Land of the Beautiful Dead by R. Lee Smith

These books aren't for everyone but they're filled with fabulous world-building, heartbreak, flawed characters, adventure, and romance. You feel so much more invested and the story stays with you because you've been with the characters so long. But when a long story is well-written, there's an epic factor to the story that I so enjoy. The story stays interesting throughout, but it's over 700 pages so you're signing up for a long story.Īnd I'm always short on reading time and have a huge TBR pile, so a big book takes a commitment from me. If you don't have patience for long books, this won't be for you. All I can say is that there IS a romance and an epic one at that. This one is a mix of romance and horror and dystopian and a little science fiction? I never know how to label these books, lol. So when I saw that Smith had a new book out and people were talking it up again, I knew I had to pick it up. Turned out to be one of my favorite reads that year. But then the buzz was too much to ignore and I picked it up. I remember someone talking about the alien lizard hero in The Last Hour of Gann and I was like-uh, no. The heroes tend to be non-human and grotesque-which sounds bizarre, I know. Lee Smith before, you know the books are GIANT and cross all kinds of genres. But I got the chance on a recent trip to read a big one. I was in the throes of deadline hell finishing my book, so time for reading has been slim. It's been a while since I've done a Friday Read.

Land of the Beautiful Dead by R. Lee Smith