Emerald City RWA Giveaway

You know, for a romance fan, there aren't many places that are better to live in than Seattle.

For one, it's gorgeous.  You may have heard that it rains all the time--and yes, it can be dreary in the winter, BUT it's also lush and green all year.  I have camellias in my yard that bloom every January.  January!  And on a clear day, the view of the Cascades or the Olympics or Mt. Rainier or the Sound or one of the many lakes is a great mood lifter.

Honestly, I don't mind the overcast weather.  Because what goes better with a great book than a cozy sofa, a hot beverage, and the sound of rain on your windows?  I'm not alone, because Seattle still ranks as the #1 American city for booksellers per capita.

But for the true book geek, the fact that the Pacific Northwest is home to an amazing number of great authors has to be the best thing about being a reader in Seattle.  And for a romance reader in particular, the Emerald City RWA bookfair is the candy store to my inner kid.

It's really an embarrassment of riches.  Earlier this year, I went to a Bookperk "tea" and met Julia Quinn and Eloisa James.  I've been to signings by Candy Tan, Jacquelyn Carey, Kim Harrison, and Patricia Briggs.  I bumped into Jayne Ann Krentz and Stella Cameron in the Barnes and Noble, for crying out loud!

So what does a person do when they have it really, really good?  Share the wealth!

I thought about a couple of different ways to do this, but in the end, I'm a fan of the KISS Principle: Keep It Simple, Stupid. 

So Here's The Deal:

Check the author roster in the post below, then leave me a comment telling me which of these talented authors you would like to have a signed book from. If you win, I'll get it for you, and send it to you.  Simple!

I'm feeling generous, so it's open world-wide.  You get one extra entry/chance if you share this post on FaceBook, Tweet, or "like" Alpha Heroes' FaceBook page.  Contest closes at midnight Pacific time Thursday, Oct. 27, and I'll run the pick sometime Friday morning.

Oh! and breaking news:  Julia Quinn is not on the official list for the bookfair, but she confirmed in her Facebook feed that she'll be there.  So she's an option too!

Happy Bloggiversary To Me....

Alpha Heroes is Two!
Whoa. That was fast.

236 posts, 63 individual book reviews, 9 series reviews, 9 author profiles, 15 "Thursday Thirteens," three templates, several hundred books, and lots of new virtual friends later, I'm still here.

I've always loved reading, but writing this blog has pushed that love up the scale closer to the "obsession" level. Since starting Alpha Heroes, I've attended a dozen local book signings, two RWA book fairs, and a handful of related author events. I'm thinking seriously about attending one of the conferences, although 2011 is more likely than 2010 financially.

Technically speaking...
When I look back at my first couple of posts, I see: one solid block of text. I knew how to link, so I thought it was pretty clever, that business of linking to images with text. Heh. I'm still not the most talented at finding perfect graphics for my posts, but I try pretty hard to have at least one in every post, and because I'm kind of a hopeless rule follower, I also try to get permission if it seems like an image that isn't obviously public.

I'm nobody's expert at css, but boy have I learned a lot in the last two years. I tend to be a little bit of a perfectionist when it comes to formatting, so this last round of template changing and tweaking got really in depth.

Community
Didn't take long before I figured out about linking to other blogs and commenting on them. I don't know about other bloggers, but I crave the comments. I love knowing that people are reading, that they like what I wrote or are engaged enough to debate something they disagree with. You all are awesome and the main reason I'm still here.

I Write a Little Differently
Self-editing is a tough one. There are some topics that I could go on and on and on about (maybe you've noticed the twenty-some -odd JR Ward posts....) but I do make a conscious effort to keep my blog posts kind of middlin'. I'm pretty much incapable of writing a 200-word post. If you see something from me that doesn't require you to scroll, it's probably one of my Lazy Posts, wherein I'm redirecting you to something fun.

There are more than a few posts that are very very long, and some of those I had to kind of stop myself and say, "enough already!" -- I could've gone on for pages and pages with our two Black Dagger Brotherhood scholars earlier this year.

