Escapist Newsletter (Vol. 2 Issue 8)

1 September 2008 Jackie Newsletter 1

This month was new cover release month and since there’s so many, I’m starting off this month’s newsletter with a new cover instead of the new releases. I’m running out of places to put the new covers, so the first one we’re taking a look at is Carrie Vaughn’s fifth Kitty Norville novel. The title will be Kitty and the Dead Man’s Hand and is going to be available Feb. 1st. Her novel is already up at Amazon for preorder. Isn’t the the cover shiny? I also found out that the sixth Kitty novel is going be out in April 2009 and is titled Kitty Raises Hell. Now I don’t know if this is going to be true later, but there it is for the moment.

Now, back to this month’s releases:

Sept 1st:

Sept 2nd:

Sept 16th:

Sept 23rd:

  • Untamed by PC Cast (House of Night #4)

Sept 29th:

Sept 30th:

Jeaniene Frost’s third Nighthuntress novel, At Grave’s End, is now available for pre-order on Amazon. The cover for At Grave’s End was also released and I have to say that it is gorgeous. Jeaniene will also have a short story in the upcoming anthology The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance and guess what, it’s not going to involve vampires at all. We’re going to see her take on the lifestyles of werewolves and if it’s anything like the Night Huntress series, then I just know it’s going to be awesome.

The third Kate Daniels novel by Ilona Andrews, Magic Strikes, is now available for pre-order at Amazon. With more Ilona news, a short story she was writing for a young adult anthology, Days of Swine and Roses, is now available as a free read up at her site. It’s kind of cute

Laurell K Hamilton has a story coming out in the new anthology, The Living Dead. As you can imagine, it’s all about the zombies and to give you a little more more enticement, here’s the book description:

When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth!” From White Zombie to Dawn of the Dead, Resident Evil to World War Z, zombies have invaded popular culture, becoming the monsters that best express the fears and anxieties of the modern west. Gathering together the best zombie literature of the last three decades from many of today’s most renowned authors of fantasy, speculative fiction, and horror, including Stephen King, Harlan Ellison, Robert Silverberg, George R. R. Martin, Clive Barker, Poppy Z. Brite, Neil Gaiman, Joe Hill, Laurell K. Hamilton, and Joe R. Lansdale, The Living Dead covers the broad spectrum of zombie fiction.

The Living Dead will hit shelves September 29th.

New excerpts on the new releases page:

We’ve heard that Kim Harrison is working on your first young adult novel and now it has a name. The novel, Once Dead, Twice Shy, is set to come out May 2009. We’re given a taste of the story in the anthology Prom Nights from Hell, so if you’re like me and have been keeping an eye out for it, you should definitely try picking up a copy.

For those of you anxiously awaiting for Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter: Laughing Corpse comic coming from Marvel, they are offering a great deal up until September 9th. If you order through their website for all 15 copies, they’ll send them to you for 50% off the newstand price. Basically you’ll be getting the comics for $30 instead of paying $3.99 for each one. I already have a subscription myself, but I’m thinking I’ll cancel it for that great deal.

Colleen Gleason released the final cover in her Gardella Chronicles series. As Shadows Fade, will be released March 3, 2009 and the cover is just as fabulous as the rest of them. I really need to get to this series.

Don’t forget, True Blood airs this month on HBO. The show airs at 9pm on September 7th. If you haven’t seen the trailer yet, then click here. It looks really good. Although, from all the reports I’ve been hearing, I think if you go into the show with the idea that it’s another vampire show, rather than an adaption of a great series, you’ll end up liking it better. Something new in the True Blood universe, there is now a wiki for the show. I’m still browsing the site, but there seems to be all sorts of news on it as well as spoilers and other fan stuff.

Interviews:

Speaking of interviews, make sure you check back sometime this week as I’ll be posting an interview with Karen Chance.  There’ll be a contest for a copy of Midnights Daughter as well.

Justin Gustainis’s sequel to Black Magic Woman is on schedule and should be hitting the shelves in December. The second novel is Evil Ways and there’s even a title for the third novel – Sympathy for the Devil.

Here are the novels I’ve reviewed this past month:

The final installment of Jeri Smith-Ready’s Aspect of the Crow fantasy series will conclude on November 1st with the release of The Reawakened. Here’s an excerpt. The first two novels – Eyes of the Crow and Voice of Crow – are available via Amazon now.

Here’s some interesting news I just found out. JK Rowling has added a new book to the Harry Potter series. The Tales of Beedle the Bard was mentioned in the final installment of Harry’s adventure, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and Rowlings has brought it to life. As if you needed any more incentive to buy this novel, it was announced that Rowlings will be donated all of her royalties to The Children’s High Level Group charity, which supports institutionalized children. The Tales of Beedle the Bard will be published on Dec. 4th.

