1st September 2015 Releases

Happy Release Day to:

Josephine Angelini
Firewalker (Worldwalker, Book 2)
Macmillan Feiwel & Friends (US: 1st September 2015)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
Lily is back in her own universe, and she’s ready to relax with Rowan. True, she almost died in the Pyre that fuelled their escape, and must hide her magic for the safety of the world, but compared to fighting the monstrous Woven and leading armies in the alternate Salem, life is looking good. Unfortunately, Lillian, ruthless ruler of the 13 Cities, is not willing to let Lily go that easily. If she can’t persuade Lily to return to her world, she’ll have to find a way to make her come back.

Katie Coyle
Vivian Apple Needs a Miracle [also published as Vivian Versus America] (Vivian Apple, Book 2)
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (US: 1st September 2015)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
The predicted Rapture by Pastor Frick’s Church of America has come and gone, and three thousand Believers are now missing or dead. Seventeen-year-old Vivian Apple and her best friend, Harpreet, are revolutionaries, determined to expose the Church’s diabolical power grab…and to locate Viv’s missing heartthrob, Peter Ivey.

Kim Harrison
The Drafter (Peri Reed Chronicles, Book 1)
Simon & Schuster Gallery (US & CA: 1st September 2015); Hachette Little, Brown Piatkus (UK & AU: 1st September 2015)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
Detroit 2030. Double-crossed by the person she loved and betrayed by the covert government organization that trained her to use her body as a weapon, Peri Reed is a renegade on the run. Don’t forgive and never forget has always been Peri’s creed. But her day job makes it difficult: she is a drafter, possessed of a rare, invaluable skill for altering time, yet destined to forget both the history she changed and the history she rewrote. When Peri discovers her name is on a list of corrupt operatives, she realizes that her own life has been manipulated by the agency. Her memory of the previous three years erased, she joins forces with a mysterious rogue soldier in a deadly race to piece together the truth about her fateful final task. Her motto has always been only to kill those who kill her first. But with nothing but intuition to guide her, will she have to break her own rule to survive?

Karen Kincy
Clockwork Menagerie (Shadows of Asphodel, Book 2.5 – Novella)
Curiosity Quills (US: 1st September 2015)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA)
Konstantin would love to hide in his laboratory and dissect the clockwork dragon captured from Russia, but the Archmages of Vienna have other plans. He finds himself shipped off to St. Petersburg as the scientific attaché to an ambassador. His orders? Look, but don’t touch. Of course, he considers this an impossible request with so much enemy technomancy to explore. To make matters worse, Konstantin has to work with the dashing zeppelin commander Himmel, a man who should also be untouchable. They can’t act on the smouldering attraction between them without risking it all. Faced with an illegal relationship and a devious rival technomancer, Konstantin might not return from this mission in Russia without conquering the forbidden.

Carrie Mesrobian
Cut Both Ways
HarperCollins (US: 1st September 2015)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
Will Caynes never has been good with girls. At seventeen, he’s still waiting for his first kiss. He’s definitely not expecting it to happen in a drunken make-out session with his best friend, Angus. But it does and now Will’s conflicted – he knows he likes girls, but he didn’t exactly hate kissing a guy. Then Will meets Brandy, a cute and easy-to-talk-to sophomore. He’s totally into her too – which proves, for sure, that he’s not gay. So why does he keep hooking up with Angus on the sly? Will knows he can’t keep seeing both of them, but besides his new job in a diner, being with Brandy and Angus are the best parts of his whole messed-up life. His divorced parents just complicate everything. His father, after a series of half-baked business ventures and endless house renovations, has started drinking again. And his mom is no help – unless loading him up with a bunch of stuff he doesn’t need plus sticking him with his twin half sisters counts as parenting. He’s been bouncing between his mom and dad for years and neither one feels like home. Deciding who to love, who to choose, where to live – whichever way Will goes, someone will get hurt. Himself probably the most.