Generally, my posts probably run a bit longer than a typical blog post, but it's how I roll. I'm getting a little better at being concise, but I'm not too worried about it-- I just try to pay attention and not go off the deep end.

I Read a Little Differently, Too
But not too much, I think. I might be a bit more likely to notice writing "tics", as O'Donovan calls them. I don't know. But when I know I'll be writing a review, I do try to pay attention and flag excerpts that I want to talk about -- things I particularly love, or are especially evocative of the character or the author's style.

A Few of My Favorite Things
I'm still partial to my vampire credibility index post-- what can I say, sometimes I just crack myself up. Antholopalooza last December was an interesting experiment, both in reading and blogging. I started something about a year ago that I like to call the Lazy Post, which is mostly just a link to someone else's fabulous content (if I were less lazy, I might try to turn it into a meme, but, well. Lazy. It's a problem.) This year, the two-post series with Maria Lindgren Leavenworth and Jessica Price was a huge highlight. And of course, who could forget the Penis Post?

What's Next?
Mostly more of the same, I guess. I'm still having fun reviewing and blogging, and I don't think I'll ever quit reading romance. A few new ideas include a short-story meme that Jackie over at Literary Escapism and I are cooking up, and I've been mulling over adding some author feature pages around my favorites. I've been getting quite a few pings at GoodReads lately, so I've been thinking about doing brief reviews there and linking to the blog. Maybe at Amazon, too. Do you guys do stuff like that?

PRESENTS!!
Wouldn't be a birthday without them, now would it? You of course, are welcome to send me heaps of presents if you're so inclined, but of course I would NEVER presume to ask.

Coincidentally enough, I've been going over my non-keeper shelf today and I have a whole LOT of books that are ready to go to their next reader. So I'm going to bundle some up and give them away. I figure I'll do three packages: historical, contemporary, and paranormal/UF.

I do not guarantee condition, as quite a few of them were acquired used anyway. I'm gonna keep it simple -- leave a comment if you want to be entered and which of the 3 you're interested in. You don't have to comment 3 times to be in for all 3 packages, but you won't win more than one.

And one more time, if you're reading here? you're part of why I keep doing this. So thanks!

Knight of Desire Winners

AND THE WINNERS ARE:

Dag88
Etirv
Eva S
Mishel
Dixie


Congratulations! Email your street address to: nicola327@hotmail.com
(no PO boxes!)

Last Chance - Knight of Desire Giveaway

Enter Today!

I'll be picking a winner this evening-- the exact deadline to be determined at my whim.

Don't wait too long!

Knight of Desire, by Margaret Mallory - Review

Review and Giveaway!

The Facts

Title: Knight of Desire
Author: Margaret Mallory
Pub Date: July 1, 2009






Don't get me wrong. I like Regencies; I like them a lot.

But there's just something about a medieval, isn't there? And I've missed them; it seemed like they disappeared from the shelves for awhile. I hope this is the beginning of a trend, along with Madeleine Hunter and ? who else? seems like I've seen a couple surfacing here and there lately.

Anyway, I talked a bit about medieval romance in general a while ago, and I have to say, Knight of Desire does a great job of delivering everything you could want from a classic Knight In Shining Armor story. A larger-than-life hero, terrifying on the battlefield, with an irresistably tender spot only for the heroine. Yum.

Catherine is no slouch either. She endures and survives a disastrous and abusive first marriage, made for political reasons, but "passive" is not a word she knows. In romance books, the hero's sense of honor often leads him into difficult choices between duty and love, but Mallory gives us a twist by sending the heroine down that path instead. Catherine's unswerving patriotism leads her into treacherous political waters, with rather unfair but somehow inevitable consequences for her personal life.

In the end, this is a story about trust, on many levels. The two protagonists are both likeable people of honor, integrity, and loyalty, but nonetheless, those very traits cause frustrating obstacles along the way as they learn to apply those virtues to each other. I want to say too that it would have been easy for Mallory to have gone down the Big Misunderstanding road with this story, but instead she has constructed a fast-paced plot that throws natural-feeling curves into the character-driven twists and turns of the relationship development.

