For a change of pace, I've been reading the Dhulyn & Parno novels by Violette Malan. They're pretty classic sword-and-sorcery novels, about a pair of bonded Mercenary Brothers (kind of like samurai), who get into all sorts of trouble as they wander the world. One of them is a kickass woman, but they both are kind of interesting and I love their relationship, which is way more than a romance.
Anyway, they're pretty fun and as the series goes on the world-building gets really interesting. The writing is pretty good, although Malan's got a different idea of proper POV than I do (she will switch POVs in the same paragraph, argh). But her characters are interesting, the plots not too straightforward, and the cultures kind of cool. Plus, there's the occasional gesture towards addressing issues of race and gender.
The first one is The Sleeping God, and so far there are four of them. If you liked old Conan stories, or Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, you might like these as a contemporary version, where the women get to do more than be rescued from ancient evils.