Horace ARC opportunity

From today through May 8, 2022, I have ARC copies available of my new adult contemporary fantasy novelette, Horace: A Sorcer World Novelette. Because this story is a newsletter subscriber exclusive, it won’t be sold anywhere.

Copies must be reviewed on Goodreads by Sunday, May 8, 2022.

Cheers!

-CKB

June updates

June Updates

Hi all!

It’s me, your favorite author and book blogger who is never not behind on things! So what am I behind on this time, you might ask?

Books I Recommend and Haven't Reviewed Yet

Between Jobs, by W.R. Gingell – This book is the start of another madcap fantasy series, with a plucky, adaptable heroine and one intriguing vampire love-interest. This book actually convinced me to try learning some Korean!

City of Brass, by S.A. Chakraborty. The start of the Daevabad Trilogy brings fantastic world-building inspired by the medieval Arab world, and multi-faceted characters. Ali’s perspective was my favorite.

The Kingdom of Copper, by S.A. Chakraborty – Things get even darker in Daevabad as multiple plots converge in the city. The perspectives even out in this one. Fair enough, because there’s constant intrigue!

The Theft of Sunlight, by Intisar Khanani – Rae’s story continues from The Bone Knife, cleverly tucked in to Princess Alyrra’s story as the two protagnoists meet. This one reminded me a lot of Alanna: the First Adventure (Tamora Pierce).

What I'm Reading Now

Witches Steeped in Gold, by Ciannon Smart – The prose isn’t as easy to sink into as I’d like, but the world of these island witches (inspired by Jamaican lore) is absolutely fascinating. I keep rooting for one protagonist over the other, and it switches every couple of chapters!

What I'm Writing

Girl of Glass and Fury is still expected this summer, though I haven’t gotten far enough to pick a release date. It’s looking like August right now.

What I'm Revealing

The cover of Girl of Glass and Furyof course! (If you’re subscribed to my mailing list, you’ve already seen it!) The cover reveal will be this coming Sunday on the blog.

What I'm Blogging About

NaNoWriMo is now five months away! For all those preparing to write their own novels, I’m including some new special feature posts on writing.

With any luck, I’ll also have some of the above books reviewed this month, and perhaps that pesky tatting article I just have to take the pictures for…

What I'm Reading Next

That’s all for now! Have a wonderful June, everybody.

Cheers,

CKB

Girl of Shadow and Glass is almost here!

I’m happy and relieved to say I just turned in my manuscript for the Kindle edition of Girl of Shadow and Glass! Woo! The ebook is available for 99c for a limited time.

In the coming days, Girl of Shadow and Glass will be available on other retailers, but you can check out this handy universal book link and see where to get it now.

For those of you who don’t know, Girl of Shadow and Glass has its humble beginnings in my first foray into epublishing, the novella A Shadow in Sundown. This release is a completely redone coming of age tale, and will be my first novel.

Also to come, I’ll be making the first several chapters available for those who sign up for my mailing list. Till then, take care.

Go Bills!

-CKB

Indie Book Spotlight: The Prince and Poisoner (Rookwood)

Today’s indie book spotlight is on…

The Prince and the Poisoner (Carnival of Fae Book 1), by Helena Rookwood (May 14, 2020; New Adult Fantasy/Romantic Fantasy)

(Note: I received an advanced digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.)

Four words: The Carnival of Stars.  The ultimate setting of Helena Rookwood’s The Prince and the Poisoner is unique, wonderful, and begs to be explored almost as much as Hogwarts or Lothlorien.  The morning after I finished this first installment of the Carnival of the Fae series, I woke up thinking I couldn’t wait to get back to the Carnival of Stars and see what happens next.  I was genuinely disappointed when I remembered I’d finished The Prince and the Poisoner the night before.

In addition to those four words, this book has four great strengths: it’s heroine (Lira), it’s near-constant plot developments (action and twists!), it’s realistic writing (the characters’ motives and dialogue), and its imagination (gorgeous, magical settings).  Those last two sound like contradictions, but Rookwood proves you really can have both.

When one character protests something, or offers troubling new information to another, the listener is quicker to believe it’s a lie than almost instantly believing what they don’t want to hear or accepting information from someone they don’t trust.  And the royals in the story are neither shining heroes nor ruthless tyrants (with one possible exception, though we see very little of that particular king).

The story begins with Lira in a small traveling circus.  Everyone in the circus has a specialty, and Lira’s is that she makes potions according to the specific ways her father taught her.  When she gets a headache at the back of her head, she knows that her potions will work.  And work they do, better than anyone else’s.  As Lira steals and scrapes to save money to flee the circus’s abusive masters, her talent draws the attention of a mysterious man on horseback, who whisks her away on a journey to the Carnival of Stars one night.

But her escape comes with a surprising catch: Lira must poison a princess and thereby frame a kingdom.  She then must balance the enormity of that task with her need to get away from her old circus, which the mysterious man threatens to return her to if she doesn’t fulfill her end of the bargain.  But this is Lira, which means there is plenty of unexpected adventure, a little romance, a helping of magic and very little navel-gazing involved.

Lira is by far this story’s greatest asset (that’s what you’d want out of a MC, right?).  She is both different and well-rounded, a secretive, bold, brassy, bratty, proud, secure, confident, flirtatious, headstrong, resilient, “preening,” braggadocios, and all-out marvelous female lead.  If the necessary quality of a main character is that they would want to tell their own story, Lira does it with a lot of flare and no self-pity.  She also has realistic motivations.

Lira rarely has a woe-is-me moment throughout the story, and when she does it’s almost always short-lived.  She tends to make brave and sometimes surprising choices, and it’s not because of generic heroism: her motives are self-preservation and unwavering belief in her own talents, and a lot of that comes from her difficult (but never overly dramatized) backstory.  It doesn’t mean she’s always likable, but she is never boring, either.  It was frankly refreshing to find a heroine who never doubts her abilities and actively promotes them.

All in all, The Prince and the Poisoner makes for one heck of a circus.