Baby, It’s Cold Outside: A Series of Series to Warm You Through the Winter

Ahhhh. The unrelenting heat and humidity of summer has passed. It’s finally time for sweaters and boots and hot chocolate and curling up in front of the fire with a good book. It’s also a great time to dig into a new (or new-to-you) series. If you’re looking for some amazing worlds and some richly drawn characters to warm you through the winter, then this is the list for you.

Wanna feel like you really accomplished something in this season of mayhem? Let’s start with three FINISHED—at least as far as I know—series.

Twelve Houses series by Sharon Shinn

•  Mystic and Rider
• The Thirteenth House
• Dark Moon Defender
• Reader and Raelynx
• Fortune and Fate

Sharon Shinn is perhaps most well known for her Samaria series—aka her angel books—and while I do very much enjoy those books, it’s Shinn’s Twelve Houses books that I heart the most.

This series is epic fantasy at its best. The worldbuilding is subtle yet thorough, the writing is compelling, and the characters are so richly drawn, you’ll feel like you’ve met some new friends. Each book also features a strong romance at its core. What’s not to love?

Legend of Beka Cooper series by Tamora Pierce

• Terrier
• Bloodhound
• Mastiff

Again, Tamora Pierce’s Song of the Lioness quartet is her calling card and where I think most readers start when digging into her backlog. It’s also a perfectly good place to begin if you’re a Pierce neophyte. However, the Beka Cooper books are a prequel to the Song of the Lioness series, and her other Tortall-based books, so, for you chronological readers, the Beka Cooper stories are where to start.

Beka Cooper joins the Tortall guard—becoming the fantasy version of Ye Olde Po-Po—and in her trilogy, must solve three complicated cases. These are Pierce’s darkest, grittiest books, and Beka skirts the line of antihero at times, but at the end of the day, she’s a good cop with a relentless hunger for truth and justice.

Also, while Pierce’s books are mostly Middle Grade and Young Adult, I would firmly place this series in the New Adult category. There’s sex and swearing and some dark themes that may not be appropriate for younger readers.

Septimus Heap series by Angie Sage

• Magyk
• The Darke Toad*
• Flyte
• Physik
• Queste
• Syren
• Darke
• Fyre

(* denotes novella)

Then again, maybe you’re looking for a series for the whole family. In that case, Sage’s Septimus Heap books are just the ticket.

This series follows the adventures of young Septimus Heap, the seventh son of a seventh son, who must learn how to control his magic and at the same time stop the return of DomDaniel, a Necromancer eager to take over the land. While some parts of this book might be a little overly intense for very young readers, these books are meant for kids between the ages of eight and thirteen. That said, there is plenty of awesome storytelling and wry humor for adults, too.

 

Now, for those of you who don’t mind a bit of uncertainty, here are two as yet UNFINISHED series that are worth the wait.

Expanse series by James S.A. Corey (psuedonym for Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck)

• The Butcher of Anderson Station*
• Leviathan Wakes
• Caliban’s War
• Gods of Risk*
• Abbadon’s Gate
• The Churn*
• Cibola Burn
• Nemesis Games
• The Vital Abyss*
• Babylon’s Ashes
• Strange Dogs*
• Persepolis Rising
• Tiamat’s Wrath (release date: 26 March 2019)

(* denotes novella)

I have already fangirled over these books several times on this site (here and here), so I won’t rehash my previous posts. I’ll simply say that these books are everything a space opera should be, with an epic scope to the storytelling that’s grounded by its wide variety of fascinating characters.

The ever-expanding world of Craig Schaefer

Are you ready for this list? Because it’s a biggun. Craig Schaefer is an independent author who started out as self-published before 47North (Amazon’s sf/fantasy) imprint came along to front at least one of his series. I say at least one because Schaefer writes several different urban fantasy series (and one more classic fantasy series), but they’re all set in the same world and the characters travel between the books willy-nilly. Thankfully, Schaefer has a very handy reading order on his site. Which I’ll bust out on you right here.

• The Long Way Down (Daniel Faust series, aka DF)
• The White Gold Score* (DF)
• Redemption Song (DF)
• The Living End (DF)
• A Plain-Dealing Villain (DF)
• The Killing Floor Blues (DF)
• Harmony Black (Harmony Black series, aka HB)
• Red Knight Falling (HB)
• Winter’s Reach (Revanche Cycle, aka RC)
• Instruments of Control (RC)
• Terms of Surrender (RC)
• Queen of the Night (RC)
• The Castle Doctrine (DF)
• Glass Predator (HB)
• Double or Nothing (DF)
• Cold Spectrum (HB)
• The Neon Boneyard (DF)
• Sworn to the Night (Wisdom’s Grave series, aka WG)
• Detonation Boulevard (WG)
• Bring the Fire (WG) (release date: sometime this November)
• Ghosts of Gotham (Lionel Page series) (release date: 9 April 2019)

(*denotes novella)

Because this massive, wonderful list of crossover insanity begins with the Daniel Faust series, I’ll confine my explanation to those books.

Our dear Daniel is a thief/magician whose magic is tied to playing cards. He mostly operates in Las Vegas. Despite his name, Faust has never made any pacts with the Dark Lord (possibly because no one has seen Old Nick in a very long time). Even so, trouble finds Faust with great regularity, as do Hell’s minions, but our dark hero has a set of personal codes and he’s determined to follow them.

If you like urban fantasy with a strong dash of hard-boiled detective thrown in, you’ll at least dig on Schaefer’s Daniel Faust series. However, I think you’ll find these books are a lot like Pringles: Once you pop, you can’t stop.

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There you go. A To Be Read list of about forty books and half a dozen novellas to keep your blood pumping and your toes toasty during this upcoming winter. Enjoy!