Which happily enough, is exactly what I want in a romance novel.

The Giveaway

Want to see for yourself? Comment on this post for a chance to win one of 5 copies. No PO Boxes! Add a link back to this post, share on Facebook, etc. for additional entries (you have to let me know what you've done though). Stop back here on Tuesday, July 14 to see if you won.

**New Rule for Alpha Heroes Giveaways** I'm not going to chase down the winners! Stop back here to find out if you've won and email me your address. If I don't have it within 3-4 days, I will choose an alternate winner.

Readers from outside of North America: let me know in your comment where you are - the sponsors of the contest do not ship outside of the US and Canada, but I will enter all the international names in the last drawing and cover shipping myself if one is chosen. So you only have one chance instead of five, but you DO have a chance!

Big thanks to Hachette books for sponsoring the giveaway!

The Blog Tour

There are a number of folks around the blogosphere discussing this one, so if you don't believe me, try a second opinion. Or third. Or seventeenth.

PARTICIPATING BLOGS:

http://bridget3420.blogspot.com/ - June 29 giveaway.
http://www.thisbookforfree.com/ - June 29 giveaway
http://mustreadfaster.blogspot.com/ - June 29 review and giveaway.
http://yankeeromancereviewers.blogspot.com/ - June 29 to July 10 review and giveaway
http://rannthisthat.blogspot.com/ - June 30 review and giveaway.
http://booksoulmates.blogspot.com/ - July 1 review and giveaway.
http://www.morbid-romantic.net/ - July 4 review, giveaway, and Q&A.
http://www.chickwithbooks.blogspot.com/ - July 4 review and giveaway
http://booksandneedlepoint.blogspot.com/ - July 5 review; July 19 giveaway.
http://bookinwithbingo.blogspot.com/ - July 5
http://ajourneyofbooks.blogspot.com/ - July 6 review and giveaway.
http://seductivemusings.blogspot.com/ - July 7 review and giveaway.
http://www.bookwormygirl.blogspot.com/ - July 8 review and giveaway.
http://martasmeanderings.blogspot.com/ - July 9 review and giveaway.
http://reviewfromhere.com/ - July 10 review.
http://www.startingfresh-gaby317.blogspot.com/ - July 10 review and giveaway
http://reesspace.blogspot.com/ - review and giveaway.
http://www.myspace.com/darbyscloset - review.
http://www.foreigncircuslibrary.blogspot.com/

Update: I've removed a few of the links where I couldn't find a Margaret Mallory post. If you have reviewed this book and would like a link, just leave your info in comments!

Naamah's Kiss, by Jaqueline Carey - Review

Figuring out when to end a series has got to be challenging for a popular author. As a fan, it’s a conundrum too, because when you’re in love with a world, whether it’s historical, paranormal, or almost-real fiction, it’s hard to give it up, even when you know it’s time.

And yet a good author knows when to leave them wanting more, because really, there are only so many times that any given character can Save The World.

Jacqueline Carey is one of those authors for me – I want her Terre d’Ange world to keep going, and going and going because it is such an incredible place. (Actually, if I could figure out a way to go live there--err, without involving psychiatric institutionalization-- I would.) The two Kushiel trilogies are as absorbing and immersive as anything I’ve ever read and while I was a little disappointed to learn last year that enough time elapses between the end of Kushiel’s Mercy and this book that none of the characters from the first two books would be appearing, I’ve still been waiting with great anticipation for Naamah’s Kiss. (Carey actually read the first chapter last year at a signing for Kushiel's Mercy– how’s THAT for a tease??)

I’m very pleased to report that Naamah's Kiss delivers everything a Terre d’Ange fan could want. Carey returns to a feminine viewpoint, telling the story of Moirin, a descendant of the “bear witches,” the clan who betrayed Imriel in the second trilogy. Several generations have passed, and the larger magic abilities of Moirin’s people have faded, similar to legends you might read about the Fae.

