I know it’s not exactly the best way to get excited about a book, but I was immediately attracted to Fortuna, by Kristyn Merbeth, when the eighties synthwave cover was revealed. When Orbit threw in a blurb likening the work to that of Becky Chambers, I was done for. No need to complete the chokehold…
Continue reading ➞ Fortuna – It Favors the Bold, Also the Bad (But in a Good Way)
Alright, I am going to be honest here; I did Brian Naslund a disservice when I judged his debut book, Blood of an Exile, by its name and cover and shelved it for later. Although I hated both title and art, after finishing the novel I have to admit that they suit the book perfectly,…
I am disappointed that I was unable to get to An Illusion of Thieves, by Cate Glass, sooner - as it likely would have made our best of 2019 list. The first book in the Chimera series, this (ironically) sneaky book has slipped under the radar for many this year, which is a shame. While…
Continue reading ➞ An Illusion Of Thieves – A Garden Of Larceny
So 2019 is rolling to a close and we have started eyeing books coming out in 2020 to build our to-do lists. However, while building our reading schedule for next year we realized that we should probably do a wrap-up on our Dark Horse Initiative 2019. P.S., you may notice we have changed this list…
Self-published books are a huge mixed bag of quality, but occasionally you can strike gold. Kings of Paradise, by Richard Nell, is one of those books. An epic fantasy novel about a tropical empire, this book has the makings of a modern classic. If you are involved in the self-published fantasy scene, you have probably…
Alright, I am back from my wedding and honeymoon where I read nine books on the beach - so I have a ton of new stuff to talk about and am excited to get back into it. Let's see if I still remember how to write a review. The first book I want to talk…
Every year the Quill to Live sit down in December to plan our collective reading schedule for the next year. It's a long process, and it heavily involves combing through release dates of series we are following and, more importantly, digging into the hundreds of upcoming and highly anticipated book lists made by publishers, authors,…
Here we have one of the mega-debuts of 2019. Published by Tor, The Ruin of Kings by Jenn Lyons has had one of the largest marketing pushes I have seen in years. I have seen advertising for this book literally everywhere, and it somehow already has a TV deal with Annapurna. As I picked it…
We are back to our regularly scheduled programming. We hope you all enjoyed Malazan week, but all things must come to an end and this week we decided it would be a good opportunity to talk about some books we have been reading that we didn’t enjoy as much. Up first is Empire of Silence,…
I am back from Europe where I bought way too many heavy books that I had to carry home. While on my trip I managed to read a number of books that I am excited to talk about, starting with The Thousand Deaths of Ardor Benn, by Tyler Whitesides. The book actually comes out today,…
Continue reading ➞ The Thousand Deaths Of Ardor Benn – A Gritty Adventure With A Cast Of One
