Today, December 23, is the third day of Persnickety Snark’s FIVE Challenge, and today’s particular challenge is…Great Series!
Adele’s list may be YA only, but I’m including all age brackets. Oh, and these aren’t all published in 2010 – I just read them in 2010. Better late than never 😉
Anyhoo, here we are, counting down from 5 to 1 – yes, I do play favourites:
Posted in Alexander Gordon Smith, Ann Aguirre, Jeanne DuPrau, Rachel Vincent, Susan Beth Pfeffer
Tagged Bloody Maria, Blue Diablo, Death Sentence, Devil's Punch, Execution, Fugitives, Hell Fire, If I Die, Life As We Knew It, Lockdown, My Soul to Keep, My Soul to Save, My Soul to Steal, My Soul to Take, Shady Lady, Solitary, The City of Ember, The Dead and the Gone, The Diamond of Darkhold, The People of Sparks, The Prophet of Yonwood, This World We Live In
Covers: Alexander Gordon Smith’s Lockdown (US paperback), Cherie Priest’s Bloodshot, and Kelley Armstrong’s Waking the Witch (UK).
Kelley Armstrong: Waking the Witch Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
Cherie Priest: Bloodshot Buy (US) Buy (CA)
Alexander Gordon Smith: Lockdown Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
Posted in Alexander Gordon Smith, Cherie Priest, Cover Art, Kelley Armstrong
Tagged Bloodshot, Lockdown, Waking the Witch
Done buying September 2009 Releases? Now time for October’s list, with books from the US, Canada, UK and Australia. As always, I don’t include anything – just the ones I’ve heard of and am interested in. Covers and release dates are subject to change, so if I’m wrong, blame my sources 😉
Posted in Alexander Gordon Smith, Aliza Kellerman, Becca Fitzpatrick, Caitlin Kittredge, Christine Warren, Claudia Gray, Cynthia Leitich Smith, Erica Hayes, Faye Kellerman, Jeaniene Frost, Jenna Maclaine, Jennifer Armintrout, Justine Larbalestier, Kat Richardson, Kelley Armstrong, Keri Arthur, Kit Whitfield, Kristin Cast, Lili St. Crow, Maggie Stiefvater, Megan Hart, Nancy Holder, P. C. Cast, Rachel Caine, Richelle Mead, Tanith Lee, Tracey O'hara, Trisha Telep
Tagged Betrayals, Bound to Shadows, Carpe Corpus, Child of Darkness, Death Sentence, Frostbite, Frostbitten, Huntress, Hush Hush, Immortal, In Great Waters, Liar, Lockdown, Night's Cold Kiss, No Greater Pleasure, October 2009 Releases, Prism, Queene of Light, September 2009 Releases, Shadowfae, Shiver, The Mammoth Book of Time Travel Romance, Thorn Queen, Vanished
Claim to fame: Dorchester Publishing has included part of my review on their page for A. J. Menden’s Tekgrrl. Only a few words, but I’m credited for them 🙂
New book deal: From here: Erica Hayes’s Shadowsong, in which a knife-wielding banshee gangster’s quest for revenge on the assassin who ruined her life is interrupted when a deluded fairy sorceress steals her magical song, again to Rose Hilliard at St. Martin’s, in a two-book deal, by Marlene Stringer of the Stringer Literary Agency (World). And I’m happy to announced I received an ARC of Erica’s first novel, Shadowfae, during the week. I’m looking forward to reading and reviewing it soon 🙂
Cover art: I’ve fallen drastically behind on posting covers. For now, I’m only posting the ones I HAVEN’T seen plastered everywhere, but I don’t follow as many other book blogs as I used to. Sorry in advance if you’ve already seen these, and I’m clogging up your blog feed.
Posted in A. J. Menden, Alexander Gordon Smith, Anya Bast, Cover Art, Erica Hayes, Jeaniene Frost, Kelley Armstrong, Laurie Faria Stolarz, Lexxie Couper, Liz Maverick, Maria V. Snyder, Nancy Holzner, Skyler White, Stacey Jay
Tagged And Falling Fly, Black is for Beginnings, Crimson & Steam, Deadtown, Death the Vamp and His Brother, Lockdown, My So-Called Death, One Foot in the Grave, Poison Study, Shadowfae, Shadowsong, Stolen, Tekgrrl, Wicked Enchantment
Alexander Gordon Smith
Lockdown (Furnace, Book 1)
Faber & Faber and Allen & Unwin (UK & AU: 5th March 2009); Farrar Straus & Giroux (US: October 2009, but may be differently titled)
Buy
There’s no leniency for child offenders in Lockdown, the explosive first novel in Alexander Gordon Smith’s new series.
The infamous Summer of Slaughter, in which rioting kids killed 69 people, sparked new laws, and the consequences of disobeying them are extreme. Alex Sawyer knows he deserves punishment for thievery, but not for murdering his best friend. He’s been framed, though no one believes him, and he’s incarcerated for life in Furnace Penitentiary.
Alex isn’t the only innocent prisoner in this genuinely frightening setting, and it’s no surprise he’s not the only one who wants out. Together, he and his newfound friends and foes begin hatching a plan to escape…unless they get killed first, which is likelier than one might assume.
The author has created an astounding and outstanding novel. Alexander Gordon Smith has one sick imagination, but it makes for riveting reading, combining realistic and relatable protags with the scariest, creepiest antags I’ve ever read. The blood watches are tense, eerie and utterly unforgettable.
To explain more would be spoilers, but this futuristic horror YA series is set to be an absolute cracker. The only real problem is that this first book ends in a cliffhanger, and Book 2 isn’t due out until October. (Even later in North America, you poor dears.)
I love this book so much. Start pre-ordering now, and get excited. Reading doesn’t get much better than this.
Am particularly excited about the second one. I’m currently reading the first.
L. A. Banks
Undead on Arrival (Crimson Moon, Book 3)
St Martin’s (US: 31st March 2009) – Mass Market Paperback
Buy
Just one month ago, secret government operative Sasha Trudeau thought she’d tasted victory. Orchestrating détente between the warring factions of the supernatural world had nearly cost her life – but it also opened the door to a future with Max Hunter, her mate and fellow Shadow Wolf. Until now. A poisonous virus is wreaking havoc on Hunter’s immune system. And the passionate man who Sasha loves has become unpredictable, dangerous – and possibly deadly. When Hunter disappears the night a human is found ravaged, Sasha is thrust into a race against the clock to find the cure for her mate…and the traitor who’s determined to see them both dead.
Alexander Gordon Smith
Lockdown (Furnace, Book 1)
Faber Kids (UK: 5th March 2009) – Paperback
Buy
Beneath heaven is hell. Beneath hell is Furnace. When thirteen-year-old Alex is framed for murder, his life changes for ever. Now he is an inmate in the Furnace Penitentiary – the toughest prison in the world for young offenders. It’s the prison to end all prisons – a vast building sunk deep into the ground with one way in and no way out. But rowdy inmates and sadistic guards are the least of Alex’s problems. Every night an inmate is taken from his cell by the guards and returned the next morning changed. Where are they taken and why are they returned covered with scars and acting as though they are not quite human? In a desperate bid for freedom Alex and his friend Zed discover a horrifying truth – that the Furnace Penitentiary is a place of pure evil, a place where cruel experiments take place every day, where inmates are simply guinea pigs, where monsters make monsters, and where death is the least of your worries…
