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Blog Archive
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2024
(85)
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May
(13)
- Book review: Diavola by Jennifer Marie Thorne
- Hell For Hire by Rachel Aaron (reviewed by Mihir W...
- Book review: Thrill Switch by Tim Hawken
- Guest Post & Cover Reveal: Fool's Promise by Angel...
- Mushroom Blues by Adrian M. Gibson (reviewed by Ma...
- SPFBO X Introduction Post - meet the Fantasy Book ...
- Review: Two Twisted Crowns by Rachel Gillig
- Interview with Craig Schaefer : Celebrating A Deca...
- Cover Reveal: The Wingspan Of Treason by L. N. Bayen
- Review: How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying...
- Book review: The Atrocity Engine by Tim Waggoner
- Review: A Fate Inked in Blood by Danielle Jensen
- Graphic novel: Lucifer by Mick Carey review
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April
(19)
- SPFBO 9 Has a Winner - Murder at Spindle Manor by ...
- Review: The Book of Ile-Rien: The Element of Fire ...
- Dig Two Graves by Craig Schaefer (reviewed by Mihi...
- The Doors Of Midnight by RR Virdi (reviewed by Mih...
- Book review: The Wings Upon Her Back by Samantha M...
- Review: The Hemlock Queen by Hannah Whitten
- Book review: The Prestige by Christopher Priest
- Book review: Amiant Soul by Deborah Makarios (revi...
- SPFBO 9 Finalist review: Master of The Void by Wen...
- Cover Reveal with Author Q&A: TROLLGRAVE by Alex S...
- SPFBO 9 Finalist Interview: Wend Raven, the Author...
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▼
May
(13)
Official Rachel Aaron Website
Pre-order “Hell For Hire” over HERE
Read Fantasy Book Critic’s review of The Last Stand Of Mary Good Crow
Read Fantasy Book Critic’s review of “The Battle Of Medicine Rocks:
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of "Forever Fantasy Online"
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of "FFO: Last Bastion"
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of "FFO: The Once King"
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of "Nice Dragons Finish Last"
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of "One Good Dragon Deserves Another"
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of "No Good Dragon Goes Unpunished"
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of "A Dragon Of A Different Color"
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of "Last Dragon Standing"
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of "Minimum Wage Magic"
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of "Part-Time Gods"
Read Fantasy Book Critic’s review of “Night Shift Dragons”
Read Fantasy Book Critic’s review of “By A Silver Thread”
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of "The Spirit Thief"
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of “The Spirit Rebellion”
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of “The Spirit Eater” & “Spirit’s Oath”
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of “The Spirit War”
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of "Spirit's End"
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of "Fortune's Pawn"
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of "Honor's Knight"
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of "Heaven's Queen"
Read Fantasy Book Critic's joint interview with Rachel Aaron & Travis Bach
Read Fantasy Book Critic's Interview with Rachel Aaron
Read Eli Monpress series completion interview with Rachel Aaron
Read Fantasy Book Critic's Interview with Rachel Bach
Read Fantasy Book Critic's Heartstrikers interview with Rachel Aaron
Read Fantasy Book Critic's Second Heartstrikers interview with Rachel Aaron
Read "Why A Nice Dragon" by Rachel Aaron (Guest post)
A hulked-out wrath demon who eats gamer rage and loves cats, a shapeshifting lust demon who enjoys their food a bit too much, and a void demon who doesn’t see the point of any of this. They’re not the sort of mercenaries you hire on purpose, but Bex wouldn’t trust her life to anyone else.
Adrian Blackwood is a witch with a problem. His family has skirted the edges of King Gilgamesh’s ire for centuries, but thanks to a decision he made as a child, Adrian is personally responsible for putting his entire coven in Heaven’s crosshairs.
Determined to set things right, Adrian drags his broom, caldron, and talking cat thousands of miles across the country to Seattle where he can fight the Eternal King’s warlocks without bringing the rest of his family into the fray. But witchcraft--like all crafts--takes time, and if the warlocks catch him before his spells are ready, he’s dead. So Adrian does what any professional witch would do and hires a team of mercenaries to keep the warlocks off his back. He didn’t expect to get demons, but when you’re already on the killing-edge of Heaven’s bad side, what’s a bit more fuel on the fire?
