The Leaning Pile of Books is a feature where I discuss books I got over the last week—old or new, bought or received in the mail for review consideration (often these are unsolicited books from publishers). Since I hope you will find new books you’re interested in reading in these posts, I try to be as informative as possible. If I can find them, links to excerpts, author’s websites, and places where you can find more information on the book […]

Today I have an exclusive excerpt from Perilous Prophecy by Leanna Renee Hieber to share with you! This prequel to Strangely Beautiful, a Prism Award winner for Best Fantasy Novel as The Perilous Prophecy of Guard and Goddess, is being re-released in a new, revised trade paperback/ebook edition on June 20. ABOUT PERILOUS PROPHECY Cairo in the 1860s is a bustling metropolis where people from all walks of life mix and mingle, mostly in complex harmony. When evil ghosts and unquiet spirits stalk the […]

Today I am delighted to welcome Leanna Renee Hieber! Her lovely debut novel, The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker, won two Prism Awards: one for Fantasy Romance and one for Best First Book. This book and its sequel, The Darkly Luminous Fight for Persephone Parker, were re-released in one volume titled Strangely Beautiful last year (with some new edits and scenes!), and the Prism-Award-winning prequel, The Perilous Prophecy of Guard and Goddess, is being re-released as Perilous Prophecy in June 2017. Her […]

Today I’m delighted to welcome Leanna Renee Hieber! Her debut novel, the enjoyable Prism-Award-winning The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker, was recently reissued as Strangely Beautiful, a single volume containing revised editions of the first two novels in this saga. She is also the author of the Magic Most Foul trilogy beginning with Darker Still, and the second book in her Eterna Files series, Eterna and Omega, was just released earlier this month. Penny Dreadful’s Betrayal and the Complexity of Feminism in […]

This is the first of two posts on books from Book Expo America (BEA).  Instead of doing one post, I decided to split it into two with one focused on young adult (or in the case of the last book, middle grade – Amazon says it’s young adult but the ARC and Tor catalog both say middle grade so I’m trusting those instead).  The other post will be on books that fall into the adult fantasy, science fiction, and horror […]

The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parkerby Leanna Renee Hieber324pp (Paperback)My Rating: 7.5/10Amazon Rating: 4/5LibraryThing Rating: 3.17/5Goodreads Rating: 4.12/5 The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker is the first book in The Strangely Beautiful series by Leanna Renee Hieber, whose novella Dark Nest won the 2009 Prism Award. The series will be four books long, but if it does well, there may be a fifth book focusing on the character Lord Elijah Withersby. This particular novel is a […]