I grew up in a hard-core reader family. Everyone always had a book in their hands, so it came naturally to me to absorb everything in the house library before the urge to write caught up with me. My first typewriter was my mother’s from college, my twelve-year-old self delighted by the opportunity to express herself at last in ways that made sense to me (especially since I was the weirdo introvert who talked to the voices in her head). Since my parents exposed me to a multitude of genres, it’s no surprise I write everything from sci-fi to post-apocalyptic, fantasy and horror, cozy mysteries, and young adult paranormal.
I love it when a writer can really suck me in from page one, and Pierce Brown did that to me with the first book of the Red Rising series. I literally could not put it down and read into the night, something I haven’t done in a long time. It reminded me of The Hunger Games, so compelling in a dystopian future that had me fascinated. I adored the main character and his struggle, how his commitment was challenged along with his own biases as he evolved past the initial trial that drove him to the main plot of the story. I found him truly engaging and driven I was right there with Darrow, wondering as he did what was the right thing to do. The moment I finished it, I bought book two!
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, BUZZFEED, GOODREADS AND SHELF AWARENESS
Pierce Brown's heart-pounding debut is the first book in a spectacular series that combines the drama of Game of Thrones with the epic scope of Star Wars.
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'Pierce Brown's empire-crushing debut is a sprawling vision . . . Ender, Katniss, and now Darrow' - Scott Sigler, New York Times bestselling author of Pandemic
'[A] top-notch debut novel . . . Red Rising ascends above a crowded dystopian field' - USA Today
I know this book is old school, but that’s literally what I love about it. I started reading the series when I was a teenager and I’ve loved it so much ever since I’ve reread the entirety every other year since. To the point I’ve memorized lines from it, including the first one that gets me every time: “The first thing the boy Garion remembered was the kitchen at Faldor’s Farm.” It’s an epic adventure that takes an unknown and unwitting boy from a tiny village to a life-and-death battle for the future of his world in truly fantastic fantasy storytelling that has me crying at the end because I never want it to be over.
The first part of a saga set against a history of 7000 years of struggles of gods and kings and men. Long ago, the evil god Torak sought dominion and drove men and gods to war. Belgarath the Sorcerer led a quest to reclaim the Orb of Aldur - but so long as it lay at Riva, men would be safe.
If you haven’t read The Mummy by Anne Rice, you’re totally missing out. Her deliciously intense prose and ability to render an environment with emotional impact always thrills me. And while I love the Vampire Lestat books, the tale of Ramses and Julie is part Beauty and the Beast, part Raiders of the Lost Ark, and all awesome. Anne Rice brings you to the early 20th century in London while Egyptian “recovery” was all the rage and I swear you can see, feel and taste that experience on every page. It’s billed as a horror, but I’ve always read it as a deeply adventurous and exciting love story.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Ramses the Great returns in this “darkly magical” (USA Today) novel from bestselling author Anne Rice
“The reader is held captive and, ultimately, seduced.”—San Francisco Chronicle
Ramses the Great lives!
But having drunk the elixer of live, he is now Ramses the Damned, doomed forever to wander the earth, desperate to quell hungers that can never be satisfied—for food, for wine, for women.
Reawakened in opulent Edwardian London, he becomes Dr. Ramsey, expert in Egyptology. He also becomes the close companion of voluptuous, adventurous Julie Stratford, heiress to a vast shipping fortune and the center…
Take a sweeping YA adventure and magic and horses and a delicious book boyfriend all dropped on an outspoken, stubborn young woman thrown into a life she’s uniquely suited to and you have this delightful read from Robin McKinley. With a powerful heroine doing her best to understand her place, suspended between two distinct ways of life, The Blue Sword makes me want to run away from feeling out of place, awkward and never good enough and be just like Harry Crewe.
Read this modern classic of young adult fantasy from award-winning, New York Times bestselling author Robin McKinley
Harry Crewe is an orphan girl who comes to live in Damar, the desert country shared by the Homelanders and the secretive, magical Free Hillfolk. When Corlath, the Hillfolk King, sees her for the first time, he is shaken—for he can tell that she is something more than she appears to be. He will soon realize what Harry has never guessed: She is to become Harimad-sol, King’s Rider, and carry the Blue Sword, Gonturan, which no woman has wielded since the legendary Lady…
I love post-apocalyptic reads, and Feed is on the top of my list, partially because of how normal the writer makes a zombie takeover feel. Like we’re being forced to pivot and adapt to our new way of being thanks to Covid-19, the main characters of Feed exist in a daily zone of risk and reward, surrounded by the likelihood they, too, will become zombies if they aren’t careful, all while getting out there and telling the stories others need to hear in the midst of their own pandemic. It’s brilliantly laid out, takes the reader from a small corner of the world to a more expansive political stage, all while keeping its humanity despite the horrors unfolding around the lead characters. I loved it and still think about it long after I finished.
'Gripping, thrilling and brutal . . . a masterpiece of suspense' Publishers Weekly
'The zombie novel Robert A. Heinlein might have written' Sci-Fi Magazine
The year was 2014. We had cured cancer. We had beaten the common cold. But in doing so we created something new, something terrible that no one could stop. The infection spread, virus blocks taking over bodies and minds with one, unstoppable command: FEED.
Now, twenty years after the Rising, bloggers Georgia and Shaun Mason are on the trail of the biggest story of their lives -…
Her mom’s a witch, her dad’s a demon, but Sydlynn Hayle just wants to be ordinary. When an insidious evil comes for her coven, only she can save her family’s magic.
I lived in Latin America for six years, working as a red cross volunteer, a volcano hiking guide, a teacher, and an extra in a Russian TV series (in Panama). Having travelled throughout the region and returning regularly, I’m endlessly fascinated by the culture, history, politics, languages, and geography. Parallel to this, I enjoy reading and writing about the world of international espionage. Combining the two, and based on my own experience, I wrote my novel, Magical Disinformation, a spy novel set in Colombia. While there is not a huge depth of spy novels set in Latin America, I’ve chosen five of my favourites spy books set in the region.
This book is a spy novel with a satirical edge which will take you on a heart-pumping journey through the streets, mountains, jungles, and beaches of Colombia. Our Man in Havana meets A Clear and Present Danger.
In the era of ‘fake news’ in the land of magical realism, fiction can be just as dangerous as the truth...
Discover Lachlan Page’s Magical Disinformation: a spy novel with a satirical edge set amongst the Colombian peace process. Described by one reviewer as “Our Man in Havana meets A Clear and Present Danger.”
Oliver Jardine is a spy in Colombia, enamoured with local woman Veronica Velasco.
As the Colombian government signs a peace agreement with the FARC guerrillas, Her Majesty’s Government decides a transfer is in order to focus on more pertinent theatres of operation.