Archive for New Fantasy Books
Travel New Worlds in Ghosts & Echoes by Lyn Benedict
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Title: Ghosts & Echoes
Author: Lyn Benedict
Release Date: April 27, 2010
Pages: 368
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Best Book Quote: “Michael Demalion had trusted her with his life, and Rafael Suarez before him. They were both dead now. Dead of trusting her.”
Ghosts & Echoes is the second book in the Shadows Inquiries series by Lyn Benedict. If you’ve read the debut book in the series, Sins & Shadows, then you’re familiar with the urban fantasy world of Magicus Mundi, a supernatural realm that operates just below the radar of human beings. A dark, disturbing place where the normal rules of human reality don’t apply, Magicus Mundi is populated by sorcerers, werewolves, and other evildoers of the undead.
Private eye Sylvie Lightning is the implacable foe of the Magicus Mundi. As the owner of Shadows Inquiries, a firm that investigates paranormal crimes, she specializes in cases involving magic. But sometimes it’s hard to separate the possessed from the just plain psycho—and that’s the challenge Sylvie faces when she takes the case of Adam Wright, a Chicago cop who is convinced that he’s being inhabited by a ghost. Sylvie first has to determine whether Wright is really possessed, or simply suffering from PTSD. As she digs into her client’s plight, she begins to suspect that Wright’s ghost is somehow connected to her own troubled past. As she inches closer to the truth, she realizes that the real target of this ghost may not be Wright, but Sylvie herself.
And as if exorcising a ghost isn’t enough to keep Sylvie busy, she also has to tackle another series of crimes, a spate of burglaries connected to a ring of teenagers dabbling in the black arts. Things go from bad to worse when she learns that her younger, rebellious sister Zoe may be involved in the break-ins.
Ghosts & Echoes is intense and fast-paced, written in gritty prose that makes Sylvie’s urban landscape seem believably haunted and threatening. The plot is easy to follow even if you haven’t read the first book in the series. The predicament that Sylvie ultimately faces – whether to save her client’s life or resurrect the ghost that inhabits his body – is fraught with tension and emotionally convincing. Highly recommended!
New Sookie Book: The Sookie Stackhouse Companion!
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Title: The Sookie Stackhouse Companion
Author: Charlaine Harris
Release Date: February 1, 2011
Pages: 320 pages
Genre: Vampire Romance
In this new Sookie Stackhouse book Sookie and Sam travel together to attend Sam’s brother’s wedding. If you look at the book cover you’ll see that it’s a drawing of Sookie with a dog – I assume the dog represents Sam!
The book will also contain a section where Sookie answers fan questions! A couple of months ago Charlaine Harris ran a contest where fans could email their questions to her and she’d choose the best ones for the book. I’m sure someone asked questions about Sookie’s future love life!
An exclusive interview with Alan Ball is also included in the book. It will be interesting to see if he reveals anything about Season 4 of True Blood.
The Sookie Stackhouse Companion is now on sale at a special pre-order price.
Fantasy Book Cover Artist – Dan Dos Santos
Posted by: | CommentsWhen you’re browsing for something new to read at your local bookstore, what makes you stop and pick up a particular book? For me it’s the cover art. If I see a book with an awesome cover, I’ll pick it up just to examine the design more closely. Sometimes, based on the book’s synopsis, I’ll purchase the book – sometimes not.
I’m happy to say that there’s one group of books that hits it on both counts: they’re incredibly well written and the cover art is awesome:
The Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs. The cover art is provided by Dan Dos Santos.
Check out some of Dan’s work:
This is the book cover for the new Mercy Thompson book titled “Silver Borne” by Patricia Briggs. It’s due to hit the streets in March 2010.
Isn’t this awesome!
I could stare at this illustration for hours.
Here’s an illustration for the movie Hellboy II: The Golden Army.
This illustration won the 2009 Chesley Award for Best Product Illustration! Yea Dan!
Here’s the cover art for the book Ancient Bloodlines.
Dan is an awesome artist isn’t he? Check out more of his art in his gallery at DanDosSantos.Com. Enjoy!
