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Woah.  I wasn't prepared for this. 'Coal' is the only name he's ever known - so named for the darkness of his skin. He's been chained and beaten since the age of six, and he watched as his owner sold his mother and sister away. The only kindness he's ever been shown was from a Swedish-American couple, Lars & Benta Munsen, in Coal's owner's hometown. Solomon Pinkney has always recognized that there was something special about his slave, Coal. He's seen how incredibly fast with a gun the young Coal is and he's known that Coal would probably be the death of him, still, he's tried to show the young man some kindness, thinking he's been kind, anyway, when he gives Coal a gun and promises that he'll be a free man upon his own death. But Coal has never forgotten any of the injustices that he's been subject to. Once freed, Coal journeys through the American Southwest and into Mexico, meting out his own brand of justice and experiencin...

It amuses me just a little bit that readers still don't generally like to admit that they read erotica. Romance, sure. And it can have a lot of sex in it, but if you put the word "erotica" on a cover, it's a book that probably best needs to be in a plain, brown, paper bag.  Thank god for e-readers (the modern equivalent of the paper bag). This book is, as Rachel Kramer Bussel notes in her introduction, a collection of stories by women, for women, each having strong erotic elements - the eros being the driving force. Well, this reader/reviewer isn't a woman, but I've always said I'll read anything as long as it's well written, and most of these stories are very well written. I haven't read any of the previous nine books in the series, but Bussel notes that this volume theme other than 'anything goes.' I thought it certainly worked and I'm curious how a theme might change some of the quality of what's included. Not surprisingly, much ...

This is one of, if not THE, oldest ARC on my Kindle. I've slowly been making my way through my backlist as I request fewer new books to be read. I have had a fascination with King Arthur since I was a young teen (so, more than 50 years). I have a marvelous collection of books about Arthur, non-fiction and fiction alike, many now out of print. I've written about the character (also both non-fiction and fiction) so it's no surprise that I would be interested in this book. While I think this is targeted to the YA reader, I found it packed full of information and very easy to access. Author Daniel Mersey breaks the book down into three basic components: The Medieval Arthur, The Celtic Arthur, and the Historical Arthur, and and provides a great deal of insight into the man and the myth. Where did it start? How did it grow? Was he real? The book is both simple and thorough. Mersey doesn't expound unnecessarily to pad his pages. He lays out the information in clear detail. Rea...

Teenager Xavier Oaks is reticent to spend a weekend with his father and his father's pregnant girlfriend. It means leaving behind his mother, younger brother, and all his friends. Still, it's a family obligation and it's only for a week. One morning, however, when they wake up, they are nowhere where they're supposed to be. The house is no longer in the woods, but in a field - like a farm field. It's as though someone picked up the entire house while they slept, and moved it. It's definitely unsettling but the family explores their new location to discover that they appear to be trapped in a small, domed enclosure. Some farm animals and farming tools have been supplied - they can survive but they have to work for it. Three years go by. Xavier has a three year old half brother, when a new house appears inside the dome. Xavier explores it and learns about the family it comes from, but it is empty. He does learn, however, that this family has a teenaged daughter - ...

By day, Lola de La Peña is the sweet, upstanding young lady of Coloma, daughter of the respected town elders - her mother a healer who works with the recently discovered, magical, sal negra (black salt) that, when used by someone who understands it, can heal most wounds ... even mortal ones. But by night, Lola dons a mask and a sword and becomes Salvación, the vigilante who protects Coloma and the sal negra from outside foes and those who might try to make sal negra their own. She rother, the invisible half of Salvación who helps to keep the secrets and abilities of the vigilante mysterious. One night, a terrified woman comes to town and tells of a terrible dark magic, sal roja, that destroys everything it touches. The sal roja is wielded by a powerful man, Damien Hernández, who is protected from and by the sal roja and seeks to be in control of everything around him. When Hernández comes to Coloma with his own army of followers, Lola knows that it's only a matter of...

This will be a shorter than usual review, and in fact I was torn whether to actually review this or not, because I did not get the opportunity to read the book.  Usually when requesting a book for review, the publisher will send the complete book, or deny the request. In this case, I was approved, but only sent a sample of about 40 pages, whereas the final volume is over 500 pages long. I read a lot of comics in the late 1960s through the early 1980s. My favorites were generally based on the artwork rather than story or character, and I've always been a big fan of fine black and white artwork. I've felt that Marvel Comics did B&W better than anyone else in this era. Anyone who might questions this need look no further than this look back. Looking through my few pages (at least one complete story) I see a couple different styles, but all of them exceptional. The stories I could make out were pretty typical of the 'Savage Tales' style ... often one main character who ...