One of the aspects I like the most about all of Carey’s books, including Santa Olivia, is the way the point of view character always sees themselves as more or less ordinary, and tells us their extraordinary story with such a sense of humbleness that you don’t always realize immediately that you as a reader are getting a front-row look at this world’s history unfolding from inside the eyes of someone who is going to turn out to be a pivotal figure within the world. At one time, Moirin’s internal narrative tells us that “whatever else happened, we had just ridden into legend.”* And damn if that doesn’t feel like the dead truth when you’re reading it.

Carey absolutely does it again with this new incarnation of her world. A few familiar threads will ground the Kushiel fans quickly, but if you’re interested in trying out a new author and don’t want to read the whole backlist, this would be a fine place to start. It couldn’t have been easy for Carey to find new ground to break after the wide-ranging journeys of Phedre and Imriel, but she manages it. Moirin travels to Carey’s analog of China, exploring half-familiar legends involving curses, princesses, and dragons who inhabit the exotic mountain ranges of the East, and learning that earth-magic has many faces, but springs from the same source. (Well, maybe that's obvious, but at any rate, I liked how Carey manages to make it feel exotic and different but with a familiar heart everywhere her characters go.)

Something I always appreciate about the Terre d’Ange books is the way sexuality is treated: from sacred to ordinary, it’s a part of life--and a part of the story-- that is just as accepted any other part of life. And just to prove that I do retain [some] of the stuff I’ve learned along the way since starting this blog, let me comment that if you find a heteronormative framework restrictive and unsatisfying, you won’t have a problem with Terre d’Ange. As with the previous trilogies, the “love as thou wilt” theology of Terre d’Ange is an underlying force in Moirin’s destiny; her partners and lovers all have a role in leading her along her journey and the book falls into natural phases along with her different affairs.

All up, I give Naamah’s Kiss a whole-hearted recommendation for any fan of good fiction. If high fantasy hasn’t been your cup of tea thus far, Carey just might be your gateway book. If you love historical fiction, heroic legend, or just plain good storytelling, Carey does not disappoint. Romance purists will not find a story centered around a couple's relationship, but there are lots of romantic elements. If you’re already a fan of Ms. Carey, rest assured that Naamah's Kiss delivers. For now, I think I like it even a little better than the Imriel trilogy – perhaps it’s something about the female protagonist that works a little better for me.

And….. it’s a Hachette book. And you know what that means.

I have 5 copies to give away. June 24th is the release date, so I will announce all 5 winners on that day (though if you want it sooner, it looks like Amazon is already shipping them). Check back between now and then and you may get more chances to enter.

For now, comment below to start your chances, and post a link on your blog, Facebook, etc. for a second entry. Please specify if you live outside of North America – if I get international submissions I will set aside those participants for one of the 5 drawings.

__________
*Note: the quote is from an uncorrected review copy; it may not appear in the published edition as I've shown it here.

Second Time Around

WINNER #2 IN THE Santa Olivia GIVEAWAY:

CAFFEY!!

Caffey, please email me your mailing address at nicola327 at hotmail dot com.


MORE CHANCES TO WIN

Let's try this again....

Last September I hosted a blog hopping challenge. Give it a go, write your post with a link to Alpha Heroes, and link here in comments. Note: the post suggests using the BBAW directory as a starting place - for this challenge, why not start with the blog of an Alpha Heroes Follower or recent commenter? Any starting place will do, as long as you find new-to-you blogs and leave comments! 10 hop-stops can be a bit much so -- 5 stops for one extra entry, 10 stops gets you two. Have fun hopping!

Come back tomorrow for the next winner to be announced!






WINNER ROUND-UP:

#2: Caffey
#1: Mishel

Shameless Self-Promotion

For two more entries in the Santa Olivia giveaway, spend a few minutes poking around in my archive here and tell me if you have a favorite post, or if there is one that stands out for you, and why.

PS, the word is in: one of the 5 books will go to an international entrant... assuming I have any, that is.

PPS, the first winner will be announced around noon PST tomorrow.

First Winner!

The WINNER of Santa Olivia copy Number One is:

MISHEL!!!!

email me your mailing address at nicola327 AT hotmail DOT com!

