Book Recommendations, May 2021

 Every once and awhile, I get a Kindle Unlimited subscription. It's ten dollars a month, so I'll get it for one or two months at a time and support as many indie authors as I can.

I read quite a few this month. Here's some that I particularly enjoyed:

Vesta Colony: A realistic scifi adventure with relatable characters. I enjoyed the "talent" abilities.

Lies of the Haven: A portal fantasy (sort of) with fae, magical creatures, and a twisted conspiracy.

Namesake: I especially loved this one! A modern girl goes back in time and has to ensure that her nation will be created.

Dragon School and The Brindle Dragon: By different authors, these two have short books in a long series. Both are about a disabled girl becoming a dragon rider and saving their world.

A Beautiful Curse: I've read several of the Entwined Tales, fairytale retellings with the main characters all siblings, but this was my favorite. It's the Frog Prince, and I loved the banter between Ellie and Prince Cambrun.

Sister To Beauty: In this historical retelling of Beauty and the Beast, the beautiful younger sister is the vain one, while her practical, plain older sister becomes the hero.

The Cowboy and the Girl Next Door: I love Janette Rallison's books, so I had to give this one a try. I loved the ranching details mixed in with the contemporary romance.

Springtime with the DreamRovers

 

Spring is in full force at our house, with baby animals everywhere: puppies, kids, goslings, ducklings, and chicks.  I always wanted a lot of animals as a kid, and I did a lot of research before we purchased our hobby farm in Arizona. Right now, I have a hurt knee and can't go out to see most of the babies or do much farm work, but I have incorporated the information in my writing. One of the points of view in DreamRovers is Norma Filaura, a fifteen-year-old girl who writes in journals. I wrote in journals at that age, and she is very much molded after me at that age, animals and all.

Norma gets the front cover of DreamRovers 2, which is on preorder and comes out June 15th! In this book, she's trying to balance her hopes for the future, represented by her farm animals, and her family's needs in the present. At the same time, Walker is using his wilderness survival skills to keep the family from starvation, while Indra must get help from the foster family she abandoned a decade ago.  The full DreamRovers trilogy is coming out this year. Book 1: Price of Deliverance, was published April 2nd, with books 2 and 3 coming around June and December, respectively. Sneak Peak: April 28, Year of Freedom 490     The coolest thing ever happened today! So, I was walking with Carina, talking about my killed goat, because she’s good at listening, and we were going up this big hill we hadn’t climbed before, and at the bottom of it we saw…   A farm! A whole abandoned farm that somebody left behind. Just the big barn was cool enough, but then we got closer, and there were all these animals in pens around it. That was the cool part, but the sad part was that all the animals had been left alone for a long time—we’ve been here a couple months already, and we don’t know how long before that the farm was abandoned.  So lots of them were dead and the other ones were sick and skinny. My biggest brother Altair thought we ought to shoot them all, or something horrible like that, because they were so sick and nobody had time to take care of them, but I begged Papa and he finally said I could try to rescue some of them. After Walker checked it out, of course. He kept insisting there was something suspicious about it. As if a bunch of animals that need me would attack or something. But anyway, he finally decided it was safe and I got to go in.   Carina and Papa talked about it when they thought I wasn’t listening. Carina said it’ll only make me sad again because most of the animals are going to die. Papa said I’ll probably end up with just one or two new pets. I know that it might happen, but I’m going to do everything I can to stop it!  My brother Leo helped bury the dead ones. That was really nice of him because Papa says I’m supposed to do the work myself. I’m going to, too. But if they want to help, that’s okay with me.  This is one of Norma's first journal entries in DreamRovers: Price of Deliverance.