Top Five Books by E.J. Russell – Guest Blog and Giveaway

Long and Short Reviews welcomes E.J. Russell who is celebrating the recent release of Nudging Faith.

A huge thank you to Long and Short Reviews for inviting me to stop by today to share my Top Five favorite books as part of the Nudging Fate blog tour! Nudging Fate is my first full-length novel with Dreamspinner, and it’s another of my “paranormal romantic comedies.” To celebrate the release, at the end of the tour I’ll be giving away a $20 Amazon gift card and an ebook copy of Cutie and the Beast (another paranormal romantic comedy) to one lucky commenter.

My top five favorite books of all time? How can I pick only five? Let’s call these a representative set of my favorite all-time books, okay?

Cotillion by Georgette Heyer

In truth, I’ve read all of Heyer’s Regency romances multiple times but I love this one in particular because for one thing, it’s funny (and I’m always up for the humor). Plus, it has my favorite all-time Heyer hero: the Honorable Frederick Standen. He’s nothing like any of her other heroes—he’s not handsome, his pantaloons aren’t “moulded to his powerful thighs,” he’s self-deprecating. Yet his worldly knowledge and social grace are exactly what the heroine needs—and because of that, he finally becomes a hero in his own eyes too.

Ishmael by Barbara Hambly

Ishmael, I should say right off the bat, is a Star Trek novel. TOS book #23, as a matter of fact. When it was first published (in 1985), Ms. Hambly only had her original Darwath trilogy and maybe one or two other high fantasy books released (all of which I loved). So when I found out that the newest book was a *cue the disdainful tone* Star Trek book, I was greatly disappointed. Now I was a TOS fan from the day of its premiere episode in September 1966, so it wasn’t Star Trek per se that I objected to. But I wanted more of her high fantasy! How could she do this to me?

Nevertheless, I bought the book…and holy crap.

Ms. Hambly is about three years older than I am, so our popular culture frames of reference are nearly identical. She probably watched that first TOS episode as a freshman in high school while I watched it at the dawn of sixth grade. Around the same time period, another series was airing—Here Come the Brides, set in post-Civil War Seattle when it was a lumber boom town. Clearly she had her favorite characters in both shows—and she wrote a book to make them related to each other!
(As a nerdy side note: the actor who played Aaron Stemple in HCtB was Mark Lenard, the same man who played Sarek, Spock’s father, in TOS.)

Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones

I’m a huge Diana Wynne Jones fan. Charmed Life was the first of her books that I read—I think I was twenty-three when I checked it out of the children’s section of the local library. (I actually remember what I was wearing that day, as if my subconscious held onto it because it knew how momentous an occasion it was!)

Nearly all of Ms. Jones’s books present initially as fantasy. But then, at some point, they intersect the “real” world. I’ve always loved the notion of a magical world existing alongside our own—indeed, right under our noses—which may be why I’ve chosen to write so much paranormal romance that skews toward urban fantasy!

After I read this, I was on constant lookout for more of Ms. Jones’s books—at the time, she published about one per year. In the late seventies, when I was working at a bookstore, I used to special order them as soon as they showed up in Books in Print. With the advent of Amazon, I one-clicked like a fiend. I have nearly all of her books in hardcover editions.

Sadly, there’ll be no more. Ms. Jones passed in 2011.

War for the Oaks by Emma Bull

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Faerie + rock and roll in Minneapolis. I mean, who could resist?

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling

I adore the way Rowling seeded important plot points and references alllll the way through the seven Potter books. This one, though, is still my favorite. It’s the first place where some of those earlier seeds pay off (Hagrid mentions Sirius the first time he appears in book one, for instance), Lupin and Sirius are two of my favorite series characters, and it’s the last book before things start to plunge ever further into death and untold destruction.

So there you have my top five. What about you? What’s one of your multi-rereads?

Not exactly a match made in Valhalla.
Half-norn event planner Anders Skuldsson is under strict orders from Asgard not to meddle with Fate. But with Enchanted Occasions’ latest booking—a competition for the hand of Faerie’s one true prince—crashing around his ears, it’s really difficult to toe that particular line. But if Andy pretends to be a contender for the prince…. It’s only temporary, so Odin can’t blame him. Right?

Conall of Odstone’s half-brother, Prince Reyner, was supposed to choose a mate before being crowned and wed. But the idiot left Con to impersonate him. Again.

When Con meets Andy, his anger turns to desire… and despair. Even if Andy forgives him for his imposture, how could someone eligible for a prince’s hand settle for the court outcast? And the double-deception isn’t their only obstacle. Unless Andy makes the right choice, their fates could be sealed by…well… Fate.

About the Author:E.J. Russell–grace, mother of three, recovering actor–writes romance in a rainbow of flavors. Count on high snark, low angst and happy endings.

Reality? Eh, not so much.

She’s married to Curmudgeonly Husband, a man who cares even less about sports than she does. Luckily, C.H. also loves to cook, or all three of their children (Lovely Daughter and Darling Sons A and B) would have survived on nothing but Cheerios, beef jerky, and Satsuma mandarins (the extent of E.J.’s culinary skill set).

E.J. lives in rural Oregon, enjoys visits from her wonderful adult children, and indulges in good books, red wine, and the occasional hyperbole.

Buy the book at Amazon, Books2Read, or Dreamspinner.