Speak of the wishy-washy devil and he shall appear.
Hah! I was just referencing Archie's perpetual romantic waffling, and immediately ran across this charming news item: according to MediaBistro, the Archie/Veronica/Betty love triangle is going to be transformed into a series of YA novels...
The Paladin Prophecy and The Paladin Prophecy: Alliance, by Mark Frost
The first two books in Mark Frost's Paladin Prophecy series go for the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach to storytelling, mashing together fantasy (angels and demons!), science fiction (evil geneticists!), and action/suspense (martial arts smackdowns!) into a frenetic but entertaining literary roller-coaster ride...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Paladin Prophecy and The Paladin Prophecy: Alliance, by Mark Frost
We're offering two books for this week's Book Giveaway: Mark Frost's The Paladin Prophecy and its sequel, The Paladin Prophecy: Alliance. Our full review will go up later today, but here's a mini-take: Anthony Horowitz and Richard Paul Evans should watch their backs, but Rick Riordan and Suzanne Collins...
Love Me, by Rachel Shukert
Rachel Shukert's YA novel Starstruck was one of my favorite books of 2013. Smart and compulsively readable, it managed to transform the basic plot of Jacqueline Susann's deadly dull Valley of the Dolls into a deliciously juicy soap opera about three girls struggling to make it big during the Golden Age of Hollywood...
Sign me up
The first full-length Guardians of the Galaxy trailer was just released, and I'm telling you: I will be there with bells on. It looks like it will focus on the stuff Marvel has done really well recently (Jokes! Violence! Aliens!), and minimize the amount of existential brooding* currently bogging down the Avengers superheroes...
One Good Earl Deserves a Lover and No Good Duke Goes Unpunished, by Sarah MacLean
To once again paraphrase Jane Austen, there are few historical romance novelists that I really like, and fewer still of whom I think well. In fact, the “like and think well” list is pretty much limited to Georgette Heyer and Lisa Kleypas, while the “just like” list includes authors like Suzanne Enoch, Teresa Medeiros, and Julia Quinn—writers who produce enjoyable but anachronistic stories, and mostly use their historical settings as...
The Glass Casket, by McCormick Templeman
McCormick Templeman's novel The Glass Casket swipes most of its most memorable images from various classic fairytales: twin rose bushes, a girl in a red cloak, the titular glass casket. The rest of the story feels equally cobbled together, resulting in an ambitious but flawed mash-up of horror, romance, and magic...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Glass Casket, by McCormick Templeman
This week's Book Giveaway pick is McCormick Templeman's The Glass Casket. We wrote a positive review of Ms. Templeman's first book The Little Woods a few years ago—we described it as "sufficiently entertaining to read in a single sitting," but complained about its weak love triangle and the implausible number of SAT words the author sprinkled throughout the text—so my expectations are high...
So... no lady-penned paperbacks?
These "Wiry Limbs, Paper Backs" book sculptures by artist Terry Border are all over the internet, and justifiably so: they're awesome. I find some of his work considerably less charming...
Fates, by Lanie Bross
Lanie Bross's debut novel Fates aims to be an operatic YA paranormal romance, a wild fantasy adventure, and a compelling coming-of-age story, all at the same time and in less than 350 pages. None of it quite succeeds, but props to the author for making the attempt...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Fates, by Lanie Bross
This week's Book Giveaway pick is Lanie Bross's debut novel Fate. According to its official overview, it is both the first installment of a two-book series "inspired by the ancient Greeks' paradoxical view of fate" and "perfect... for girls who love all things pretty, romantic and inspirational". Ambitious! But also confusing...
Sci-fi fans get some exercise in
There's going to be an "organized Logan's Run chase" this weekend in San Francisco, with some participants designated as Runners and some as Sandmen. According to the official Facebook page, this event will be...
Lifestyles of the rich and pseudonymous
The Washington Post featured an article on Monday about the financial woes confronting the best-selling erotica author known as "Zane". She apparently owes the IRS almost $541,000, despite being an extremely successful author and publisher, and has been publicly labeled Maryland’s...
Crossing my fingers
A new trailer is out for the movie adaptation of Dean Koontz's Odd Thomas. This film appears to have bypassed most theaters (there was legal controversy), but it might be available soon? Or come out on DVD? Anyway, if you're unfamiliar with the character, we reviewed Koontz's graphic novel...
