Book-of-the-Year Award for The Restorer’s Journey

restjrnyI’m so excited to report that The Restorer’s Journey won 2009 Book of the Year for Speculative Fiction at the annual conference of the American Christian Fiction Writer’s annual conference last week. The Restorer’s Journey is Book 3  in the Sword of Lyric trilogy written by Sharon Hinck.

Book 1, The Restorer, starts with a depressed soccer mom, Susan, who somehow is pulled into a parallel world (Lyric) where she is identified as a Restorer tasked with bringing heathens and warring territories “back to the Verses.” The universe Sharon built relies on some forms of advanced technology while weapons of war are deliberately kept simple by the inhabitants in order to not break their religious ethics.

Book 2, The Restorer’s Son, finds Susan and her husband (Mark) desperately searching for their son, Jake, who has somehow found his way into Lyric and Hazor and become embroiled in a maze of assassins and political intrigue. Meanwhile, Kieran flees from the One and the calling placed on him, only to find that he can’t hide. He journeys to Sidian, a nation torn by darkness, where he learns the One demands all, maybe even his life.

In Book 3, The Restorer’s Journey, Susan and Jake once again find themselves drawn through a portal back into the land of the People of the Verses, where Susan struggles to love her captors and Jake tries to endure a vicious betrayal and find his own destiny.

The Sword of Lyric series has become one of my favorites of all time. I can only hope that more Christian book publishers will be willing to step further into the world of speculative fiction.

Meanwhile, I want to offer my sincere congratulations to Sharon Hinck. I have met Sharon and I must say that the award couldn’t have gone to a nicer person. Good job, Sharon!

For more information on the author, visit her website: http://www.sharonhinck.com

Disclosure of Material Connection: At times, some of the links in my posts are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

The Vanishing Sculptor, by Donita K. Paul

vanishingsculptorWith The Vanishing Sculptor, Donita K. Paul begins a new series set in the same universe as her DragonKeeper Chronicles, with the exception that this newest novel is set in an earlier time period.

The book centers around Tipper, a young emerlindian woman who has been trying to manage her family’s estate in her father’s absence. Unfortunately, she has no idea where her father went when he disappeared years earlier. In addition, her mother has become confused and befuddled as she has gotten older, thus leaving Tipper even more alone. Fortunately, she has Beccaroon to rely on, a giant parrot her father asked to watch over her if something should happen to him.

To make ends meet in her father’s absence, Tipper has been selling off her father’s artwork without realizing her actions have placed the world at risk of collapse. The only way disaster can be averted is to reunite some of the statues. But Tipper cannot brave the trip alone and a group of companions is formed to undertake the quest.

As this is Day 1 of the three-day Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog Tour, I will continue my review of The Vanishing Sculptor tomorrow. Let’s see what the others have to say:

Brandon Barr
Jim Black
Justin Boyer
Rachel Briard
Karri Compton
Amy Cruson
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Karina Fabian
Linda Gilmore
Todd Michael Greene
Katie Hart
Ryan Heart
Becky Jesse
Cris Jesse
Jason Joyner
Julie
Carol Keen
Krystine Kercher
Dawn King
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Mirtika
Eve Nielsen (posting later in the week)
Nissa
John W. Otte
Lyn Perry
Crista Richey
Cheryl Russell
Chawna Schroeder
James Somers
Speculative Faith
Rachel Starr Thomson
Robert Treskillard
Steve Trower
Fred Warren
Phyllis Wheeler
Elizabeth Williams
KM Wilsher

For more info on The Vanishing Sculptor, see: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1400073391

Information on the author:
Donita Paul’s Web site – http://www.donitakpaul.com/
Donita Paul’s blog – http://dragonbloggin.blogspot.com/

Disclosure of Material Connection: At times, some of the links in my posts are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Win a Copy of Mistborn and Eye of the World From Tor

MistbornTor is giving away a copy of Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn and Robert Jordan’s Eye of the World in honor of the upcoming release of The Gathering Storm by Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan on October 27, 2009.

Mistborn is Book 1 in Sanderson’s trilogy by the same name. Eye of the World is also Book 1 but in Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. After Robert Jordan’s untimely death, Brandon Sanderson was asked to complete the Wheel of Time series. The Gathering Storm is one of the three final books in the series.

