Woo Hoo! I won a book in an online contest!

One of my favorite blogs is "Pat's Fantasy Hotlist" that covers, you guessed it, all the fantasy book news (and some sci-fi) that's fit to print. Tons of great reviews as well. This guy is a reading machine. Anyway, from time to time, he holds contests to win books that he is given by publishers. I've been entering the contests for the books I've been interested in for a few months now, and today, it finally bore fruit.The book I'm winning is called "Bloodheir", which is the sequel to "Winterbirth".

This is a new fantasy series by a new author, Brian Ruckley, that's been given loads of praise. The books and world-building are being compared to George R.R. Martin, which is heady praise indeed. Of course, everything is compared with Martin nowadays, as it has become the defacto standard for modern fantasy. If he'd only write a little faster, I'd feel a bit more confident in that declaration. The longer he takes to write each book, the less confidence his fans have that he will actually complete the "Song of Ice and Fire" series (he's writing book five of seven right now). Anyway, that's a digression for another day.

I've been looking forward to reading "Winterbirth", and now winning "Bloodheir" with this generous contest, I'm even more excited about tackling this series.

Yay me.