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There is a new sequel to Bloody Jack out! I have it in my hot little hands. *sigh*. I have much love for this series, where a fierce, talented, brave young woman gets involved in naval battles, piracy, smuggling, is kidnapped by white slavers, etc. The stories are fast paced and funny and precisely detailed. The truly startling thing to me is that the gender voice/gaze never seems off to me - this is a series about a girl, written by an older guy, and I never feel as if the narrative eye lingers on boys and girls in a weird way. Jacky Faber's point of view seems very very appropriate for both her gender and her age, a trick I don't think many male writers pull off. Jacky even has lots of close female friends, and has what I find to be believable conversations with them! I can't tell you how much this impresses me.
I've also got a new bok by Carole Nelson Douglas, Dancing with Werewolves. Someone paid for it to have front of store placement in Borders (bless them) otherwise I might not have realized Ms. Douglas had a new book out. How can someone have had such a long career and have written so many good, readable, well-constructed books, and be so not on the pop culture radar? Anyway, so far I quite like it. I haven't ever read any of her earlier fantasy and science fiction, just her straight mystery novels, so at first I was shocked that she'd written a paranormal type book, before I remembered all that early fantasy/sf production.
I used to admire Ms. Douglas as one of the few authors I knew of in the 80s who seemed to use THE SAME NAME whichever genre she published in. I remember being endlessly frustrated trying to figure out whether romance or mystery novels I liked were really by someone else or by the same person as fantasy novels I liked (no one had yet explained to me the rationale behind the name changes, re last sales figures and ordering numbers and so forth). I liked that Anne McCaffrey used the same name whether it was romance or sf too.
On the other cross-genre front on my mind, why won't Suzy McKee Charnas write a new YA series? This would fill me with joy, as I adored her Bronze Knight/Silver Glove/Golden Thread book series way back when. And with YA fantasy of a darker, more sexual, more political note being such a big deal these days, I would think it would go over well.
On the YA note, I finally read Tantalize by Cynthia Leitich Smith. It was very compulsive reading - the kind where I want to get through it and know how it comes out, but I don't want to skip to the end. The main plot twist I caught right away (as in, when the character involved was introduced), but there was at least two really nice later-act plot twists that I didn't seem coming at all.
I think the audience for this book is people who really like Holly Black books and maybe Scott Westerfeld books like Peeps and Last Days, but are dissatisfied with books like Twilight and Kissing Coffins. It's more of a horror with romance than a romance with gothic.
I've also got a new bok by Carole Nelson Douglas, Dancing with Werewolves. Someone paid for it to have front of store placement in Borders (bless them) otherwise I might not have realized Ms. Douglas had a new book out. How can someone have had such a long career and have written so many good, readable, well-constructed books, and be so not on the pop culture radar? Anyway, so far I quite like it. I haven't ever read any of her earlier fantasy and science fiction, just her straight mystery novels, so at first I was shocked that she'd written a paranormal type book, before I remembered all that early fantasy/sf production.
I used to admire Ms. Douglas as one of the few authors I knew of in the 80s who seemed to use THE SAME NAME whichever genre she published in. I remember being endlessly frustrated trying to figure out whether romance or mystery novels I liked were really by someone else or by the same person as fantasy novels I liked (no one had yet explained to me the rationale behind the name changes, re last sales figures and ordering numbers and so forth). I liked that Anne McCaffrey used the same name whether it was romance or sf too.
On the other cross-genre front on my mind, why won't Suzy McKee Charnas write a new YA series? This would fill me with joy, as I adored her Bronze Knight/Silver Glove/Golden Thread book series way back when. And with YA fantasy of a darker, more sexual, more political note being such a big deal these days, I would think it would go over well.
On the YA note, I finally read Tantalize by Cynthia Leitich Smith. It was very compulsive reading - the kind where I want to get through it and know how it comes out, but I don't want to skip to the end. The main plot twist I caught right away (as in, when the character involved was introduced), but there was at least two really nice later-act plot twists that I didn't seem coming at all.
I think the audience for this book is people who really like Holly Black books and maybe Scott Westerfeld books like Peeps and Last Days, but are dissatisfied with books like Twilight and Kissing Coffins. It's more of a horror with romance than a romance with gothic.
