now you see her...
Bestselling author of historical fiction including THE ARCTIC FURY and the Five Queendoms epic fantasy series (SCORPICA, ARCA).
Last post of the year, whew! Looking forward to a very exciting 2022 as my epic fantasy debut, SCORPICA, makes its way into the world.
So here’s a bit of a 2021 wrap-up — staff and contributors at Chicago Review of Books, including yours truly, recommend our favorite books of the year.
Best wishes for a happy and healthy start to 2022 for us all!
A narrowing-down, in list form:
I read so many great books this year
So many of them were published in 2021
So many of those published in 2021 were in the fantasy genre
So many of those shone a light on women’s rights in a way I’d categorize as feminist
So lo and behold! My round-up of best feminist fantasy books of 2021 was born. I pulled together a short list for Chicago Review of Books, ranging from retellings of myth (The Witch’s Heart, Ariadne) to YA stories of war (The Gilded Ones) to a completely re-imagined version of The Great Gatsby (The Chosen and the Beautiful).
Check out hthe full list here.
With the holiday season upon us, I know a book coming out in February seems like a really long way away — but December is also the time of year for Most Anticipated lists, so of course I’ve been keeping an eye out to see what lists SCORPICA might show up on. (Yes, it’s an unhealthy thing for writers to keep track of. A lot of us do it anyway.)
And yay! Here’s a fabulous list from FanFiAddict, rounding up FFA’s Most Anticipated Titles of 2022, with SCORPICA right there with other great company in February.
Check out the whole great list here.
The headline says it all here, people — you can win SCORPICA from Goodreads! 50 advance copies are up for grabs. Enter by November 29.
Don’t know what SCORPICA is about, by chance? It’s all the strong women, powerful emotions, and twisty plots you loved in my historical novels — but taking a turn into classic epic fantasy, with magic and gods and monsters in a matriarchal world.
Happy first day of NaNoWriMo to my fellow writers, especially those participating this year!
Couldn’t resist writing about the occasion for Writer Unboxed, since my post fell on November 1, the first day of the whole mad annual enterprise.
So click here to read my #1 tip for an absolutely guaranteed NaNoWriMo win!
When I said the good news keeps coming I didn’t realize even MORE was coming today! My publisher Saga Press is giving away 100 advance copies of Scorpica over on Goodreads, so if you’re reading this and it isn’t October 4th yet, you could win one of them! But not if you don’t get your entry in. (As the lottery commercials used to say, you can’t win if you don’t play.)
Hop over to Goodreads and enter now!
And the good news just keeps comin’, y’all!
The link for signed copies of SCORPICA is now live at One More Page!
And on that page, there’s a little box so that if you want, in addition to the signature, you can get it personalized — to you or your cousin or your mom or whoever! it’s your show!
I’m on record about DC-area bookstore One More Page being my happy place, partly because in addition to books they also sell chocolate (!) and wine (!!), but in this case there’s an extra-relevant reason I’m directing readers their way: for a book that’s about women in charge, it just seems right to support a bookstore owned and staffed by, well, women in charge.
Here’s that link again. Pre-orders really move the needle on how much support a book gets in the months leading up to release, so it’s never too early to put in that pre-order, and it’ll ship to you the instant it comes out in February. Tell all your friends.
Fabulous news! My epic fantasy debut SCORPICA is now available as an e-galley from NetGalley, if you just can’t wait for February. You put in a request here, and if it’s approved, boom! Happy reading.
Want a reason to read? Here’s the utterly wonderful blurb from fabulous bestseller Kate Quinn: “Scorpica is Game of Thrones for all the ladies out there who loved Game of Thrones but hated its disappointing mad-queen finish: a richly-drawn fantasy world peopled by fierce women, smart women, warrior women, women to make you stand up and roar. A matriarchal quintet of queen-led nations is thrown into chaos when baby girls inexplicably stop being born, and the result is an intoxicating brew of court politics, deadly magic, family rivalry, and enough swashbuckling female swordplay to delight Wonder Woman's entire isle of Amazons. Macallister’s turn from historical fiction to historical fantasy is a gem--I can't wait for the next installment!”
What’s a DRC, you might be asking?
I was also not familiar with the term until I saw a tweet yesterday that a DRC of my upcoming fantasy novel SCORPICA is now available on Edelweiss!
(And for the follow-up question, Edelweiss is a digital catalog system primarily used by booksellers and librarians to figure out current and upcoming books and order them from the publisher. I think.)
If you have an Edelweiss account, you too can get your mitts on a DRC—which stands for Digital Review Copy—of my feminist spin on Game of Thrones set in a matriarchal world thrown into chaos when girls stop being born.
Most of what I review these days at the Chicago Review of Books (CHIRB, for short) is historical fiction or fantasy, but every once in a while, something else comes along I can’t resist — usually a female-focused thriller or crime novel.. What I couldn’t resist this time around was the opportunity for an early peek at the new Megan Abbott novel (!) set at a ballet school (!!). And it did not disappoint!
With the entire book filtered through Dara’s point of view, as a questionable decision early in the novel spirals into an ever-worsening situation for all three of the main characters, you’re likely to read with your shoulders up around your ears, full of tension and dread. When the crime finally comes at last, it’s almost a relief.
Read my full review of THE TURNOUT here.