Devon Monk
Crucible Zero (House Immortal, Book 3)
Penguin Roc (US: 1st September 2015)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
Matilda Case never thought of herself as a hero. But because she is galvanized – and nearly immortal in her stitched, endlessly healing body – she doesn’t have much of a choice. Even if she doesn’t want to save the world, she’s the only one capable of travelling in time to do so. But her rescue attempt hasn’t gone as planned. She’s stuck in an alternate universe, and her world is in danger of disappearing. Worst of all, an unfathomably powerful man who can also travel through history doesn’t want her to put things to rights. He’s willing to wage bloody war to stop Matilda, unless she surrenders control of time to him. Now, with the minutes ticking, Matilda must make impossible decisions, knowing that one wrong choice will destroy her – and any chance of saving everything she loves…

Cherie Priest
Chapelwood (Borden Dispatches, Book 2)
Penguin Roc (US & CA: 1st September 2015)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
Birmingham, Alabama is infested with malevolence. Prejudice and hatred have consumed the minds and hearts of its populace. A murderer, unimaginatively named “Harry the Hacker” by the press, has been carving up citizens with a hatchet. And from the church known as Chapelwood, an unholy gospel is being spread by a sect that worships dark gods from beyond the heavens. This darkness calls to Lizzie Borden. It is reminiscent of an evil she had dared hoped was extinguished. The parishioners of Chapelwood plan to sacrifice a young woman to summon beings never meant to share reality with humanity. An apocalypse will follow in their wake which will scorch the earth of all life. Unless she stops it…

Madeleine Roux
Sanctum (Asylum, Book 2)
HarperCollins (US & CA: 1st September 2015)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
Dan, Abby, and Jordan remain traumatized by the summer they shared in the Brookline asylum. But someone is determined to keep the terror alive, sending the teens photos of an old-timey carnival. Finally, Dan receives a list of coordinates pointing to abandoned houses in the town near Brookline, and he is convinced that the only way to end this nightmare once and for all is to follow the trail. But when Dan and his friends arrive under the guise of a prospective students’ weekend, they discover that the carnival from their photos isn’t just real, it’s here on campus. And that’s just where the terrors begin…

Madeleine Roux
Catacomb (Asylum, Book 3)
HarperCollins (US & CA: 1st September 2015)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
Senior year is finally over. After all they’ve been through, Dan, Abby, and Jordan are excited to take one last road trip together, and they’re just not going to think about what will happen when the summer ends. But on their way to visit Jordan’s uncle in New Orleans, the three friends notice that a black muscle car appears to be following them. Then Dan starts receiving phone messages from someone he didn’t expect to hear from again – someone who died last Halloween. As the strange occurrences escalate, Dan is forced to accept that everything that has happened to him in the past year may not be a coincidence, but fate – a fate that ties Dan to a group called the Bone Artists, who have a sinister fascination with notorious killers of the past. Now Dan’s only hope is that he will make it out of his senior trip alive.

September 2015 Releases

Done with August 2015 Releases? Here are September 2015 Releases. For future releases, check Reading Wishlist. NOTE: If viewing this on a feed-reader, the formatting may be screwy, so probably best to read at my WordPress.

[REVIEW] House Immortal – Devon Monk

Devon Monk
House Immortal (House Immortal, Book 1)
Penguin Roc (US & CA: 2nd September 2014)
Buy (US Kindle Edition) Buy (US Paperback) Buy (UK Kindle Edition) Buy (UK Paperback) Buy (CA Kindle Edition) Buy (CA Paperback) Buy (Worldwide)

With a section on her website dedicated to her knitting, it was inevitable that Devon Monk would write a series where craftwork is integral.

In 1910, an experiment killed most people in the region. Thirteen people survived – they are “galvanized”, seemingly immortal. They fell into comas, awakening later.

Matilda Case has been stitched together with “life thread”, and her grandmother is mostly seen knitting a lengthy scarf from “pocket sheep’s” wool with nano-whatever in it. Yes, this is confusing, but the scarf turns out to be very useful later on.

