The Crossroads of the East Saga of the Jewels

Dear reader,
The big fantasy book news from the last month all has to do with the annual Hugo Awards. Last year they happened in China, but some emails were recently leaked showing that the nominations were influenced by consideration of the ideology of the host nation. Controversial!
News to me also is that ‘romantasy’ (romance combined with fantasy) is now being discussed as a genre in its own right. Your romantasy exemplar authors would be Sarah J. Mass and Rebecca Yarros. SAGA OF THE JEWELS does have some (albeit very slow-burn) elements of romance in it, so I am wondering if I can cheekily piggyback on this label myself…
What I’ve been reading
One of the books I’ve read since my last newsletter is COLD IRON, the first fantasy by historical novelist Miles (Christian) Cameron. It was fun, with fantastic worldbuilding, if a bit ‘male’ and thinly sketched, for me. My slightly longer review here.
What Jo’s been reading
Some of the books that Jo’s read since I last wrote are the rest of the ensemble-cast multi-POV steampunk noblebright KETTY JAY series by Chris Wooding. She had already read RETRIBUTION FALLS and THE BLACK LUNHG CAPTAIN and she went and finished THE IRON JACKAL and THE ACE OF SKULLS. I have read these too and agree with her that they are absolutely awesome: fun, full of heart, meticulously clever plotting, vibrant three-dimensional characters, humour, emotion, and a hopeful core. This newsletter sometimes becomes the Chris Wooding Appreciation Society newsletter, but I’m ok with that… Recommended!
In other news…
Jo had her first book traditionally published! And by Bloomsbury, no less! This is her Cambridge (UK) Theology PhD thesis, now published as a hardback and an ebook. She wrote it while simultaneously training to be and then working as an Anglican vicar (that’s ‘cleric’ for you fantasy fans) and putting up with an unstable husband, and in the course of writing it had two bouts of hyperemesis gravidarum and gave birth to two children! She then passed her viva voce exam for it with no corrections!
If you don’t know, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a 20th-century German theologian who was imprisoned and executed by the Nazis for his involvement in a plot to assassinate Hitler. ‘Polyphony’ is a musical term to do with multiple mutually complementary melodies in a piece of music and a ‘pneumatology’ is a conceptual system for talking about the Holy Spirit, the third person in God, in Christianity.
If that doesn’t convince you to buy this book (or at least ask your local academic institution to buy it), then nothing will I don’t know what will! An absolute steal currently on sale for £76.50 in hardback or £61.50 for the ebook!
That’s all for this month, though as ever do check out the indie fantasy book sale of the month and this month’s SAGA OF THE JEWELS episode below or on the podcast.
TTFN,
Faenon / Luke
Your indie fantasy FREE ARC book promotion for this month:
Click here or the picture below \/
Now, on with the Saga…
Need to catch up? The WHOLE of Book One (Episodes 1 to 21) is available bundled together as a FREE AUDIOBOOK here.
Previously on Saga of the Jewels…
The life of seventeen-year-old RYN, bookish son of a wealthy landowner, changes forever when his hometown is destroyed by the EMPIRE and everyone he has ever known is killed. Ryn discovers that the Empire are seeking TWELVE PRIMEVAL JEWELS which grant the power to manipulate different elements, and that his father had been hiding the FIRE RUBY. He sets out to take revenge on the Imperial General who killed his family and retrieve the Fire Ruby, and along the way meets NUTHEA the lightning-slinging princess, SAGAR the swaggering skypirate, ELRANN the tomboy engineer, CID the wizened old healer, and VISH the poppy-seed-addicted bounty hunter. Together the adventurers decide to find all of the Jewels in order to stop the EMPEROR from finding them first and taking over the world. They have thus far su