Top Ten Debuts I'm Excited For

Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday! This is a new feature for me, and is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Each week there is a topic for a 'top ten' list.

Here are mine for this week, in no particular order:

1) Banished, by Liz de Jager. I'm reading an ARC of this at the moment, and really enjoying it. I'll definitely be reviewing it soon.

2) The Emperor's Blades, by Brian Staveley. Again, I've got an ARC for this in my room, it's my 'read next' book. I've heard a lot of chatter about it and am looking forward to another good fantasy novel.

3) The Relic Guild, by Edward Cox. There isn't much information about this one out yet (no Goodreads page to link to!), but Gollancz describe it: "With its split time-line, superb characters and bewitching setting of a vast city cut off from the realms around it where magic is ruthlessly supressed this is a dark and exciting fantasy set in a city which itself becomes a living, breathing character."

4) The Copper Promise, by Jen Williams. Are you sensing a theme here yet? I think 2014 is going to be a great year for fantasy debuts. I love the cover for this, and the story sounds right up my alley.

5) Queen of the Tearling, by Erika Johansen. Another one I already have a copy of, and am looking forward to reading. It's scheduled to come out in July, so I'll be reviewing it a bit closer to the time.

6) Sing, Sweet Nightingale, by Erica Cameron. Of course, I have to include our own occasional reviewer Erica on this list! I'm excited to read her book which is scheduled to come out in March in the UK.

Those are the debuts which I'm aware of at the moment that really jump out to me. I'm sure there are others, and I know there are several books from previously published authors which I really can't wait to read, either.

Letterbox Love/Stacking the Shelves

 

I'm a little late with this, but I was down in Newcastle this weekend, catching up with some family I hadn't seen in a long time.
Most of these books were bought for one of my classes this term, but some of them were on '3 for 2' at Blackwell's, so I got one fun book, too :)

Sorry it's a bit fuzzy.
I have the first two books in the Cassie Clare series, and there wasn't really anything on the 3 for 2 offer that caught my eye apart from that.

How about you? What books did you get hold of this week?

Review: The Path of Anger, by Antoine Rouaud

Title: The Path of Anger
Author: Antoine Rouaud (translated by Tom Clegg)
Release date: October 20133
Publisher: Gollancz
Genre: Fantasy
Source: Free copy at World Fantasy Con '13.

Description: There will be blood. There will be death. This is the path of anger. . .

Dun-Cadal has been drinking his life away for years. Betrayed by his friends - who turned their back on their ideals in favour of a new republic - and grief stricken at the loss of his apprentice, who saved his life on the battlefield and whom he trained as a knight in exchange, he's done with politics, with adventure, and with people.

But people aren't finished with him - not yet. Viola is a young historian looking for the last Emperor's sword, and her search not only brings her to Dun-Cadal, it's also going to embroil them both in a series of assassinations. Because Dun-Cadal's turncoat friends are being murdered, one by one. . . by someone who kills in the unmistakable style of an Imperial assassin. . .

My thoughts: 'The Path Of Anger' is a typical fantasy novel. It begins in an in, and as with many good stories, it's a dark and stormy night... Viola walks in with her mysterious protector and finds an old man she's been told is called Dune. When she discovers he's actually Dun-Cadal, the war hero she's heard a lot about, she persuades him to begin talking.

The story jumps from the present, with Viola trying to get Dun-Cadal's help to find the sword of the Emperor, and the past, where he narrates some of his battles, and the events that lead to the fall of the empire. Then, just as Dun-Cadal seems to be wrapping up his story, and I thought the present day narrative would take centre stage, everything changes.

"Like a coin with two sides ... Two things as different in their forms as in their meanings, and yet, it's still one and the same coin."

From here, the story really starts to race along. I don't want to give too much away, but all that's been said so far gets cast in a different light as the second half begins. Dun-Cadal, Viola and her companions begin their task in earnest of launching an attack on the republic and its leaders. Their plan could go wrong in a variety of ways, and in the days leading up to the attack, there are several revelations that cause characters to wobble in their desire to do as they've planned. Will they do it? Will they make the 'right' choices, whatever those may be? Those are the questions readers are thinking as you read the rest of the book.

A great fantasy novel, I agree with the suggestions on the back - fans of Pat Rothfuss and Brent Weeks will also enjoy Antoine Rouaud's 'The Path of Anger'.

Overall, I give it 9/10.

~Ailsa

Reading/blog goals for 2014

I don't have any books to talk about in a 'Letterbox Love'/'Stacking the Shelves' post this weekend, so instead, let's talk resolutions! Of the reading variety, of course ;-)

Overall, 2013 was a great year for me, particularly on the lines of meeting favourite authors. So far, I haven't got anything planned that will see similar things happening this year, but it's early days yet! While that was a success, and I had some great experiences while studying and travelling abroad, something that suffered because of it was my reading and blogging time. So this year, I'm going in with goals!

Goodreads: Like many people, I'm going to track my books on Goodreads this year, and really make an effort to record ones as 'read' even if I'm not posting a review of them. I've set my aim at 100 books, which should be do-able but I haven't decided yet if I'm going to include re-reads in that or not.

