H is for Huff | Blogging from A to Z

Blood Price
by Tanya Huff

Tanya Huff's one of those authors who, in my opinion, not enough people have read and that's a real shame. Not only is Huff a great writer, but the stuff she writes about is just awesome. Her favoured genres are SFF, and throughout the many books she's written she often plays around with ideas of gender and sexuality, subverting stereotypes or just blatantly beating them over the head with that brilliant thing we call feminism.

Her Blood Books, in particular, are fantastic; combining crime with urban fantasy, Huff creates a world of vampires, demons, werewolves, and even mummies, in the middle of Toronto, all with a wonderful female lead. Vicky is a fab heroine. She's funny and serious and believable and headstrong, meaning she's basically everything I love, and Huff's other characters are a lot of fun, too.

Plus the great thing about this series is the mash up of genres; if you're an urban fantasy fan who'd like to try getting into crime, this is a pretty great place to start, and if you're a fan of crime who'd like to try a bit of SFF then this is the book for you!

What's Up Wednesday! | 07/05/14

What's Up Wednesday is a weekly blog hop created by Jaime Morrow and Erin L. Funk as a way for readers and writers to stay in touch!

What I'm Reading

Once again I've had another slow week in terms of reading. Now that I'm back at uni my novel writing is back in full-swing (I do have a 30,000 word portfolio to fill after all!), so I've been dipping in and out of various books without sitting down and finishing a single one.

The most recent book I started, however, is Tanya Huff's Sing the Four Quarters, and so far I'm enjoying it a lot! Tanya Huff is a brilliant Fantasy and Sci-Fi writer who is well known for the way she subverts the genres she writes in. She's one of my favourite Fantasy authors, and I'd love it if more people read her novels. I love her Blood Books novels, and Sing the Four Quarters is proving to be just as good so far; it's so refreshing to come across a heroine in Fantasy who had sex with a guy because he was attractive and she wanted to, not because she was maddeningly in love with him!

What I'm Writing

As always, I'm working away on Bloodroot and Bracken. This week I'm finally hoping to write the scene in which my main character tells her daughter she was once accused of witchcraft, and the consequences she suffered because of those accusations.

What Inspires Me Right Now

It's sunny!

What Else I've Been Up To

On Friday I announced that I'm hoping to do a summer read-a-long of Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo over the course of July and August. As of yet no one has shown a definite interest in taking part, so if it sounds like something that might interest you you can find my post about it here! I'd love it if people joined in.

I spent the weekend volunteering at Litfest's Children's Literature Festival, and that was a lot of fun! One of my friends, another girl on the same MA course as me, was volunteering too, and we met a pair of undergrads there who were both lovely. The lady who organised the event was lovely too - she was so funny - as were all of the authors and artists who gave some of their time for the festival.

The two authors I managed to have conversations with were Livi Michael and Sandra Glover. I met Livi Michael on Saturday when she spoke about her book, Malkin Child, which is a book about the Pendle Witch Trials from the point of view of Jennet Device, the little girl who condemned her family by claiming they were witches. Unlike many other versions of Jennet I've seen, where she is portrayed as a little girl who hates her family and purposefully sends them to the gallows, Livi portrays her as a confused little girl whose words are twisted and who genuinely believes she is helping her family when she takes to the stand.

I bought myself a copy of the book - which Livi kindly signed for me - and I'm hoping to read it soon!

Then on Sunday I met Sandra Glover, a children's author who did a talk about the seven points of plotting. She was lovely, and the little girl in the audience certainly enjoyed it!

After all that I had a day of rest on Monday where I caught up on my uni work and watched the latest episodes of Hannibal, Game of Thrones and The Crimson Field. 

Other than that I've been looking into freelance stuff and I'm possibly going to apply for a job soon. I would say a little more about it but I'm a little unsure about it right now because getting this job would mean I'd need to find somewhere to live, and I certainly can't afford my own place right now. Oh well, I'll cross that bridge if and when I come to it!

What's new with you?