Are you a fan of Simon R. Green’s Nightside series? Have you never read it? Well, then, I found a contest you might be interested in. Solaris is releasing the first six novels in three different omnibus editions and Fantasy Book Critic is helping them celebrate by giving away three sets of these novels. The contest is open to everyone and will end on September 29th when the third collection comes out.

Maria Snyder has announced the second novel in her new Glass series. The title, Sea Glass, will be released in September 2009. Don’t forget, Storm Glass, will be released in April 2009. There is also an excerpt up for Glass Study up on Maria’s website. The Glass series is a spin off from the Study series.

Anton Strout has revealed the new cover for his second novel, Deader Still, which comes out February 24, 2009.

Jenna Black has sold a new YA series to St. Martin’s press. She’s not really giving us any details yet, but we’re told to expect the first novel to be released sometime Fall 2009. Although, don’t be surprised if you don’t find it under Jenna Black. She’s thinking of using another name so her younger readers won’t find her older novels.

Jaquelyn Frank is having a release party Sept 2nd at Fireside Books & Gifts from 5pm – 7pm. For more information, check out Fireside’s website. There is a contest up at the bookstore for a complete set of autographed Nightwalker novels, but you do have to be at the release party to win.

Some extremely sad news, draft portions of Stephenie Meyers’s Midnight Sun has been leaked onto the web and now she has postponed the novel indefinitely. In her response to the illegal distribution, she says:

So where does this leave Midnight Sun? My first feeling was that there was no way to continue. Writing isn’t like math; in math, two plus two always equals four no matter what your mood is like. With writing, the way you feel changes everything. If I tried to write Midnight Sun now, in my current frame of mind, James would probably win and all the Cullens would die, which wouldn’t dovetail too well with the original story. In any case, I feel too sad about what has happened to continue working on Midnight Sun, and so it is on hold indefinitely.

So while we won’t be getting the novel any time soon, she’s giving us what she does have. She’s not happy about it since she doesn’t want her readers to read this version (“It was only an incomplete draft; the writing is messy and flawed and full of mistakes.“), but what else can she do. It’s either offer it up or have her readers try and hunt it down. It’s sad when people break someone’s trust and the rest of us have to pay for it, but hopefully Meyer will end up re-writing the novel (or finishing it) at some point in the future and we’ll be able to enjoy the Twilight saga again.

Karen Chance has posted the cover for Curse the Dawn. I’m really liking the Cassie covers. This is another hot one, although I don’t think it’s the same model as the previous novels.

Katie MacAlister has uploaded an excerpt for the next Silver Dragon novel, Up in Smoke.

Kim Harrison’s new YA series involve Madison Avery will be released May 2009 and will be titled Once Dead, Twice Shy. We first saw her in the anthology Prom Nights from Hell.

MileHiCon 40 has asked Patricia Briggs to be one of their author guests of honor. The Con takes place October 24-26, 2008 in Denver, Colorado. Jim Butcher and Tim Powers will also be there. She is also going to be at the DarkoverCon in Timoniom, Maryland November 28-30, 2008 as one of their guest of honor.

If you’re a fan of Keri Arthur, then you might want to check out the Ripple Creek series which has just been re-released. The series starts out with Beneath a Rising Moon (excerpt) and is followed by Beneath a Darkening Moon (excerpt), which will be re-released in December. Keri Arthur also has three other series being re-released: the Spook Squad, the Damask Circle, and Nikki & Michael.

Sherrilyn Kenyon is going to be making a few stops in Texas during the month of October.

I’ve found a new magazine and it’s called Falcata Times. It’s based out of the UK and the issue I had my hands on contained a bunch of interviews with a lot of UF authors, with some of the authors completely unfamiliar to me. From what I can tell, all the issues are available via a downloadable PDF, so it’s pretty easy to obtain if anyone wants to check it out.

Sunny’s fourth novel in her Mona Lisa series, Mona Lisa Darkening, now has a cover as well as an exerpt. I can’t remember if this is new or not, because the cover looks familiar, but I can’t remember if I’ve posted it or not. Either way, here it is.

I haven’t read anything by Neil Gaimon, but I’m told he’s the author to check out for really good fantasy and it seems he’s been doing a few online freebie novels. It was announced that his second one, Neverwhere, will be out sometime in September, but that is so not official yet. His first online freebie novel was, American Gods, is available here.

About Jackie 3282 Articles
I am a 30-something SAHM with two adorable boys and a supportive husband who is very tolerant of my reading addiction. I love to read and easily go through about a dozen books a month – well I did before I had kids. Now, not so much. After my first son was born, I began to take my hobby of reviewing a little more serious and started Literary Escapism to help with my sanity. I love to discuss the fabulous novels I’ve read and meeting all the wonderful people in the book blogging community has been amazing.

1 Comment

  1. Thanks for letting us know about the contest. I haven’t read that author before but am finding that I am an urban fantasy fan so I signed up. Thanks again :)

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