Upcoming Release: The Gospel of Loki, by Joanne Harris.

It's no secret that I love Joanne Harris' work. When I found out that she's about to be releasing a new novel, The Gospel of Loki, well, I got rather excited.

Not just because, to me, Loki looks like this:

 

Ms Harris does some incredibly insightful and evocative work, from the ongoing small time #Storytime hashtag on Twitter to the recent MBE insignia for services to literature she received from the freaking Queen of England!

Of course, like any author of relative popularity, she doesn't always receive high acclaim for all her works. I recently read a review of her Four Quarters of the Orange which, among other things, stated that the reader is an adult and wants to read about adult things. Funnily enough, that review and what I already knew about Joanne Harris just made me get around to reading this book faster. And what a read! Filled with such amazing and evocative writing as usual:

"The secret is to leave the stones in. Layer cherries and sugar one on the other in a wide-mouthed glass jar, covering each layer gradually with clear spirit up to half the jar's capacity. Top up with spirit and wait. Every month, turn the jar carefully to release any accumulated sugar. In three years' time the spirit has bled the cherries white, staining itself deep red, penetrating even to the stone and the tiny almond inside it, becoming pungent, evocative, a scent of autumn past. Serve in tiny liqueur glasses, with a spoon to scoop out the cheery, and leave it in the mouth until the macerated fruit dissolves under the tongue. Pierce the stone with the point of a tooth to release the liqueur trapped inside and leave it for a long time in the mouth, playing it with the tip of the tongue, rolling it under, over, like a single prayer bead. Try to remember the time of its ripening, that summer, that hot autumn, the time that well ran dry, the time we had the wasps' nests, time past, lost, found again in the hard place at the heart of the fruit."

Delicious!

Her latest novel The Gospel of Loki tells the story of the trickster god (no surprise there) finally taking the stage after being thoroughly misrepresented in histories and the tales we know of him. He's going to set the record straight on May 24th later this year.

New Release: Shelf Life, by Stephanie Lawton

Stephanie Lawton is an author I've had the pleasure of 'meeting' via a Twitter hashtag #NALit (New Adult Lit). She writes the kinds of books I would love to pen. And with each publisher she goes through, she unerringly seems to end up with some of the most winning, imaginative covers I've seen.

I'll admit, that when I first saw the cover for her latest release, Shelf Life, I thought we were in for a bit of a tamer read than what we'd seen before. 

In some ways, it is. Shelf Life isn't so much a romance as a year in the life of its main character. Pete. Not what I expected, but I like the way it built.

At its best points, this book had moments of Neil Gaiman and Francesca Lia Block. That's not to say this is a book with any magical elements. It's not. But the writing is descriptive, vivid. It gives you a sense of character, and solid views into the minds of the characters playing in the world.

The book culminates in this horrible storm that most of our main characters get stuck in. For this part of the book, there is not a page that is not fast paced or quick reading. Lindsey, our heroine, is portrayed as a bit of a brat in the early section of the book, but Stephanie brings her back into the fold with skill and empathy. Her return in the latter half of the book brings a comforting balance back to the book, though I often found myself wishing someone would pound on Lewis' door (Lindsey's brother and Pete's best friend) until he finally opened it.

The only character I couldn't find redeemable in the end was the character of Jay: the bully.

There were a couple of points I felt let the story down. It was a little bit slow to start, which can be forgiven, especially when the slowness was due to thorough world building. The slightly bigger point was that there felt like there was too much going one that was extraneous to the main plot. Characters were introduced and then dropped in favour for others and, though Pete thought of the friends that had come before, his university life felt like the opening to a separate book rather than a separate section in the same book of Pete's life. I found myself wanting to know more about Evan and Jenna. Instead, Jenna felt like a placeholder for Lindsey's return.

 There were also two scenes written from Jay's point of view in seemingly isolated parts of the otherwise first person narrative that I wasn't sure added the desired empathy for the character.Lastly, I thought the book might have benefited from a trigger warning for the event at the drunken party at the end of the first act. Otherwise, it was a thoroughly emotive book with many memorable characters, and a good edition to Stephanie's work.

To buy this release on Amazon:

Paperback: http://www.amazon.com/Shelf-Life-Crestlane-County-1/dp/0991161114/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1385741262&sr=1-3&keywords=Stephanie+Lawton

Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Shelf-Life-Crestlane-County-Series-ebook/dp/B00H06D7TS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1385820060&sr=8-1&keywords=Shelf+Life+by+Stephanie+Lawton

New Release - Rages & Bones, edited by Melissa Marr.

I have been watching the release of this anthology for what feels like Too Damn Long. I am very excited to say, two weeks ago, this book hit shelves.

Many people would have had advanced reader copies long before that.

But now it's free to the general public!!

Well... not free. I mean, you still have to pay for it...

And why wouldn't you, with the likes of Neil Gaiman, Melissa Marr, Holly Black and Kelley Armstrong filling the pages!