For details on the contest, visit Tor at: http://us.macmillan.com/tor/promo/mistborneotw

EOTW

Disclosure of Material Connection: At times, some of the links in my posts are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Free McCaffrey/Scarborough, Keri Arthur, China Mieville Novels

Suvudu does it again. I could have swore Suvudu just added their August freebie novels to their list of free ebooks and now I find out they have added three more for September. One or two of them are not my style, but since I just posted the other books on the Suvudu list, I thought I go ahead and post these too. At the bottom of this post you’ll find the link to Suvudu. Here are the official summaries:

mccaffrey-changelings- The Changelings: Book One of the Twins of Petaybee, By Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

They are Ronan Born for Water Shongili and Murel Monster Slayer Shongili. Twin brother and sister. Children of Yana and Sean. Children of Petaybee. As such, theirs is a destiny deeply intertwined with the sentient planet that is their home. For Ronan and Murel are more than human. Like their father, each can transform into a seal and converse telepathically with the planet’s creatures–such as the friendly otter whose life they save one day from a pack of ravenous wolves.

But the twins’ bravery has unforeseen results when a visiting scientist witnesses their startling metamorphosis and becomes obsessed with their capture. To protect their children, Sean and Yana send them to stay with a powerful family friend on an orbiting space station. But no one realizes that Ronan and Murel hunger to discover the origins of their shape-shifting talent-and that their search for knowledge will place them squarely in the path of peril.

Meanwhile, Petaybee is changing–and much faster than an ordinary planet’s natural evolution. It appears that portions of the sea are heating up and a landmass is suddenly rising from the depths. To investigate the startling occurrence, Sean heads out to the open water in his seal form. But the newly unstable region holds untold mysteries–and the potential for disaster.

arthur-full- Full Moon Rising: A Riley Jensen Guardian Novel, By Keri Arthur

A rare hybrid of vampire and werewolf, Riley Jenson and her twin brother, Rhoan, work for Melbourne’s Directorate of Other Races, an organization created to police the supernatural races-and protect humans from their depredations. While Rhoan is an exalted guardian, a.k.a. assassin, Riley is merely an office worker–until her brother goes missing on one of his missions. The timing couldn’t be worse. More werewolf than vampire, Riley is vulnerable to the moon heat, the weeklong period before the full moon, when her need to mate becomes all-consuming…

Luckily Riley has two willing partners to satisfy her every need. But she will have to control her urges if she’s going to find her brother…Easier said than done as the city pulses with frenzied desire, and Riley is confronted with a very powerful–and delectably naked–vamp who raises her temperature like never before.

In matters carnal, Riley has met her match. But in matters criminal, she must follow her instincts not only to find her brother but to stop an unholy harvest. For someone is doing some shifty cloning in an attempt to produce the ultimate warrior–by tapping into the genome of nonhumans like Rhoan. Now Riley knows just how dangerous the world is for her kind–and just how much it needs her.

mieville-perdido- Perdido Street Station, By China Mieville

Beneath the towering bleached ribs of a dead, ancient beast lies New Crobuzon, a squalid city where humans, Re-mades, and arcane races live in perpetual fear of Parliament and its brutal militia. The air and rivers are thick with factory pollutants and the strange effluents of alchemy, and the ghettos contain a vast mix of workers, artists, spies, junkies, and whores. In New Crobuzon, the unsavory deal is stranger to none–not even to Isaac, a brilliant scientist with a penchant for Crisis Theory.

Isaac has spent a lifetime quietly carrying out his unique research. But when a half-bird, half-human creature known as the Garuda comes to him from afar, Isaac is faced with challenges he has never before fathomed. Though the Garuda’s request is scientifically daunting, Isaac is sparked by his own curiosity and an uncanny reverence for this curious stranger.

While Isaac’s experiments for the Garuda turn into an obsession, one of his lab specimens demands attention: a brilliantly colored caterpillar that feeds on nothing but a hallucinatory drug and grows larger–and more consuming–by the day. What finally emerges from the silken cocoon will permeate every fiber of New Crobuzon–and not even the Ambassador of Hell will challenge the malignant terror it invokes…

Here’s the link: Suvudu Free Library

Disclosure of Material Connection: At times, some of the links in my posts are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”