**********BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE**********

Last September I hosted a blog hopping challenge. Give it a go, write your post with a link to Alpha Heroes, and link here in comments.

Note: the post suggests using the BBAW directory as a starting place - for this challenge, why not start with the blog of an Alpha Heroes Follower or recent commenter? Any starting place will do, as long as you find new-to-you blogs and leave comments!

10 hop-stops can be a bit much so -- 5 stops for one extra entry, 10 stops gets you two. Have fun hopping!

**********BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE**********

Next giveaway will be on Monday - have a great weekend!


*****NOW HOW MUCH WOULD YOU PAY??!?*****

Wait, would you actually pay *anything*??

OK, I didn't think so. LOL. Never mind.

The Scoop on the Santa Olivia Giveaway

I was wanting to confirm a few details with my contact before posting this, but oh well. Forgiveness and permission and all that.

The giveaway is open only to US and Canada.*
Books cannot be shipped to PO Boxes, an actual address is required.

To enter, comment here or on the review post.

For additional entries:

• post a link to Alpha Heroes on your blog, Facebook, a relevant forum thread (where it would not be against forum community standards), etc. Leave me a link in comments so I can keep track. One extra entry per link!
• Become a Follower of Alpha Heroes for an additional entry. If you already are, I'll count it automatically as long as you are using the same name. (You need to *still* be a follower on the day of the giveaway)
• Stop back over the course of the week and you may find some additional ways.

I have 5 copies and will give away one per weekday starting Friday 5/29 (Publication date for Santa Olivia).

Many thanks to The Hachette Book Group for providing the books!

______________
*I'm going to see if I can swing a deal where one of the giveaways will be international, but no guarantees. If you are a non-North American entry, please specify!

This 'n That

This....

I *thought* about writing a post or two this weekend. I've got a number of done-reading, waiting-for-review items. But, listless and lackadaisical, I poked around on Facebook, some discussion forums, and played a lot of solitaire instead.


That....

I mean, I didn't even deal with the giveaway I was supposed to do Friday. OK, so let's get that out of the way now. <drumroll> ... the magic random number generator says.......... I HEART BOOK GOSSIP, come on down! Or, you know. Email me your snail addy. If you want to be technical.

Thanks for playing, everyone!

Some Other Stuff....

In other book news, I'm really, really trying to read Pride and Prejudice for this week's Weekly Geeks carnival. I think the best I can say about it is that it's a fantastic anti-insomnia aid. I'll do a full post on it later this week, but at this point I think it's safe to say that I'm not a classics kind of gal, at least not any more.

Maybe I should try the movie instead. Though I have to say, the mutton-chop doesn't really do it for me. I am apparently a P&P lost cause.

And Finally....

This has worked for me in the past, so I'm going to try it again-- here are some reviews that I'm hoping to get going in the near future. Which one do you want to see the most?

Kiss of a Demon King -- Kresley Cole
Bitten -- Kelley Armstrong
Magic Bites -- Ilona Andrews
Untouched-- Anna Campbell

Oh, and PS, one more thing...

For those of you who've been considering writing a penis-oriented post just to drive traffic-- not that any of you would do such a thing, nor of course would *I*; however, just hypothetically speaking, if one were interested in the bemusing results-- observe:

Kresley Cole’s MacCarrick Brothers Trilogy – Review

When I find an author I love, I go to some trouble to find everything they’ve done. Often though, an author’s earlier books are not as good as the more current ones—and hey, there’s a good reason for that; we should all get better at what we do as we get more experienced. So I never know exactly what I’m going to get.

Last spring, I discovered and devoured the Immortals After Dark series by Kresley Cole. In a happy coincidence, just as the date approaches for the release of Kiss of a Demon King, my favorite used bookstore just happened to have all three of the MacCarrick Brothers books: If You Dare, If You Desire, and If You Deceive. Yoink! Now they are MINE. And I burned through them this past week.