 Carrie Vaughn is an author whose work I really enjoy. It's taken me awhile to catch on to this - one of the downsides to reading so many books each year is that when an author only publishes once a year, it takes me some time to realize the consistency of their work.  Fortunately I have recognized that I like Vaughn's work and now seek it out. ...Though I'm a little late finding this one. Late, because this is a follow-up to The Naturalist Society , which I did not get a chance to read. Ava Stanley is the daughter of two Arcane Taxonomists and it's expected that Ava also has Arcane powers, but her magical abilities have been a bit slower to appear. While her parents draw power from particular birds and fauna, Ava's powers come from the microscopic - bacteria and the like. This will be helpful in her goal to become a doctor studying the link between bacteria and disease. This is turn-of-the-century (into the 20th century) and the idea of a woman studying medicine - ...

The fact that V. Castro is a two-time Bram Stoker Award winner and the fact that I have no idea who V. Castro is (never read anything by them), shows how out of the loop I am with horror fiction, other than what might be hyped by the big publishers. (Which is not to say I don't enjoy Grady Hendrix, Stephen King, Catriona Ward, and many others, because I do.) I was drawn to this book for a number of reasons. 1) I am a fan of short fiction. 2) I really do enjoy dark and/or horror fiction. 3) The title.  Seriously - something about a Pink Agave Motel already sets such an odd, quirky tone. Yes, anything can happen, and probably will, in a Pink Agave Motel. When I got to finally reading this collection, I had forgotten that it was from a Bram Stoker Award winner and likely dark, horror stories, though that became pretty obvious with each tale. But what I wasn't sure about was whether or not this had been billed as a collection of erotic tales, because some of these stories were deep...

 My Sirius Radio is almost always tuned to the 1960s hits channel. I grew up listening to this music and I still enjoy it today. But with a few exceptions, I know vey little about many of the artists of this era that I enjoy so much, so when I see a book like Dressed in Black: The Shangri-Las and Their Recorded Legacy by Lisa MacKinney, I'm definitely interested. There's a good reason that there hasn't been much written about this group prior to MacKinney's book - the band has been tight-lipped (their lead singer wouldn't sit down for an interview even today) and there isn't much information available otherwise. And it shows in the book. MacKinney does a fine job given the lack of available information, but it becomes obvious that MacKinney is reaching for something to write about and branches off on a number of tangential items. Tangents such as a deep dive into the record label the Shangri-La's recorded with, and a lot about George "Shadow" Mort...

I love reading introductions. One of my favorite parts when reading a collection of short stories or an anthology, is reading the editor or author's introduction to each story. Same goes for novels, biographies, histories, etc. I think it's because this is the place where we really get the author's voice. Not the author writing a character or the author wrapped up in plot, but the author, reflecting, reminiscing. In introductions to books and stories, we can learn things - why was the work written, where was it written, what was the inspiration, and a plethora of other information that may not exactly be useful by can certainly be interesting. And here we have a book that is nothing BUT introductions! I'm new to the Reacher franchise - brought here by the Amazon series which I've greatly enjoyed - but I've been aware of them and their success for a long time. Watching the series, and now reading about the books from the author, I'm much more interested in re...

A new 'Old Man's War' novel?! Yes, please, and thank you. You will want to have read the previous books in the series as there are some important connections between this and the earlier books in the series. Author John Scalzi does do a good job of reminding the reader of what has gone before (or laying some ground work for those who haven't read any of the other series books) but it will be a more enjoyable read if you go through the series. Our main character is Gretchen Trujillo - a friend of Zoe's (of Zoe's Tale ). She's a diplomat now, working with an Obin assistant, helping to maintain the decade of peace between the Colonial Union, the Earth, and the alien Conclave. That peace is threatened, however, by the Consu - an extremely advanced race that is expanding. And to really set nerves on edge, a multi-species space colony - intent of showing that the different species can live in harmony - has gone missing. It's not easy to make an entire colony d...