I came into this novel expecting a futuristic Frankenstein kind of tale, so the urban fantasy-esque creatures in the first chapter are surprising. With “immortal” in the title, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the novel discusses how to stop time, but I’m more interested in the surgical/medical aspects of the story.

The novel’s large cast gets confusing, with all the different House heads and their galvanized, and lengthy descriptions of what everyone looks like and what they’re wearing, but I still couldn’t keep track of everyone. Also, it’s never explained how stitches get coloured, because the life thread itself seems to be silvery.

I don’t fully understand what’s going on, but I’m firmly entrenched and along for the ride. Mix Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein with Amy Ewing’s The Jewel, and you get Devon Monk’s House Immortal: an intriguing blend of science, technology, politics, and who knows what else is in store.

3rd March 2015 Releases

Happy Release Day to:

Kelley Armstrong
Sea of Shadows (Age of Legends, Book 1)
HarperCollins (US: 3rd March 2015)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
To save the empire, they must fight the shadows. In the Forest of the Dead, where the empire’s worst criminals are exiled, twin sisters Moria and Ashyn are charged with a dangerous task. For they are the Keeper and the Seeker, and each year they must quiet the enraged souls of the damned. Only this year, the souls will not be quieted. Accompanied by a stubborn imperial guard and a dashing condemned thief, the girls make their way to warn the emperor. But a terrible secret awaits them at court – one that will alter the balance of their world forever.

Kathy & Becky Hepinstall
Sisters of Shiloh
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (US: 3rd March 2015)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
In a war pitting brother against brother, two sisters choose their own battle. Joseph and Thomas are fresh recruits for the Confederate Army, daring to join the wild fray that has become the seemingly endless Civil War, sharing everything with their fellow soldiers – except the secret that would mean their undoing: they are sisters. Before the war, Joseph and Thomas were Josephine and Libby. But that bloodiest battle, Antietam, leaves Libby to find her husband, Arden, dead. She vows vengeance, dons Arden’s clothes, and sneaks off to enlist with the Stonewall Brigade, swearing to kill one Yankee for every year of his too-short life. Desperate to protect her grief-crazed sister, Josephine insists on joining her. Surrounded by flying bullets, deprivation, and illness, the sisters are found by other dangers: Libby is hurtling toward madness, haunted and urged on by her husband’s ghost; Josephine is falling in love with a fellow soldier. She lives in fear both of revealing their disguise and of losing her first love before she can make her heart known to him.

Justine Larbalestier
Razorhurst
Soho (US: 3rd March 2015)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
Sydney’s deadly Razorhurst neighborhood, 1932. Gloriana Nelson and Mr. Davidson, two ruthless mob bosses, have reached a fragile peace – one maintained by “razor men.” Kelpie, orphaned and living on the street, is blessed and cursed with the ability to see Razorhurst’s many ghosts, and she sees the cracks already forming. Then Kelpie meets Dymphna Campbell. Dymphna is a legendary beauty and prized moll of Gloriana Nelson. She’s earned the nickname “Angel of Death” for the trail of beaus who have died trying to protect her from Mr. Davidson’s assassins. Unbeknownst to Kelpie, Dymphna can see ghosts, too, and as Gloriana’s hold crumbles one burly henchman at a time, the girls will need one another more than ever. As loyalties shift and betrayal threatens at every turn, Dymphna is determined to not only survive, but to rise to the top with Kelpie at her side – and to save Kelpie from both the living and the dead.

