What You May Have Missed . . . the Good Stuff

All right, so I've been gone for quite a while. Part of what kept me too busy to blog was my day job, but a good portion of my time outside that job was devoted to editing and more editing, and that's what I'm going to talk about today, since that's kind of the purpose of this blog.

When I edit a book, I'll often promote it here once it's published. Not always, but when I have time and it fits in my schedule. Or maybe I play favorites . . . who knows? It's my blog and I can do what I want. Not only that, I typically enjoy most of the stuff I work on, so it's more along the lines of recommending a book to a friend.

Anyway, here are the more recent things I wasn't around to shove in your face promote when I worked on them, but that you should check out anyway (direct links to these books on Amazon can be found in my "links" tab):

Keepers of Arden: The Brothers (book 2) by L.K. Evans—Dark fantasy, superbly written saga involving war, mages, evil, gods, the abuse of power, and destiny of two brothers. Part of a series, so make sure you check out Book 1 first.

The Forest of Windellyn by Andrew Marr—Juvenile fiction, fun and thoughtful, in which children are being kidnapped and replaced by elves intent on stealing their souls. The rescue involves a forest which has been created out of cyberspace by the elves, and all the complications that arise from the mesh of reality and cyber.

Bloodwinter: Immortalibus Bella 3 by S.L. Figuhr—Dystopian dark fantasy, incredibly detailed and intricately woven. There are royals and peasants, corruption and greed, mortals and immortals. What more could you ask for?

Beneath the Gathering Storm (The Creepers Saga Book 3) by Raymond Esposito—Post-apocalyptic dark fiction/horror filled with all the great stuff I'm always telling you about Raymond's writing. He thought this would be the final book of the series until he sat down to write it, and is sincerely hoping there's only one more to tie things up. If you haven't picked up the previous two Creepers books, you really need to get with the program. You'll never look back. I had the privilege of flying to Raymond's home in Florida in April to celebrate his birthday with his family (and S.K.!!), and I got to see his beautiful and interestingly designed office where all the magic happens. I'm sure you'll be hearing more about that in future blog posts here.

Static (The Luminaries Book 2) by S.K. Anthony—Fiction that falls under everything from "superheroes" to "coming of age," it seems. All I know is that it's great. S.K. and I have had a lot of adventures, so my opinion could be biased. However, it's not. She's just a terrific writer and her books speak for themselves. They're full of characters you want to be friends with (or beat up), superpowers you wish you had, and plots that are "curiouser and curiouser," as Alice would say. The third book in this series is in the works and I can't wait to see where it all goes. S.K. and I were able to meet in person for the first time last summer on our two-year anniversary of knowing each other and decided one of our husbands has to pack us up and move to where the other one lives, because we were seriously meant to be next-door neighbors. Or roommates. Living at Raymond's house for four days in the spring only cemented our decision.

Star Trek: The Four Years War; Star Trek: The Romulan War; Star Trek: The Four Years War and Romulan War Technical Manual; and Star Trek, the Next Generation: Pirate's Cove by Stephen Fender—Military space science fiction at its best. The reason I mention these last is because if you missed out on the Kickstarters for these, you missed out on something special and you, unlike me, will not be the proud owners of limited edition Star Trek books. The eight novels and one technical manual account for probably 60% of what has kept me busy over the past two years, with over 500 editing hours logged. I don't get a whole lot of rest when we're working on a project, and I'm pretty sure Stephen is glad to live on the opposite side of the country from me, well out of choking range, when things are busy.

So . . . yep, things have been active on my end of things, to say the least. And that's just the editing portion, which, by its order in the balance of my life, comes after the 40-hour job. But I love both jobs because even though they're work, they're satisfying and enjoyable and I can't imagine giving up either one completely.

Have you read anything over the past few months you simply couldn't put down? Something that had a plot twist that surprised you? I'd love to hear about it as I continue to catch up with what I've missed.