Victoria Janssen's Blog, page 6

HEA Quest!

Calling all fantasy and science-fiction romance writers! Join the SFWA-sponsored HEA Quest on Saturday, January 20th, 2024, 9AM – 12PM PT, for a virtual meet-up featuring three panels of writers, editors, and experts in the industry. This is a great place for traditional, hybrid, and indie romance writers to hear from experts in the industry, get inspired, ask questions, and get to know other authors.

Click this link to view the meet-up schedule, featured speakers, and to register. Just $10 will...

My December Reading Log

Fiction:
Bookshops and Bonedust by Travis Baldree is a prequel to Legends and Lattes, set early in orc narrator Viv’s career as a mercenary. When she’s sidelined in a small town by a leg wound, boredom leads her to make new friends and try new experiences in a way that will influence her later in life, after she retires and opens a coffee shop. So, basically, it’s very similar to Legends and Lattes, and if you liked that one, you will very likely enjoy this one as well. I actually liked it a bit...

#TBR Challenge 2024

I’ll be participating in the #TBRChallenge from Wendy the Super Librarian once again!

Themes for this year are:
January 17, Once More With Feeling: Territory by Emma Bull.
February 21, Furry Friends: The Wider Worlds of Jim Henson, edited by Jennifer C. Garlen and Anissa M. Graham.
March 20, Not in Kansas Anymore: Was by Geoff Ryman.
April 17, No Place Like Home: The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin.
May 15, With a Little Help From My Friends: My Dear Watson by L.A. Fields.
June 19, Bananapants!: ...

#TBR Challenge – Festive: Coming Home for Christmas by Carla Kelly

Coming Home for Christmas by Carla Kelly is slightly different from the other TBR books I’ve read this year; I actually started it at some point, in either 2020 or 2021, and then just…didn’t finish it, possibly because it’s a print book and I tend to read mostly e-books these days. Anyway! My original choice for this month was not interesting me, so I decided to get myself together and finish this one.

This review contains spoilers.

Warning for a secondary character’s death in childbirth, in the...

My November Reading Log

Fiction:
The Lady And The Tiger by copperbadge is original fiction in the Shivadh universe, also published under author name Sam Starbuck; it features a romance between Lady Alanna Daskaz and the Duke of Shivadlakia, Gerald ben Eitan, known as Jerry. When the duke of nearby Galia dies, Alanna and Jerry, close friends since childhood, travel there as an official delegation. Alanna investigates the succession, looking for an unknown heir, while Jerry reveals unexpected competence in her support, i...

My October Reading Log

Fiction:
A Song for a New Day by Sarah Pinsker was my TBR Challenge book for October.

System Collapse by Martha Wells is the new Murderbot book. I won’t spoil anything here! I definitely recommend reviewing the previous volume (Network EffectMutiny on the Reliant by WerewolvesAreReal is a Temeraire AU in which Laurence and newly-hatched Temeraire are set adrift and end up in charge of a pirate fleet, as one does.

Declensions by dustorange explores Dick Grayson’s, or in this story Rasit Grisijo’s...

#TBRChallenge – Once Upon A Time…: Spear by Nicola Griffith

Spear by Nicola Griffith is an Arthurian novella about Peretur (Perceval) set in 6th century Wales, with a lot of realistic detail of everyday material culture, armor, weaponry, and the diverse peoples inhabiting the island after the reign of the Roman Empire. For example, Bedwyr (Bedivere) is of African ancestry, and Llanza (Lancelot) is brown-skinned. The most notable change from the usual Arthurian mythos is that Peretur is a lesbian woman, disguised as a man in order to fight with Arthur and...

#TBRChallenge – Danger Zone: A Song for a New Day by Sarah Pinsker

A Song for a New Day by Sarah Pinsker was written and published before the COVID-19 pandemic, which makes the similarities to the early days of it that much more striking. In a United States very similar to our own, after a series of disasters, large congregations of people are forbidden by law. Years later, virtual experiences have taken the place of concerts, sports events, and school for most people who survive. This book is about how people cope with the restrictions, and the difficulties an...

My September Reading Log

September involved some travel and other transitions for me, so I spent almost all of it reading a single series.

Fanfiction:
The Desert Storm by Blue_Sunshine and its sequel series are well over a million words of Star Wars time travel AU: when Luke and Leia are small, Ben Kenobi is caught in a sandstorm on Tatooine and ends up in his own past, when Anakin Skywalker is only three or four. Ben takes Anakin and his mother Shmi to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, not revealing his identity because hi...

#TBRChallenge – New Author: Miss Buncle’s Book by D.E. Stevenson

Miss Buncle’s Book by D.E. Stevenson, published in 1937, is a charming small town novel about Barbara Buncle, who needs money to continue to support herself and her former nanny. After considering raising hens, she instead writes a novel about her charming small town that hews too closely to the real lives of her neighbors, despite her introduction of a magical plot element that changes her characters’ lives. Once the book is published and becomes popular because of its compulsive readability, m...