Jia
 is an avid reader who loves fantasy and young adult novels. She's currently burned out on urban fantasy and paranormals, but she'll always have a soft spot for traditional fantasy and she's branching out into manga. Her favorite authors are Michelle West, Jacqueline Carey, and Rob Thurman, although she did enjoy Joe Abercrombie's latest so don't go thinking she's prejudiced against male authors or anything. Jia's on the hunt for fantasy novels with diverse casts and multicultural settings. Email her with recommendations!
Dear Ms. St. Crow,
 I’m familiar the urban fantasy novels you write under the similar name, Lilith Saintcrow. I enjoyed your Dante Valentine series but wasn’t as keen on your next venture, the Jill Kismet books. But I’m always on the hunt for new young adult novels to read so when I heard you had written one, I decided to give it a try.
Dru Anderson is used to not sticking around in one place for too long. Her father hunts monsters: vampires, werewolves, and other things that go bump in the night. But despite the fact that Dru has the sixth sense — a preternatural ability to know when something bad’s about to go down — her father never brings her along on his actual hunts. In fact, if it weren’t for the fact that her grandmother died, she might not even be tagging along with him at all. As you can imagine, none of this pleases Dru, who wants nothing more than to help her father hunt the nasty things that prowl the night.
Then one night her dad doesn’t come home after a hunt. Dru tries to hold out hope but …
Dear Ms. Sinclair.
 I first heard of your novel when someone posted the cover on their blog. And speaking for myself, I can safely say the cover did its job. It caught my interest, stuck the title and your name in mind, and when I got the chance to review it, I was positively gleeful.
Centuries ago, a mage named Imogene cursed the inhabitants of Minhorne. As a result, society was split in half, resulting in the Darkborn and the Lightborn. The Darkborn cannot go into light or they will burn to ash. The Lightborn cannot go into darkness or they will find their life force draining away.
Other differences separate them. For example, the Darkborn was born blind. After all, what good is sight if you live in a world of darkness? Instead they have another sense called sonn, similar to how sonar works for bats. And unlike the Lightborn, the Darkborn revile magic and practitioners find themselves on society’s fringes or cast out entirely. So while they co-exist in the same city, their societies have evolved in completely different ways, transforming the city depending on the time of day.
It’s against this backdrop …
Dear Ms. Whitman,
 I love a good retelling. It doesn’t matter if it’s a popular fairy tale, common folk tale, or classic myth. If it sounds interesting or puts a new spin on the story, I’m always willing to give it a try. This goes double if the retelling brings volition and agency to the women portrayed in these tales because let’s face it: they often get the short end of the stick.
Most people know the story of Persephone. She was the daughter of Demeter, the Greek goddess of the harvest. One day the earth split open and Hades, ruler of the Underworld, ventured forth and kidnapped Persephone, taking her to his domain to be his queen. Demeter grieved over her daughter’s abduction and the world suffered for it — crops died and the land grew barren.
Finally, Zeus intervened and forced Hades to return Persephone to her mother. But before she returned, she was tricked into eating pomegranate seeds and as a rule, anyone who’d consumed food in the underworld would have remain there for eternity. So for a compromise, Persephone spends half the year with …
Dear Ms. Pon,
 I fall into that category of people who wish more fantasy novels set in non-Western settings were available to the general readership at large. And while I’m it, I want more than just those non-Western settings; I also want the stories of the non-white characters that live in those worlds. Diversity, multiculturalism — these are things that we’ve encouraged and discussed in the past here at DA. It doesn’t matter what the genre is — romance, fantasy, young adult — I personally want to see more of it.
I was predisposed to like your debut because not only was it set in a fantasy world inspired by ancient China, it featured an Asian heroine. Like Jane, I have a bias towards Asian heroines. And an Asian heroine in a fantasy that’s not exoticized, fetishized, or made into a prize for the strapping hero? Definitely a plus for me.
Ai Ling is the daughter of a disgraced scholar who was exiled from the Imperial court before she was born. But then one day her father is called back for reasons she doesn’t know or understand, leaving Ai Ling and her mother to …
The Rake’s Intimate Encounter by Ann Lethbridge
I’m still not sure I completely understand the set-up of this novella. I realize it’s a prologue, so to speak, for Lethbridge’s historical series for Harlequin but even so I felt like I was dumped midway into a story without any map to point me in the right direction.
Anthony Darby has accompanied his friends (the characters of the forthcoming novels, if I’m guessing correctly) to an exclusive club where the ladies of the ton can live out their greatest fantasies. I know I’m probably the least knowledgeable about historicals of any of the Dear Author bloggers, but something about that rings false. Please correct me if I’m wrong. It might have helped to get more background into the club’s existence and its owner, but I can only assume that’ll be explored in one of the forthcoming books.
At any rate, Tony is skeptical about the whole thing and doesn’t intend to indulge himself despite his friends’ encouragement. That is, until he meets Margaret, the widow of a Russian count. Their attraction is instantaneous and they waste no time acting upon it. What makes their rapid capitulation interesting is that …
Dear Mr. Gill,
 It must be demon possession month because this is the second young adult novel I’ve read that features such a premise. I believe this is your debut and since I hadn’t heard of it before the box containing it landed on my doorstep, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Even now I’m still not sure what I think about it but one thing’s for sure: I absolutely love your voice.
Eunice “Bug” Smoot hasn’t led a charmed life. Her father ran off before she was born and her mother died in a fire when Bug was a child. She went to live with her great aunt, Auntie Pearl, and grandfather, Papa C, after that but when her great aunt died, things fell apart because her grandfather wasn’t the most responsible person in the world. And that’s putting it mildly.
But ever since Papa C died, Bug’s lived in one dump after another, delivering pizzas to make a living. Unfortunately, she’s behind on rent and her landlord comes to collect, threatening her with eviction if she doesn’t pay up. That’s bad enough but then she discovers that her classic Cadillac — which …
Dear Ms. Johnson,
 While I’ve read many reviews about your books, I’ve actually never read one myself. I have occasionally read a blog post or two of yours when linked to it and even though I can’t remember which posts those were, I recall thinking they were funny and charming. So for this month’s TBR challenge review, I dug Devilish out of my TBR pile. Even more shocking, given my sad history in this endeavor, it actually fits the monthly theme — paranormal!
Jane Jarvis is a senior at Saint Teresa’s Preparatory School for Girls. She’s short, fiercely smart, and perhaps not what you’d expect of a Catholic school girl with her spiky, bleached blond hair. She’s also in the process of getting over her ex-boyfriend, despite her claims otherwise, and trying to help her best friend, Allison Concord, maintain her cool during one of the school’s annual traditions. Unfortunately, Ally is something of a nervous wreck at the best of times and embarrassingly awkward at the worst and after a humiliating incident involving a cupcake, vomit, and a poor underclassman, Ally becomes the laughingstock of the school.
But to Jane’s surprise, Ally bounces back …
Dear Ms. Stevens,
 As part of my ongoing effort to expand my reading (and Harlequin) horizons, I decided to give this novel from Mira a try. New to your work, I wasn’t sure what to expect but the idea of an evil gene sounded interesting. And while I thought some things were awfully convenient, I’m glad I made the decision I did.
Evangeline Theroux is a New Orleans homicide detective known as ghoul girl by her co-workers. I’ll leave it up to other readers to decide whether that’s an affectionate nickname. (I don’t consider it one under the circumstances.) The past year hasn’t been easy for her. Her husband, also a cop, died in the line of duty and even though she’s always thought something was fishy about the way he died, it seems like she always runs into a dead end when trying to pursue it. She also has a baby boy who reminds her too much of his father, even while she struggles to raise him by herself and work a job where her co-workers all expect her to snap at any minute.
Evangeline’s latest …
Dear Ms. Littman,
 We’ve talked about issue books here at Dear Author in the past. A lot of readers prefer to avoid them but I like to read them from time to time, especially since they make up a significant fraction of the young adult genre. Because of personal past experiences, one topic I do seek out is that of eating disorders and teenage girls so when I heard about your novel, I made sure to give it a try.
Janie Ryman is just your average teenage girl. She lives in the shadow of her older sister, who’s the daughter from her father’s previous marriage. She loves to act and received a standing ovation for her portrayal of the lead role in The Diary of Anne Frank. She has a crush on a guy who doesn’t even know she’s alive and even when she does get his attention, it’s not meant to last.
But Janie also has a secret. She binge eats and then vomits shortly after. She doesn’t have a problem though. She has it perfectly under control. At least that’s what she tells herself. Then the secret she’s successfully kept for years …
Dear Ms. Mitchell,
 It’s been a while since I read a Southern gothic, young adult or not. In fact, I think the last novel I read in this subgenre was Cherie Priest’s Four and Twenty Blackbirds and that came out a few years ago. For some reason, it’s just not a genre I often read in so I was glad to have the opportunity to give your novel a try.
Iris lives in Ondine, a small Louisiana town where nothing happens. She’s expecting just another lazy, hot summer spent with her longtime best friend, Colette. Granted, by spending time together, we mean casting spells and summoning ghosts in the cemetery. Nevertheless, it’s all fun and games and make believe, until one day something answers back and whispers in Iris’s ear.
Even though Iris’s small town is a place where nothing ever happens, we all know that’s never actually the case. Every place has a history and at least one dirty secret. In Ondine’s case, a boy named Elijah Landry disappeared. No one knows if he ran away, died, or was murdered, but Iris is determined to find out because she thinks the ghost Colette and …
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