Embarrasment of Riches Reading Challenge 2013

I didn’t plan to sign up for any ( official) reading challenges this year, but then I stumbled upon this one at Patricia Burroughs blog earlier this week, just before sign up closed.  And, since I am planning to really lower my TBR* pile this year, I decided to sign up.

I signed up for the highest level, Platinum. Which puts my goal at reading 50 books from my TBR pile between Jan 1 and Dec 31 2013. Which I’ll easily reach.  It is January 8 and I have already read 12 books from my TBR pile ( half of them novellas or Categories, but still). 

I’ll post monthly updates on the blog :).  

* To qualify as a TBR book, it must be purchased before January 1st 2013. 

And the circle closes

When I started writing, I wrote in Swedish. I still have the unfinished draft, somewere on my laptop.   But I was surrounded by people who wrote in english.  So, I switched to English.   Mainly because my ideas were in English.  And, during the next 8-9 years I wrote.  Some of it was utter dravel, but most of it wasn’t.   But I didn’t submit anything, since I mostly wrote novellas, and there wasn’t that many publishers that accepted novellas, back then. ( Now it is different, of course.)

As I wrote, and honed my craft,  ideas in Swedish kept popping up.  I played with them but in the end I returned to  English. But… at the same time, something happened in Swedish publishing. They started publishing fantasy, first in YA and middle grade.  And… said fantasy was successful, so they published more of it.   And, at this point, I started wonder if maybe, I was writing in the wrong language.

Except… I had no ideas that felt viable. Yet. So, I let them simmer for awhile. And, last year Trollkungens dotter exploded into my brain.   And, I had so much fun writing the partial draft.

And, after finishing the Brownie Liason, as much as I liked the story, I think I’ll never feel fully comfortable writing in English again.  The main difference is that when I write in Swedish I don’t have to worry about the language, I can focus on getting the story as good as possible.

Oh, and those older ideas?  I have plans for them.   One is, in fact, set in the same world  as Trollkungens dotter.  A fact I didn’t realise until I started writing Trollkungens dotter.

The other… is a small town  contemporary fantasy, that I am itching to work on.

On my Wishlist: Fantasy

Livak is a part-time thief and full-time gambler, long accustomed to living by her wits and and narrowly avoiding serious trouble. When she attempts to sell a stolen antique to a passing merchant, she finds herself pulled into a new and dangerous world of political intrigue in which the stakes are higher than anyone involved can imagine. For the antique she has acquired dates from a particular period in the history of Einarinn about which little is known, but much has been speculated. When the truth begins to emerge, Livak decides to take the greatest gamble of her life.

I owned this, read it, enjoyed it… and traded it in ( I think). This was when I was young and stupid, and believed that books were constantly in print. ( Yeah. Not so much)  So I am planning on buying an digital copy soon.

A former priest, having left his temple and much else behind, is caught in a web of dark magic when he finds the body of a young woman who has been ritually slain.

This is a free serial right now. I have read a couple of chapters, and it is good enough that I am putting it on the wishlist

The kingdom of Everran is dying, razed by a dragon that came out of nowhere to burn its oil groves and devastate its vineyards and kill its folk. Legend says, a dragon’s coming always has a cause. Why has the dragon come? What does the dragon know? One man knows the riddle’s answer. No man knows that answer’s cost.

I have almost bought this one for a long time, and this year I will buy it.

A tale of love, war, murder, marriage, and fate.
He lurks beside the forest road, a charming, well-armed young murderer, not altogether human. She draws near, a contrary shepherdess fleeing an unwanted marriage. When he overhears her prayer for help, whispered to the Dread Hammer, he decides to grant it — and love takes him by surprise. But love soon proves a greater challenge than murder.

This blurb is intriguing, and makes me curious enough to want to buy it 🙂

Anticipated January Releases:

Some scars cut right to the heart.
Three years after her divorce, Chaili Bennett is over her ex. Her only problem now? Of the few men she’s dated since, no one “gets” her. Not like Marc Archer—a man who’s never seen her as more than a friend.
Marc Archer needs a date for a last-minute charity event, and he needs it fast. Not that women aren’t throwing themselves at his world-famous face and body, but sometimes it’s less messy—as in less personal—to use his sister Shera’s escort service.
The last woman on earth Marc expects to see in his sister’s office is Chaili. There’s something different about her, but nothing pleases him more when Shera sets them up. That simple date quickly evolves into much more as they both discover the other fills a deep, secret need they’ve shared with no one else.
Though Chaili insists one night is all she wants, Marc isn’t walking away now. Not until he discovers what put the shadows in her eyes. And the scars on her soul.

 Eden Green can’t remember a time she didn’t believe in monsters—her cousin was born one. Her family’s dark past casts a long shadow, making it hard to make friends and harder to commit to a lover. She lives a quiet life in small-town Clover, Tennessee, but she’s always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Tired of the city packs’ corruption, yet too alpha to be a subordinate in a sanctuary town, Jay Ancheta satisfies his need to protect by serving as Clover’s Chief of Police. As much as he’s drawn to Eden, he can’t offer forever to a woman who doesn’t know what he is—or trust himself to let her go after one taste.
When Eden’s cousin and his battered pack stagger into town, their tormentors hard on their heels, Eden is bitten in the chaos. Now Jay not only has a traumatized pack to deal with, but a newly turned wolf with enough hungry alpha power to consume them both.
With their combined strength, they can create a new sanctuary—if their passion can survive the ghosts of the Green family’s legacy.
Warning: Contains a newly turned werewolf heroine who enjoys a little rough dominance in bed and a badass alpha wolf hero who’ll fight bad guys, ghosts and even the past to protect what’s his. Be prepared for violence, death and heartbreak on the way to a happily ever after.

