Recent Reads: The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches

This is one of many books I’ve bought because someone on Twitter (in this case, fantasy novelist Stephanie Burgis) recommended it. For a platform notorious for Not Selling Books, I gotta say, I’ve bought an awful lot of books because of it. RIP Twitter. Anyway. IRREGULAR WITCHES is a contemporary rrrrromantic fantasy, I guess, because there is a romance storyline of some importance, but it’s really about Found Family, and like a lot of what I’ve been reading lately, it was a balm to my weary soul. It’s the story…

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The 1980something cover of THE WESTING GAME, featuring chess pieces on a puzzle with missing sections, beneath one of which is Uncle Sam in a casket.

Recent Reads: The Westing Game

I first read Ellen Raskin’s THE WESTING GAME (affiliate link) when I was about eleven. It was the first, and I believe remains the only, book that I have ever finished reading, stared at a moment, and then gone back to the beginning to read again immediately. I then read it again many, many times in my tween and early teen years, but I don’t remember re-reading it for…well, a very long time. But it came up again recently, possibly in context of Ellen Raskin as a cover designer, and…

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Recent Reads: Regency Dragons by Stephanie Burgis

I’ve had the first of Stephanie Burgis’s Regency Dragons books, SCALES & SENSIBILITY, on my shelf for over a year. I admit I’ve been kind of afraid to read it because I was afraid it would trigger an overwhelming urge to work on the sequel to MAGIC & MANNERS, and I haven’t had time to do that. But this summer she sent me the sequel, CLAWS & CONTRIVANCES, for an early read because I was having a very bad week, and she hoped it might cheer me up. So obviously…

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Recent Reads: Beyond the Hallowed Sky

Recent Reads: BEYOND THE HALLOWED SKY, by Ken MacLeod I have to confess I’m…’embarrassingly far behind’ on Ken’s books isn’t sufficient; this is the first one I’ve ever read. It is already not the last, as I bought the sequel immediately, and only after the fact realized it had JUST come out. (After I read the first two chapters I was like “KEN I NEED BOOK THREE” and he was like “I HAVE NOT WRITTEN IT YET, GIVE ME SOME TIME” and, oops. O.O) Like, I mean, he’s Ken MacLeod,…

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Ask The Author: favorite books & writers?

Ask The Author – the Question: Dare I ask? Favorite authors? Books? oh come on :) No, no, okay, look, I do have some answers to this. My husband says my favorite book is TIGANA by Guy Gavriel Kay, and I can never argue with that even though who can, in fact, choose a single favorite? But if it’s not my favorite, I have a hard time telling you what is in its place. OTOH, I am now like a…decade? behind? on reading Guy’s books, which makes it feel hard…

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