Awards season, comics 'verse
Publishers Weekly recently posted a nice summary of the 41st Festival International de la Bande Desinée in Angoulême, France. Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson won the 2014 Grand Prix (basically a lifetime achievement award), despite the fact that he is extremely unlikely to...
Handwriting
I was all excited when I heard that the Jane Austen's House Museum had recently discovered a snippet of Austen's handwriting, and even more impressed when I saw the handwriting itself, which is ridiculously beautiful. Seriously, I can't even write legibly with a normal pen, on lined paper, and she did that with...
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, by Holly Black
If you can stomach the first scene in Holly Black's The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, you're sitting pretty for the rest of the book. The story opens with a massacre: when Tana wakes up in a bathtub after a teen party, she discovers that she has drunkenly dozed through a massive vampire attack. Most of her friends are dead, but her ex-boyfriend Aidan has survived...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, by Holly Black
This week's Book Giveaway is Holly Black's The Coldest Girl in Coldtown. Our full review will be posted later today, but here's a quick take: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown reminded me of my all-time favorite vampire story, Vivian Vande Velde's Companions of the Night, and I can give no higher compliment than that...
Unexpected
According to The Daily Beast, a scholar recently discovered fragments of two previously unknown poems by the ancient Greek poet Sappho. The private owner of a 3rd century A.D. papyrus recently consulted Oxford classicist and "world-renowned papyrologist" Dr. Dirk Obbink about the Greek writing on his papyrus scraps...
Smell-o-vision 2.0?
The Guardian recently posted an article about a group of MIT scientists who have created a device that uses temperature controls, lighting, and a "heartbeat and shiver simulator" worked into a fancy... vest... thing(?) to allow readers to share the experiences of a story's protagonist as they read...
Some things should not become brands.
Okay, this news makes me MEGA uncomfortable: there are apparently THREE Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl adaptations in the works, one of which is going to be animated movie(?!?), one of which is a live-action feature film, and one of which is apparently unauthorized...
Awards season
This year's Newbery Medal winner was just announced: Kate DiCamillo's Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures, from Candlewick Press. In addition, Publishers Weekly posted a helpful...
Omens, by Kelley Armstrong
Omens, the first book in Kelley Armstrong's new Cainsville series, perfectly encapsulates my feelings about her writing as a whole: her plots are solid and her mysteries intriguing, but her characters lack charm. I get ridiculously invested in finding out what happens to Armstrong's protagonists, but rarely do I care about the protagonists themselves...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Tell Me Lies and Crazy For You, by Jennifer Crusie
This week's Book Giveaway is a two-pack: Jennifer Crusie's Tell Me Lies and Crazy for You, which we reviewed here a few years ago. I'm trying to make some space on our bookshelves, and we were lucky enough to be sent multiple copies of Ms. Crusie's books, so you can expect one more Crusie-themed giveaway in the next few weeks. I have accepted (grudgingly) that...
The Naturals, by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
We have been enjoying Jennifer Lynn Barnes's books for years—all the way back to 2008's The Squad: Perfect Cover. Her early stories were fun, if shaky, but it's been a pleasure to follow the steady improvement of her work. So many authors have one good (or good-ish) idea and go downhill from there; Barnes is among the few who have sharpened their style with every book...
These Broken Stars on TV
Publishers Weekly informs me that Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner's novel These Broken Stars is going to become a TV show. The book—which I've been seeing in the kids' sections of local bookstores—was published last month and is the first installment in the "Starbound" science-fiction trilogy...
Foretold: 14 Stories of Prophecy and Prediction: edited by Carrie Ryan
Foretold: 14 Stories of Prophecy and Prediction is a collection of short stories written by a bunch of well-known YA authors and edited by The Forest of Hands and Teeth author Carrie Ryan. Don't let the supernatural-horror cover art fool you: the "predictions" in these stories range from Greek mythology-style prophecies of doom to hopeful signs in lovely teen romances...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Foretold, edited by Carrie Ryan
This week's Book Giveaway pick is Foretold, a collection of short stories edited by Carrie Ryan, all of which deal (although some of them pretty distantly) with predictions and prophecies. The cover art looks totally gloomy, but the stories in this collection run the gamut from goofy to romantic to creepy, offering something for a wide variety of readers. I'll post our full review later today...
A little gift for me
I recently saw this title in the children's section of a local bookstore: Ballad, by French comic artist and illustrator Blexbolex. The book is both absolutely gorgeous (the quality of this image doesn't do it justice, trust me—the actual colors are much darker and richer) and weird as hell...