Seanan McGuire
Pocket Apocalypse (InCryptid, Book 4)
Penguin DAW (US & CA: 3rd March 2015)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
Alexander Price has survived gorgons, basilisks, and his own family – no small feat, considering that his family includes two telepaths, a reanimated corpse, and a colony of talking, pantheistic mice. Still, he’s starting to feel like he’s got the hang of things…at least until his girlfriend, Shelby Tanner, shows up asking pointed questions about werewolves and the state of his passport. From there, it’s just a hop, skip, and a jump to Australia, a continent filled with new challenges, new dangers, and yes, rival cryptozoologists who don’t like their “visiting expert” very much. Australia is a cryptozoologist’s dream, filled with unique species and unique challenges. Unfortunately, it’s also filled with Shelby’s family, who aren’t delighted by the length of her stay in America. And then there are the werewolves to consider: infected killing machines who would like nothing more than to claim the continent as their own. The continent which currently includes Alex. Survival is hard enough when you’re on familiar ground. Alex Price is very far from home, but there’s one thing he knows for sure: he’s not going down without a fight.

Devon Monk
Infinity Bell (House Immortal, Book 2)
Penguin Roc (US & CA: 3rd March 2015)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
Matilda Case isn’t normal. Normal people aren’t stitched together, inhumanly strong, and ageless, as she and the other galvanized are. Normal people’s bodies don’t hold the secret to immortality – something the powerful Houses will kill to possess. And normal people don’t know that they’re going to die in a few days. Matilda’s fight to protect the people she loves triggered a chaotic war between the Houses and shattered the world’s peace. On the run, she must find a way to stop the repeat of the ancient time experiment that gifted her and the other galvanized with immortality. Because this time, it will destroy her and everything she holds dear. Caught in a cat-and-mouse game of lies, betrayal, and unseen foes, Matilda must fight to save the world from utter destruction. But time itself is her enemy, and every second brings her one step closer to disaster…

Laura Ruby
Bone Gap
HarperCollins Balzer + Bray (US & CA: 3rd March 2015)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
Everyone knows Bone Gap is full of gaps – gaps to trip you up, gaps to slide through so you can disappear forever. So when young, beautiful Roza went missing, the people of Bone Gap weren’t surprised. After all, it wasn’t the first time that someone had slipped away and left Finn and Sean O’Sullivan on their own. Just a few years ago, their mother hightailed it to Oregon for a brand-new guy, a brand-new life. That’s just how things go, the people said. Who are you going to blame? Finn knows that’s not what happened with Roza. He knows she was kidnapped, ripped from the cornfields by a dangerous man whose face he cannot remember. But the searches turn up nothing, and no one believes him anymore. Not even Sean, who has more reason to find Roza than anyone and every reason to blame Finn for letting her go.

March 2015 Releases

Done with February 2015 Releases? Here are March 2015 Releases. For future releases, check Reading Wishlist. (NOTE: If reading via a feed-reader, the formatting may be wrong. Click the blog post’s title to take you to my WordPress, where it should show up fine.)

9 New Covers (Anderson, Armstrong, Clarke, DeStefano, Duncan, McGarry, Monk)

SOURCES
Freaks Under Fire – MareeAnderson.com
Empire of Night – KelleyArmstrong.com
Led Astray – KelleyArmstrong.com
Otherworld Secrets – KelleyArmstrong.com
Our Lady of the Ice – CassandraRoseClarke.com
Heir Apparent – SimonAndSchuster.com
Sound – HarperCollins.com
Nowhere But Here – KatieLMcGarry.com
Crucible Zero – Penguin.com

Now Available for US Pre-Order

Gail Giles: GIRLS LIKE US (paperback): 13th October 2015: Buy (US)
Marie Lu: THE YOUNG ELITES (paperback): 6th October 2015: Buy (US)
Marissa Meyer: WINTER: 10th November 2015: Buy (US)
Devon Monk: CRUCIBLE ZERO (paperback): 1st September 2015: Buy (US)
Cherie Priest: CHAPELWOOD: 1st September 2015: Buy (US)
J. A. Souders: REVELATIONS (paperback): 17th November 2015: Buy (US)
J. A. Souders: REBELLION: 10th November 2015: Buy (US)
Maggie Stiefvater: BLUE LILY, LILY BLUE (paperback): 25th August 2015: Buy (US)
Rachel Vincent: LION’S SHARE: 23rd February 2015: Buy (US)
Blythe Woolston: MARTians: 13th October 2015: Buy (US)

