Like most people I know I have a big to read pile. Some of my to read books are very old. There is no particular reason why I haven’t read some of them. It just happens. Mood. Other recommendations that send a book higher on the pile, new acquisitions etc.
I remember picking up Garth Nix’s Sabriel. I had the trilogy for ages but hadn’t read it. And when I did, I was like…I could have read this and enjoyed this for years before now. I could have kicked myself. It was so good and I read all three books. I have Clariel too on the to read pile.
So for a while now friends have recommended Anne Bishop. Apparently she does dark and my Dragon Wine series is dark so just for research purposes I should have read at least one of her books. So after a recommend from the romance group lunch last Sunday I went into our house library and picked up a book I bought in 2005.
I met Anne Bishop when she was guest of honour at Thylacon in Tasmania in 2005. Rowena and Marianne were trying to get her to suck her coffee through a Tim Tam and I was like…real Aussies don’t do that. She was a quiet lady. I bought her book and she signed it for me.
Wow. 2005. I looked at the price on this book, Dreams Made Flesh, and saw that I paid $29.99 for it. Back in 2005 I had money to burn so often spent hundreds on books a time and on DVDs whatever. My how times have changed. My how the market has changed. These days people quibble about paying $2.99 or $4.99 for an ebook. There weren’t many ebooks back then. I don’t exactly quibble about prices but I am much more careful about what I spend. I have a limited income now so $29.99 seems like a lot of money to me.
I am about half way through Dreams Made Flesh and it’s really good. I like her style, her complex world building, I like the romance to balance the darker elements. I’m so intrigued about the story that precedes this one. Dreams Made Flesh picks up after the Black Jewels Trilogy.
Today I got paid some royalties for Dragon Wine books so reinvested them in the Black Jewels Trilogy. Tada! So not only am I reading a to be read book that’s been sitting there for twelve years, I’ve ordered more. Apologies to Anne Bishop for taking so long.
Donna Maree Hanson, Author, Phd in Creative Writing 
The Black Jewel Trilogy is great same as her other series “The Others”. Hope you enjoy them as much as I did.
I love the Black Jewels Trilogy! I’m not as fond of her later books–she just seems to write the same characters over and over.
Clariel is still sitting on my Mt TBR, too (along with a million other things).