I have absolutely no affiliation with shortcovers.com. I was shopping around for Grave Secret, and ended up at their website.

Because…..ARGH!!!……I need to vent.

I hope one of the Dear Author reviewers covers this one….

I read this when they put it out in 2007 as a weekly serialization and decided that format really wasn’t doing it for me and also found the story very unsatisfying when the authors declared a draft. All the dangling threads unresolved, etc. While I understood logically that it was only a first draft, emotionally I was not having a good time with this story.

The finished book, however, is great. Everything solved, connected, makes sense and the ending comes at a satisfying point in the story, which should please those who have an issue with Lee/Miller cliffhangers.

Go out and buy it! It’s most definitely worth it. :)

Saltation, the sequel that follows Theo’s further adventures and to the ‘complicated problem’ she’s laying before the Delm of Korval at the end of I Dare, will be out in April of 2010.

And in further great news, the authors just shared that they have a contract for the sequel to it and ‘I Dare’ to be released sometime in 2011 (exact date unknown and subject to change). And in between there’s ‘Mouse and Dragon’ next summer, which is a ‘midquel’ and deals with Daav and Aelliana after ‘Scout’s Progress’. A positive bonanza of Liaden books out there in the next few years and I’m really tickled about that!

On a sadder note, I just read on her site that Patricia Briggs won't be writing and Alpha and Omega book next year. She's polishing up some old books to reissue, not even urban fantasy.

Cool. They’re going to republish Masques and publish a sequel called Wolfsbane. That’s great. I was afraid she’d never get around to it.

If you haven’t tried them, her fantasy novels are just as good as her urban fantasy, IMO. Honestly, I’d rather she take a break than burn out. I’ve been worried about that since she started releasing so frequently. Writing to order doesn’t work for everybody, and she’s an author I’d particularly hate to lose.

Overall it’s a “Meh”.

Anyone else feeling the same way ?

@Heike M.: & @SonomaLass: Thanks for the advice about Dare’s books. I knew they were connected somehow, but I didn’t quite realize the extent. It sounds like I’d appreciate them more as a series.

Reading this thread has reminded of books coming out that I had totally forgotten about–like Carolyn Jewel’s new one. I can’t belive I forgot that was an Oct release.

Beware spoilers below.

The concept was interesting enough and I liked the characters until they decided to have unprotected sex, cause she’s on the pill and he has never done the deed… yeah, you know where that is going.

Now, it’s labeled romantic suspense, but I had the impression this was supposed to be the hotter (erotic romance) variety, so the heroine having to pop out a lil’un (and I had a much less complimentary term here before) at the end of the book really annoyed the hell out of me. Especially since the h/h have known each other for a handful of weeks at most by the end of the book, it’s the first relationship for the guy and most of the time they were busy trying not to get killed.

And let’s not talk about the idiocy of staying in the house in which not one, but *two* assassination attempts have happened, instead of finding a nice hotel somewhere… these characters ended up too darn stupid to live by the end of the book.

I’m still curious about some of the other characters, but since RS really ain’t my cup of tea… I read the first one as e-book, so I didn’t see the RS label and didn’t even think to check this one for it.

Oh well, guess we file this under failed experiments.

@cdouglas: I think you could read any of Tessa Dare’s books singly, but I think they are most enjoyable as a series. Mostly because of her heroines, IMO. They are pretty young, and the second and third heroines are each introduced as a character in the previous book, so you get some experience of who she is before she begins to grow and develop in her own book. That’s my take from the first and second books and excerpts of the third, anyway. Of course the hero in the third book also has a lot of growing up to do, and he’s been around since book one!

@Jessa Slade: Yes, I have read and re-read McKinley’s Sunshine. I think Ash is more like Spindle’s End or Deerskin, though, in style. It’s also a lot like Chalice, her most recent book.

@Jane: If you like the style, Ash is amazing. I know a number of people to whom I would not recommend it, though, because they won’t like the slightly formal/stilted storytelling style. (I eat that up, as a long-time fantasy reader.) It’s subtle in some ways and almost blunt in others. My teenage daughter calls it “anti-Twilight” because of the very different kind of love relationship it portrays. I love that.

Concur, concur, concur! I am very excited for this book to finally be released! Whoo hoo!

On another note, I truly do love Kresley Cole’s books, but they are starting to become a bit formulaic for me. I won’t stop buying them because I love the world she has created and am eager to read more about it. I am interested to read of other folks’ opinions about the latest “duology” with Showalter.

Another who made her way onto my auto-buy list is Jill Shalvis. I really loved Double Play and can see it becoming a comfort read. (Of course I loved Instant Attraction & Instant Gratification also, but they’re Trades… I’m sorry but while I love books, I am trying not to get enamored of authors who are too expensive for me.)

On the YA front I mostly enjoyed Ally Carter’s Gallagher Girls books I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You and Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy. I say mostly because while they are well written, imaginative, and lots of fun, the teenage emotions are exhausting! (As are the echoes of my own teenage emotions that sort of rose to the surface…) Seriously. Thank God those years are over! So the books are very effective… and I do recommend them.

As a medicine for the blues/blahs/mean reds/doldrums, go to Dana Marie Bell. Any and all of her books will leave you smiling, but I particularly love the Halle Pumas books (#5 of which is coming out next month, yay!), maybe because while they are short, there are many to love. They’re hot, funny, smart-mouthed and they totally crack me up.

I also finally got to PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES, which I thought was fun and had a few LOL moments. But I soooo wanted more zombies.

Oh, and I scored Patricia Briggs’ first Mercy Thompson graphic novel HOMECOMING. Although normally a good graphic novel just makes me wish it had been a real novel, I thought this was a great story for the format: Good art opportunities and just complex enough, storywise, to fill up the panels. Most excellent.

@Sonomalass You had me on ASH as soon as you mentioned McKillip and McKinley. You read McKinley’s SUNSHINE, yes?

Back to the topic of reading: The teachmetonight post Janet W. linked to quoted from Mary Balogh‘s First Comes Marriage, which I liked tremendously but so far didn’t want to re-read, and generally I re-read my keepers a lot.

I just finished re-reading Black Ice — this is a book that leaves me hanging so I’m glad Stuart shows them in successive Ice books actually living their life. One that’s not on the run.

Picked up an old Regency: The Gold Scent Bottle by Dorothy Mack and it handles a father/son/evvvvvvvil wife/stepmother triangle rather unusually, I thought. Showing the aftermath of a decision made in lust. But I’ve been doing more reading “about” books than reading them … something I want to change this month.

So I’ve to correct my above comment and say that by now I’ve got the growing premonition to be a one-woman-minority in my opinion of Balogh’s The Secret Pearl. And there I had the delusion of having found a kindred spirit ;-) Perhaps misreading your post was a Freudian slip…

However, I stand by my impression of TSP, as well as by my general opinion of Balogh’s writing (better worded than I could do it in Tumperkin’s blog linked to above).