Books I'm Squeeing About in February

I don't quite know how February crept up on me like that. I swear it was just Christmas and I blinked.
Luckily to help ease the stress and shock of hitting the second month of 2016 without even really realizing, there are a whole bunch of exciting books that are hitting our shelves this month that I cannot wait to get into.

4th - Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton
She’s more gunpowder than girl—and the fate of the desert lies in her hands.
Mortals rule the desert nation of Miraji, but mystical beasts still roam the wild and barren wastes, and rumor has it that somewhere, djinni still practice their magic. But there's nothing mystical or magical about Dustwalk, the dead-end town that Amani can't wait to escape from. 
Destined to wind up "wed or dead," Amani’s counting on her sharpshooting skills to get her out of Dustwalk. When she meets Jin, a mysterious and devastatingly handsome foreigner, in a shooting contest, she figures he’s the perfect escape route. But in all her years spent dreaming of leaving home, she never imagined she'd gallop away on a mythical horse, fleeing the murderous Sultan's army, with a fugitive who's wanted for treason. And she'd never have predicted she'd fall in love with him...or that he'd help her unlock the powerful truth of who she really is.

The buzz surrounding this book has been incredible (congratulations publicists on a truly brilliant campaign and build up) and I cannot wait to get my hands on this one. It sounds brilliant, the early reviews confirm this, and it's been one I've been desperate to read ow for months.

9th - Blackhearts by Nicole Castroman
Blackbeard the pirate was known for striking fear in the hearts of the bravest of sailors. But once he was just a young man who dreamed of leaving his rigid life behind to chase adventure in faraway lands. Nothing could stop him—until he met the one girl who would change everything.
Edward "Teach" Drummond, son of one of Bristol's richest merchants, has just returned from a year-long journey on the high seas to find his life in shambles. Betrothed to a girl he doesn’t love and sick of the high society he was born into, Teach dreams only of returning to the vast ocean he’d begun to call home. There's just one problem: convincing his father to let him leave and never come back.
Following her parents' deaths, Anne Barrett is left penniless and soon to be homeless. Though she’s barely worked a day in her life, Anne is forced to take a job as a maid in the home of Master Drummond. Lonely days stretch into weeks, and Anne longs for escape. How will she ever realize her dream of sailing to Curaçao—where her mother was born—when she's stuck in England? 
From the moment Teach and Anne meet, they set the world ablaze. Drawn to each other, they’re trapped by society and their own circumstances. Faced with an impossible choice, they must decide to chase their dreams and go, or follow their hearts and stay.

I'm loving the sudden appearance of covers with boats in bottles on the front, pretty and eye catching. A Blackbeard retelling? Yes please, sign me up. The cover caught my eye, the title had me intrigued, but the blurb has truly sold me. Another one that I've been desperate to read for months now.

11th - Glass Sword by Victoria AveyardMare Barrow’s blood is red—the color of common folk—but her Silver ability, the power to control lightning, has turned her into a weapon that the royal court tries to control. 
The crown calls her an impossibility, a fake, but as she makes her escape from Maven, the prince—the friend—who betrayed her, Mare uncovers something startling: she is not the only one of her kind.
Pursued by Maven, now a vindictive king, Mare sets out to find and recruit other Red-and-Silver fighters to join in the struggle against her oppressors. 
But Mare finds herself on a deadly path, at risk of becoming exactly the kind of monster she is trying to defeat. 
Will she shatter under the weight of the lives that are the cost of rebellion? Or have treachery and betrayal hardened her forever?

I'm going to be honest with you, the first book in this series really didn't do it for me. Yeah I enjoyed it, yeah I stormed through it in one sitting, but it didn't grab me. The ideas were great but it never felt like they were fully developed.
But it was enough to intrigue me and to make me want to find out what happens in the next book. Here's hoping book two enthralls me in a way that book one failed to do.

23rd - A Gathering of Shadows by V. E. SchwabFour months have passed since the shadow stone fell into Kell’s possession. Four months since his path crossed with Delilah Bard. Four months since Rhy was wounded and the Dane twins fell, and the stone was cast with Holland’s dying body through the rift, and into Black London.
In many ways, things have almost returned to normal, though Rhy is more sober, and Kell is now plagued by his guilt. Restless, and having given up smuggling, Kell is visited by dreams of ominous magical events, waking only to think of Lila, who disappeared from the docks like she always meant to do. As Red London finalizes preparations for the Element Games—an extravagant international competition of magic, meant to entertain and keep healthy the ties between neighboring countries—a certain pirate ship draws closer, carrying old friends back into port.
But while Red London is caught up in the pageantry and thrills of the Games, another London is coming back to life, and those who were thought to be forever gone have returned. After all, a shadow that was gone in the night reappears in the morning, and so it seems Black London has risen again—meaning that another London must fall.

Confession time, I have yet to read the first book in this series... But I've heard such good things about it, I cannot wait to get stuck in. In a way I'm quite glad I've waited until now, because it means I can storm straight through both the first book and the second in one glorious reading binge...

25th - Night Study by Maria V. SnyderEver since being kidnapped from the Illiais Jungle as a child, Yelena Zaltana's has been fraught with peril. But the recent loss of her Soulfinding abilities has endangered her more than ever before. As she desperately searches for a way to reclaim her magic, her enemies are closing in, and neither Ixia nor Sitia are safe for her anymore. Especially since the growing discord between the two countries and the possibility of a war threatens everything Yelena holds dear. 
Valek is determined to protect Yelena, but he's quickly running out of options. The Commander suspects that his loyalties are divided, and he's been keeping secrets from Valek...secrets that put him, Yelena and all their friends in terrible danger. As they uncover the various layers of the Commander's mysterious plans, they realize it's far more sinister that they could have ever imagined.

Admittedly I wasn't as thrilled with 'Shadow Study' as I was with the original Study trilogy, but it was still wonderful to return to the world and characters I fell in love with and see what they were up to. 'Shadow Study' felt a little slow to get going, but with so much set up in that book I'm hoping that this one will really fly and I'll fall in love all over again.

There you have the five books that I cannot wait to get my hands on and start reading this month. Are there any here that you can't wait to pick up? Any new ones that have you intrigued? Or any that you think I've missed? Let me know in the comments below!