We did it, friends. We made it to summer. Yahoo! Now we have all the time we want to read whatever we want. To that end, I offer you a delightful blast from my past with hopes for the future.
Almost 15 years ago, I came across this great little fantasy trilogy by Elizabeth Vaughan called The Chronicles of the Warlands. It was about Lara, Princess of Xy, who is claimed as a Warprize by Keir of the Cat, Warlord of the Plains. I fell in love with these characters and devoured the three books in less than a week. Then, for some reason, I lost touch with this author. 
Until recently when a new book, Wardance, came across my desk. I was so excited that there was a new book that I went online to see how long it’d been since the others came out. In doing so, I discovered a related series set in the same world and three new books in the original to read. 
And cue the angel chorus because I was in heaven.
I got a little bad advice from goodreads.com, because someone told me a wrong order to read them. It wasn’t horrible, but here is the correct order:
Start with the original Chronicles Trilogy: Warprize, Warsworn, and Warlord
Followed by the Epic of Palins series: Dagger Star, White Star, and Destiny’s Star
THEN read the new additions to the Chronicles: Warcry, Wardance, and Warsong
The three original books focus on Lara and Keir and their fellow warriors. The Epic of Palins expands their world and adds new characters like Red Gloves (a female mercenary), Josiah (a fallen Lord), Evelyn (a high priestess of the Lady of Laughter) and Orrin Blackheart (condemned prisoner and odium hunter). The final three (so far – fingers crossed for more) return to The Plains and gives us stories based on friends we met in the first trilogy. 
All of the books are fantasy, but there is an equal amount of romance and magic in each book. For those of you who are Game of Thrones fans (not me), these are similar but without the incest and only half the gory, horrible deaths. The library has some of these in print and all of them in ebook. (If ebook doesn’t work for you, feel to request them through Interlibrary Loan. This might work better for Chronicles than Palins, but we can try and see.)
I love these books and I’ve enjoyed catching up with these old friends. I hope you enjoy them as much I do and if nothing else, having 9 books to read should be a great kickoff to your summer reading. 
Happy Summer…
:) Amanda