Happy New Year, PSA and New Releases

Happy New Year, all!  I hope your holidays were as wonderful and relaxing as mine.  You just can’t beat holding your new baby niece in your arms and having her tiny fingers clench yours.  Nope, you just can’t.

So much to celebrate this year, and I will in just a second, but I’m going to start off with a public service announcement.  GET YOUR EYES CHECKED.  Yes, seriously. If you’re anything like me, you put off taking care of yourself, especially for things that don’t seem massively urgent, like dental care, eye care, blood work, mammograms…  Well, the problem there is that sometimes you don’t catch things until they’re irreversible rather than early on when they can be more easily treated.  I usually order multiple boxes of contact lenses so that I don’t have to go back to the eye doctor for practically ever.  (The prescriptions themselves are only good for a year.)  So, it had been…far too long since I’d been in for an eye exam.  Luckily (not that I thought so at the time) my supply ran out in December, and I grudgingly went to the doctor, which is where I discovered that I didn’t have to suffer through the eye strain and fatigue that had plagued me for too long.  In short, I was having to work really hard to read.  The lettering all seemed too small, too faint, too fuzzy and by 8 pm, which is when I do a lot of my reading, my eyes wanted to give out.  They didn’t want to focus at all.  It was slowing me down, and as any of you who’ve read my blogs know, that’s just not an option.  Most days I’m tapdancing as fast as I can just to keep up with things.  The solution here was blessedly simple.  My prescription had changed, my astigmatism had changed, and I now needed to wear readers over my contacts.  Did I feel old?  Yes.  Did I get cute little reading glasses to make up for it?  You betcha.  So, no deep coded message here.  The take-away is that taking a little time can save a lot of time and strain and grief down the line, so, as Nike would say, JUST DO IT.

Now that we have that out of the way, I want to introduce some just-released books that you might want to feast those eyes on!

SPELL BLIND by David B. Coe (hardcover, e-book from Baen)

“Coe brings deep knowledge of both fantasy and mystery to his well-structured first urban fantasy novel.” – Publishers Weekly

Book #1 in The Case Files of Justis Fearsson, a new contemporary fantasy series from fantasy all-star David B. Coe. A hardboiled, magic-using private detective hunts a serial killer in Phoenix, Arizona.

Justis Fearsson is a private investigator on the trail of a serial killer in Phoenix, Arizona. Justis is also a weremyste—a person with a wizard’s gifts and the ability to see into the paranormal world. Unfortunately, weremystes also tend to go crazy on the full moon—which is why Justis is no longer a cop. Hard to explain those absences as anything but mental breakdown. But now an old case from his police detective days has come back to haunt him, literally, as a serial killer known as the Blind Angel strikes again. His signature stroke: burning out the victims’ eyes with magic. Now the victims are piling up, including the daughter of a senator, and Justis must race to stop the Blind Angel before he, she, or it kills again. There’s only one clue he’s got to go on: the Blind Angel is using the most powerful magic Justis has ever encountered, and if he doesn’t watch his own magical step, he may end up just as dead as the other vics.

IRON AXE by Steven Harper (mass market, e-book from Roc)

“Harper begins the Books of Blood and Iron series with an exciting and somewhat unusual quest… His reinterpretations of trolls, giants, and fae folk give this series opener a fresh feeling, while his nods to Norse mythology and folklore root it strongly in fantasy tradition. Readers will be eager to see what’s in store.” – Publishers Weekly

In this brand new series from the author of the Clockwork Empire series, a hopeless outcast must answer Death’s call and embark on an epic adventure….

Although Danr’s mother was human, his father was one of the hated Stane, a troll from the mountains. Now Danr has nothing to look forward to but a life of disapproval and mistrust, answering to “Trollboy” and condemned to hard labor on a farm.

Until, without warning, strange creatures come down from the mountains to attack the village. Spirits walk the land, terrifying the living. Trolls creep out from under the mountain, provoking war with the elves. And Death herself calls upon Danr to set things right.

At Death’s insistence, Danr heads out to find the Iron Axe, the weapon that sundered the continent a thousand years ago. Together with unlikely companions, Danr will brave fantastic and dangerous creatures to find a weapon that could save the world—or destroy it.

SHADES OF THE WOLF by Karen Whiddon (e-book out now, 2-in-1 paperback out in March, Harlequin Nocturne)