Nine of them?
Courtesy of Gollancz: Lucius Shepard, LIFE DURING WARTIME; Brandon Sanderson, THE WAY OF KINGS; Robert Holdstock, LAVONDYSS; Anna Caltabiano, THE SEVENTH MISS HATFIELD; Hannu Rajaniemi, THE CAUSAL ANGEL; Pierre Pevel, THE KNIGHT. Courtesy of Night Shade Books: Loren Rhoads, KILL BY NUMBERS. Courtesy of Tor Books: Cecelia Holland, DRAGON HEART. Courtesy of Jo Fletcher Books: Sue Tingey, MARKED.
Cover of THE SEVENTH MISS HATFIELD (Gollancz, 2014).
Review copy courtesy of Gollancz.
Every so often, I come across a book that, through no fault of its own, I find unreadable. I have hit two such books in recent days, Carol Berg’s Dust and Light – which I find unfinishable, though there’s nothing really wrong with it – and now, today, Anna Caltabiano’s The Seventh Miss Hatfield. Caltabiano is apparently an adolescent prodigy, selling this novel at the age of seventeen, and people whose judgement I respect enjoyed it…
…but I can’t read it. The voice and the style puts me off entirely.
Oh, well. Not every book is for every reader. It is useful to be reminded of that, sometimes.
FIVE WHOLE BOOKS
That’s Anna Caltabiano’s THE SEVENTH MISS HATFIELD, Django Wexler’s seriously entertaining THE SHADOW THRONE, Carol Berg’s DUST AND LIGHT, Rachel Pollack’s THE CHILD EATER, and Sarah J. Maas’s HEIR OF LIGHT.
Three of these I’m on the hook to review for Tor.com. We’ll see where the other two turn up.
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea 