Posted May 12, 2015 by Carmel in Fresh Meat / 6 Comments
Urban Fantasy:
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The Big Fix (In a Fix #3)
by Linda Grimes
Urban Fantasy
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[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]Linda Grimes’s sexy and hilarious urban fantasy series that began with In a Fix and Quick Fix continues in The Big Fix.
Aura adaptor extraordinaire Ciel Halligan, who uses her chameleon-like abilities to fix her clients’ problems–as them–is filling in on set for action superstar Jackson Gunn, whose snake phobia is standing in the way of his completing his latest mega-millions Hollywood blockbuster. There’s only one thing Jack fears more than snakes, and that’s the possibility of his fans finding out he screams at the sight of one. Going from hero to laughing stock isn’t part of his career plan.
Seems like a simple enough job to Ciel, who doesn’t particularly like snakes, but figures she can tolerate an afternoon with them, for the right price–which Jack is offering, and then some. What she doesn’t count on is finding out that while she was busy wrangling snakes for him, his wife was busy getting killed. When Ciel goes to break the sad news to the star, she finds out Jack was AWOL from her client hideaway at the time of the murder.
Ciel begins to suspect Jack’s phobia was phony, and that he only hired her to provide him with an alibi–but if she goes to the police, she’ll have to explain how she knows he wasn’t really on set. Up against a wall, Ciel calls on her best-friend-turned-love-interest Billy, and her not-so-ex-crush Mark, to help her set up the sting of a lifetime.[/learn_more] |
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Dreams of Shreds and Tatters
by Amanda Downum
Urban Fantasy
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[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]When Liz Drake’s best friend vanishes, nothing can stop her nightmares. Driven by the certainty he needs her help, she crosses a continent to search for him.
She finds Blake comatose in a Vancouver hospital, victim of a mysterious accident that claimed his lover’s life–in her dreams he drowns. Blake’s new circle of artists and mystics draws her in, but all of them are lying or keeping dangerous secrets. Soon nightmare creatures stalk the waking city, and Liz can’t fight a dream from the daylight world: to rescue Blake she must brave the darkest depths of the dreamlands. Even the attempt could kill her, or leave her mind trapped or broken.
And if she succeeds, she must face the monstrous Yellow King, whose slave Blake is on the verge of becoming forever.
But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try. [/learn_more] |
Paranormal Romance:
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Born of Defiance (The League #8)
by Sherrilyn Kenyon
Paranormal Romance
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[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]Born an Outcast, Talyn Batur has spent the whole of his life fighting against the prejudice of his people. An Andarion without a father is not something anyone wants to be.
But when his companion’s brother draws him into a plot against the Andarion crown, he finds himself torn between the loyalty to their planetary government that his mother has beaten into him and his own beliefs of justice and right.
Now, he must decide for himself to remain a pawn of their government or to defy everything and everyone he’s ever known to stand up to tyranny. It’s a gamble that will either save his life or end it. And when old enemies align with new ones, it’s more than just his own life at risk. And more than just his homeworld that will end should he fail, in Born of Defiance, the next League novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Sherrilyn Kenyon.[/learn_more] |
Science Fiction / Fantasy:
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A Game of Thrones (The Graphic Novel #4)
by George R.R. Martin
Fantasy
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| [learn_more caption=”Book Description”]Bestselling writer Daniel Abraham and acclaimed illustrator Tommy Patterson bring their stunning graphic-novel adaptation of George R. R. Martin’s classic A Game of Thrones to a stunning finish that merits a place on the bookshelf of every fantasy fan alongside the majestic original. The death of King Robert Baratheon and the imprisonment of his Hand, Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell, has set the great houses of Westeros at one another’s throats. In Winterfell, Eddard’s eldest son and heir, Robb Stark, has gathered an army and is pushing south, determined to free his father. Along the way, he pledges to marry the daughter of Lord Walder Frey in exchange for a military advantage that allows him to capture Jaime Lannister-a powerful bargaining chip to ensure Lord Eddard’s safe release. But it is one thing to capture the Kingslayer and quite another to hold him. Meanwhile, in King’s Landing, young King Joffrey has other ideas than an exchange of prisoners. Ignoring the advice of his mother, Queen Cersei, he throws oil on the flames of conflict and ignites a conflagration that seems likely to consume not only the Starks but all of Westeros-unless Tyrion Lannister, the Imp, can bring the mad boy-king to heel. Beyond the Wall, greater dangers are brewing, as a winter as brutal as any in history approaches, bringing with it unnatural creatures out of legend. There, Eddard’s bastard, Jon Snow, must decide once and for all where his loyalties lie. And across the Narrow Sea, Daenerys Targaryen will learn the true measure of grief-and emerge from its fiery depths transformed, hardened, and ready to claim what is hers by right: the Iron Throne.[/learn_more] |
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A Dance of Chaos (Shadowdance #6)
by David Dalglish
Fantasy
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[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]FEAR COMES IN THE HANDS OF PROPHETS…
The final installment of the Shadowdance series finds Haern the Watcher returning to his beloved city of Veldaren, only to find it has collapsed into chaos. The Sun Guild has conquered the former thief guilds, destroying the peace Haern fought so hard to obtain. The Trifect is their next target, and Alyssa Gemcroft must reach out to whatever allies she can obtain, even if it means casting aside longtime friends. As the chaos grows, so does the power of the dark god Karak who lays siege to Veldaren. If the city falls, the world will suffer greatly.
The legendary Thren Felhorn, broken, guileless, and rejected by his own son, holds the fate of the entire city in his hands. Unless Haern can stop his father, Thren will at last have the legacy of fire and destruction he has always desired.
Father or son; some choices must be made in blood.[/learn_more] |
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Defiant (Towers Trilogy #2)
by Karina Sumner-Smith
Fantasy
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[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]Once, Xhea’s wants were simple: enough to eat, safety in the underground, and the hit of bright payment to transform her gray-cast world into color. But in the aftermath of her rescue of the Radiant ghost Shai, she realizes the life she had known is gone forever.
In the two months since her fall from the City, Xhea has hidden in skyscraper Edren, sheltered and attempting to heal. But soon even she must face the troubling truth that she might never walk again. Shai, ever faithful, has stayed by her side—but the ghost’s very presence has sent untold fortunes into Edren’s coffers and dangerously unbalanced the Lower City’s political balance.
War is brewing. Beyond Edren’s walls, the other skyscrapers have heard tell of the Radiant ghost and the power she holds; rumors, too, speak of the girl who sees ghosts who might be the key to controlling that power. Soon, assassins stalk the skyscrapers’ darkened corridors while armies gather in the streets. But Shai’s magic is not the only prize—nor the only power that could change everything. At last, Xhea begins to learn of her strange dark magic, and why even whispers of its presence are enough to make the Lower City elite tremble in fear.
Together, Xhea and Shai may have the power to stop a war—or become a weapon great enough to bring the City to its knees. That is, if the magic doesn’t destroy them first.[/learn_more] |
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Where
by Kit Reed
Science Fiction
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[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]In a coastal town on the Outer Carolina Banks, David Ribault and Merrill Poulnot are trying to revive their stale relationship and commit to marriage, and a slick developer claiming to be related to a historic town hero, Rawson Steele, has come to town and is buying up property. Steele makes a romantic advance on Merrill and an unusual 5 a.m appointment outside of town with David. But Steele is a no-show, and at the time of the appointment everyone in the town disappears, removed entirely from our space and time to a featureless isolated village–including Merrill and her young son. David searches desperately but all seems lost for Steele is in the other village with Merrill.
Kit Reed’s Where is a spooky, unsettling speculative fiction.[/learn_more] |
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The Undying: Shades (The Undying #2)
by Ethan Reid
Science Fiction
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[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]THE FATE OF THE WORLD IS IN HIS HANDS.
The Undying: SHADES finds American student Jeanie and her young charge, Ren, fifteen years after the EMP that wiped out Paris and sent them on the run from the undying. Walking the highways and hiding out in abandoned buildings across France, they eventually find their way to Spain and the walled city of Ronda where a few dozen survivors have gathered—safe enough from the hunting undying, but facing a new threat on the scorched planet: starvation.
With their main resource—humans—bordering on extinction, the undying have weakened, retreating to their hives and slowly withering away. But not for long. A dark presence arrives, casting its shadow across Spain, reawakening the hives and creating a new breed of monster. Driven by some alien intelligence, these Shades not only reanimate the undying, but can possess the living, turning survivors against one another.
When Ronda comes under attack, Ren saves the day. As the youngest human left on earth, he has been blessed with a special gift that makes him a perfect killing machine—and the last hope of humanity. Forced to leave the safety of the barricades, he takes to the highways with a company of Spaniards who intend to eradicate the undying from Europe, hive by hive, using Ren as their secret weapon. But as they approach Sevilla to face the most powerful Shade yet, Ren learns some in his company aren’t all they appear to be…[/learn_more] |
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Mother of Eden (Dark Eden #2)
by Chris Beckett
Science Fiction
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[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]“We speak of a mother’s love, but we forget her power.”
Civilization has come to the alien, sunless planet its inhabitants call Eden.
Just a few generations ago, the planet’s five hundred inhabitants huddled together in the light and warmth of the Forest’s lantern trees, afraid to venture out into the cold darkness around them.
Now, humanity has spread across Eden, and two kingdoms have emerged. Both are sustained by violence and dominated by men – and both claim to be the favored children of Gela, the woman who came to Eden long ago on a boat that could cross the stars, and became the mother of them all.
When young Starlight Brooking meets a handsome and powerful man from across Worldpool, she believes he will offer an outlet for her ambition and energy. But she has no inkling that she will become a stand-in for Gela herself, and wear Gela’s fabled ring on her own finger—or that in this role, powerful and powerless all at once, she will try to change the course of Eden’s history.[/learn_more] |
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Archangel
by Marguerite Reed
Science Fiction
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[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]The Earth is dying, and our hopes are pinned on Ubastis, an untamed paradise at the edge of colonized space. But such an influx of people threatens the planet’s unstudied ecosystem — a tenuous research colony must complete its analysis, lest humanity abandon one planet only to die on another.
The Ubasti colonists barely get by on their own. To acquire the tools they need, they are relegated to selling whatever they can to outside investors. For xenobiologist Vashti Loren, this means bringing Offworlders on safari to hunt the specimens she and her fellow biologists so desperately need to study.
Haunted by the violent death of her husband, the heroic and celebrated Lasse Undset, Vashti must balance the needs of Ubastis against the swelling crush of settlers. Vashti struggles in her role as one of the few colonists licensed to carry deadly weapons, just as she struggles with her history of using them. And when she discovers a genetically engineered soldier smuggled onto the surface, Vashti must face the nightmare of her husband’s murder all over again. Standing at the threshold of humanity’s greatest hope, she alone understands the darkness of guarding paradise.[/learn_more] |
New Adult / Young Adult:
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Maxon (Angelbound #4)
by Christina Bauer
New Adult
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[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]Prince Maxon may be twenty-two years old now, but he’s still haunted by his boyhood abduction and torture in Hell. To deal with his past, Maxon limits his present-day activities to killing demons and seducing women. No long-term relationships. No combat too dangerous. No problem, right?
Wrong.
Maxon’s life has stalled out. The old thrills aren’t there anymore, either on the battlefield or in the bedroom. While staking out his next fight, Maxon meets what seems like just another girl after a good time. What he gets is a close encounter with Lianna, a lady warrior with ties to the mysterious elemental rulers called the monarkki. It’s love at first fight. Trouble is, Lianna’s running from a dark history of her own, and her elemental enemies are closing in. When Lianna gets taken, Maxon realizes that after years of wrong choices and dead ends, the right woman is worth risking it all.
Book contains adult language and sexuality. Can be read as a standalone.[/learn_more] |
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Bruja (Alpha Girl #4)
by Aileen Erin
New Adult
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[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]Claudia De Santos has always looked out for every witch but herself. She fought from the shadows as her coven turned dark, and with a little help from her half witch/half alpha werewolf cousin, Tessa, Claudia is doing everything she can to keep her friends and family in the light.
Now the coven has splintered into two factions: Luciana’s army of witches wielding dark magic, and Claudia’s few stragglers who fight with the wolves. War is coming, and it won’t be much of a battle if Claudia can’t find the spells to counteract Luciana’s demonic power.
The answers lie in ancient magic, and Claudia must journey to Peru to rediscover what the Inca mages knew. Fighting evil will require a pure spirit, but her quest is full of temptations, including a handsome Peruvian guide with secrets of his own.
As she struggles to gain the knowledge her friends will need in the coming battle, conflict rages in Claudia’s heart. Following through with her arranged marriage could bring hope and more allies to the side of good, but at the cost of her own happiness. Should Claudia stay on the same path of duty she’s always walked or risk it all—her life and the futures of all brujos—for a chance at something more?[/learn_more] |
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End of Days (Penryn & the End of Days #3)
by Susan Ee
Young Adult
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[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]End of Days is the explosive conclusion to Susan Ee’s bestselling Penryn & the End of Days trilogy. After a daring escape from the angels, Penryn and Raffe are on the run. They’re both desperate to find a doctor who can reverse the twisted changes inflicted by the angels on Raffe and Penryn’s sister. As they set off in search of answers, a startling revelation about Raffe’s past unleashes dark forces that threaten them all.
When the angels release an apocalyptic nightmare onto humans, both sides are set on a path toward war. As unlikely alliances form and strategies shift, who will emerge victorious? Forced to pick sides in the fight for control of the earthly realm, Raffe and Penryn must choose: Their own kind, or each other?[/learn_more] |
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The Wrath and the Dawn
(The Wrath and the Dawn #1)
by Renee Ahdieh
Young Adult
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[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]A sumptuous and epically told love story inspired by A Thousand and One Nights
Every dawn brings horror to a different family in a land ruled by a killer. Khalid, the eighteen-year-old Caliph of Khorasan, takes a new bride each night only to have her executed at sunrise. So it is a suspicious surprise when sixteen-year-old Shahrzad volunteers to marry Khalid. But she does so with a clever plan to stay alive and exact revenge on the Caliph for the murder of her best friend and countless other girls. Shazi’s wit and will, indeed, get her through to the dawn that no others have seen, but with a catch . . . she’s falling in love with the very boy who killed her dearest friend.
She discovers that the murderous boy-king is not all that he seems and neither are the deaths of so many girls. Shazi is determined to uncover the reason for the murders and to break the cycle once and for all.[/learn_more] |
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Cuckoo Song
by Frances Hardinge
Young Adult
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[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]The first things to shift were the doll’s eyes, the beautiful grey-green glass eyes. Slowly they swivelled, until their gaze was resting on Triss’s face. Then the tiny mouth moved, opened to speak.
‘What are you doing here?’ It was uttered in tones of outrage and surprise, and in a voice as cold and musical as the clinking of cups. ‘Who do you think you are? This is my family.’
When Triss wakes up after an accident, she knows that something is very wrong. She is insatiably hungry; her sister seems scared of her and her parents whisper behind closed doors. She looks through her diary to try to remember, but the pages have been ripped out.
Soon Triss discovers that what happened to her is more strange and terrible than she could ever have imagined, and that she is quite literally not herself. In a quest find the truth she must travel into the terrifying Underbelly of the city to meet a twisted architect who has dark designs on her family – before it’s too late…[/learn_more] |
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The Huntress of Thornbeck Forest
(Medieval Fairy Tale Romance #1)
by Melanie Dickerson
Young Adult
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[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]A beautiful maiden who poaches to feed the poor. A handsome forester on a mission to catch her. Danger and love are about to unite in Thornbeck Forest.
The margrave owns the finest hunting grounds for miles around—and Odette Menkels spends her nights poaching his deer to feed the hungry orphans of Thornbeck. By day, Odette is a simple maiden who teaches children to read, but by night this young beauty has become the secret lifeline to the poorest of the poor.
For Jorgen Hartman, the margrave’s forester, tracking down a poacher is a duty he is all too willing to perform. Jorgeninherited his post from the man who raised him . . . a man who was murdered at the hands of a poacher.
When Jorgen and Odette meet at the Midsummer festival and share a connection during a dance, neither has any idea that they are already adversaries.
The one man she wants is bound by duty to capture her; the one woman he loves is his cunning target . . . What becomes of a forester who protects a notorious poacher? What becomes of a poacher when she is finally discovered?[/learn_more] |
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Nil Unlocked (Nil #2)
by Lynne Matson
Young Adult
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[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]On the island of Nil, the rules are set. You have exactly 365 days to escape–or you die. Rives is now the undisputed Leader of Nil City, but keeping the City united is tougher than ever.
Raiders have grown bolder, supplies are dwindling, and non-human inhabitants have taken a turn toward the deadly. New arrivals cause rifts within the City, putting the Search system at risk, and calling everything Rives knows into question. Desperate for answers, he teams up with the only other person searching for them: Skye, a new arrival with a mysterious past of her own. Soon the duo find themselves locked in a desperate race to save all the residents of Nil–and possibly destroy the island forever. But at what cost? And who will pay the price?[/learn_more] |
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Velvet
by Temple West
Young Adult
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| [learn_more caption=”Book Description”]After losing both her parents before age 17, aspiring designer Caitlin Holte feels like her whole world has been turned upside down, and that was before the terrifying encounter with a supernatural force. Then, she learns that her hot bad-boy neighbor, Adrian–who might have just saved her life–is actually a half-demon vampire. Suddenly Caitlin is stuck with a vampire bodyguard who feels that the best way to protect her is to become her pretend boyfriend. Trouble is, Caitlin is starting to fall in love for real, while Adrian can never love a human. Caitlin trusts Adrian to keep her safe from his demon father, but will he be able to protect her heart?[/learn_more] |
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Burn (Scan #2)
by Sarah Fine & Walter Jury
Young Adult
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[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]At the cliffhanger ending of Scan, Tate loses the very thing he was fighting to protect, what his father had called the key to human survival. Tate doesn’t have much time to worry about it because he needs to get away, to ensure he and Christina are safe. His father left him one last thing that can do just that—a safe house, which turns out to be a clue to what’s really threatening the planet. As Tate follows the clues his father left behind, he starts to uncover the truth, realizing he’s up against an enemy he’s only beginning to understand.
A riveting, fast-paced “we are not alone” adventure, Burn thrills to the very end.[/learn_more] |
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The Hunted (The Living #2)
by Matt de la Pena
Young Adult
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[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]When the Big One hit, Shy was at sea in style. The Paradise Cruise luxury liner he worked on was a hulking specimen of the best money could buy. And now it’s at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, along with almost all of its passengers.
Shy wasn’t the only one to survive, though. Addie, the rich blond daughter of a mysterious businessman, was on the dinghy he pulled himself into. But as soon as they found the rest of the survivors, she disappeared.
The only thing that filled the strange void of losing her was finding Carmen, his hot coworker, and discovering a way to get back home. But Shy’s luck hasn’t turned. Not yet.
Back on the dinghy, Addie told him a secret. It’s a secret that people would kill for-have killed for-and she has the piece that could turn everything on its ear. The problem? Shy has no idea where Addie is. Back home in California seems logical, but there are more ways to die back home then Shy could ever have guessed.
And thanks to what Shy now knows, he’s a moving target.[/learn_more] |
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5 to 1
by Holly Bodger
Young Adult
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[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]In the year 2054, after decades of gender selection, India now has a ratio of five boys for every girl, making women an incredibly valuable commodity. Tired of marrying off their daughters to the highest bidder and determined to finally make marriage fair, the women who form the country of Koyanagar have instituted a series of tests so that every boy has the chance to win a wife.
Sudasa, though, doesn’t want to be a wife, and Kiran, a boy forced to compete in the test to become her husband, has other plans as well. As the tests advance, Sudasa and Kiran thwart each other at every turn until they slowly realize that they just might want the same thing.
