Welcome to my little corner of the gay erotic romance universe . . . well, half of it, anyway. (You can find the other half at RachelHaimowitz.com.) This is the place to come for sneak previews of new projects, release information, and the occasional M/M book review. I'll also share thoughts on the industry on occasion, and I hope you'll come share yours in return.



Friday, June 10, 2011

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.

6 comments:

  1. Totally understand that becoming friends / negative reivew thing. Lucky for me, all my friends happen to also be my favorite authors and write fantabulous books, so I've not had to cross that bridge yet. Yay me. :)

    I'm going to go drool and pet Kendras some more before I go. Hope you have a great day. :)

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  2. Yeah, there's just too much potential for awkwardness there, alas. Thanks for stopping by, darlin, and have a great day yourself!

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  3. Awww, thanks for the write up. And I'm glad you're enjoying the series, though I can get wordy. (And that is a lovely cover. I'd take credit for it if I could.)

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  4. You bring the next manuscript to me; I'll beat the wordiness right outta you ;-p

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  5. Sometimes a negative review is just because a certain book doesn't appeal on a personal level - not enough sex, or a kink that for you is a squick. That doesn't make it a BAD book and certainly not a bad author, just reading needs not being fulfilled in this particular case.

    But I agree that it's incredibly hard to tell a friend that their latest book didn't hit the spot for you. Especially in public. Also criticising a publishing house for terrible editing might be warranted but might not advance your career much. Better to err on the side of caution.

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  6. Bah, I just wrote a whole big long comment and blogger ate it :( But the gist of it was that sometimes I feel like if nobody tells the houses where the editing is bad that their editing is bad, they'll just keep doing it, and that hurts the authors and the books and the genre as a whole. So maybe it's worth risking a little career setback to try to elevate standards.

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