lucky303

I love best-of lists and reading wrap-ups. As 2023 comes to a close, it's time to sit, think, and write such a post. I always do it with pleasure.  It was a rather good year. I've read a lot and discovered some excellent reads. Contrary to previous years, my 2023 wrap-up is dominated by fun, pulpy, and entertaining, with just a few "serious" works thrown in the mix.  I guess it's because the year has been intense and I simply gravitated toward easier, more accessible books. I've rediscovered my love for thrillers and mysteries but I won't list them because it's a fantasy website, after all. That said, some of my most thrilling reads this year were all thrillers. I'll mention a few standouts here, in case someone here is interested: Dark Places by Gillian Flynn, False Witness by Karin Slaughter,  The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson, and  The Traitor by Ava Glass. I hope some of you will find inspiration here and maybe discover something wort...

Book links: Amazon , Goodreads ABOUT THE AUTHOR:   CATRIONA WARD was born in Washington, DC, and grew up in the United States, Kenya, Madagascar, Yemen, and Morocco. She studied English at the University of Oxford and later earned her master’s degree in creative writing at the University of East Anglia. Ward is a three-time winner of the August Derleth Award for Best Horror Novel: for The Girl from Rawblood, her debut; Little Eve; and The Last House on Needless Street. Little Eve also won the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel. Ward is the international bestselling author of The Last House on Needless Street and Sundial. Publisher: Tor Nightfire (August 8, 2023)  Page count: 352 pages Formats: Audiobook, ebook, paperback Well, damn. My head hurts. As expected - making readers feel this way is Catriona Ward’s specialty. I’m not sure how much to reveal about the story without giving too much away, so I'll keep it brief. The book opens with the coming-of-age story of Wilder ...

  Official Author Website Buy Sun of Blood and Ruin OFFICIAL AUTHOR BIO:  Mariely Lares is a Mexican-American writer of fiction. Born in the only hospital of a small town in Southern California—which, fun fact, is also Cher’s birthplace—she grew up straddling two worlds, crossing the border almost every day. The daughter of Mexican immigrants, she holds a degree in Computer Science Engineering and lives in San Diego, where she can be found doing all the outdoorsy things, rescuing dogs, and writing her next book. FORMAT/INFO: Sun of Blood and Ruin will be published on February 20th, 2024 by HarperVoyager in the US; it was published in the UK on September 28th, 2023. It is 384 pages and told in the first person from Leonora's POV. It will be available in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook format. OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS:  To many, Lady Leonora is a fixture at the Spanish court in the New World, a woman on her way to becoming wed to the heir of the Spanish throne. But Leonora is...

Book links : Amazon , Goodreads ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  Morgan Stang lives in the humid part of Texas. He graduated from the University of Houston with a BBA. By day he works in accounting and by night he sleeps, and sometime in between he writes in a wide variety of fantasy genres, ranging from dark fantasy (The Bartram's Maw series) to gaslamp murder mystery (The Lamplight Murder Mysteries) to cozy fantasy (The Bookshop and the Barbarian). He is a fan of all things nerdy, and lives with an immortal ball python. Publisher: Morgan Stang Length: 298 pages Formats: ebook, paperback I’m thoroughly enjoying this series. It has everything I look for in fiction: relatable and memorable characters, twists that twist previous twists, and an exciting genre mashup. Which subgenre does it fit into? Well, it could fit into quite a few. Think of it as a comedic gaslamp fantasy-horror murder mystery set in a pseudo-Victorian world. As a fan of Agatha Christie’s books, I appreciated how well Morgan...

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  Morgan Stang lives in the humid part of Texas. He graduated from the University of Houston with a BBA. By day he works in accounting and by night he sleeps, and sometime in between he writes in a wide variety of fantasy genres, ranging from dark fantasy (The Bartram's Maw series) to gaslamp murder mystery (The Lamplight Murder Mysteries) to cozy fantasy (The Bookshop and the Barbarian). He is a fan of all things nerdy, and lives with an immortal ball python. Murder at Spindle Manor links:  Amazon ,  Goodreads ADAM This is why I SPFBO. Loved,  loved  this book. A mashup of Agatha Christie, Clue, and John Carpenter's "The Thing" in a single-location murder mystery that starts weird and ends up bananas. Strong, humorous dialogue, a compelling plot that grabs you from one of the best first lines I've read in quite some time, along with an engaging cast of suspects and victims made this an absolute joy to read. ESMAY Agatha Christie-style c...

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  Morgan Stang lives in the humid part of Texas. He graduated from the University of Houston with a BBA. By day he works in accounting and by night he sleeps, and sometime in between he writes in a wide variety of fantasy genres, ranging from dark fantasy (The Bartram's Maw series) to gaslamp murder mystery (The Lamplight Murder Mysteries) to cozy fantasy (The Bookshop and the Barbarian). He is a fan of all things nerdy, and lives with an immortal ball python. Murder at Spindle Manor links:  Amazon ,  Goodreads Thank you for agreeing to this interview. Before we start, tell us a little about yourself. I was born and raised in the deep, dark, dank jungles of Texas, and there I learned the secret art of accounting. I've been writing stories for as long as I can remember, and just started self-publishing in early 2020. Other than writing, I enjoy all things nerdy, including video games, board games, Dungeons and Dragons, reading, Legos, etc. I curren...

 Book Review: A True Account: Hannah Masury’s Sojourn Amongst the Pyrates, Written by Herself by Katherine Howe Official Author Website Buy  A True Account here -  U.S. | U.K. OFFICIAL AUTHOR BIO:   Katherine Howe is a #1 New York Times bestselling and award-winning writer of historical fiction and nonfiction. Her best known books are The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, which debuted at #2 on the New York Times bestseller list in 2009 and was named one of USA Today's top ten books of the year, and Conversion, which received the 2015 Massachusetts Book Award in young adult literature. In 2014 she edited The Penguin Book of Witches for Penguin Classics, a primary source reader on the history of witchcraft in England and North America. She co-authored the #1 bestselling Vanderbilt: the Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty with CNN's Anderson Cooper, which came out in September 2021. Their next collaboration, Astor: the Rise and Fall of an American Fortune will r...