This beautiful, unique novel is told from alternating points of view—Sudasa’s in verse and Kiran’s in prose—allowing readers to experience both characters’ pain and their brave struggle for hope.[/learn_more] |
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The Cost of All Things
by Maggie Lehrman
Young Adult
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[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]What would you pay to cure your heartbreak? Banish your sadness? Transform your looks? The right spell can fix anything…. When Ari’s boyfriend Win dies, she gets a spell to erase all memory of him. But spells come at a cost, and this one sets off a chain of events that reveal the hidden—and sometimes dangerous—connections between Ari, her friends, and the boyfriend she can no longer remember.
Told from four different points of view, this original and affecting novel weaves past and present in a suspenseful narrative that unveils the truth behind a terrible tragedy.[/learn_more] |
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The Artisans
by Julie Reece
Young Adult
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[learn_more caption=”Book Description”]They say death can be beautiful. But after the death of her mother, seventeen-year-old Raven Weathersby gives up her dream of becoming a fashion designer, barely surviving life in the South Carolina lowlands.
To make ends meet, Raven works after school as a seamstress creating stunning works of fashion that often rival the great names of the day.
Instead of making things easier on the high school senior, her stepdad’s drinking leads to a run in with the highly reclusive heir to the Maddox family fortune, Gideon Maddox.
But Raven’s stepdad’s drying out and in no condition to attend the meeting with Maddox. So Raven volunteers to take his place and offers to repay the debt in order to keep the only father she’s ever known out of jail, or worse.
Gideon Maddox agrees, outlining an outrageous demand: Raven must live in his home for a year while she designs for Maddox Industries’ clothing line, signing over her creative rights.
Her handsome young captor is arrogant and infuriating to the nth degree, and Raven can’t imagine working for him, let alone sharing the same space for more than five minutes.
But nothing is ever as it seems. Is Gideon Maddox the monster the world believes him to be? And can he stand to let the young seamstress see him as he really is?[/learn_more] |
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The Crown of Ptolemy
(Percy Jackson & Kane Chronicles Crossover #3)
by Rick Riordan
Middle Grade / Fantasy
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| [learn_more caption=”Book Description”]In their first encounter, demigod Percy Jackson and magician Carter Kane had to battle a giant crocodile on Long Island. A month later, Annabeth Chase ran into Carter’s sister, Sadie, on the A train to Rockaway, where the pair fought a god named Serapis. Now trouble is brewing again, this time on Governor’s Island. An ancient Egyptian magician named Setne has come back from the dead and is experimenting with Egyptian and Greek magic, trying to become a god himself. He’s so powerful and tricky that all four—Percy, Annabeth, Carter, and Sadie—have to team up against him. But their usual weapons and spells aren’t going to cut it this time. Will the heroes be taken down by a wannabe god who looks like Elvis, or will they rise to the challenge? Told from Percy’s point of view, this third demigod-magician crossover story has all of the spunk and action that Rick Riordan fans crave.[/learn_more] |
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Tags: Fresh Meat, May 2015
So excited for The Wrath and the Dawn, The Artisans, and Cuckoo Song. Hmmm…all of my picks are from the YA category this week.
E.J. Stevens recently posted…Paranormal Road Trip: Destination Temperance with Laura Bickle
Thanks for posting this!
kindlemom1 recently posted…Blog Tour Book Review and Guest Post: The Big Fix by Linda Grimes
Reading Dickerson & Smith this week. Excited!
So many awesome new releases this week and not enough money to buy them all!!
*WAILS*
Pili recently posted…The Wrath & The Dawn by Renee Ahdieh Release Day Blitz!!!
Wow! Lots of great reads released this week. Thanks for sharing!
Naomi @ Naomi’s Reading Palace
Naomi recently posted…Waiting On Wednesday # 140 – Stalker & The Shadow Revolution
I can’t wait to get hold of The Wrath and the Dawn and my copy of End of Days arrived today! super excited for this book. I’m curious about a few others you have listed.
A great post Carmel! Sharon – Obsession with Books