Excuse me while I run around in circles in excitement that this book has finally been released. :D:D

For those people who may have been sleeping under a rock (or who are merely just not so excited about this bunch of authors as I seem to be), the novel drumming up this much excitement in me is Rags & Bones, a new anthology edited by Melissa Marr and Tim Pratt including a list of classic stories that have been revisioned and repackaged.

Let me pull out a line up for you:

Holly Black - Sheridan le Fanu wrote an early poem called Carmilla that is largely known for its lesbian vampire content. Oh, and it was originally written in the 19th century.

Neil Gaiman - After what Anne Rice did to the Sleeping Beauty fairytale in 1983-85, I can't wait to see what his magician of dark fantasy manages to put together.

Melissa Marr - I don't know much about Kate Chopin's The Awakening, which is what Melissa's own story in this anthology is based on, but I can't wait to find out!

Kelley Armstrong - W. W. Jacob's The Monkey's Paw sounds interesting.

Kami Garcia - I've read only a little from Kami before, but with the popularity that Once Upon a Time has shone on the character of Rumplestiltskin, I can't wait to see what this author has devised for us here.

Saladin Ahmed - This is an author I've heard absolutely nothing about before, but my love of Spenser's Faerie Queene won't allow me to let this revisioning go by unremarked.

There are 12 stories in the anthology in all. Well worth it for both favourite authors and for those you've never heard of before.If you're still unsure, io9 has published an excerpt from Tim Pratt's retelling of Henry James' The Jolly Corner:

The Cold Corner

by Tim Pratt

I left home five years ago, and haven’t been back since— so why do I still think of it as home at all?

After almost a week spent driving across the country on I‑40 East, I cut north on Highway 202, and within an hour reached the outskirts of my hometown, Cold Corners. The only corners are in the endless rectangular fields of soybeans and tobacco, and with triple-​digit heat and 90 percent humidity in summer, it’s hardly “cold,” so I don’t know where it got the name.  (read more)

New Book Release: 'The Ocean at the End of the Lane' by Neil Gaiman

Several years ago, I decided I wanted to be one of these people who love being a Neil Gaiman fan. I'd heard stories about the kinds of things he wrote and thought I liked the sound of them. Most of all, I thought I liked the sound of the novel American Gods.

I started American Gods. I haven't finished it yet. Don't get me wrong. This isn't a criticism of the work. This is more a criticism of my ability to take in and understand it at the time. Just like his wife Amanda Palmer has said, this novel flew right past my soul.

It was one of the reasons why I was so excited to see Kevin Hearne's book Hounded earlier on this year being described as the best parts of American Gods and Dresden Files. And, also to my pleasure, it was a significantly easier read.

So now I'm entering into a one-book-per-month read-a-thon of Neil Gaiman's works (retweeted by @neilhimself), starting with The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

Early on, before any of us had started this reading, one of the girls in the group linked us all to this blog post written by Amanda Palmer:

"he started working on a short story, something he’d had in the works but wasn’t quite certain of. it wasn’t a memoir, per se, but a purée on a lower blender speed. some part of what pushed him to work on this (instead of the other four projects he had deadlines for) was to give the story to me, like some kind of olive branch, maybe….the story that never got shared that day in surrey hills...

neil started crafting a string of words that was like a long hand reaching out of his heart and across the void that i’d put between us. i didn’t understand that, then. i only see it now."

(read more)

So, I've just finished reading this latest book by Neil Gaiman. The Ocean at the End of the Lane came out three months ago.

It was... It was the kind of book that made me want to bash my head against a wall for taking so many years to actually *get* Neil's writing. The layers that this book took you through were utterly astounding. On the surface, this is a book about a seven year old child who goes through what you think is a memorable experience, only to find that there is so much more than the story of a seven year old to be taken in.

For those who are fans of Gaiman and realise this is his most autobiographical work, you will enjoy stepping into the story and finding out the difference between metaphor and imagination, appreciating the layers as you go deeper and deeper. For those who aren't, this book is easily read on its own without any prior knowledge outside of its pages just for the characters and the wonderfully crafted language.

I rated this highly. I thought it was amazing.

Rachel Bach's upcoming: 'Fortune's Pawn'.

I've been thinking, after my post on Orson Scott Card, that I need to get into some new science fiction. Different science fiction. Science fiction written by people I very much enjoy talking to.

For a little while now, I've been aware of yet another upcoming book that I'm not able to read yet. This one comes out in November and, with this review, the book has jumped up several spaces on my 'Priority Reads for 2013 TM'.

I am sure the author had in mind a crazy-action-fulled love story.  Yes, I said it. This is in part (at least 33.33%) a love story.  It at first took me by surprise. 

Here was a main character I loved.  Devi is smart, feisty, forthright and skilled.  She is basically a female child of Boba Fett and Han Solo.  At least.  She is great to read and choice to write in first-person made this all the better. (read more)

Sci-fi with interesting characters, you say? With a romantic plot line? With a focus on something other than cool weird science gadgets that I am not quite geek enough to be able to imagine? What is this amazing venture?

It is none other than Rachel Aaron's (writing as Rachel Bach) new novel Fortune's Pawn.

