I have been publishing speculative fiction for over thirty years and the Beatrice Beecham Young Adult series since 2005. During this time, my appetite for quality fiction has never waned and, as readers will see from the recommended titles here, my reading is broad and spans not only entertaining, escapist fiction, but also that which has a profound message to tell. As a mentor for the Horror Writers Association (HWA) I have used my experience and passion for writing to help other writers develop and hone their craft and was humbled to be a recipient of the ‘HWA Mentor of the Year Award’ in 2023. In short, I know what makes a good story!
Bacon is a masterful storyteller known for creating surreal and obtuse landscapes and characters.
Broken Paradise is an intriguing tale of deception and sibling rivalry, featuring gods and magi, who engage in a cat-and-mouse battle beneath the oceans of the world. The primary message of the book leaves the reader questioning the strength of families, be that the power of unity, or its propensity for self-destruction.
The protagonist is Samaki—the goddess of water—who must divide herself into four parts to escape the wrath of her murderous brother. As Samaki hides, so she must learn to protect herself, growing and honing her powers under the tutorage of Mae, the enigmatic owner of her submersible home.
After falling out with her brothers, Samaki the goddess of water flees to Earth where she must mask her trace by splitting into a quadruplet of magi.A quadruplet is perfect, but all things are never equal. Dissonance arises when the magus Umozi breaks the quadruplet.Only the newness of a child magus can restore balance and save a broken paradise-with the help of a goddess mother.
I’m
a big fan of Hightower’s work, and when I heard her read the title story of
this collection at a convention in 2022, I knew this was going to be a must-buy
when it was released.
Hightower examines experiences all too common to women
through a horrific lens, and the results are chilling and thought-provoking.
The story I related to the most, aside from the title story, was “Goddess of
Need.” If you’re a terminal people-pleaser, that one might resonate with you
too.
Clare Mulley is the award-winning author of three books re-examining the history of the First and Second World War through the lives of remarkable women. The Woman Who Saved the Children, about child rights pioneer Eglantyne Jebb, won the Daily Mail Biographers' Club Prize and is now under option. Polish-born Second World War special agent Krystyna Skarbek, aka Christine Granville, is the subject of the Spy Who Loved, a book that led to Clare being decorated with Poland’s national honour, the Bene Merito. Clare's third book, The Women Who Flew for Hitler, long-listed for the Historical Writers Association prize, tells the extraordinary story of Nazi Germany’s only two female test pilots, whose choices and actions put them on opposite sides of history. Clare reviews for the Telegraph, Spectator, and History Today. A popular public speaker, she has given a TEDx talk at Stormont, and recent TV includes news appearances for the BBC, Sky, and Channel 5 as well as various Second World War history series.
This is a left-of-field choice, but when thinking about female fliers it is worth remembering the cultural baggage they inevitably carry with them. Historically, female flight whether by broom, wing, mental transcendence or in the cockpit of a Spitfire, has threatened the patriarchy while liberating women. Even today, ‘flighty’ women are still considered in negative terms. This book explores the power and prejudice around aerial females.
From the asparas of Hindu myth to the swan maidens of European fairy tales, tales of flying women-some with wings, others with clouds, rainbows, floating scarves, or flying horses-reveal both fascination with and ambivalence about female power and sexuality. In Women Who Fly, Serinity Young examines the motif of flying women as it appears in a wide variety of cultures and historical periods, expressed in legends, myths, rituals, sacred narratives, and artistic productions. She covers a wide range of themes, including supernatural women, like the Valkyries, who transport men to immortality; winged goddesses like Iris and the Greek goddess Nike;…
I've been interested in feminine figures since I was a small, Catholic child presented with the Virgin Mary! Further down the road in graduate school and in my teaching career as an English Professor at a small Liberal Arts college, I began to research comparative mythology and the study of archetypes with a particular emphasis on the female divine. Now, after publishing three books and several articles on the goddesses, I'm happy to help others in their journey of discovery. I believe a good way to approach that study today is to focus on how our contemporary women writers portray goddesses in their works of fiction and non-fiction.
Marija Gimbutas’ The Living Goddessesis a great place to start your study of goddesses.
Gimbutas is a major researcher in the field of goddess studies, and her book is quoted more than often. Instead of reading other scholars’ work that quotes Gimbutas, why not read the original study of Paleolithic and Neolithice archetypes and their descendents in several Bronze and Iron Age cultures.
Additionally, Gimbutas postulates how those archetypes have evolved in contemporary culture. Matrilineal social structure as mirrored in religion and myth is the basis of Gimbutas’ gift to women today.
The Living Goddesses crowns a lifetime of innovative, influential work by one of the twentieth-century's most remarkable scholars. Marija Gimbutas wrote and taught with rare clarity in her original--and originally shocking--interpretation of prehistoric European civilization. Gimbutas flew in the face of contemporary archaeology when she reconstructed goddess-centered cultures that predated historic patriarchal cultures by many thousands of years. This volume, which was close to completion at the time of her death, contains the distillation of her studies, combined with new discoveries, insights, and analysis. Editor Miriam Robbins Dexter has added introductory and concluding remarks, summaries, and annotations. The first part…
I’m a paranormal romance and fantasy author who fell in love with fantasy as a young girl. My journey as a reader started when I was four, but what changed me entirely was Russian Tales woven with magic. I’m passionate about Lycans, Werewolves, Witches, Vampires, and everything that’s magical. I like to write sizzling tales of love and betrayal.
