New and Recent Releases – August 2009

This month I thought I’d try linking my release list to each book’s Goodreads.com page instead of to Amazon.  That way you can check out what other people may be saying about the books so far, also because Goodreads is awesome.

• already released
  Thorn Queen, by Richelle Mead
  Leader of the Pack: Tales of an Urban Werewolf, by Karen MacInerney
  Dark Time, by Dakota Banks
• August 4
  Cape Storm, by Rachel Caine
  Bloody Right, by Georgia Evans
  Vanished, by Kat Richardson
  The Red Tree, by Caitlin R. Kiernan
• August 25
  Hunting Ground, by Patricia Briggs
  Mercy Thompson: Homecoming (graphic novel), by Patricia Briggs, Francis Tsai, and Amelia Woo
  Unbound (anthology), includes Kim Harrison, Melissa Marr, Jeaniene Frost, Vicki Pettersson, Jocelynn Drake

New and Upcoming Releases – July 2009

Some of this month’s releases:

• July 1
  Prey, by Rachel Vincent
• July 7
  Strange Brew (anthology), edited by P.N. Elrod
  Bloody Awful, by Georgia Evans
  Skinwalker, by Faith Hunter
  Blue Moon (ya), by Alyson Noel
• July 28
  Redemption Alley, by Lillith St. Crow
  Destined for an Early Grave, by Jeaniene Frost
  Skin Deep, by Mark Del Franco

Excerpts – May 2009

More recent additions to the excerpts page:

• Sins & Shadows (excerpt), by Lyn Benedict
• Magic in the Blood (excerpt), by Devon Monk
• The Vampire Diaries: The Awakening and The Struggle (excerpt), by L.J. Smith (ya)
• The Vampire Diaries: The Return: Nightfall (excerpt), by L.J. Smith (ya)
• Norse Code (excerpt), by Greg Van Eekhout
• Santa Olivia (excerpt), by Jacqueline Carey

New and Upcoming Releases – May 2009

Here are a few books that have caught my eye for May, as usual, release dates are based on info from Amazon.

• already  released
  Blood from Stone, by Laura Anne Gilman 
• May 5
  Dead and Gone, by Charlaine Harris (excerpt)
  Magic in the Blood, by Devon Monk (excerpt)
• May 14
  Strange Angels, by Lili Saintcrow (ya)
• May 16
  Bad to the Bone, by Jeri Smith-Ready 
• May 19
  Norse Code, by Greg Van Eekhout
• May 26
  Once Dead, Twice Shy by Kim Harrison (ya)
  A Flash of Hex, by Jes Battis
  Amazon Ink, by Lori Devoti 
• May 29
  Santa Olivia, by Jacqueline Carey 

Free Harper Teen Sampler

Check here for a free e-book containing sample chapters from 5 new and upcoming Harper Teen books. Unfortunately, it’s only available in PDF format. My first attempt to convert the PDF for use on my Kindle came out as an awkward, unreadable mess, but maybe I’ll try again with a different method.

Samples included are from:

• Fragile Eternity, by Melissa Marr
• Once Dead, Twice Shy, by Kim Harrison
• Stargazer, by Claudia Gray
• The Awakening, by Kelley Armstrong
• Wings, by Aprilynne Pike

(via janicu’s twitter feed)

Excerpts – April 2009

Here’s a few more excerpts from recent and upcoming books that I’ve added to the excerpts page in recent weeks.

• Blue Diablo (excerpt), by Ann Aguirre
• Red-Headed Stepchild (excerpt), by Jaye Wells
• Death’s Daughter (excerpt), by Amber Benson

New and Upcoming Releases – April 2009

• April 1
  Red-Headed Stepchild, by Jaye Wells
• April 7
  Turn Coat, by Jim Butcher
  Curse the Dawn, by Karen Chance (excerpt)
  Blue Diablo, by Ann Aguirre
• April 21
  Fragile Eternity, by Melissa Marr (ya)
• April 28
  The Awakening, by Kelley Armstrong (ya)
  Sins and Shadows, by Lyn Benedict

Read Seaborn for Free

Chris Howard has made his first book, Seaborn, available for free in PDF and HTML format. He’s requesting that anyone who would like to pay something for the electronic copy donate through a link on his website to either the Monterey Bay Aquarium or to the Woods Hole Oceanagraphic Institute.

Visit Chris Howard’s website and download Seaborn.

I haven’t read it yet so I can’t tell you much about the story, but it’s next on my to-read list and I hope to have a review up in the next week or so.

edit: Now there are also ePub, MOBI, and LRF formats available, which is great because I was having trouble converting the original HTML file.

excerpts page

I’ve added a page where I’ll be listing excerpts from urban fantasy novels. The top section has excerpts from recent and upcoming books, and the bottom one links to excerpts from the first book in a series for those who are interested in checking out an author they haven’t tried yet.

I’ll still be posting a monthly update of excerpts from recent and upcoming books, but I also thought it might be convenient to have a list available in one place. This is just a starting place, I’ll be adding new books and authors when I can. But it’s taking longer than I thought to put together the list, and several writers I’ve searched for don’t seem have any excerpts available.

Get a gift receipt.

Hey, did you know that both Borders and Barnes & Noble now require receipts for all returns, including gift exchanges? I didn’t, until my husband tried to exchange a duplicate Christmas gift this week.

This change has apparently been in effect for months, which in itself was kind of a shock. I have the customer cards for both stores. I get weekly email newsletters from each, and occasional snail-mail ads. Even though I’ve cut down a bit on purchases, it’s a rare week where I don’t buy a book or two, and half of the Christmas presents I bought this year were books. My point is that I’m a pretty regular customer at both stores, but I still hadn’t heard. I didn’t get an email notifying me of this fairly major change, even though something like that is of a lot more interest than the usual promotional stuff they send out. No clerk ever mentioned it, and you’d think that they would have been pushing gift receipts for presents (and explaining the need for them) pretty heavily during the holidays.

What seemed like the entire staff of our Barnes & Noble had a little huddle and decided to allow us to make the exchange that one time. That was really nice of them, especially because I suspect they’ve been getting a lot of grief over this change in the last couple of weeks. I worked retail for long enough that I understand some of the considerations that went into this decision. But I also understand that the average customer doesn’t care about those when they end up stuck with an extra copy of a book.

The harsher return policy may not really make much difference when I’m buying a book for myself, but it makes me a lot less likely to get books as gifts for others. Choosing a book for a friend can already be tricky. But now if you get something that just isn’t right for them, you’ll have to hope that they don’t lose that little slip or that they can make it to the store before the gift receipt expires. And now if I’m given a receipt-less copy of something I already have, then hey, too bad?

I guess I’ve always taken the ease of book exchanges for granted. But considering that many of us are being more careful about how we spend our discretionary money these days, and that buying online already seems to offer price and selection advantages, is it really the best idea to introduce less customer-friendly policies?

Just make sure you get gift receipts from now on, and spread the word to anyone likely to be buying you a book.