Unexpected Windfall

[Tempest_Gypsy]

I love being the type of person people give book store gift certificates to for things like graduation.
I've got $50 to spend at B&N!!! What's everyones current top suggestions? I don't do straight mysteries, that's about it.

[Bonnie]

I'm SOOO jealous!!

I just spent thirty dollars buying the two most recent books from CJ Cherryh....her "Foreigner" series....It's true scifi! But then, I'm a scifi fantasy nut...

I do recommend the Anita Blake series...

[vanessa]

I do recommend the Anita Blake series...

ohh.... I second that!!! HOWEVER!!!! you must read the earlier books first otherwise you'll just think it's vampire, were-wolf, were-leopard orgy all over the place! :)

Of course, if your HP-5 is not pre-ordered, that is a definite!

I, too, don't really like mysteries, but I love the Alphabet mysteries Sue Grafton.... very cleverly written and the books are really more about character developement overall instead of the actual mystery....

Then there's Tony Hillerman.... another for mostly character development... I just finished reading "Sinister Pig", his latest, and I love it! :)

Being a geek, there's also about a dozen or so techie books out there that i'd recommend as well! *hehe*

Have fun @ the bookstore!!!!

[Wicked]

If you havent read Diana Gabeldon's Outlander series. Thats a must and I second the HP-5.

['Nise]

Lois McMaster-Bujold starting with Cordellia's Honor.

Warning these books are addictive. They are science fiction but not a "Hard Science Fiction," Much more about characters then science. Cordelia would make a wonderful wench!
They are re releseing some of lois's earlier books as hardback combilations of her paperbacks.
Love
'Nise
Proud follower of the Vorkosigan way.

[Bonnie]

OOOOH!!

Bouncing up and down and seconding the Outlander suggestion!!!!!!!!!!


Jamie! Claire! Scotland! Midnight raids! ghosts and witches and did I mention Jamie???

[Tempest_Gypsy]

Thanks, ladies! Very helpful suggestions! I already have Harry Potter five on preorder, so that's not necesary. But, I've had other people suggest Anita Blake and some of you talk so much about the Outlander series that I think I'll pick up a few of those too.

And I do actualluy have something by Cherryh, but I haven't read it yet. Part of the hundred or so book my mom gave me over chirstmas from her library. Cyteen is the title? Any good?

Oooo, I'm really excited thinking about how many paperbacks I can get with $50, even with shipping!

[Bonnie]

Cyteen is good.

My favorites from Cherryh, though, have always been the Faded Sun Trilogy: Kesrith, Shon'jir, and Kutath.

Foreigner series is really good, too, as I've already said. Also, if you find you like her style, pick up 40,000 in Gehenna. WOW. One of my all time favs...a little easier a read than Cyteen.

[vanessa]

Oooo, I'm really excited thinking about how many paperbacks I can get with $50, even with shipping!

Barnes & Noble often has free shipping if you hit a certain $$ amount... :)

[Morte]

Kushiel's Dart!!!!
if you havemn't rea dit.. i can't remember who has and hasn't

if you like a romance/mystery i just finished Nora Robert's Three Fates recently (i wait for paperback) and it was amusing and endearing her Midnight Bayou is pretty dern good too..

i also reccomend Bujold EXCELLENT addictive stuff!

oh oh! and John Ringo! A Hymn Before Battle and its follow-ups

annnnnd David Weber's Honor Harrington boosk startign with On basilisk Station (which you can check out for free at the baen free library if you're feeling wishy-washy www.baen.com )

Actually the free library is a GREAT place to go when looking for books b/c you can read entire books.. you can also read substantial chunks of various books on the baen site.. i never would have read Honor Harrington without it and now it's one of my all time fave series!

mmmm books! i wodner if i'll get any gift certs for my bday!

books books books books booooooks!

[Tempest_Gypsy]

Okay! I spent my fifty bucks and got nine books! Am I a hell of a book shopper, or what?

Here's what I got.

The Dragonbone Chair and Stone of Farewell by Tad Willaims (since I already have the third in the series)

The Forever King by Molly Cochran and Warren Murphy as I again, have a later book in the series.

The Silver Metal Lover by Tannith Lee. No idea what it's about, but it was a dollar and I like her writing.

The Lark and the Wren and The Robin and the Kestrel by Mercedes Lacky. Read these forever ago and loved them.

Guilty Pleasures and Caress of Twilight by Laurel K. Hamilton

and

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

I'm gonna be soooooooo busy!!!! :)

[Bonnie]

I don't know the others, but the Hamilton books you'll like, and Outlander is the BOMB!!

Caveat about the Anita Blake series...

She starts off a little shaky in the first two books....it felt almost tentative to me....but it picks up steam, the characters really discover themselves and it gallops along into a very fine series...I have all her books right now.

[Ysobelle]

Oh, G-d. "Silver Metal Lover" is WONDERFUL.

I just read her "Vivia" last week, and I have to say, there really are two Tanith Lees. "Silver Metal Lover" and, say, "Biting The Sun" have their share of sadness and strife, but they're glorious reads. "White as Snow" and "Vivia," on the other hand, are dark almost to the point of horror-- lood and sex and death. Within the first 70 pages of "Vivia," for example, everyone BUT Vivia herself dies. Pretty horribly, too.

Some of her work is classed as "teen"-appropriate. I'm a bit past that, but I do think I like it more.

Her Unicorn series is wonderful, too.