We’re the D’Artigo sisters: savvy half-human, half-Fae operatives for the Otherworld Intelligence Agency. My sister Delilah is a two-faced werecat and a Death Maiden. My sister Menolly is a vampire married to a werepuma. And me? I’m Camille, a wicked-good witch with three sexy husbands. I’m a priestess of the Moon Mother, and I’m training under the Queen of Darkness. Unfortunately, playing in the dark means that sometimes you stumble over secrets better left buried…
There’s a new Fae sorcerer in town—Bran, the son of Raven Mother and the Black Unicorn–and I’m the unwilling liaison between him and our new Earthside OIA. With cemeteries being ransacked, and spirits being harvested by a sinister, otherworldly force, Aeval sends us to rescue the missing wife of a prominent member of the Fae nobility. Our search leads us to the mysterious Aleksais Psychic Network, and ultimately, to face the Lord of Ghosts. Morio and I must undergo one of the most terrifying rituals we’ve ever experienced. A ritual that will plunge us directly into the world of the dead.

Free read: Beachhouse No 9 Beginnings by Christie Ridgway

Christie Ridgway invites you to a special place of sun, sand and romance in her new series, Beach House No. 9. Enjoy this prequel novella and meet the people of Crescent Cove…
Two miles of magic. That’s how Meg Alexander remembers her childhood home of Crescent Cove on the California coast. But Meg doesn’t believe in magic anymore—not since heartbreak made her leave at nineteen and kept her away for ten years.
Yet Meg can’t say no when her sister asks her to temporarily step in as the cove’s property manager—and she can’t deny her instant attraction to handsome guest Caleb McCall. He sparks a desire that Meg hasn’t felt in a long time. But even as their incredible, incendiary kisses tempt her into a short-term fling, her head tells her to pull away.
Can Caleb convince her to give love a second chance?

I haven’t read Christie Ridgway before, so when I discovered that this novella was free I downloaded it. And I loved it.  I loved it enough to request the next book on the spot from Netgalley.    And I am sitting on my hands, reminding myself that I will not buy all her backlist…

It is free at Amazon right now, and I have no idea how long it will last. Grab it while you can!

Review: Man Law by Adrienne Giordano

The Particulars: Romantic Suspense, Carina Press, available as e-book
The Source: Books on Board
The Grade: C-
The Blurb:
Security Consultant Vic Andrews lives by his Man Laws:

Never mess with your best friend’s sister
Never get caught
Never get attached
 But he can’t deny his irresistible attraction to Gina Delgado, a young widow with three kids and plenty of strings attached. Even so, having a physical relationship doesn’t mean they’re “in a relationship.”

Gina lost her husband to tragedy; she is not getting emotionally involved with another man in a dangerous profession. Sleeping with Vic is just stress relief.
Until one of Vic’s assignments goes wrong and the target selects Gina and her kids for revenge. There’s nothing Vic won’t do to protect Gina and the children–the family he realizes, too late, he wants. He’ll accomplish his mission but will he have lost his only chance at true love?

The Review:
Ever since I read and loved Relentless Pursuit last summer, I have wanted to read more books by Adrienne Giordano. I was in the mood for action packed romantic suspense, so I decided to buy this book.
The Chicago setting was believable, from the Taylor security offices, to the house were Gina lived. The other settings also felt believable.
The plot was fast paced, and filled with action. It was interesting to follow Vic as he worked through his worries and fear that Sirhan would find him. It was interesting following how Vic and his friends searched for Sirhan, and how they reacted to the threat.
In the middle of this, Vic and Gina also worked through their issues, and their friends opinions. Gina’s reluctance to start a relationship, especially with someone that was in the military consultant business, made sense to me. I enjoyed following the developement of Gina’s and Vic’s relationship, and how it gradually developed from a fling into a real relationship.
The biggest problem I had with this, was connecting with the characters. I cannot pin point why, exactly. Maybe it was because despite the threats, it never felt as if anything was at stake. Not really.

The Evolution of an idea

For me ideas comes in two shapes:

The fully fledged ones and the “Someday I want to write this.”

The fully fledged ideas are the ones were suddenly  I have a character clamoring for me to write their story NOW.  I have learned the hard way to write it down, and jot down the plot immediately, or I’ll lose the idea.   Aeryn was one of those fully fledged ideas that clamored for attention.   Hopefully I’ll get back to Caetia, Demer and their intrigues later this year, or early 2014.

The other category is when I read something, and think  Ooh, I would to write a  Post apocalyptic Fantasy, but I don’t have a world,  or a story.   Sometimes two cool ideas merge into a stronger one.  When it comes to the Post apocalyptic idea,  I have a main character, and I have ( I think) a world too.   The idea was spurred on by a idle thought when I recently saw a headline about Princess Madeleine: What if something happened and she had to take the throne? ( Not that I WANT anything to happen to the Swedish Royal family) Suddenly, I saw a princess watching as her family was slowly lowered into graves.    She was sent to a cloister when she was really young, so she isn’t used to  court intrigues.   That said, it isn’t quite ready to be written yet.  I think.

So how do I know which ideas are viable? I don’t.  Over the years, I have developed a routine of writing a proposal package, I suppose is the best word, containing the first 10 k, a sketchy plot and some notes.   Some turns into first drafts, some doesn’t.   But at least I have enough information to continue writing the draft, if I decide to.

( Except I seem to have forgotten this process when I switch to Swedish. *winces*)

 

 

Let’s try this again

So.. Last year I deleted my previous WordPress blog since I never posted there. Which I am regretting right now, since LJ is in death throes. :(.   Hopefully I’ll be better about updating it than I was the last time around….

Here is to a new and brave 2013