The Sand Dragon by Michael F. Stewart
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Title: The Sand Dragon
Author: Michael F. Stewart
Release Date: April 2, 2010
Pages: 256 pages
Genre: Epic Fantasy
Best Book Quote: “In the Cretaceous period the area would have been a hunting ground for a lizard like this. But these appeared to be bones, real bones. “It’s not a fossil,” Kim suggested, and immediately shook the thought clear from her mind.”
Kim Axon, a gung-ho paleontologist, thinks that she has found the skeletal find of a lifetime but just as she is about to start her excavation, the skeleton is stolen. Kim immediately suspects that the mysterious Dr. Bythell, a scientist in league with the oil company, is the culprit. What the heck – this is her find! That’s how The Sand Dragon by Michael F. Stewart starts out and it keeps getting better.
Kim makes this find near Fort Mic, a place with a mysterious history. Although the area, close to where her father was killed, holds disturbing memories for Kim, she’s a determined young woman who refuses to let the male-dominated Canadian oil mining camp deter her from her mission. She’s steadfast in her goal to identify the mysterious skeleton accidentally excavated by one of the operators at the mining facility.
As Kim refuses to let up in her quest to recover the mysterious skeleton, she’s faced with hostile townsfolk and Native American tribe members who blame her family for an ugly history of indoctrination at a local school by government authorities. However, she perseveres and as she delves deeper into the mysterious skeleton, it’s obvious that all is not as it seems. When the townsfolk start to get sick and die, Kim realizes that more than scientific glory-grabbing is at stake – their survival is at risk.
Michael F. Stewart provides an excellent fantasy/horror story with great action and intrigue. Is the strange illness actually part of a conspiracy being perpetuated by the oil conglomerate? Is it an age-old curse come to life? Kim will need to use all of her talents in order to solve this puzzle and save her life.
Fortunately, she’s not alone in her quest. Her adventure puts her in contact with lots of different characters, all of whom are well defined and progress the plot forward. They’re skillfully woven into parallel story lines that keep you guessing as you try to figure out how and when they’ll eventually intersect with one another.
If you like a solid, fast-paced horror mystery that has some fantastical elements to it, read The Sand Dragon; Michael F. Stewart delivers a remarkable story.
Living With the Dead by Kelley Armstrong
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Title: Living With the Dead
Author: Kelley Armstrong
Release Date: August 25, 2009
Pages: 560
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Best Book Quote: “. . . the greatest impediment to justice is prejudice.”
I was only going to read for a minute when I picked up Kelly Armstrong’s book Living with the Dead. I have always been a fan of her stories but believe me when I say that this book is not a “just gonna read for a minute” kind of book. Once I started, I had to find out how it ended.
The main character, Robyn Peltier, is a public relations consultant who becomes accused of a crime she didn’t commit – the murder of her annoyingly irritating celebrity employer. She finds her boss shot dead and to all outward appearances it looks like she did it. But when she goes on the run to save her life it leads to her immediate guilt in the eyes of the police and more importantly, the gorgeous lead investigator, Detective Finn. Luckily for Robyn, she finds help from her best friend Hope Adams (a half-demon) and Hope’s werewolf boyfriend, Karl. Apparently, Robyn has inadvertently became involved in a supernatural mess that could kill both her and her friends. But this doesn’t stop them in their mission to prove Hope’s innocence.
I was surprised to find that I was so quickly hooked on this story since I usually avoid the “innocent person accused of a crime” plotline. It’s a testimony to Kelly Armstrong’s great writing style that I kept on reading.
This novel has pulse-racing writing combined with Armstrong’s usual wit – a combination I’ve really come to like. The author makes Robyn a sympathetic character that you connect with and pull for throughout the book. Comic relief is provided by the ghost of Robyn’s husband who was killed but has come back to help her; the twist is that he can only be seen by Detective Finn! Whether you like “innocent girl wrongly accused” storylines or not, give Living with the Dead a try. If I hadn’t, I would have missed out on a really fun read.
