Mercedes Lackey books are great...one of my fave trilogies is The Black Griffon, The White Griffon, and The Silver Griffon. Storm Rising, Storm Warning and I forget the other one (Storm Breaking, peraps?), those are good too. And Anne Bishop!! She wrote a trilogy, Daughter of the Blood, Hier to the Shadows, and Queen of Darkness. Those-were-WONDERFUL! I also liked the Vampire Diaries, been as everyone's talkin about Vampires...no, not Anne Rice, another author...it was about Elena and Stephan...and then I also read this book awhile back called Blue Moon Rising...I remember it was a pretty good book too. Oh, and Tad Williams, let's not forget Tailchaser's Song, one of my personal faves. And, since I'm talking about faves, my ultimate favorite book, one I've read over thirteen times, is Clan of the Cave Bear, and The Valley of Horses, and so-on...my only compunctions about the Earth's CHildren series is I feel like Jean M Auel kinda ruined the integrity of the books by allowing too much sexual context...I mean, we know cave people had sex, we all do, but sheesh, she kinda ruined the integrity of the story by saturating it with sex. Not that I didn't appreciate it, I was only fourteen when I read those books, and that was about as much experience as I'd had up untill that point. but looking back it did make the books a little less....true to circumstance.
I enjoy Lackey, too, though my favorites are the Oathbound series. She just does such a wonderful job of creating two incredibly diverse and equally sympathetic main characters.
I love her retold faerie tales (as in the Elemental Masters books). Her characters are fully realized and the plots are terrific.
I like Lackey's Witch series. I think it started with Burning Water. She had to stop due to fan strangeness and threats? I believe. There are three of them before she quit the series.