Now Available for US Pre-Order

V. C. Andrews: BITTERSWEET DREAMS (paperback): 27th October 2015: Buy (US)
Kelley Armstrong: DEAD TO ME: 15th September 2015: Buy (US)
Madeline Ashby: reV: 3rd November 2015: Buy (US)
Karen Bao: DOVE ARISING (paperback): 1st April 2015: Buy (US)
Andrea Cremer: THE CONJURER’S RIDDLE: 3rd November 2015: Buy (US)
Debra Driza: RENEGADE (paperback): 6th October 2015: Buy (US)
Alexandra Duncan: SOUND: 22nd September 2015: Buy (US)
Jen Estes: FIFTEEN: 15th January 2015: Buy (US)
Amy Ewing: THE WHITE ROSE: 6th October 2015: Buy (US)
Karen Ann Hopkins: WHISPERS FROM THE DEAD: 6th January 2015: Buy (US)
Krissy Kneen: THE ADVENTURES OF HOLLY WHITE AND THE INCREDIBLE SEX MACHINE: 22nd April 2015: Buy (US)
Michele Lang: LOVEBIRDS: 31st December 2014: Buy (US)
R. C. Lewis: STITCHING SNOW (paperback): 8th September 2015: Buy (US)
Kristen Lippert-Martin: TABULA RASA (paperback): 22nd September 2015: Buy (US)
Mindy McGinnis: A MADNESS SO DISCREET: 6th October 2015: Buy (US)
Dawn Metcalf: INSIDIOUS: 28th July 2015: Buy (US)
Devon Monk: CRUCIBLE ZERO: 1st September 2015: Buy (US)
Fleur Philips: BEAUTIFUL GIRL: 7th April 2015: Buy (US)
Natasha Preston: AWAKE: 1st September 2015: Buy (US)
Beth Revis: THE GIRL & THE MACHINE: 7th January 2015: Buy (US)
Beth Revis: THE FUTURE COLLECTION: 13th January 2015: Buy (US)
Diana Rowland: WHITE TRASH ZOMBIE GONE WILD: 6th October 2015: Buy (US)
Jennifer Rush: PLAYED: 10th February 2015: Buy (AU)
Jessica Verday: OF PHANTOMS AND FURY: 22nd September 2015: Buy (US)
Kat Zhang: ECHOES OF US (paperback): 15th September 2015: Buy (US)

2nd September 2014 Releases

Happy Release Day to:

Josephine Angelini
Trial by Fire (Worldwalker, Book 1)
Macmillan (US: 2nd September 2014)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
This world is trying to kill Lily Proctor. Her life=threatening allergies keep her from enjoying many of the experiences that other teenagers take for granted…which is why she is determined to enjoy her first (and perhaps only) high-school party. But Lily’s life never goes according to plan, and after a humiliating incident in front of half her graduating class Lily wishes she could just disappear. Suddenly Lily is in a different Salem – one overrun with horrifying creatures and ruled by powerful women called Crucibles. Strongest and cruellest of all the Crucibles is Lillian…Lily’s identical other self in this alternate universe. This new version of her world is terrifyingly sensual, and Lily is soon overwhelmed by new experiences. Lily realises that what makes her weak at home is exactly what makes her extraordinary in New Salem. It also puts her life in danger. Thrown into a world she doesn’t understand, Lily is torn between responsibilities she can’t hope to shoulder alone, and a love she never expected. But how can Lily be the saviour of this world when she is literally her own worst enemy?

