Top 5 Sundays #31 - Books/Series You Have Read More Than Once!

There are always books you go back to, books where the characters are like old friends, the world a familiar safe haven, and the events a well worn path. Books in and of themselves are escapes, but these books are more than just escapes - they're like visits to your favourite vacations spots, where every scene is a different sort of salve for whatever your mood might require.

So, without further ado, here are Calliope's Domain's Top 5 (although, believe me when I say there are more - many, many, many more!) Books/Series I Have Read More Than Once! Enjoy.

#5 - Black Jewel Trilogy by Anne Bishop

Three books that chronicle the life of a world's saviour as she grows from childhood to womanhood through the eyes of the family that loves her. It has angst, pain, tragedy, suffering, light, happiness, love, devotion - it runs the gamut back and forth over and over again yet somehow still finds it way to a happy ending. What's not to love about that?

#4 - Betsy Taylor, Vampire Queen series by Maryjanice Davidson

These books are hilarious. Betsy is a self-centered, shoe-obsessed, foul-mouthed, tried-and-true dumb blonde who, after an unfortunate run-in with a Aztec and a series of unfortunate events, finds herself the vampire queen of the dead. Somehow, in between all the sarcasm and comic relief, there's an actual story that unfolds that dances the line between the dramatic and the wacky.

#3 - Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews

I love Kate's journey. In the beginning, she's a tough and miserable loner. As the books progress, however, she became more open, more caring and dedicated to the people in her life; heck, she even fell in love. And each step along that path is another nugget of emotional drama as comforting and familiar as a warm blanket on a cold day.

#2 - Guild Hunters series by Nalini Singh

Alright, so the first books were a little rocky but once Elena finds some closure on her past in the second book, the subsequent stories have been phenomenal. Not to mention the depth and intricacies involved in the emotional development going on in these pages. Oh, but, honestly, who am I kidding? These are books about strong, powerful men - men so powerful, so intimidating that they not only top the charts, they blow it into a whole new scale. And these books give you a front row seat as these scary-as-sin-and-twice-as-hot heroes finds themselves vulnerable to the love of the right woman. Cue the dreamy sigh here.

#1 - The Fever series by Karen Marie Moning

To quote Belle, this book has it all - far-off places, daring swordfights, magic spells, a prince (if you're flexible with the definition that is) in disguise - and enough drama to keep a drama vampire like myself sated for a decade! Mac is the perfect narrator; she starts off naive and ignorant and over the course of the subsequent books not only grows in both physical and mental strength, but knowledge too. Through Mac readers are introduced to a world that gets darker, larger and weirder with every page. And Barrons and V'lane don't hurt either!

Top 5 Sundays #25 - Books I Would Love to Get Signed by the Author!

This week's Top 5 theme is books I would love to get signed by the author. I think it goes without saying that I wouldn't turn down an author's offer to sign one of their books - what sort of crazy person would? However, I also think it goes without saying (but I'm going to say it anyway) that there are some books that, for one reason or another, have come to mean something more to you than the words on their pages. These are the books that have gotten themselves tangled up in your emotions, in your memories, in your affections. These are the books that you turn to for comfort not only because of their stories and familiarity, but because they've come to be associated with so much more. Having the author sign these books...well, it's almost like a validation, like a recognition of all that book has come to mean to you. With the creator's name scrawled within, it's like the book's personal importance to you has been given a stamp of approval.

And what's not to love about that?

So, without further ado, I present this week's (belated) Top 5 Books I Would Love to Get Signed by the Author! Enjoy.

#5 - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

Okay, be honest, what person growing up with Harry Potter wouldn't sell their little brother whole for J.K. Rowling's name scrawled by the lady herself inside their copy of any one of the Harry Potter books? The last one, the first one, the fifth one - I wouldn't care which, just so long as whichever one it was got to come home with me at the end of the day. Hell, I might even toss in my sister just for the heck of it.

#4 - Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

What can I say? My favourite contemporary authors might all be tied to the vamps, weres, witches, demons and magic filling their stories but when it comes to the classics, it's Pride and Prejudice all the way. I blame Mr. Darcy - man knows how to bounce back from a really botched proposal like nobody else. Unfortunately, considering that there's a finite number of signed copies in existence (at least until the zombie apocalypse) getting one of these puppies really would require I resort to human trafficking.

#3 - Witches of Eileanan by Kate Forsyth

For my thirteenth birthday, one of my friends gave me a gift card for Chapters. I remember going with my grandfather to pick out the book and being worried that I was taking to long and boring my poor grandpa. I ended up taking home Witches of Eileanan - mostly because of the awesome cover (it has a dragon - what's not cool about that?) - and my library was begun. Getting this book signed would be just another way of highlighting the significance it holds for me.

