Occasionally, I get lucky. I follow Baen on Facebook and always enter their monthly contests for newly released books. I’ve been looking forward to reading Noir Fatale ever since it was announced. Winning a copy made my week!

There is just something visceral about reading noir. I can hear heels tapping and distant music, I can smell/taste the steaming  city alleys on a muggy summer night. I find myself craving hot tea and hard liquor while dressed in full pin-up style. Noir as a genre combines my love of mystery, crime, and history. There are hard-bitten men, dangerous situations, and then there are the women…

The Femme Fatales, those lovely ladies that seduce and distract all who encounter them and bend men to their wills. Oh gods, I love them. Noir Fatale focuses on these women, their stories, their exploits. All while exploring the extremes of fantasy and science fiction landscapes. This anthology holds 13 stories, written by 14 authors. Those authors are Larry Correia, Kacey Ezell, Laurell K. Hamilton, David Weber, Sarah A. Hoyt, Robert Buettner, Alistair Kimble, Griffin Barber, Michael Massa, Hinkley Correia, Patrick Tracy, Steve Diamond, Christopher L. Smith, and Michael Ferguson.

Anthologies can be fun, because of their nature, being made of short stories; you can choose how to read them. I admit to being gluttonous and reading all of it within a day! I explored catacombs, moon tunnels, seedy city streets and space stations all while being sat upon by my trusty feline divas.

I can honestly say that there isn’t a single story that I didn’t like! I found new stories by authors I already knew, fleshing out their universes. There are new authors( or at least, new to me), whose works I will be sure to look up!  From Madam Sunderhaven, the near-immortal necromancer, to the canny and sly Nina LaFleur, to the dangerous naiveté of Isis Lavender; these femmes strut  fully formed from the pages unto the theater of your mind.

• Title: Noir Fatale
• Author/Editor: Larry Correia and Kacy Ezell
• Publisher: Baen Books
• Released: May 7th, 2019
• Language: English
• Pages: 312

About the Editors:

Larry Correia is the creator of the Wall Street Journal and New York Times best-selling Monster Hunter series, with first entry Monster Hunter International, as well as urban fantasy hardboiled adventure saga the Grimnoir Chronicles, with first entry Hard Magic, and epic fantasy series The Saga of the Forgotten Warrior, with first entry Son of the Black Sword and latest entry, House of Assassins. He is an avid gun user and advocate and shot on a competitive level for many years. Before becoming a full-time writer, he was a military contract accountant, and a small business accountant and manager. Correia lives in Utah with his wife and family.

Kacey Ezell is an active duty USAF helicopter pilot who also writes sci-fi/fantasy/alt history/horror fiction. Her first novel was a Dragon Award finalist in 2018, and her stories have been featured in Baen’s Year’s Best Military and Adventure Science Fiction compilation in 2017 and 2018. In 2018, her story “Family Over Blood” won the 2018 Year’s Best Military and Adventure Science Fiction Reader’s Choice Award.  She writes for Baen and Chris Kennedy Publishing.

Kacey Exell : Website

Larry Correia: Website 

Baen Books: Website / Facebook

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