Congratulations to Tamsyn Muir! NONA THE NINTH debuts at #4 on the NEW YORK TIMES hardcover fiction list and #9 on the NEW YORK TIMES combined list.
Sep 262022
Sep 162022
Booklist: At just about six months old (in a nineteen-year-old body), Nona lives a full life. She recounts her dreams to her protectors and works as a teacher’s aide at a local school. She’s been grudgingly accepted by a gang of streetwise kids and is trusted to watch a beloved teacher’s dog. At the edges of Nona’s life, glimpses of other truths occasionally slip through: there’s a giant blue sphere hanging in the sky, for one thing. Zombies are a problem. Occasionally Nona and her family are kidnapped by a clandestine local cell and interrogated about her true identity, but she manages to find the best in even those situations. In this ancillary volume set between Harrow the Ninth (2020) and the forthcoming Alecto the Ninth, Muir takes the time to explore unfolding calamity through the eyes of a true innocent. The book is set over the course of five days in the prelude to an apocalyptic event, with chapters interspersed where the reader learns how the death and resurrection of the people of Earth came to pass. Muir fans will be even more eager for the imperial scope of Alecto once they’ve finished Nona’s quiet character study.
Sep 132022
Her city is under siege.
The zombies are coming back.
And all Nona wants is a birthday party.
In many ways, Nona is like other people. She lives with her family, has a job at her local school, and loves walks on the beach and meeting new dogs. But Nona’s not like other people. Six months ago she woke up in a stranger’s body, and she’s afraid she might have to give it back.
The whole city is falling to pieces. A monstrous blue sphere hangs on the horizon, ready to tear the planet apart. Blood of Eden forces have surrounded the last Cohort facility and wait for the Emperor Undying to come calling. Their leaders want Nona to be the weapon that will save them from the Nine Houses. Nona would prefer to live an ordinary life with the people she loves, with Pyrrha and Camilla and Palamedes, but she also knows that nothing lasts forever.
And each night, Nona dreams of a woman with a skull-painted face…
Sep 072022
AudioFile: Author Jim Butcher made the right choice in performing his latest work himself. It’s a masterpiece. He said that his usual narrator, James Marsters, has nothing to fear, but Butcher’s first attempt at narration is an unqualified success. He has a great speaking voice and truly relates to his characters. The emotion he puts into the work comes across in the wide variety of characters, who include an elderly magician/lawyer, a stupidly stubborn antagonist, and various creatures that inhabit the world of wizard/private investigator Harry Dresden. The brief work is a delight from start to finish, and Butcher’s youthful satisfaction comes across on every page. This may be Butcher’s first attempt at performing his own work, but let’s hope it won’t be his last.
Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (July 2022)
The award is given by AudioFile to truly exceptional titles that excel in narrative voice and style, characterizations, suitability to audio, and enhancement of the text.
Sep 012022
Publishers Weekly: Political infighting and battles between gods dog the Kencyrath people as they continue their 3,000-year war against Perimal Darkling in Hodgell’s byzantine 10th Kencyrath epic fantasy (after 2019’s By Demons Possessed). Jame, the lone female Highborn of House Knorth, takes command of the house troops to fulfill mercenary contracts with the native Rathillien king, Mordaunt, who schemes to raise himself to godhood. Meanwhile, Jame’s brother, Torisen, Highlord of the Kencyrath, worries that a poor harvest and a lack of payments from the Rathillien will leave his people fighting over food, and fears he’ll be left unable to help as the larger Houses push for more prestige and power on the High Council. Throughout, both siblings continue to manifest the power of the Tyr-ridan, avatars of the Three-faced God who abandoned the Kencyr ages ago. Hodgell’s intricate web requires careful reading—and extensive knowledge of the previous books—to follow, but the author repays her fans with a saga that flows neatly between the mythic and the mundane. There’s plenty of life left in this series.
Aug 312022
Arabic rights to New York Times bestselling author Martha Wells’ THE CLOUD ROADS, the first novel in her Books of the Raksura series, to Noura Al Noman at Makhtoota 5229, by Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.