Are they as good as the Immortals After Dark? Well, it’s a bit of apples and oranges. Aside from a small paranormal plot device element, the “If You...” books are straight-up historicals. The MacCarrick brothers definitely read a bit as the proto-Lykae, minus the whole shape-shifting thing. And like the Lykae and vampires—and demons, come to think of it—the MacCarrick men each stumble upon their one and only, pre-destined true love. So if you love Cole’s alphas and the one-and-only trope, with or without the paranormal trappings, you should definitely check this trilogy out. Cole’s trademark humor is more understated as well, but you’ll still find those snicker-out-loud moments.

I rather like the brogue she uses for the brothers, and it’s consistent, but it was pretty pervasive. So if that kind of thing bugs you, it might be annoying. One thing that kind of jumped out at me was in the second book, where Jane’s upper-crust Brit accent was written in explicitly, instead of just being the “default” language. You really never see that, but it makes a lot of sense, since the books are mostly from the Scotsmen’s point of view. The other two heroines were not English, so they each had a bit of dialect too.

Another thing that sets this trilogy apart from the standard regency historical is that it’s set a few decades later, in Victorian mid-nineteenth century. Most of the action takes place away from high society, so it doesn’t play a huge factor, but the second two books had some interesting scenes in what seems to be the Victorian equivalent of a rave. Cool.

The paranormal element is a curse, which goes beyond mere superstition: the book where the curse is recorded cannot be destroyed and tells the fate of ten generations of MacCarricks, all of which have been accurate. As a result, the men believe that they are cursed to be alone, walk with death, and other unpleasant portentous sorts of things. Their lives have been spent in a self-fulfilling prophecy, avoiding women and falling into soul-damaging (yet heroic, of course) work. Cole works very hard to make these men dark, damaged, and in their own minds, beyond redemption—at times, maybe a bit too hard.

The men are not terribly different from each other, but the heroines, oh my. Awesome. From an outcast Castilian princess with repressed sexuality Issues, to a reckless Victorian libertine (my personal favorite), to a plucky orphaned waif from the Parisian slums (OK, that one sounds a little Dickensian but she’s fun to read, trust me), these are interesting, courageous women who call their men on the bullshit and there’s not a TSTL moment in the bunch. Well – there might be one in the first book, but I rather liked how it was handled. YMMV.

The external plot drivers are not especially memorable—in the case of the last book, there actually isn’t one—and the paranormal loophole by which the brothers escape their presumed fate is facile, but you won’t mind too much, because the *real* story is about developing trust (which I think Cole does fantastically well), and struggling to understand when your desire for someone is selfish, and when it isn’t – another way to put it would be struggling to understand where the needs of the individual end and the needs of the relationship begin.

Usually I get very impatient with the “she’s too good for me, I’m staying away for her own good” damaged-hero mentality, but it’s done well in these books. There’s a pretty compelling reason for the men to feel that way. And the vulnerability they show when they come to understand that their partner loves them in spite of their darker side, and even find some parts of that darkness compelling, attractive, and heroic—it’s moving.

Overall I give it a very solid thumbs up; maybe not the runaway genius of the IAD series, but still an entirely satisfying read.

Now, if you've managed to stay with me all this time, you get a reward: I'm going to ***GIVE AWAY*** this whole trilogy to a random commenter. These copies are well-thumbed so if you care about that, don't enter, but if you are interested in the story inside the slightly battered covers, sign right up. I figure I'll use a flat rate postage box which, who knows, might have room for another book or two, so in your comment, tell me if your favorite subgenre is historical, contemp, or paranormal and there might be an extra goodie for you. If it fits.

I'll announce the winner on Friday sometime after noon Pacific time.

edited to add:

Here are some other reviews around the blogosphere for the MacCarricks:

Pearl's World of Books

The Good, The Bad, and The Unread

Smut N Stuff

Kushiel’s Legacy, by Jacqueline Carey – Series Review

*****NOTE: GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED*****

I’ve hesitated to review these books here because they aren’t romances. However, since they really are among my favorite books ever, I think that’s probably a good enough reason to bend my policy a little.

