Summer’s over – did you get all the summer reading done you’d planned? I’d love to hear about any newly discovered gems or old favorites. 🙂 This time I’ll be recommending three new arrivals on my own shelf, but even though they’re relatively new, they seem like old friends.

The Spider and the Stone by Glen Craney was an instant book soulmate for me. For weeks after I’d read it, I found myself itching to explain – in great detail – exactly why the people around me should not be wasting their time on anything else but reading this masterpiece.  Fourteenth century Scotland, a master storyteller, and a story that keeps surprising you. What more could you possibly need?

Witches and vampires never looked so good. I saw this advertised as Twilight for adults somewhere, and I suppose that isn’t so far off the mark. If you don’t know it yet, you should pick it up immediately. It’s the first installment in a series of three.

If you know me, you know how much I love George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. This is a spin-off, a sequel of sorts, to it. If you haven’t read A Song of Ice and Fire, you can easily read this anyway. And if you have gnawed through the tomes, you should also dive into this. The adventures of Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire, Egg, are not to be missed. Egg remains one of my most favorite characters ever.