Making Connections discussion

What were some of your favorite books you read this year 2013!

Beneath the burn by Pam Godwin.

Blood Song was my favorite for the year. Great book.

amazing book

Slated and Fractured by Teri Terry.

The Best Book I read in 2013 was: The Devil Inside the Beltway

It was humorous but about a very serious problem with our government that we should all be aware of to keep informed.

The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis.

I just posted my favorite reads of 2013 on my blog:

http://kammbia1.wordpress.com/2014/01...

Marion

The Story Teller by Jodi Picoult

Finally, here is my review of The Book Thief, one of the three best books I read in 2013 - and, in fact, one of the best books I have ever had the privilege of reading:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

A few of my favs:
The Alpha's DaughterJacqueline Rhoades was so exciting...read it many times.

Guardian's Faithalso by Jacqueline Rhoades was so romantic and wonderful

The Holiday Magic Suzanne Matthews was excellent!

Loved all the Black Swans by Victoria Danaan

And that's just a few...

Here's a link to my list of favorites read in 2013 (if anyone's interested):

http://gregorxane.blogspot.com/2013/1...

It's mostly SF/F/H, but there is some other stuff mixed in there, too.

Angelfall by Susan Ee.

I absolutely loved Blood Harvest by SJ Bolton. It was a truly sinister read with an underlying question of is it supernatural or not, which isn't answered until the very end. I highly recommend it.

Blood Harvest

11/22/63 This was probably my favorite book this year!

Splintered by A.G. Howard (& I've already read book 2 - Unhinged, also fantastic!)
Death of the Mad Hatter by Sarah J. Pepper
(yes I was on an Alice in Wonderland kick)

Here's my review of my favorite, The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson:

June Costa’s art is her life, and she crafts her life to be her art. This radical theme resonates through the character and through the cataclysmic events that unfold within one year in her society, events at whose center she stands, an artist hero such as I have not seen expressed before in literature. June Costa makes public art in a city of future Brazil, art that might be described as techno spectacle, everything from graffiti that transforms mountains to holo murals that carry scent. In her resistance to governmental limits, this protagonist changes herself and affects her whole society.

The author does such a job of world-building that I feel I could book a ticket to Palmares Tres. Not a dystopian setting, but rather, a post-apocalyptic setting, June’s society has started over. There is conflict between the government-sanctioned isolationist policy and the protesting technophiles, labeled extremists by the powers-that-be, the Aunties who can rule for centuries. June is from but not of, their upper tier way of thinking.

Alaya Johnson uses an interspersed second narrative voice, daring if not consistently effective. This is the voice of Enki, born poor and dark and wild and creative, voted Summer Prince by the people for his dazzling dance art. When June becomes artistically involved with Enki, he becomes the catalyst for her questioning her artistic ethics regarding, for example, art’s ownership, the cost of artistic defiance, and how to perceive cultural patterns when society is changing so rapidly. Together, June and Enki make political art. Or is it authentic art, which happens to speak to the people in a political time?

Is The Summer Prince at heart a story of the struggle to balance freedom and security? Is it a profound love story, with an array of multicultural characters as the Lovers? Is the core of the story an artist’s coming of age about the power of her craft? Is the Summer Prince a parable about the responsibilities of power? Yes and yes and yes and yes. Besides life as art, other high concepts in this novel stretch the reader in regard to gender, sex and relationship boundaries, about death and aging, about technologies that augment and modify but ultimately destroy the body. There are plot point confusions, but for me, the energy of the imaginings easily lifts the story past them. I look forward to more from Alaya Dawn Johnson.

I really liked Black City by Elizabeth Richards

No Returnby Zachary Jernigan was pretty good. I read that last year.

The Warded Man

I was introduced to Peter V Brett in 2013 with this fantasy classic. Love how he skillfully handled up to 8 pov at the same time.

Please VOTE for COLORADO MANDALA on Monday the 17th
Some delightful news from InD'tale Magazine. Please join this website (it's easy) and on Monday VOTE FOR COLORADO MANDALA. This would provide a tremendous lift for both me, and the title. I humbly ask your assistance. Here is my nomination notifacation:

"Because your book, Colorado Mandala, received the high review rating of a 4 star or better, it has continued to the second, public voting phase for the 2014 RONE Awards. In this phase the readers will be narrowing down the contestants to 4 - 6 finalists in each genre by choosing the books they love best.

This is to inform you that your book’s genre is open for voting from March 17-23,2014! It will only be open for votes for exactly one week, so it is extremely important that you let all your friends and fans know! We would hate to think a superior quality book was lost only because people were unaware of the time limit, so we are including the link for voting so you can pass it along!

http://indtale.com/2014-rone-awards-w...

The finalists in this round will then be read and judged by a group of professionals in the industry to determine the very best in indie and small published books of 2013. They will then be awarded the prestigious RONE award, itself, at the formal ceremonies, July 11th, at the Golden Nugget Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.

As you can tell, we at InD’tale magazine went to extensive labor to create and present the most credible and prestigious award in the industry today. Our three round system of elimination covers every facet - highly reviewed, loved by fans, and critiqued by qualified judges. No other award system today begins to compare, making the RONE award the very highest of honors bestowed on a book in the publishing industry.

Thank you so much for submitting your wonderful book to InD’tale magazine and good luck!"

Here is their review of COLORADO MANDALA: http://www.indtale.com/reviews/other/...