Chinese rights to Brent Weeks’s THE BURNING WHITE to Chongqing, by Clare Chi at The Grayhawk Agency, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Donald Maass.
Dutch rights to Annika Martin’s RETURN BILLIONAIRE TO SENDER, JUST NOT THAT INTO BILLIONAIRES and BILLIONAIRE BUTTDIAL, to April, in a two-book deal, by Emma Lind and Philip Sane at Lennart Sane Agency, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Cameron McClure.
Aug 252022
Library Journal: Auditors, the most skilled magical beings, are enforcers of the magical community in Boston for The Department of Unorthodox Affairs. Grimshaw Griswald Grimsby spent his youth training to become one of those elite, only to be dismissed by Samantha Mansgraf, one of the most powerful witches in the Department. When Mansgraf is found murdered, Grimsby becomes a suspect. Clearing his name will take all of Grimsby’s talent, along with some assistance from the legendary Huntsman and an unusual resident of Elsewhere, the magical space that overlays the regular world. As Grimsby searches for the truth, he will discover a complex plot that would not only take away his freedom, but impact both the supernatural Unorthodox and common Usual residents of his city. Butcher’s outcast protagonist and city setting ground the prose even as the mysterious Elsewhere introduces even more unusual action and questions for the future.
VERDICT: This debut from Butcher (son of “Dresden Files” novelist Jim Butcher) hits all the right notes for an entertaining urban fantasy series. Readers will want to see what happens next.
Aug 232022
After losing both her fiancé and the happy life she anticipated, Amish maedel Grace Coffman is still stitching the pieces of her life back together. But between working in a quilting shop with an unscrupulous Englisch boss and caring for her ill parents, her threads keep unraveling. At first, the arrival of a kind, attractive stranger feels like a coincidence. But the more Grace learns about Joel Beachy and his story, the more their meeting seems like providence…
Joel’s return to Bliss Valley—and the Plain people—is his last chance to redeem a life filled with missteps. Yet in Grace, Joel finds something he never imagined: trust, courage and even the possibility of hope. When Grace suddenly finds herself the guardian of her nephews, Joel sees an opportunity to keep two wayward boys from repeating his mistakes. But Joel’s dark past isn’t quite finished with him. And now he must pray that his new life is strong enough to withstand the pending storm of trouble…and secrets.
Aug 192022
Locus: …if you’re not already a fan, this is not the place to start. Go directly to Gideon the Ninth. If you love it, read Harrow the Ninth, and then read this. If you don’t love it, Nona the Ninth is not for you. Also, we can’t be friends. (Actually, let me dial that back – for all I know this is a valid place to start. Given Muir’s astonishing skill, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if it turned out the books had been painstakingly constructed so you could read them in any order and be equally bewildered and delighted….)
So, the bottom-line question that confronts a reviewer of this book is, if you loved Gideon and Harrow, will you love Nona? And: obvs. You already know.
Nona the Ninth is very on brand in that it completely scraps the previous book. That’s right: all that painstaking lore and the complex relationships and shifting webs of allegiances you spent hundreds of pages learning? Right out the window. And – still on brand – it works, somehow.
Bottom line: Tamsyn Muir can do anything. Like Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth, Nona keeps on attempting the most audacious, ridiculous, awe-inspiring feats of storytelling – and nailing it every single time. As an author I’d be nauseous with jealousy, if I wasn’t having such an ecstatic, blissful time. Nona the Ninth manages to be non-stop fun–and hilariously funny – and deeply, painfully, blisteringly moving. Sometimes all in the same paragraph.
Aug 162022
The thrilling follow-up to the Nommo Award finalist, The Border Keeper.
After surviving the schemes of a vengeful goddess and learning some shattering truths about her former life, the warrior Tyn feels estranged from her role guarding her ruler. Grappling with knowledge of her identity, she unleashes her frustrations on all the wrong people.
When an old enemy returns wielding an unstoppable, realm-crushing weapon and Tyn is swept up in the path of destruction, she must make a choice about who she is and who she wants to be.