does other things, but loss of its influence on the vineyard and the wines his family depends on is what causes James Dupree to risk both life and honor for its return.)
As a final note on worldbuilding, unless you really know your biology and your atmospheric science, keep your trees green and your sky blue.  (I had to get the blue in there somehow to justify the title!)

The Stolen Luck:

How far will a good man go to save his home and loved ones?

Lord James Dupree must recover his family's stolen Luck, the elven talisman that has protected the Dupree lands for generations. Without the talisman, the Dupree vineyards are failing and creditors are closing in. The Luck is his only hope of saving his home and his family from poverty and ruin.

Despite his abhorrence of slavery, James wins an elven slave in a game of cards. The slave, Loren, provides the only chance to enter the Lands Between and recover the stolen Luck. Despite James's assurances and best intentions, Loren does not trust his new master and James finds it all too easy to slip into the role of slave master when Loren defies him.

As the two work together through hardship and danger, James finds himself falling in love with Loren. And when a hidden enemy moves against them, he must choose between his responsibility to his family and his own soul.

Buy it on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/The-Stolen-Luck-ebook/dp/B00BED276C/ref=la_B00957U8KG_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1367096054&sr=1-1
Or directly from the publisher:
http://ebooks.carinapress.com/89EDE738-8678-4C89-A4D7-ECB9112DF054/10/134/en/ContentDetails.htm?ID=B4068D55-726E-463A-8818-0E0EB843C5A7

Keep in touch with the author:
www.ShawnaReppert.com
Twitter: @ShawnaReppert
On Amazon:   http://www.amazon.com/Shawna-Reppert/e/B00957U8KG/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0
On Facebook:  www.facebook.com/shawna.reppert
On Tumbler:  http://www.tumblr.com/blog/shawnareppert