I posted the other day about the post schedule for the blog this year, and that's something else I'm determined to stick to - which of course means I need to have read books to talk about!

Those are my main ones just now, but I might post about more as they come up. What are your reading and blogging goals for this year?

~Ailsa

Long time no see and a plan for the new year

Well, I seem to have fallen off the world again, haven't I?

Christmas is past, and it's time to get back on the wagon. I've read several great books over December that I'm excited to talk about, and reviews should be back on schedule.
Here's the plan for the coming year:

• Two reviews (or a 'Thoughts on Books' post) a week
• Letterbox Love/Stacking the Shelves on Saturday
• An occasional 'Top Ten Tuesday' post

I'll hopefully get a review up tomorrow, to get things kicked off early!

Letterbox Love: The WFC Haul part 2

 

I missed doing last weeks, so here are the rest of the books I picked up at World Fantasy Con in Brighton at the start of the month. I've been a little busy with uni work (it's essays time of the semester) but I'm planning to put up my write-ups of it this coming week. I'll also have more reading time now, so reviews will be back! *g*

On to the books!

'Farlander' by Col Buchanan - Fantasy, sounds like it could be interesting

'Black Feathers' by Joseph D'Lacey - Don't know much about this, but I've heard good things about Joseph D'Lacey and the cover is just gorgeous.

'The Emperor's Knife' by Mazarkis Williams - Fantasy, again don't know much about it.

'The Knights of Breton Court' by Maurice Broaddus - A new version of the King Arthur myth - I'm not particularly interested in Arthur stories, but this one looked different so I thought I'd give it a go - it's fairly far down the tbr pile at the moment though.

'The Fifth Wave' by Rick Yancy - this one sounds a bit mid-apocalyptic, and I've heard a little bit about it. I'm actually quite keen to read this one soon. 

At the top of this one is the lovely commemorative program they gave to everyone, which features lots of nice pictures and some cool short stories. 

'The Queen of the Tearling' by Erika Johansen - This is a proof copy, so the cover isn't final, about a 19 year old girl about to inherit a kingdom that's a bit of a mess, by the sound of it. I think this sounds really cool, and I'm hoping to read it soon. It doesn't come out till summer, so I won't be posting a review for a while though. 

'The Martian' by Andy Weir - Don't know much about this at all, so it's fairly low in the pile again, but it could be interesting, I'll give it a go sometime.

'The Forbidden Library' by Django Wrexler - This one sounds really cool, it has an introduction letter from the author tucked inside that says it's built on the question of what if you couldn't trust the mentor figure there often is in fantasy books? I hope to read it soon, but again, it's a proof copy, not releasing until April, so it'll be a while till I actually post the review.

How about you? Leave me the links to what you got this week and I'll come check them out! 

~Ailsa

Letterbox Love/StS: The WFC haul, part 1

  

Last weekend I went to the World Fantasy Convention in Brighton, and one of the many awesome things that happened was they gave away a whole lot of free books. Since I came home with so many, and I don't anticipate buying any more for a little while, I'm going to split the haul over two Letterbox Love posts. 

First of all, here are the three books I did actually buy: 

'Darkness Splintered' by Keri Arthur (Dark Angel #6)  - I've loved Keri Arthur's work for a long time now, and I was very excited to find this for sale (a little early) at the weekend, so I could get her to sign it! :) I've already started reading, and it's going well so far. Review or 'Thoughts on Books' post to come soon. 

'A Conspiracy of Alchemists' by Liesel Schwarz - I had an e-arc of this back in the spring, and was really enjoying it, but unfortunately it expired before I could get to the end. I'm looking forward to reading the end of the story now.

'The Prince of Lies' by Anne Lyle (Night's Masque #3) - I'm currently half way through the audio of book 2, and was looking forward to meeting Anne Lyle at the con, but didn't have the book for her to sign, so when they had book 3 (again, a little early), I picked it up. I'll get to this one soon.

'The Garden of Stones', by Mark T Barnes - I wasn't sure about this one, but I really enjoyed hearing the author speaking on a panel, so I decided to give it a go.

'The Emperor's Blades' by Brian Stavely - This sounds like a great new fantasy series, and I"m excited to read it.

'The Path of Anger' by Antoine Rouaud - Another fantasy which I'm very excited to read, and on the spine it says 'The Debut of the Year' which I thought was fun :)

'Unspoken' by Sarah Rees Brenan - I've heard a lot about this from people who've already read it, and I think I'll have to keep the tissues close to hand, so I might wait until I have the rest of the series to cope with it.

'Banished' by Liz De Jager - This is the one I was most excited to see on the 'goodies' table - the cover was just revealed the other week, and it looks great! Liz was the author of the first book blog I ever read, and I'm looking forward to reading this story a lot. 

There's the first part! So many books that I'm really excited to read. 

Thank you to publishers, 47 North, Simon & Schuster, Gollancz and Tor for your generosity offering the copies.

What books did you get this week?

~Ailsa