Book Tour: Harbinger by Philipa Ballantine

Harbinger

Harbinger
Book of the Order, Book 4
Philippa Ballantine

Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Ace

Date of Publication: July 30, 2013

Number of pages: 320

Cover Artist: Jason Chan

Available at the following retailers:
Amazon     B&N     Kobo     OmniLit

The Deacons of the Order are all that stand between the wicked spirits of the Otherside and the innocent citizens of the Empire. They are sworn to protect humanity, even when they cannot protect themselves…

After the Razing of the Order, Sorcha Faris, one of the most powerful Deacons, is struggling to regain control of the runes she once wielded. The Deacons are needed more desperately than ever. The barrier between the world of the living and the world of the dead is weakening, and the Emperor has abandoned his throne, seeking to destroy those he feels have betrayed him.

Though she is haunted by the terrible truth of her past, Sorcha must lead the charge against the gathering hordes of geists seeking to cross into the Empire. But to do so, she will need to manipulate powers beyond her understanding—powers that may prove to be her undoing…

Book Tour Info: 
Don't forget to check out the other stops on the Book Tour:

July 16:
Cabin Goddess - Interview
Coffee and Characters

July 17:
Marsha A Moore - Interview
Sapphyria's Book Reviews

July 18:
Laurie's Paranormal Thoughts and Reviews - Interview
My Paranormal Book Review

July 19:
Romance on a Budget - Guest Blog
Beverly @ The Wormhole

July 22:
Fangs, Wands & Fairy Dust - Guest Blog

July 23:
Urban Fantasy Investigations - Guest Blog
Mythical Books

July 24:
Tynga's Reviews - Guest Blog
Musings of Mistress of the Dark Path

July 25:
Preternatura - Guest Blog
Urban Girl Reader - Interview

July 26:
Buffy's Ramblings - Guest Blog

July 29:
Simply Infatuated - Interview
Musings and Ramblings

July 30:
Dangerous Romance - Guest Blog
happy tails and tales


Author Bio:

Born in Wellington, New Zealand, Philippa has always had her head in a book. For this she blames her father who thought Lord of the Rings was suitable bedtime reading for an eight year old. At the age of thirteen she began writing fantasy stories for herself.

She first earned a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Political Science and then a Bachelor of Applied Science in Library and Information Science. So soon enough she found herself working in the magical world of libraries where she stayed for over a decade.

Her first professional sale was in 1997, and since then she has gone on to produce mostly novel length fiction. In 2006 she became New Zealand’s first podcast novelist, and she has voiced and produced Weaver’s Web, Chasing the Bard, Weather Child and Digital Magic as podiobooks. Her podcasts have won both a Parsec Award and a Sir Julius Vogel award.

Philippa is the author of the Books of the Order series with Ace- Geist, Spectyr, Wrayth and Harbinger coming in July 2013.

She is also the co-author of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences series with Tee Morris. Phoenix Rising debuted in May 2011 and The Janus Affair came out in May 2012. Phoenix Rising won the Airship Award for best written steampunk, and was the number eight best Science Fiction book of 2011 according to Goodreads.com. The Janus Affair was the seventh most popular science fiction book of 2012 on Goodreads.com. The series continues with Dawn’s Early Light in December 2013.

In addition she is also the author of the Shifted World series with Pyr Books, with the first book Hunter and Fox released in June 2012, and the second Kindred and Wings scheduled for August 2013.

When not writing or podcasting, Philippa loves reading, gardening, and whenever possible traveling. With her husband Tee and her daughter, she is looked after by a mighty clowder of five cats in Manassas, Virginia.

To connect with the author online:

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

Review: Geist by Philippa Ballantine

I actually won this book (plus 5 others) in the Mistletoe Madness Blog Hop.  This was an author I had not heard of before and the reason I entered Ms. Ballantine's blog stop was, "Hey, a chance to win Free Books!"  Who in their right mind would turn that down? I got a 6 great books and some cool swag.  Here is a picture, directly from the blog stop of what I won.   

Geist has a very nice Nalini Singh cover blurb for it: "One of the most vivdly orignial books I've read this year."  Since I have been enamored of her Psy/Changling series since my sister forced nagged urged me to read to read the first one, I decided to give it a try.  Super glad I did. 

This book reminded me of some classic fantasy authors that I have read, like Barbara Hambly, Terry Brooks or Jennifer Roberson.  The world building is massive, the characters authentic and original.  It is in worlds like these that women are regularly the hero, the one who saves the day and the no one thinks it odd or unlikely that the female lead can be the leader of the group or save the men from the big bad.  That is probably one of the reasons I like the genre so much.  In fantasy novels, women can be as hard core as the guys, and no one gets all shocked and "gee, look at the little lady with penis envy."  

We are introduced to Sorchas Faris, who is an Active of the Order of the Deacons.  She has an amazingly strong power, but has been held back because of control issues.  Within the first chapter we see her battling both a geist (ghost type creature) to save both her husband and the local people.  Koyla is a Sensitive of the Order and her partner.  We find in every partnership of Active and Sensitive, there is a Bond that lets the two of them work together to battle the Unliving.  Sorcha and Koyla, took their partnership to the next level and were married.  But there is a strain in both the marriage and Order partnership.  When he is injured in the battle with the Unliving, she is assigned a new partner, fresh out of training and sent on a journey to stop an outbreak of Unliving at one of the outposts.  

The story moved quickly and changed viewpoints between the 3 major characters in this book.  Sorcha, Merrick, her new partner and Raed Rossin, a pirate and Pretender to the throne.  Raed carries a curse due to his bloodline and consequences of his family's actions before he was even born.  We meet each individual character separately and the change of view point is a nice way to keep the action moving and allow us to get a feel for them separately before each one meets and starts traveling together.  

I liked this book, it was a new and original world.  I look forward to reading the second book.  I gave it 3 stars on Goodreads for the simple fact that it was very complex, and I felt like I almost needed a notebook to keep some of the names straight in my head and I had to keep flipping back to figure who was who on occasion.