This entire series has my heart and soul. Paranormal world fused with Greek mythology? Hell, yes! I’d read this any day and every day. My top pick in this series is The Darkest Kiss because I love the female lead Anya. She’s just amazing. Anya is introduced as a fun loving, trouble maker but as the novel evolves we learn Anya has more layers to her character and with each layer coming off, you can’t help but fall deeply in love with her just like Death. I mean, I totally understand him. This book is such an entertaining read.
She has tempted many men…but never found her equal. Until now.
Though she has lived for centuries, Anya, goddess of anarchy, has never known pleasure. Until Lucien, the incarnation of death—a warrior eternally doomed to take souls to the hereafter. He draws her like no other. And Anya will risk anything to have him. But when the merciless Lord of the Underworld is ordered by the gods to claim Anya herself, their uncontrollable attraction becomes an anguished pursuit. Now they must defeat the unconquerable forces that control them, before their thirst for one another demands a sacrifice of love beyond…
This is McMinn’s debut novel, and wow. What a debut.
The Ruptured Sky is a book that’s filled with action from the off. Nothing in this book is obvious – nothing goes smoothly for the characters, and they all face obstacles at every turn. It’s not what I would call a laugh-a-minute book, but it’s one that’s definitely engaging and compelling.
I couldn’t put this book down and certainly didn’t want it to end; to the point where I was loath to read the final chapter.
Abandoning her homeland, she travels across the ruins of Whyt’hallen to take up the hunt against the mutated remnants of a magical war that killed the gods and tore the sky asunder.
But these vicious beasts are not the darkest shadow hanging over Amika's life—it's the forbidden magic she’s hidden since childhood … and what would happen if it were discovered.
On the trail of a dangerous mark, Amika uncovers a madman who is more than what he seems. He claims her unnatural gifts are prophesied to restore the goddess to her throne, protecting Whyt’hallen…
A middle grade novel that brings to life the legends of the Hawaiian people in a contemporary setting. Lei and the Fire Goddess is a fast-paced adventure featuring a heroine, Lei, who is very much a modern American girl. In order to save her friend's life, Lei must learn to embrace her Hawaiian culture. The first of what is currently a two-book series.
I have loved escaping into different worlds for most of my life and all of these authors have inspired me to delve into worlds that don’t exist. They have taught me how to craft and expand my own made-up fantasy worlds. Not only inspiring my writing, but also giving me moments where I can escape from the world for a time and let my imagination run riot. I wanted to give readers the same chance to do just that in my latest book Realm of Dragons, Fight for the Crown, and I have these tales to thank for that. Truly great fantasy writers give us the chance to escape.
A simple explanation of this book is Althalas is a thief and lives his life looking for the next heist he can pull off, until the Goddess Dweia hires him to save the world from the desolations of her evil brother Daeva and his henchman Ghend. The telling of this tale is anything but simple. The authors have drawn on past civilisations that can be easily recognised to the reader, such as the Roman and Viking, adding their own lore and history to it. It is richly described and draws the reader to become invested in Althalas’s troubles and successes, along with all of his personable and flawed companions. It is an enjoyable read, and I dare you not to fall in love with Emmy.
A fabulous brand new Eddings standalone fantasy, set in an entirely new magical world.
Burglar, armed robber and sometime murderer, our hero Althalus is commissioned to steal a book from the House at the End of the World by a mysterious cloaked stranger named Ghend. At the House at the End of the World, he finds a talking cat... in the same room as the book Ghend described. What he can't find once he's in the house is the door by which he entered. Only 2467 years and an ice age later does Althalus re-emerge with the cat, Emmy. He's…
World
myths have intrigued me since my teenage years and in various forms have
underscored much of my fiction. The exclusion of the goddess from modern
religion and culture and its many ramifications is something I have explored
in my novels, albeit set in an imagined world.
Returning to the topic recently, certainly one of the most comprehensive books
on the topic I’ve read is The Myth of the Goddess. It’s a painstakingly
researched, scholarly but highly accessible exploration and deep investigation
into the many (yet essentially one) goddess figures of ancient cultures. It
carries us from the Paleolithic age through the emerging cultures of Crete,
Sumeria, Egypt, Babylon, Greece and more, to the advent of Judaeo-Christian
monotheism, the assembling of the patriarchal superstructure, the Gnostic Sophia, the
Catholic cult of Mary and western civilization’s consequent disconnection from the
natural world.
A comprehensive, scholarly accessible study, in which the authors draw upon poetry and mythology, art and literature, archaeology and psychology to show how the myth of the goddess has been lost from our formal Judeo-Christian images of the divine. They explain what happened to the goddess, when, and how she was excluded from western culture, and the implications of this loss.
I’ve been intrigued by the Hindu goddess traditions since I first read Is the Goddess a Feminist as an undergraduate student. After reading this book, I changed my course of study and life, writing my Ph.D. dissertation and my first few books on Indian goddess traditions. Now, I continue to share my passion for Indian goddesses as a professor of Religious Studies at the University of Arizona.
This is my favorite book on Indian/Hindu goddesses. Even after all these years, I believe it to be the erudite and accessible book that portrays the complexity of goddesses and their relationships with devotees. Each time I re-read the book, I glean additional insights into India, Hinduism, and the ways that the sacred feminine shapes the lives of people in the Northeast region of India.
The worship of Devi (the Goddess) is one of the most vigorous and visible religious phenomena in northwest India today. This study uses interviews, participant observations, and textual analysis to explore the nature of the Goddess and her devotees' experience of her.
