Familiar Diversions

A continuation of this post.

Earlier this week, Samhain publishing had a 40% off all e-books sale on their site, which I used to fill in a lot of my series and backlist gaps. These are all part of series/author backlists I've either tried and enjoyed or that I suspect I'll enjoy:

Not everything I bought during the Samhain sale was designed to fill in collection gaps, however:

Torque - Charley Descoteaux - I suspect I'm going to hate this one, but I'm giving it a shot anyway. I bought it as part of my "read stuff with prominent asexual characters" project. Reviews indicate that it's probably going to have a ton of sex in it, however. I'm happy about seeing more and more works with prominent asexual characters, but I'm less and less happy with the patterns I've been seeing in how they're portrayed. I really hope I'm wrong about this one.

The Curse of the Brimstone Contract (The Steampunk Detectives) - Corrina Lawson - I came across a review that referred to the main male character as being Sherlock Holmes-like.

Amber Quill also announced that it was shutting down, so I filled in some more backlist gaps.

The Pirate's Secret Baby - Darlene Marshall - Okay, so Amber Quill's covers generally didn't impress me, and this one is particularly bad. If that model was going for a smoldering look, he failed.

Smuggler's Bride - Darlene Marshall - Cover art aside, I loved Darlene Marshall's Sea Change and hope I'll enjoy her other romances just as much.

Alexey Dyed in Red - A.M. Valenza - I did my Amber Quill purchases via All Romance Ebooks, which has a buy-10-get-1-free loyalty program. My Darlene Marshall purchases earned me a freebie. I usually use my freebie codes on something really expensive (for example, a Bold Strokes Books e-book). This time around, I didn't have any expensive e-books I particularly wanted to buy, so I got this one, which I kind of wanted to read but was reluctant to pay for. Like Torque, it's part of my "asexual characters" project. I haven't had much luck with the publisher, Less Than Three Press, so I'm going to try to keep my expectations low. The reviews I read at least made this sound interesting, although the description of the asexual main character as being kind of childlike set off alarm bells in my head. Here's hoping the cover art isn't the best thing about it.

And here's the stuff I forgot to post about last week:

Durarara!!, Vol. 1 - Ryohgo Narita,ヤスダ スズヒト,Stephen Paul - This one's a novel. I'm interested to see how well I like it, because this franchise has been pretty hit or miss for me. I like some aspects of it, but on the whole tend to enjoy the fandom-produced stuff more.

Doodle Artist - Fanciful Rats: A colouring book for grown ups - Annette Rand - I have my rat coloring book! But I forgot to order colored pencils! Even so, I love it.

The Ancient Magus' Bride Vol 1 - Kore Yamazaki - Okay, so that artwork inside the volume wasn't quite what I expected. Maybe a little more awkward than the cover art? I've heard mixed things about this series, so I suppose I'll see how well it works for me.

妖狐×僕SS [Inu x Boku SS] 10 - Cocoa Fujiwara - I somehow got it into my head that this was the last volume in the series. It's not - there's one more to go. But I flipped through it and it's lovely.

Horimiya, Vol. 2 - HERO - I hope that the second volume is at least as charming as the first.

The Complete Elfquest Volume 2 - Wendy Pini - I have enough Elfquest books (graphic novels, short story anthologies, artbooks, etc.) to be able to do an Elfquest-themed month. However, I know my attention span, and I doubt I'd be able to keep the theme going for very long.