Sometimes, you get more than you paid for.
Neither Adrian nor Bex knew what to expect when they signed their contract, but witch-plus-demon turns out to be a match made in the Hells. With this much chaos at their fingertips, even impossible dreams start to come back into reach, because Bex wasn’t always a mercenary. She used to be the Eternal King of Heaven’s biggest nightmare, and now that she’s got a witch in her corner, it’s time to put the old magics back on the field and show Adrian Blackwood just how much hell he’s hired.
June 4, 2024 marks the e-book, paperback & hardcover publication of Hell For Hire and it is self-published by the author. Cover Art is by Luisa Preißler.
As a reader, I love trying to figure out how a cover relates to the story before I check out the blurb, and John Anthony De Giovanni has an amazing ability to make art and title resonate. I sent John an early draft of Fool’s Promise—the draft with the original boring part 1, before I rewrote it roughly a million times—and gave him my usual vague thoughts about how probably Arsenault should be on the cover since Fool’s Promise is really his book, and I thought it would be good to show him holding the dagger he uses to make the “fool’s promise” that gives the book its name.
John sent me three sketches and at the last minute added a very brief sketch of a fourth. Strangely, even though it was much less detailed, Arsenault’s personality jumped out at me from that fourth sketch. When I chose it over the others, John confessed he’d included it on the spur of the moment—so I can only conclude that Arsenault knew what he wanted and was whispering in John’s ear.
I love the “let’s seal this vow with blood” trope (so of course I put it in my book), and I think John did a fantastic job of capturing Arsenault’s mix of determination and protectiveness. He has a “don’t mess with me, I’m serious about this” expression that I love. The core of Fool’s Promise has always been built around Kyrra and Arsenault’s relationship; it was probably the easiest of all my books to title, but it was a difficult book to write because it’s about what happens after the “happily ever after”. I wanted it to be a book about commitment and recovery—physical, mental, and emotional. And I think John has captured that vision perfectly.
I feel really lucky to have worked with John and Shawn T. King on three covers now, because I feel like they are both able to take the feeling I put into my books and translate it into imagery and typography. It might sound trite, but there is something magical and humbling about being able to see the people who have only been living in my own head. They’ve always seemed real to me, but now they're real for other people, too. That will never stop being an incredible feeling.
Reunited after years of separation, Kyrra and Arsenault long for a peaceful life together. But the magic keeping Kyrra alive is also tearing her apart. When a mysterious piece of ancient metal falls into Arsenault’s hands, he gambles that it will prove to be Kyrra’s salvation despite the secrets from his past it threatens to reveal.
Kyrra is willing to sacrifice everything to free Arsenault from the vengeful god who haunts him, even if it means embracing the magic killing her. But Liera is on the brink of war again, and an unlikely alliance with her greatest enemy may be the only way to save it from destruction.
With their love tested by powerful forces, Kyrra and Arsenault face a heart-breaking decision between their own happiness and the greater good. As the dark truth begins to unravel, can their promise hold—or will they find it was a fool’s promise after all?
Get ready for an emotional rollercoaster in Fool's Promise, the exciting second book in the award-winning Eterean Empire epic fantasy series by Angela Boord. If you like rich worldbuilding, complex characters, and epic love stories, then you won't want to miss this thrilling tale of love, sacrifice, and redemption.
Order Mushroom Blues over HERE
Official Author Website
Buy Two Twisted Crowns
Read a review of ONE DARK WINDOW
Q] Welcome to Fantasy Book Critic Lamia. To
start with, could you tell us what inspired you to be a writer in the first
place?
LNB: Thank
you for the warm welcome!
Official Author Website
Buy How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying
OFFICIAL AUTHOR BIO: Django Wexler graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh with degrees in creative writing and computer science, and worked for the university in artificial intelligence research. Eventually he migrated to Microsoft in Seattle, where he now lives with two cats and a teetering mountain of books. When not writing, he wrangles computers, paints tiny soldiers, and plays games of all sorts.
