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Strange Supes (Odessa Black Book One): Preview

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Odessa Black: college student, grilled cheese aficionado, best friends with an overgrown jungle-cat, and officially screwed. In Odessa's world, supernaturals come in two forms: feeders and manipulators. They live among humans, but mostly stick to their own realm in the Veil, a place outside the mortal world that obeys its own physical laws. Or at least they used to. While Odessa has no powers herself, beyond the inexplicable--and seemingly useless--ability to identify those who do, she lives happily and chaotically with two manipulators who exist on the fringe of their world. Perfectly okay with her outsider glimpse into Veil life, Odessa would like nothing more than to finish her degree and figure out what the hell she wants to do with the rest of her life. But her everyday life is disrupted by the arrival of new supes in town who seem hell-bent on turning everything upside down. Between Jax, the irresistible seduction-feeder who has no interest in leaving her alone, and
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5 cli-fi books to check out!

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Can't get enough of apocalyptic and dystopian books? Well, look no further. Climate Fiction has been around arguably for centuries, but exponential interest in global warming has spawned hundreds of texts that take up climate issues. Enough that it's been given its own sub-genre within the science fiction umbrella: cli-fi.  New to the genre? Here's a list of five climate fiction books to  get you started (and terrify you)! While this list is by no means exhaustive, it does have something for everybody. . . Everything from children's book through novel, here are some of cli-fi's greatest offerings: 1. Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler (1993) Not only is Octavia Butler a hugely important figure in the sci-fi genre, but she's also clearly prescient. POTS includes a terrifying leader whose slogan is "Make America Great Again." 2. Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood (2003) Equal parts beautiful and horrifying, Atwood's entry into the
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5 Badass Female Authors to Check Out if You Love Jane Austen

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Ever since the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice mini-series, Austen fandom has come alive in a major way. And while she's always had a pretty lively fan base (fun fact: early Janeites were predominantly male) the nineties really helped introduce an explosive number of adaptations. Plus, let's not forget about the fact that P&P is basically at the heart of every hate-to-love trope in contemporary romance novels. That said, Austen wasn't the only early female novelist to speak on the social inequalities involved with being a woman in the Romantic period. In fact, the feminist undertones in her predecessors novels is impossible to ignore.  If you've made your way through Austen's Big Six (multiple times already), here are five awesome (and often forgotten about) female authors who inspired and influenced her: 1. Frances Burney Recommended starting place:  Evelina  (1778) Burney was one of Austen's favorites, and it's pretty clear why--her influence sh
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5 Free Fantasy Romance Books on my Kindle Unlimited 'To Be Read' List

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When it comes to genre fiction (and fantasy / paranormal romance in particular) I love reading self-published work (especially when the books are free):  Partially because I think a lot of self-published authors are pushing beyond what traditional publishing houses are capable of taking on these days and partially because I think that self-publishing has a lot to contribute to conversations about twenty-first-century tastes.  It's also a good place for more of the same. Sometimes I just want to sink into a book with familiar conventions that doesn't require me to think too hard. I also see it as place to go when I want a break from academic and "literary" books that I associate with my day job. Not to mention that now that I've gone through the process of publishing via KDP, I'm even more interested in seeing what KU has to offer. And okay, are Kindle Unlimited books *actually* free? No, not really. But if you pay ten dollars a month, you get to read a
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What's On My Bookshelf This Week?

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1. Stalking Jack the Ripper by Kerri Maniscalco 2. Book Was There: Reading in Electronic Times by Andrew Piper 3. Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater 4. A Kingdom of Exiles: The Outcast Fantasy Series by S. B. Nova
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New Series--Max Bentley and the Protectors' Guild

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Currently working on drafting up the first novel in a new series~ Meet Max Bentley: She's socially awkward, uncommonly naive, and has been on an epic search for one of those legendary brain-to-mouth filters she's heard so much about. But after growing up in a secluded cabin with nothing but a stack of books and a TV, who could blame her? It’s okay though, because while she’s spewing random facts and asking way too many questions, she also happens to be a super badass fighter—which is important when her safety is suddenly compromised. After a mysterious werewolf and giant hellbeast ruin her first real date, Max is carted off to the Protectors’ Guild—a secret entity that studies captured demons and trains protectors to kill them. But things in the Guild aren’t what they seem and, after meeting a team of mysterious protectors, Max learns that the very demons she’s supposed to be chasing are chasing after her instead. A slow-burn polyandry / urban fantasy /  paran
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