Some of my Favorite Books

I recently took part in a promotion project: Shepherd – explore * discover* read The best books that combine fantasy with “the past” (shepherd.com) . Here authors present one of their own books together with five of their favorite books that fit the subject or subgenre. A simply wonderful idea! I don’t know yet how many readers it will generate. With advertising and PR, you never really know beforehand, but the idea in itself is great.

Have a look at their list of best historical fiction books

It’s interesting to put yourself in the context of your own preferences; also in the context of what might have inspired you as an author. Context is ultimately networking. I sincerely hope that readers who have the same preferences as I do will also be inspired to become curious about my book.

Choosing five favorite books was not easy. My world is full of “favorite books”. At first, I had a huge list and then I reduced it bit by bit.

I could never have just one favorite book. One “favorite” – that concept is just not for me. I also don’t have a favorite song. Goodness me, do you know how much music was composed and written down from the Middle Ages to now? How can anyone just do with one favorite piece of music? Therefore I have no favorite composer either, nor a favorite color.

Favorite-whatever: This seems to me to imply that everything around you is running a competition and you can only have one winner. That narrows you down so much! I find the concept of “either / or” rather less intriguing than “as well as”. Mr Spock would call it “infinite diversity in infinite combinations”.

These wide-ranging preferences may correspond to my wide-ranging soul-or my wide-ranging interests. Nevertheless, I think I have made quite a good selection. In fact, it could also be five quite different itles to which I have also lost my ranging heart.

I promoted my very first novel in English “Obsidian Secrets” https://www.amazon.de/Obsidian-Secrets-English-Ju-Honisch-ebook/dp/B087HNF7V5/ with this action. The German version of this book won the German Fantasy Award at the time. That was more than 10 years ago. The English version, however, was only published during the Covid period, when I suddenly had time and became very aware of my, or rather all of our, mortality. Pandemics do things like that.

There were still these English manuscripts sitting on my computer and I thought: Now it’s time to let you loose on the world!

Here is the blurb again
This is the blurb for “Obsidian Secrets”

The year is 1865. The place: Munich, capital of the Kingdom of Bavaria. A magical manuscript has been stolen. Assisted by two young Bavarian officers and a wizard-scientist, British officer and secret agent Delacroix is sent to find it and return it to England. However, the promise of destructive power contained in the manuscript draws murderous creatures who plan to use the artefact to change reality into a gory vision defined according to their most heinous fantasies.
Miss Corrisande Jarrencourt, a young English lady with an unspeakable secret, has come to Munich to find a rich husband. Caught in the cross current of disasters, she has no choice but to face the worst dangers while being courted by members of the team, coveted by monsters from the abyss of madness, and hunted by a secret cultist order that has its original foundations in the Inquisition.
Her survival is at stake. But then, so is that of the entire world.