Books I'm Excited About Today

I'm still not quite back on a normal blogging schedule--I don't quite have the brain space for a review today (though the book currently on deck is an exciting one: Mortal Heart by Robin LaFevers!). But I did want to share a few books which arrived on my desk that I really cannot wait to read. First up, yesterday a friend loaned me a copy of the recently-released graphic novelization of the new Ms. Marvel--if you haven't heard about her yet, she's a 16-year-old Muslim Pakistani-American from New Jersey named Kamala Khan. I was definitely excited about the idea, but I didn't realize how amazed and...moved I'd feel just holding it in my hands. What if there had been Pakistani-American superhero girls when I was growing up? How might I feel differently about my own identity? Possibly it wouldn't have changed anything, but those questions zoomed across my mind as I flipped through it.

Another one I just got in the mail is the ARC for Nova Ren Suma's upcoming book The Walls Around Us, due out in 2015. It sounds suspenseful and creepy and all-around awesome, with ghosts and a whodunit and multiple viewpoints. Also just found out that the author is teaching a Workshop/Residency on YA novel writing here in the area at Djerassi artist colony in the Santa Cruz Mountains. That's next summer, with an end-of-Feb deadline...something to consider...

Lastly, I bought a book that's supposed to be my reward when the semester is over and my teaching-related work is on a winter hiatus: the final book in the Bloody Jack series by L.A. Meyer. You know I loves me some Bloody Jack stories and I will be both happy and sad to read this one. On the other hand, I have a lot of respect for authors who are able to bring their characters through a long-long-term story arc like this one, having them grow and change and remain interesting throughout. And, in this case, the author keeps me laughing at Jacky's outrageous doings, managing to ride the line between preposterous and believable, and create a fully fleshed-out historical setting that happens to contain quite a few incorrigible rogues. Viva Jacquelina, indeed. (Viva Jacquelina being the title of the penultimate Bloody Jack book, which I believe I've lagged on reviewing...sigh.)