Today is release day for the debut novel of writer Mary Robinette Kowal.   Shades of Milk and Honey (Tor, 2010) is touted as being the novel Jane Austen would have written if she wrote fantasy.  It’s an interesting comparison that I can’t really comment on because (my bad) I have never read any Jane Austen.
Mary is one of those people. She’s multi-talented, she’s impossible not to like, and she’s a damn good writer. Mary was a classmate of mine at Orson Scott Card’s Literary Boot Camp back in 2005. She has come a long way in a short time, but then, her writing never really needed all that much work. Known for her short fiction, Mary won the Campbell Award for best new writer in 2008.
If you read fantasy and science fiction and have never read anything by Mary, do yourself a favor and visit her free online fiction page. Then, go buy her book.