Author Archives: Barbara Howe

The Kingfisher’s Debt

Posted on 14 July 2019 by Barbara Howe

“Aunty Tamsin, was Billy my dad?” I stopped applying my lipstick and and angled the rear-view mirror. … With grey eyes and auburn hair framing her face, Gwyn looked like her mother. She hadn’t inherited the blonde hair and blue … Continue reading →

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Lutapolii: White Dragon of the South

Posted on 7 July 2019 by Barbara Howe

Winner of the 2019 Sir Julius Vogel award for Best Youth Novel, Lutapolii: White Dragon of the South by New Zealand author Deryn Pittar is a story of a young dragon’s efforts to escape the tyranny of his flight’s abusive … Continue reading →

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Abandoning Books

Posted on 30 June 2019 by Barbara Howe

For most of my life, I would plow through and finish every novel I started, even if it wasn’t very good and/or I wasn’t enjoying it. I’d feel guilty if I abandoned one partway through. Those guilty feelings were probably … Continue reading →

Posted in On Reading | 2 Comments

Restoration Day

Posted on 15 June 2019 by Barbara Howe

Restoration Day: the ritual that Arcelia’s monarch performs every fifty years to replenish the ties between the land and its people. Without that ritual, the magic sustaining Arcelia will die. With less than a month to go until Restoration Day, … Continue reading →

Posted in Noblebright Fantasy | 4 Comments

GeyserCon 2019

Posted on 7 June 2019 by Barbara Howe

I went to GeyserCon—New Zealand’s 40th National Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention—in Rotorua this past weekend, and came home with a bagful of new books to balance on top of my already teetering TBR piles. Now if I can just … Continue reading →

Posted in A Writer's Life | 2 Comments

Book Announcement: The Blacksmith

Posted on 29 May 2019 by Barbara Howe

How is the king like a blacksmith? He has a hammer as well as a sword. Duncan Archer has heard that riddle many times, but he doesn’t know what it means. No one does, not even the members of the … Continue reading →

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Weaveworld

Posted on 18 May 2019 by Barbara Howe

Have you heard of the Fugue? You may have caught glimpses in other stories of that alternate magical world overlapping our own. It is a fecund land filled with wonders and peopled by almost human creatures known as the Seerkind. … Continue reading →

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The 13 Clocks

Posted on 4 May 2019 by Barbara Howe

I have tales to make a hangman weep, and tales to bring a tear of sorrow to a monster’s eye. I have tales that would disturb a dragon’s sleep, and even make the Todal sigh. I don’t remember exactly when … Continue reading →

Posted in Children's Fiction | Leave a comment

Moonheart

Posted on 21 April 2019 by Barbara Howe

Of all the settings in all the thousands of books I’ve read, Tamson House in Ottawa, Canada is among the ones I’d most like to visit. That world-straddling residence is a significant presence in the urban fantasy Moonheart by Charles … Continue reading →

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Fallen Into the Pit

Posted on 6 April 2019 by Barbara Howe

Before there was Brother Cadfael, there was Inspector Felse. Ellis Peters is well known for her series of historical mysteries featuring the Welsh monk, Brother Cadfael. She began writing those in the late 1970s, but she honed her skills on … Continue reading →

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