Steve Bein
Year of the Demon (Fated Blades, Book 2)
Penguin NAL Roc (US & CA: 2nd September 2014)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
Detective Sergeant Mariko Oshiro has been promoted to Japan’s elite Narcotics unit – and with this promotion comes a new partner, a new case, and new danger. The underboss of a powerful yakuza crime syndicate has put a price on her head, and he’ll lift the bounty only if she retrieves an ancient iron demon mask that was stolen from him in a daring raid. However, Mariko has no idea of the tumultuous past carried within the mask – or of its deadly link with the famed Inazuma blade she wields. The secret of this mask originated hundreds of years before Mariko was born, and over time the mask’s power has evolved to bend its owner toward destruction, stopping at nothing to obtain Inazuma steel. Mariko’s fallen sensei knew much of the mask’s hypnotic power and of its mysterious link to a murderous cult. Now Mariko must use his notes to find the mask before the cult can bring Tokyo to its knees – and before the underboss decides her time is up…

Avery Hastings
Feuds (Feuds, Book 1)
Macmillan St. Martin’s Griffin (US: 2nd September 2014)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
For Davis Morrow, perfection is a daily reality. Like all Priors, Davis has spent her whole life primed to be smarter, stronger, and more graceful than the lowly Imperfects, or “Imps.” A fiercely ambitious ballerina, Davis is only a few weeks away from qualifying for the Olympiads and finally living up to her mother’s legacy when she meets Cole, a mysterious boy who leaves her with more questions each time he disappears. Davis has no idea that Cole has his own agenda, or that he’s a rising star in the FEUDS, an underground fighting ring where Priors gamble on Imps. Cole has every reason to hate Davis – her father’s campaign hinges on the total segregation of the Imps and Priors – but despite his best efforts, Cole finds himself as drawn to Davis as she is to him. Then Narxis, a deadly virus, takes its hold – and Davis’s friends start dying. When the Priors refuse to acknowledge the epidemic, Davis has no one to turn to but Cole. Falling in love was never part of their plan, but their love may be the only thing that can save her world…

Mary Miller
The Last Days of California
W. W. Norton Liveright (US: 2nd September 2014)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
Jess is fifteen years old and waiting for the world to end. Her evangelical father has packed up the family to drive west to California, hoping to save as many souls as possible before the Second Coming. With her long-suffering mother and rebellious (and secretly pregnant) sister, Jess hands out tracts to nonbelievers at every rest stop, Waffle House, and gas station along the way. As Jess’s belief frays, her teenage myopia evolves into awareness about her fracturing family.

Devon Monk
House Immortal (House Immortal, Book 2)
Penguin NAL Roc (US & CA: 2nd September 2014)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
One hundred years ago, eleven powerful ruling Houses consolidated all of the world’s resources and authority into their own grasping hands. Only one power wasn’t placed under the command of a single House: the control over the immortal galvanized… Matilda Case isn’t like most folk. In fact, she’s unique in the world, the crowning achievement of her father’s experiments, a girl pieced together from bits. Or so she believes, until Abraham Seventh shows up at her door, stitched with life thread just like her and insisting that enemies are coming to kill them all. Tilly is one of thirteen incredible creations known as the galvanized, stitched together beings immortal and unfathomably strong. For a century, each House has fought for control over the galvanized. Now the Houses are also tangled in a deadly struggle for dominion over death – and Tilly and her kind hold the key to unlocking eternity. The secrets that Tilly must fight to protect are hidden within the very seams of her being. And to get the secrets, her enemies are willing to tear her apart piece by piece…

Cherie Priest
Maplecroft (Borden Dispatches, Book 2)
Penguin NAL Roc (US & CA: 2nd September 2014)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
The people of Fall River, Massachusetts, fear me. Perhaps rightfully so. I remain a suspect in the brutal deaths of my father and his second wife despite the verdict of innocence at my trial. With our inheritance, my sister, Emma, and I have taken up residence in Maplecroft, a mansion near the sea and far from gossip and scrutiny. But it is not far enough from the affliction that possessed my parents. Their characters, their very souls, were consumed from within by something that left malevolent entities in their place. It originates from the ocean’s depths, plaguing the populace with tides of nightmares and madness. This evil cannot hide from me. No matter what guise it assumes, I will be waiting for it. With an axe.

September 2014 Releases

Done with August 2014 Releases? Here are September 2014 Releases. For future releases, check Reading Wishlist.