Books like Gun Runner — picked by fans

What I found unique about Deal with the Devil was that it was written by two authors who specialize in writing steamy romance books, who, together, go by the pen name Kit Rocha. Genetically and cybernetically enhanced humans has always been one of my favorite sci-fi concepts. This book has two teams of enhanced humans. There is Nina and her all-female crew, who are the book’s main characters, and there is Knox and his all-male crew. I enjoyed learning about the different abilities and troubled pasts of these characters. And with the setting being in a dystopian environment, another concept I enjoy, coupled with the book having all the spiciness and sensuality you'd usually find in an urban fantasy novel, this sci-fi story was intriguing. I believe it will be a winner for adult male and female readers.

I love this book because it marries the brutality of military sci-fi with epic fantasy in a colossally satisfying fashion. It has dark gods, blood magic, and the grueling rigors of military training. And Ikenna, the main character, takes no crap from anyone, no matter how powerful. You can’t help but to root for her!

I have always loved the idea of exo-suits. As a kid, I watched the animated series Exosquad, I am a fan of Iron Man, I have watched exo-suit anime like Bubblegum Crisis, etc. So I was drawn to E-Day, a book involving warfare with the use of exo-suits. The action and the plot twists sucked me in and left me wanting to purchase the next book.

I love giant robots, being a fan of the Battle Tech and Gundam franchises, and Hard Reboot is a book involving giant-robot arena fights, so that alone inspired me to check it out. Good worldbuilding is important for any fiction book. And with this book being a novella, I was impressed with how much worldbuilding was done within 150 pages or so. The world within Hard Reboot has its own unique terms, technology, and environments, which made me want to learn more about this world as I read through each page. I also found the two main characters intriguing, two young women from different backgrounds. The evolution of their relationship from frenemies to significant others was totally fun to read. If you like giant-robot battles, pick this book up.

This story is decidedly YA, but I like to sneak them in on occasion! There is something sweet and powerful in a coming-of-age, young adult fantasy that I find hard to ignore.

And this one has it all: two unlikely friends who must find a way to work together to save their world, surprising twists and turns, and a rich, vivid world that feels completely real. It reminds me a bit of what I loved about Narnia in a new take.

The Mayson boys. Need I say more? The Mayson boys are known in their local town, especially with the ladies. But there is something else known within the family alone. The Boom.

Aurora Rose has made “Love At First Sight” hot and sexy. Not to mention the meet-cutes are not always pleasant, but the persistent aftermath are quite funny and swoonworthy. There is nothing sexier than a partner who knows what they want. No games. No ploys. These are fast reads and tie together. I recommend reading them in order but they can all be read as a stand-alone. Until November is the first in the series. November has a troubled relationship with her mother and leaves to start over in a small town in Tennessee with her father.

Along the way, she runs into some trouble but manages to pick up a massive stray dog and make it home… show more.

It takes real historic breadth to write a comprehensive history of the nineteenth century and only a historian of the quality of Evans could pull it off so convincingly. Like his mentor Eric Hobsbawm—but unencumbered by the Marxian straight-jacket—Evans masterfully draws the links not only between decades and between countries and continents but also between the social, the economic, and the political. His book is no demographic history, but it takes demography seriously. This really matters in a century in which the Malthusian bonds were broken for some of humanity, not all of it, making it a period of European global supremacy underpinned by demographic takeoff, the effects of which we are still feeling.

As the first in his series of novels on the 1930s in Europe, Alan Furst's Night Soldier tends to earn the most critical praise, but Dark Star remains my personal favorite. Furst masters the noir ambiance and moral ambiguity of Europe as war approaches, where everyday people are drawn into the world of espionage and intrigue. His settings often lie outside the main urban centers of Paris and Berlin in the remote reaches of Eastern Europe. Furst's novels are impeccably researched for accurate detail-one of my must-haves in historical fiction-and each book will draw you to read the next in his series.

Any time you pick up a book with Illuminated Manuscript anywhere in the title, you know you’re in for a visual feast. If you’re just starting out with this unique medieval art form, this book is an excellent introduction. It’s not too long, so it won’t overwhelm you. This book provided the foundation for my first steps into researching medieval illumination for my historical romantic novel. What is illumination? Why were books illuminated and what types of books were considered worthy of illumination? Who were some of the most famous medieval illuminators? (Perhaps my heroine’s father had studied with one.) What kind of patrons might my heroine have encountered in her father’s workshop?

This book ignited my imagination while helping me discover the best answers for my story. (NOTE: So much of this art has been digitized that most of the B&W photos are now easy to find in color… show more.

The advent of the exactly repeatable pictorial statement is arguably the most significant technological and cultural innovation in the history of humankind. This book examines in detail the contributions to scientific knowledge made by significant Renaissance artists, Hans Holbein, Albrecht Dürer, and Hendrick Goltzius principally among them. In addition to reproducing woodcuts, engravings, and etchings, the book depicts various complex forms of paper engineering from the Renaissance that acted as scientific instruments, maps, simulacra, or utile devices in themselves.