Black Gate

I bought my first Stephen Leigh book, Slow Fall to Dawn, the opening volume in the epic tale of the space-faring Hoorka assassins, way back in 1981. Since then, he’s published some 20 novels and over 40 short stories, including six volumes in Ray Bradbury Presents, and The Woods (2012). The most recent was the omnibus Assassin’s Dawn, which collects all three books in the Hoorka Trilogy: Slow Fall to Dawn (1981), Dance of the Hag(1983), and A Quiet of Stone (1984).

He also writes fantasy under the name S.L. Farrell, including three volumes of the Nessantico Cycle and The Cloudmages Trilogy.

His newest novel features the famous alchemist Nicholas Flamel, who’s also featured prominently in Michael Scott’s bestselling The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, just to name some recent examples. I wonder if we’re witnessing the birth of the new genre of Nicholas Flame literature. Could happen.

Immortal Muse is an unforgettable tale that sweeps readers from 1300s Paris to modern-day New York — with interludes in the 1635 Rome of Bernini, the 1737 Venice of Vivaldi, the French Revolution in Paris with Lavoisier and Robespierre, 1814 London with William Blake and John Polidori, fin de siècle Vienna with Gustav Klimt, and World War II France with Charlotte Salomon.

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I managed to miss A Turn of Light when it was released in trade paperback last March. A pity, as I’ve tried to keep up on the novels of Julie E. Czerneda ever since her first, A Thousand Words for Stranger, landed at my door back in 1997. The fact that she’s a fellow Canadian just adds an extra layer of awesome.

In the 17 years since her debut, Julie has published no less than four highly regarded science fiction trilogies: Trade Pact, Stratification, Species Imperative, and Web Shifters. But with her latest, she turns to epic fantasy for the first time and I’m keenly interested in seeing where she’ll take the genre.

The pastoral valley of Marrowdell is home to a small pioneer settlement of refugees, lush fields of grain, enigmatic house toads — and Jenn Nalynn, the miller’s daughter. Life here is full of laughter and peace, as well as hard work, and no one bothers overmuch about the outside world. Except Jenn Nalynn. Jenn longs to travel, to seek what’s missing in her life. Not that she’s sure what that is, but since this summer began, she’s felt a strange and powerful yearning. She’s certain she’ll find what she needs, if only she can leave the valley.

But she must not. Jenn is turn-born and cursed, born by the light of two worlds and bound to both. For the valley is more than it seems. Long ago, a cataclysm of misused power pinned Marrowdell to the Verge, a place of wild magic, home to dragons and even stranger creatures. Should Jenn step beyond Marrowdell, she will pull the worlds asunder. To prevent this, powers from the Verge have sent a guard to watch over her, a disgraced dragon Jenn knows as Wisp, her invisible playmate. Wisp’s duty is to keep Jenn in Marrowdell. By love, if he can. By her death, if he must.

But time is running out. What Jenn unknowingly feels is the rise of the Verge’s magic within her, a magic that will threaten her and those she loves. Worse, this summer will end with a Great Turn, and strangers seeking power at any cost have come to Marrowdell to try to force an opening into the Verge, to the ruin of all.

A Turn of Light, the first in the Night’s Edge series, will be published by DAW on March 4th. It is 822 pages, priced at $8.99 for the paperback and $7.99 for the digital edition. The second volume, A Play of Shadow, is scheduled to be released in November. Check out her website for fresh updates.

I’m not sure why, but everyone on the Internet seems to be showing the wrong cover for Reflected. The artwork — a beautifully spooky silhouette of a woman reclining by a mist-covered, moonlit lake — is correct, but the text is wrong, and the title is at the top, instead of the bottom. Amazon’s cover is wrong; so is Barnes & Noble. Even Goodreads is showing the pre-release version. The correct cover, scanned from the hot-of-the-presses copy in my hot little hands, is at right.

Well, at least they’re all talking about the book. Reflected is Rhiannon Held’s third novel, the second sequel to her very popular debut Silver, an urban fantasy which introduced the Roanoke were-pack and the deadly monsters which threaten them.

The Were have lived among humans for centuries, secretly, carefully. They came to America with the earliest European colonists, seeking a land where their packs could run free. Andrew Dare is a descendant of those colonists, and he and his mate, Silver, have become alphas of the Roanoke pack, the largest in North America.

But they have enemies, both within their territory and beyond the sea. Andrew is drawn away to deal with the problem of a half-human child in Alaska, leaving Silver to handle the pack and his rebellious daughter just as a troublemaker from Spain arrives on the scene.

Reflected is the third in the series, following Silver (2012) and Tarnished (2013). It was published by Tor Books on February 18, 2014. It is 336 pages, priced at $15.99 in trade paperback and $9.99 for the digital edition. Visit Rhiannon Held’s website here.

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