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Books that kept me awake

Photo: Kostiantyn

There are some stories that pull you into the book, and remind you just how magic books like this can be. I was lucky enough to read two books like this recently.

First up is Margaret Rogerson’s Vespertine.

Vespertine cover

This is a story about a girl who is, literally, a saint.  Artemesia inherits a powerful relic which helps her in her fight against revenants.  Artemesia is a truly good person, but as Molly Templeton says over on the Tor site, being a saint isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Published October 2021 by Margaret K. McElderry Books.

The second book is Brian McClellan’s In the Shadow of Lightning.

Cover for In the Shadow of Lightning

This is the first in his new series and while I enjoyed the first Powder Mage books (I only read the first three), I love this one so much more.

It’s a story about a mage who works with glass, a former soldier, now drifter, who learns his mother has been murdered. He goes home to find out whodunnit, and to complete the task she was killed doing. Meantime, some of the bad guys use his mother’s murder as an excuse to raid the closest city-state. Note, this is a vastly understated summary of the plot. It’s a lot grander than that. There’s politics, battles, new discoveries and a unique magic system.

Even though it’s nothing like it, Sherlyn says it reminds her most of Brandon Sanderson’s Way of Kings in the feel and grandeur of the book and yes, it does a bit.

Published June 2022 by Tor Books.

These are the type of books you stay up until 4am on a worknight to finish reading.

5 replies on “Books that kept me awake”

I enjoyed Vespertine a few months ago. It reminded me a bit of the Penric and Desdemona stories by Lois McMaster Bujold.
Now I need to go download a sample of In the Shadow of Lightning….

Penric and Desdemona are the only Bujold books I buy (I wish they weren’t so short).

Fun fact, when our agent was trying to sell Linesman she used Bujold’s Vorkosigan series as comp books. I confess at the time I had started to read one of the Vorkosigan books and couldn’t stand Miles. I’ve mellowed a bit now, but I still prefer Lindsay Buroker’s Star Kingdom series, which to me has a very Vorkosigan feel.

Thank you for the book recommendations. I have started In the Shadow of Lightning and I am having a difficult time putting it down.

I have also enjoyed reading all your books, and I also reread them. This is the ultimate praise.

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