Giveaway and Favorites Round-up

Happy Friday, folks! Pollage indicated--much to my surprise, I must admit--that a surprisingly large percentage of you were interested in me continuing book reviews on this blog. Being as I know so many of the authors in the genre now, and am or will be published with so many of the houses, I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea of posting negative reviews (though it's quite possible that sometimes I just won't be able to help myself ;-p), but I'm happy to share some positive ones. I thought I'd do something a little bit different today, though, and point you all to recent releases from two of my favorite authors. Since I've been head-down finishing Crescendo, I've only had time to read one of these, but the one I haven't read yet is at the very top of my Looking Forward To It Like Whoa pile.

First, though, a quick contest notice: The lovely Amara is doing a giveaway for Counterpoint: Book I of Song of the Fallen over at Amara's Place. All you have to do to enter is comment, so go, give her some love. She deserves it :-D

And now a short round-up of new releases I can't wait to get my grubby hands on, beneath the jump.

Scorpion by Aleksandr Voiniv. Scorpion released a couple weeks ago, and you can see from the ratings that people are loving it. I did a beta on this one, so I got to read it in its original incarnation--and I loved it too. Dark, gritty, sexy, complex . . . all the usual things you'd expect from a Voinov read. It's his first solo novel in a long time, and you know what? He's just as amazing on his own as he is with a co-writer. Loved the sort-of-historical-sort-of-fantasy setting, the intertwining politics, the mercenaries with honor (another Voinov trademark: he makes you love some distinctly unlovable people). Not to mention that ridiculously gorgeous Reese Dante cover art, yeah? (Click to embiggen.) Go, buy it--you know you want to :-D

Infected: Life After Death by Andrea Speed. Andrea's got a dark, twisted, brilliant mind, and on top of everything else, she's a darling. Her writing tends toward just a smidge too descriptive for my tastes, but you totally forget to care about that when you're immersed in her Infected world of virus-induced cat shifters, which she so brilliantly brings to life with phrases like "virus child" and characters like Paris and Roan. This is the third book in the series, and I am dying to read it--so much so I've made this book my reward for finishing Crescendo. (I also kinda want to lick the cover--click to embiggen--which is particularly brilliant, even for the spectacularly talented cover artist Anne Cain). I'm guessing you'd need to read Infected: Prey and Infected: Bloodlines to make sense of Infected: Life After Death, but it's well worth it. Each story of hers has gotten better than the last. I've full confidence this one will knock my socks off.