From what I understand, the upcoming Fortune's Pawn tells the story of Devi, a mercenary, who gets a job on a particularly troublesome trade ship. Things go wrong. The ship itself seems to be the cause, or the reason, or... But Devi has a Plan (yes, with a capital 'P'), and this particular ship seems to be our heroine's way of getting onto Step 2 of this Plan.

Okay, okay, I'm really no good with summarising or describing science fiction novels. Did I not already mention that I'm not particularly well read in this genre?

No matter; Fortune's Pawn has grabbed my interest as potentially being something other than the standard sci-fi novel and, for that alone, I am looking forward to my chance at picking this one up.

Holly Black's upcoming release: 'The Coldest Girl in Coldtown'.

I had just finished airing excitement for the release of Love in a Time of Global Warming by favourite author Francesca Lia Block, as well as the upcoming new season of Sherlock. There as well is the ever-continuing promise of S.H.I.E.L.D. coming out in September. I had almost thought that all my potential for squee had been all used up for the time being.

Nope. I was wrong.

At the beginning of the month, I promised I'd be writing more on this upcoming title soon, and here it is:

Holly Black! That is a name people have no doubt seen on my blog more than a couple of times. (If you haven't, I have personally devised a clever tagging system at the bottom of each post so that clicking on 'Holly Black' will pull all such posts up. :D)

Holly Black's short story anthology The Poison Eaters got a fair amount of publicity in 2010 when it was released, but by far and away the most noise made of any short story in that anthology had to do with "The Coldest Girl in Coldtown".

Now, more than three years later, it's going to be released as a full length story in its own right. Now, first there was the cover reveal, then there was Entertainment Weekly releasing their exclusive trailer for the book slated to come out on September 3rd, here.

I'm not ashamed to say that I am excited. In fact, I'm already re-reading The Poison Eaters just to tide me through! And, as of today, the First 8 Chapters of The Coldest Girl in Coldtown are available for FREE, you saw correctly, FREE on Amazon now: http://www.amazon.com/Coldest-Girl-Coldtown-Chapters-ebook/dp/B00DB7R7E6/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_kin?ie=UTF8&qid=1375816503&sr=8-1&keywords=coldtown

Only until the date of the release. (September 3rd. Eeeeeee!!) So get in quick!

Francesca Lia Block: a loving (incomplete) bibliography.

In 2003, I was 19 years old. I was in England, staying halfway across the world with a couple of girls I had only ever talked to online. I was going through their bookshelves, and realising how similar our tastes in books were, except for this one author I'd never heard of before: Francesca Lia Block.

It was only the first time that I would come across this wondrous woman's writing. There were two books on that bookshelf; one was about a teenager who met and fell in love with a boy with angel wings, the other was the story of a girl fighting anorexia and telling her story through a series of tarot cards. I was hooked.

At 19, I was one of many young women who was struggling with an eating disorder. I was also a young woman who still believed in magic in all places. These books, speaking of realities like cancer and abuse while intermingling it with a sense of the divine or the magical spoke to me in a way that I couldn't quite describe.

My writing style changed around this time, trying to emulate the simple beauty I found in these books. 

It was 2005, I was 21, and New Zealand was the flavour of the year. A friend had a copy of Violet and Clare, a novel that I mistakenly took from its title for a lesbian love story, but I wasn't disappointed. 

2006, still in New Zealand, and leafing through a copy of I was a Teenage Fairy, the story of a young model trying to live up to the pressures of her mother, who sees fairies in the backyard and is close to one fairy, the fairy Mab, in particular. 

When I revisited this novel again in 2008, I started wondering whether these stories of real life with magical realism spoke of a deeper metaphor, whether suffering mental health was the scope through which these teenagers escaped to and regularly found outlets of the mystical and the divine. Or whether the fairies and angels were part of their delusions. 

In 2011, I did an Honours paper that included one of the short stories from Francesca's The Rose and the Beast. There, while my focus was on the short story 'Beast', I finally found my lesbian love story in the retelling of Snow White and Rose Red. 

This month, I read The Elementals, a book with lyrical writing, strong plot and many of the familiar themes I have come to associate with Francesca's various works. This novel was, in many ways, one of those "New Adult" novels we've been hearing so much about: The main character moves out from her family home, goes to college, discovers sex. But it's so much more than that. Mystery and drugs and abductions and cancer with just a hint of magical realism serve to make this a very well weaved, heart-wrenching novel by a very talented author.

For ten years , Francesca Lia Block has managed to elevate, excite, liberate, titillate and make my heart soar with her stories of sadness and beauty, magic and suffering. I love these stories. They are a part of me, and now, this year, she will be releasing her latest novel. 

Love in the Time of Global Warming is a post-apocalyptic novel with a young woman going on a journey to find her lost family. Early reviews of the book agree that this will be another one of her gritty realisms in a slightly fantastical setting which, of course, post-apocalyptic settings tend to be.

This will be the first time that I am getting on board with one of Francesca's novels as they come out. I was close, I think, when I picked up her novel Ruby (co-written with Carmen Staton). Of course, the release date for this novel is saying late August, so my only question really is how am I going to wait that long?