#2 - The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice

Now, truth be told, I started reading the Vampire Chronicles because of the film adaptation of Queen of the Damned and, as is usually the case, quickly discovered the books to be better. The Vampire Lestat, though the second book in the series, holds particular importance being as its the first book where Lestat narrates. Having Anne Rice sign any one of her books would be amazing - like receiving a personal letter from Johnny Depp amazing - but having her sign the copy I actually read - the copy I lost myself in over and over again - that would just be phenomenal.

#1 - The Black Jewels Trilogy by Anne Bishop

I adore this series. If this series was a person, I would marry it. I own a lot of books - hundreds, no question - but of them all the books in this series are hands down the ones most read. And reread. Whatever mood I'm feeling, I can find a passage, a scene, a chapter - or ten - in these books to suit. I own - and have read - everything that Anne Bishop has ever written but these series - and specifically these three books - they're my literary equivalent to comfort food. Getting them signed...that would just floor me.

And there you have it! Until next week, boils and ghouls, I bid you adieu!

Top 5 Sundays #19 - Authors Who Write More Than One Great Book Series!

This week's poll at Larissa's Bookish Life ended in a tie between "Authors Who Write More Than One Great Book Series!" and "Books I Had to Buy But Are Gathering Dust on My Shelf" so thanks to the time honoured tradition of eeny, meeny, miney, moe this week's Top 5 on Calliope's Domain will be looking at authors who write (or wrote) more than one great book series. We're at a point where stand alone books are something of an endangered species, especially in the urban fantasy genre. Heck, even in the paranormal romance genre couples may change but the series chugs along. The challenge with this list was finding five authors with multiple series that appeal to me. It's not that great authors are one hit wonders in the series department, far from it, but more often than not they try to make their second series something so distinct and different from the first that it's not always a guarantee that both will suit the tastes of a singular reader.

So, without further ado, I present Calliope's Domain's Top 5 Authors Who Write More Than One Great Book Series!

#5 - Kelly Meding

 Dreg City begins with a monster hunter resurrected in the borrowed body of a suicide victim and trying to navigate the change, unexpected love and, of course, solve the mystery of her own murder. Metawars has recently a team superheroes try to come to grips with their newly returned powers, a less than welcoming public, and each other now that they're all grown up. Both series have a true edge of realism to their stories and detailed casts of believable and distinct characters. Meding successfully manages to hit the nail on the head - twice.

#4 - Seanan McGuire

On the one hand, you have Toby Daye, a Fae halflie whose happily ever got scrapped when a rival turned into a fish for over a decade, and on the other you have Verity Price, daughter in a long line of cryptozoologists trying to make a name (even if its not her own) for herself as a professional dancer in NYC. You may as well be comparing Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Grimm; sure you can find the common threads but when you get down to it these two series couldn't be more different!

#3 - Michelle Rowen

Michelle Rowen has one of those quirky, comedic personalities that infuses each and every book she writes in its own distinct and unique way. Sarah Dearly, of her Immortality Bites series, gets turned into a vamp on a blind date and wakes up to vampire hunters; cue running for her life which, naturally, leads her to interrupt the suicide attempt of a six hundred year old Master vampire. Psychic and police consultant Eden Riley finds herself possessed by cursed Incubus Darrak at a crime scene and dang if she didn't find him just the littlest bit irresistible. Jillian Conrad was just your run of the mill office worker until a coffee run led to her being injected with a serum that made her blood poisonous to vampires. Enter Declan; a tall, dark and handsome vampire hunter and dhampir working for an agency with more secrets than even anyone working there knows.

#2 - Gena Showalter

Here's a riddle for you: what do immortal warrior cursed with the demons of sin freed from Pandora's Box have in common with a girl who, thanks to a super secret formula unwittingly gulped down with her coffee, acquires control of the elements? Well, both have their stories told (and told unbelievably well) by the pen of Gena Showalter, and frankly, that's pretty much the only commonality these two series can claim.

#1 - Anne Bishop

In one corner, you have a series chronicling the life of dreams incarnate through the eyes of those around her. In the other corner, you have a fairy tale telling of the collapse of the Fae world as the witches who connect their world to ours fall to the persecutions. Both are told with vivid detail and infused with oceans of emotion, both share a common undertone to the writing, but the stories themselves could not be more different.

And there you have it! Until next week, my pretties, I bid you adieu. Ciao!

Top 5 Sundays #17 - Eternal TBR Books!