You won’t find these books in the romance section; they are firmly entrenched in the fantasy genre. The description that best fits them is probably “alternate history,” as the geography and linguistics are readily recognizable as Renaissance Europe, with forays into the MidEast, Russia, Scandinavia, and northern Africa.

Terre d’Ange, where our main characters hail from, is a loosely re-defined Paris and France. The society revolves around a really unique religion that is founded upon the tenet “Love as thou wilt.” No kind of sincere, consensual love is taboo; instead it is not only accepted but revered and honored. Such a basis has the potential for turning into little more than freaky porn, but anyone expecting that will be disappointed. There are some explicit scenes, but they are fairly few and far between. Often they happen for the purpose of furthering the plot more so than developing romantic relationships.

While the characterizations and relationships are rooted in the religious/sexuality layer of the universe, the intricate plotting is all about politics. Of course, much of the politics is driven by the complex web of family loyalties and vendettas, and the strangely compelling connections resulting from the “free love” way of life.

The series overall consists of two trilogies. The first follows Phèdre, an extraordinary woman who bears the mark of Kushiel, the angel known as “The Punisher of God” and patron saint of--not to put too fine a point on it--sado-masochism. Recognized at an early age by a rather mysterious figure, Phèdre is adopted and raised in sort of a spymaster’s apprenticeship, or in Carey’s vernacular, “trained in the arts of covertcy.” (Which is not a word, outside the Kushielverse. I looked it up. But it should be.) These skills, along with her birthright as sort of a sublime masochist, puts Phèdre at the center of several epic adventures that involve the fate of nations, warfare, sorcery, and a dash of divine mystery.

The second trilogy is headed by Imriel, Phèdre’s foster son, and continues the theme of epic adventure into the next generation. The adventures are different and the characters are different, but if you like the first trilogy, you would probably like the second also. I found the second trilogy slightly less compelling, as is the way of things with second trilogies, but still deeply absorbing.

Part of the allure of Carey’s books is in the language. Lyrical, lush, rhythmic, nearly poetic. It reminds me a little of Anne Rice at her very best, only better. I absolutely love it and find the writing and the world of Terre d’Ange completely immersive.

I think what I like best about these books is the way the world-building and the characters interlock seamlessly to drive the plot. I believe they are character-driven books, which I love, but the construction of the world shapes the characters which in turn drive the plot, which hinges upon the structure of the world. I can’t think of another book or series that weave these three aspects together so skillfully.

A word of warning – there are a few scenes that are not for the faint of heart. If the notion of putting sex on a level with worship makes you uncomfortable, this may not be the series for you. If you cannot imagine a world where true love includes non-monogamous… let’s call them “events,” you may be put off. And if you can’t imagine an erotic encounter including pain, give it a pass. Incidently, if you like the first book with only some reservations around this point, I would recommend that you skip the third one. It’s quite disturbing, IMO.

As for me though, I love everything about them. I think they’re not for everyone, which is why I’m finding myself spending more space than usual on caveats and qualifications. But I love ‘em.

Did I mention that I love them? I do. I really, really do.

Reading order:

1. Kushiel’s Dart


2. Kushiel’s Chosen


3. Kushiel’s Avatar



4. Kushiel’s Scion


5. Kushiel’s Justice


6. Kushiel’s Mercy

Upcoming: a third trilogy set in the same universe but several generations in the future. We get to see some of the long-term fallout of things that happened in Scion and Justice.

NOW, FOR THE REALLY GOOD PART: ALPHA HEROES' FIRST GIVEAWAY

Due to a certain lack of planning and or organization on my part, I ended up with TWO beautiful hardback copies of Kushiel’s Mercy. Due to the same weaknesses, plus a dash of laziness, I never got around to returning the extra one. So, one lucky reader is going to get their very own copy. Warning to you series OCD types: it’s the LAST of the six books. Mwuahahahahaha.

Because it’s hardback and a thick book, I’m going to limit the giveaway to the US. Leave a comment on THIS POST and next Wednesday, as a Book Blogger Awareness Week highlight, I will announce the [randomly chosen] winner. Thanks for playing!