Cinnamon and Gunpowder looks great! It's got sort of a Big Fish vibe.

Why are you people giving such good recs when I'm doing the TBR Triple Dog Dare and can't read anything new until April Fools? It's a conspiracy!

Consuela, thanks for the link! I love Vernon's gardening essays and Digger comic. It's great to read another kind of work by her.

I got Hild for Christmas and am L O V I N G it. Nicola Griffith is such an evocative writer.

I've been enjoying the Sebastian St. Cyr mysteries too! And I liked the Kate Ross ones, just wish there'd been more.

Oooh, Hild. That's on my wishlist, after I get through at least 3 of the books I purchased in December. And the book JZ gave me. And both Richard II and Richard III. Actually, I just finished RII, but now I want to go back through and read the Arden annotations.

Speaking of getting through books - I bought the first Lymond, and I bounced off of it hard (to the point where I've not made it through the first chapter). I'm going to try again - maybe when I have time to read fiction that's not right before bed - but, yeah. I'm disappointed, because it seems that almost everyone here loves the Lymond Chronicles.

However, I will again rec Cold Magic by Kate Elliot. Quite delightful.

juliana, there's a reason my Lymond icon on DW says "my fandom's first 150 pages are really fucking confusing." To wit: the first 200 or so pages of Game of Kings are really fucking confusing.

If you're still intrigued, I suggest a couple of things. First, you could pick up Queen's Play or Disorderly Knights: both of them have less confusing starts (GoK was Dunnett's first novel, and it shows), and GoK and QP are both basically free-standing from a plot point of view. DK kicks off the overarching plot of the series.

Another option is to try Niccolo Rising instead. That's volume 1 of the other series, set in the 1400s in Belgium. The writing is rather less baroque, and much easier to follow. I find the characters a bit less endearing, but that may in part be because I read the Lymond books when I was a teenager and imprinted on them hard. The Niccolo series is about trade, banking and politics, more than about war, has several interesting women characters, and covers a huge swath of geography (from Iceland to Timbuktu, and everything in between). In my opinion, the Niccolo books are less classically romantic and id-tastic than the Lymond books, but probably better written from a technical standpoint.

In my opinion, the Niccolo books are less classically romantic and id-tastic than the Lymond books, but probably better written from a technical standpoint.

That might be what I need right now, actually. I just finished the Henriad (scripts and Hollow Crown DVDs), and I am up to here with id-tasticness (oh, Falstaff). Thank you, Consuela!

I am loving HILD. So much that I gave it a lot at xmas.

One of those, I could have waited on. Some scenes not suitable for my mother in law. Second time doing this to my inlaws. First time was with Saramugo's Blindness.

I really want to read Cold Magic soon. Thank you for the reminder, Juliana

I may have an advance copy of the new Jo Walton and I'm really excited about it. but I can't read it yet because I have to read a bunch of research AUGH.

I love Elliott's work; the Cold Magic series is really good.