So, this week's theme is those books you want to read, but you can't seem to get to. Let's be honest here; every reader has those books they are forever intending to read but, for one reason or another, always end up bumping back on the list in favour of something else. Maybe it's a matter of mood or of timing or of who-only-knows-what; whatever the case the book just keeps almost being read when something else comes along instead.

So, without further ado, here my Top 5 books that are forever almost going to be read. Enjoy!

#5 - Greywalker by Kat Richardson

Harper Blaine was slogging along as a small-time P.I. when a two-bit perp's savage assault left her dead. For two minutes, to be precise.

When Harper comes to in the hospital, she begins to feel a bit ...strange. She sees things that can only be described as weird-shapes emerging from a foggy grey mist, snarling teeth, creatures roaring.

But Harper's not crazy. Her "death" has made her a Greywalker-able to move between our world and the mysterious, cross-over zone where things that go bump in the night exist. And her new gift (or curse) is about to drag her into that world of vampires and ghosts, magic and witches, necromancers and sinister artifacts. Whether she likes it or not.

 I like the premise - the female PI with a magic bent is one of the tried-and-true traditions of the urban fantasy genre, just look at Kate Daniels, October Daye, Charley Davidson, Merry Gentry, and so on. Unfortunately, when it comes to this book, I've never gotten past the first chapter before something comes up, time passes, and before you know it I've picked up something else. 
 
 #4 - Sebastian by Anne Bishop

A world of shifting lands connected only by bridges, Ephemera has been kept stable by the magic of the Landscapers. In one land where night reigns and demons dwell, the half-incubus Sebastian revels in dark delights. But then in dreams she calls to him: a woman who wants only to be safe and loved-a woman he hungers for while knowing he may destroy her.

But a more devastating destiny awaits Sebastian, for in the quiet gardens of the Landscapers' school, evil is stirring. The nearly forgotten Eater of the World has escaped its prison-and Sebastian's realm may be the first to fall

I've read both of Anne Bishop's other series - The Black Jewels and Tir Alainn - and actually own this book but I've just never been in the mood to delve into this series. I have this absurd idea that if I read this series it will have some sort of significance, some sort of undefinable meaning attached to it. Logical it is not, I know, but there you have it.

#3 - Kitty and the Midnight Hour by Carrie Vaughn

Kitty Norville is a midnight-shift DJ for a Denver radio station - and a werewolf in the closet. Her new late-night advice show for the supernaturally disadvantaged is a raging success, but it's Kitty who can use some help. With one sexy werewolf-hunter and a few homicidal undead on her tail, Kitty may have bitten off more than she can chew?

I first caught wind of this series when my friend was reading it. Unfortunately, because I read faster than her, she immediately banned me from reading it, at least until she was quite a ways into it. Ten books later, I finally got the green light to have a party so now it's just a matter of working my way through my TBR pile to it...

#2 - Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison

All the creatures of the night gather in "the Hollows" of Cincinnati, to hide, to prowl, to party...and to feed.

Vampires rule the darkness in a predator-eat-predator world rife with dangers beyond imagining - and it's Rachel Morgan's job to keep that world civilized.

A bounty hunter and witch with serious sex appeal and an attitude, she'll bring 'em back alive, dead...or undead

This is one of those series that everyone and their aunt has read and so naturally I haven't. It has gotten a lot of hype - even had some original graphic novels - and even hermits living in Australian outback know who Rachel Morgan is...and I don't. My ignorance of this series is quickly getting to be a tad shameful...especially when the eleventh and final book is set to be released this coming January.

#1 - The Better Part of Darkness by Kelly Gay

Atlanta: it's the promised city for the off-worlders, foreigners from the alternate dimensions of heaven-like Elysia and hell-like Charbydon. Some bring good works and miracles. And some bring unimaginable evil....

Charlie Madigan is a divorced mother of one, and a kick-ass cop trained to take down the toughest human and off-world criminals. She's recently returned from the dead after a brutal attack, an unexplained revival that has left her plagued by ruthless nightmares and random outbursts of strength that make doing her job for Atlanta P.D.'s Integration Task Force even harder. Since the Revelation, the criminal element in Underground Atlanta has grown, leaving Charlie and her partner Hank to keep the chaos to a dull roar. But now an insidious new danger is descending on her city with terrifying speed, threatening innocent lives: a deadly, off-world narcotic known as ash. Charlie is determined to uncover the source of ash before it targets another victim -- but can she protect those she loves from a force more powerful than heaven and hell combined?

Single moms - heck, moms in general - are pretty rare among the urban fantasy heroines, marking this book right off as something original. Unfortunately, time has never seemed to be on this book's side and it just keeps sliding back on the TBR pile.

And there you have it - this week's Top 5! Until next week, adieu!