The Atrocity Engine by Tim Waggoner book review
FORMAT/INFO: A Fate Inked In Blood was published on February 27th, 2024 by Del Rey. It is 432 pages long and told in first person from Freya's point of view. It is available in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook formats.
About the Author: Morgan Stang lives in the humid part of Texas. He graduated from the University of Houston with a BBA. By day he works in accounting and by night he sleeps, and sometime in between he writes in a wide variety of fantasy genres, ranging from dark fantasy (The Bartram's Maw series) to gaslamp murder mystery (The Lamplight Murder Mysteries) to cozy fantasy (The Bookshop and the Barbarian). He is a fan of all things nerdy, and lives with an immortal ball python.
Official Author Website
FORMAT/INFO: The Element of Fire was republished in a revised form on February 27th, 2024 by Tordotcom Publishing in the omnibus The Book of Ile-Rien; the original novel was published on July 1st, 1993. It is 320 pages long and is told in third person from multiple POVs, including Thomas and Kade. It is available in paperback and ebook formats.
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS:
Pre-order Dig Two Graves over HERE
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of The Long Way Down
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of The White Gold Score
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of Redemption Song
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of The Living End
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of A Plain-Dealing Villain
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of The Killing Floor Blues
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of The Castle Doctrine
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of Double Or Nothing
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of The Neon Boneyard
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of The Locust Job
Read Fantasy Book Critic’s review of Down Among the Dead Men
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of Sworn To The Night
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of Detonation Boulevard
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of Winter's Reach
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of The Instruments Of Control
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of Harmony Black
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of Red Knight Falling
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of Glass Predator
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of Cold Spectrum
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of Right To The Kill
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of Black Tie Required
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of Ghosts Of Gotham
Read Fantasy Book Critic' review of A Time For Witches
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of The Loot
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of The Insider
Read Fantasy Book Critic’s review of Any Minor World
Read Fantasy Book Critic's Interview with Craig Schaefer
Read Fantasy Book Critic's Harmony Black Series Interview with Craig Schaefer
Read Double Or Nothing Cover Reveal Mini-Interview with Craig Schaefer
Read Part I of Fantasy Book Critic's In-depth Interview with Craig Schaefer
Read Part II of Fantasy Book Critic's In-depth Interview with Craig Schaefer
Read the Wisdom's Grave Trilogy Completion Interview with Craig Schaefer
Read the 2019 And Beyond Interview with Craig Schaefer
Read the Right To The Kill Cover Reveal Q&A with Craig Schaefer
Read the Black Tie Required Cover Reveal Q&A with Craig Schaefer
Read the Charlie McCabe series interview with Craig Schaefer
Read My Sworn To The Night Cover Reveal Q&A with Craig Schaefer
Read 2020 State Of Schaefer Interview with Craig Schaefer
Official Author Website
Buy The Hemlock Queen
FORMAT/INFO: The Hemlock Queen was published on April 9th, 2024 by Orbit Books. It is 464 pages long and told in first person from Lore's point of view. It is available in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook formats.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Deborah Makarios was raised in the space between worlds and maintains an eccentric orbit.
She found her niche at the age of six when in short succession she read The B.F.G., her first Agatha Christie (Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?) and encountered her first P.G. Wodehouse (Something Fresh – saying “Heh! Mer!” is enough to make her laugh, decades later). Her personal motto is Tolle Et Lege – pick it up and read it – regardless of whether “it” is a Bible, a book or a jar of home-made marmalade.
She keeps her Luddite tendencies under sufficient control to allow for regular blog posts, but nothing can quash her fondness for old technologies. Her favourite phrases are “piston-filling fountain pen” and “annotated typescript.”
Her mission is to write books, plays and blog posts like cups of tea: warm, heartening and restorative. She believes in happy endings, the ultimate triumph of good over evil, and always having a clean handkerchief. It is, however, against her religious principles to believe in “normal.”
She lives among the largely unsuspecting populace of New Zealand with only two cats, and her brilliant, albeit marginally less eccentric, husband.
She can be found online at deborah.makarios.nz or Mastodon.
Publisher: Oi Makarioi (March 21, 2024) Length: 358 pages Formats: ebook