Rachel Kovaciny's Blog, page 74

"A Name Unknown" by Roseanna M. White

Zowie. 

I'd read a LOT of glowing reviews of this book, but weirdly enough, I wasn't actually sure what it was about.  Something involving traitors?  I don't like traitors.  I didn't want to read it.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut Eva Schon gave me a copy for my birthday, swearing up and down that I would love it.  And I trust her taste pretty well, so I let the book sit on my shelf for about four months, then finally tried it because I always feel guilty when it takes me a long ti...

Announcing the "Dancing and Doughnuts" (Virtual) World Tour

I've never gone on a blog tour.  Or a book tour.  But there's a first time for everything!

I'm setting up a tour for my upcoming release, Dancing and Doughnuts, and this post right here is me calling for people to sign up to help host it!  Which does NOT mean saying you'll let me sleep on a couch in your basement between book signings.  

Actually, since I've never hosted a blog tour, maybe it does involve that?  I'm not sure?

No, seriously, what it really...

"Tears of the Sea" by Savannah Jezowski + giveaway links

Rescue a princess, meet a mermaid, win your reward.

The authors of the Fellowship of Fantasy tackle fairy tales from once upon a time to happily ever after. Explore twists on old tales and brand new magical stories. Meet feisty mermaids, friendly lampposts, and heroes who just might be monsters themselves.

This fourth anthology from the Fellowship of Fantasy will lead you on a quest for entertainment and storm the castle of your imagination. So make a wish and enter the deep dark woods to find...

"Blind Beauty and Other Tales of Redemption" by Meredith Leigh Burton

The three stories in this collection retell fairy tales, some familiar and some not.  Each story features a heroine who faces a seemingly insurmountable obstacle.  And each heroine, instead of wallowing in self-pity or giving up in despair, fights and struggles even when things seem hopeless.

"Blind Beauty" retells Beauty and the Beast, but the beautiful girl in it is blind.  She can't see what the beast looks like, she only knows his words and actions and how those affect her a...

"The Harvest Raise" by Katie Schuermann

I've liked this trilogy more and more with each book!  All the characters I got to know during the first book, I love by now.  Be they irascible, sweet, scatter-brained, quirky, solemn, or conflicted, they're my fictional friends now.  I love the resolution so many characters get in this book, Arlene Scheinberg in particular.  I actually disliked her back in House of Living Stones, became grudgingly fond of her in The Choir Immortal, and now admire and cherish her.  T...

Advance Readers Needed for "Dancing and Doughnuts"

The time has come!  I've got a release date for Dancing and Doughnuts: AUGUST 31!!!  Which, you'll no doubt realize, is one month from today.

And that means I'm going to need ARC readers.  Like my book Cloaked, this is a novella, around 200 pages.  Like Cloaked, it is a non-magical retelling of a fairy tale set in the Old West.  This time, I'm retelling "The Twelve Dancing Princesses."  What do doughnuts have to do with it?  You'll have to read...

"A Gathering of Days" by Joan W. Blos

I really feel like I've read this book before, years ago.  The title is just extremely familiar.  But I couldn't remember what it was about, so I went ahead and read it again.

I liked it okay, to be honest.  I didn't love it.  It's the fictional journal of a girl growing up in the 1830s in New England.  A lot of stuff happens, like her widowed dad gets remarried, a close friend gets sick and dies, and she helps a mysterious stranger who begs her for assistance.  T...

"A Cry from the Dust" by Carrie Stuart Parks

Inspired by how much I liked When Death Draws Near  and Portrait of Vengeance , I decided to go back and read the first couple books in the Gwen Marcey series because my library system has them.  The first book, A Cry from the Dust, came in last week, and I promptly devoured it.  

I like this series so very much!  Gwen Marcey, forensic artist and human lie detector, is a fascinating character with all kinds of foibles, problems, and strengths.  I could see myself be...

"Tuck" by Stephen R. Lawhead

Well, I've done it!  I've finished the King Raven trilogy!  And I managed to read Tuck in just a couple of weeks, not drag it out over months like I did Scarlet  and Hood .  I liked it about equally well with Scarlet, and I loved the ending.

In fact, if you had told me this is how it all would end back when I was reading Hood, I probably wouldn't have believed you.  I probably would have laughed.  Because that book was so dark, I almost quit reading it halfway...

"Crown of Souls" by Ronie Kendig

Cole "Tox" Russell and his task force of super-soldiers are back for another Indiana-Jones-meets-Jack-Reacher adventure.  This time, someone Tox used to work with has gone evil.  Former soldier Alec King starts killing people he blames for the death of some of his team members years ago, and he thinks Tox will join him on what King insists is a holy quest to rid the world of evil.

Eventually, Tox and Haven and the rest of their cohorts find evidence that King has gotten his hands on...