Tag Archives: steampunk

Do you binge?

 

Cover of Katy Haye's A Clockwork War series
Click to start reading

Excuse the shameless self-promo today, readers, but I’m wildly excited to report that not only is my series, A Clockwork War, complete, but it’s now also available as a bargain-priced boxed set.

Bingeing a series once it’s all available is apparently THE way to consume fiction these days. I feel out of step since I don’t tend to binge read books (I mean, I read constantly, natch, but jumping from one thing to another). I do tend to record TV series and watch them once they’re all out, but I think that’s a shortage of time more than a deliberate choice.

When it comes to books, however, I’ll grab them as soon as they’re out if I like them (case in point, I’m foaming at the mouth for two instalments in novella series I’m midway through that won’t be out until the end of the month, alongside a more distant yearning for the next Tides novel by Alex Lidell which doesn’t yet have a release date).

But, if you’re a binge reader (or even if you’re not!) and you like steampunk, genius heroines, gutsy heroes and dastardly antagonists, do try A Clockwork War. I had terrific fun writing about Clara, her friends and her fabulous brothers (she has five) in a world where England and Scotland remain at war in the 1840s.

Reading in my own genre for once

While I’m writing, I generally try to avoid reading in the same genre. I don’t want to accidentally pick up influences and steal anyone else’s ideas. Because I’ve been so busy with the clockwork war series, that means I’ve hardly read any steampunk this year.

Now, I’m onto edits for the last book in the series (yippee!) and I decided it was time for some steampunk again. I picked Melanie Karsak’s Chasing the Star Garden and I picked well, readers, by plumping for a stonking good read.

Chasing the Star Garden had some adult themes with a protagonist, Lily, engaged in behaviours generally considered not good for a person.

But they were handled so well. There was neither condemnation nor glamourising; this was just how Lily was. And as the story progressed we saw how she’d become the determined, daredevil airship pilot we’d met (and, my word, she’d faced a lot). Her progress as a character during Chasing the Star Garden was right and lovely and extremely touching. My benchmark for a book is always, “Do I care?” And oh yes, I care in spades about Lily!

And aside from the fabulous characterisation there was the kind of good stuff you always get with steampunk: airships and artefacts and secret societies and dastardly villains and daring rescues. I loved everyone moment and I can’t wait for more!

Shattered Worlds Challenge – a surprising Scourge

The Scourge is available only in Shattered Worlds. Click to get your copy of the collection.

This week I read A G Henley’s The Scourge. This took me by surprise in a lot of very good ways. What seemed at first to be a pre-industrial fantasy world turned out to be set in a post-apocalyptic future. There were other twists like that, but I don’t want to give away any spoilers. But in short, very little was quite as it seemed. Narrator Fennel was ideal to experience this story with us, because you really couldn’t always believe your eyes (Fennel is blind, so doesn’t have the option to trust her eyes!).

And that’s the only reading-for-pleasure I’ve managed this week. I have been busy with my own books, though: proofing the paperback of The Clockwork War, the Kindle version of An Airship from Ashes, and revising The Tinker Queen ready for editing while working on the first draft of finale The Immortality Device, so it’s all go in my house!

Paperbacks of Clockwork WarIf you’ll forgive me a bit of self-promo, I’m delighted to say that The Clockwork War is now available as a real life ink-and-paper book. If that’s what floats your boat, check it out.

I’m looking forward to next week when I should have more time for reading. Check back next week to see what I’ve picked from Shattered Worlds.

Check out my next project!

I am so excited to share this with you – my next release will be part of a set with 22 other novels by a group of uber-talented YA writers: Shattered Worlds

Escape into twenty-three epic worlds that will leave you breathless.

 

 

.99 for a limited time!

From dystopian nightmares to gorgeous steampunk and fantasy settings to fairy-tale retellings and beyond, SHATTERED WORLDS has every story you’ve been dying to get your hands on!

This unique Young Adult/New Adult collection, inspired by the creative minds of today’s New York Times, USA Today, and international bestselling authors, promises to satisfy your cravings for action and adventure as you experience rune magic and time-travel, overthrow corrupt governments, meet reapers and aliens, battle dragons, fall hopelessly in love, and break ancient curses, right alongside some of the bravest characters in fantasy fiction!

Each book within this collection is exclusive to the set and can’t be found anywhere else.

Preorder now for your passport to SHATTERED WORLDS!

Featuring Titles from:

USA Today bestselling
author J.L. Weil 

USA Today bestselling authors Armitage & Culican 
New York Times bestselling author N.R. Larry 
Rebecca Rode 
Kristy Tate 
A.G. Henley 
USA Today bestselling author Jane Redd 
Miranda Hardy and Jay Noel 
Ali Winters 
Audrey Grey 
Elana Johnson 
Megan Linski 
Elizabetta Holcomb 
Cindy M. Hogan 
Liz Long 
Julie Hall 
Cameo Renae 
Jen Minkman 
Cortney Pearson 
Ainsley Shay 
Katy Haye
USA Today bestselling author Emily Martha Sorensen
Nichole Giles

 

Get Your Copy Today!