Friday 31 August 2012

Books I'm Squeeing About in September


How is it nearly September already? SEPTEMBER?! It doesn’t seem like it can possibly be this late in the year already, but somehow it is. But luckily there are some really awesome books on the horizon to ease the transition from summer to autumn. Get your purses out, cos this month is going to be a good one…

EDIT: Amazon originally listed 'Unspoken' by Sarah Rees Brennan as being released on 30th August, however they have now changed it to 13th September! So apologies for the screwy info, but still go out and buy this book as soon as it's released! It's going to be awesome!

In a city of daimons, rigid class lines separate the powerful from the power-hungry. And at the heart of The City is the Carnival of Souls, where both murder and pleasure are offered up for sale. Once in a generation, the carnival hosts a deadly competition that allows every daimon a chance to join the ruling elite. Without the competition, Aya and Kaleb would both face bleak futures--if for different reasons. For each of them, fighting to the death is the only way to try to live.
All Mallory knows of The City is that her father--and every other witch there--fled it for a life in exile in the human world. Instead of a typical teenage life full of friends and maybe even a little romance, Mallory scans quiet streets for threats, hides herself away, and trains to be lethal. She knows it's only a matter of time until a daimon finds her and her father, so she readies herself for the inevitable. While Mallory possesses little knowledge of The City, every inhabitant of The City knows of her. There are plans for Mallory, and soon she, too, will be drawn into the decadence and danger that is the Carnival of Souls.

Oh hell yes. I didn’t even need to look at the blurb for this one before it was on my wish list. All I needed to know was that it’s a new book from Melissa Marr, and it’s called ‘Carnival of Souls’ – doesn’t that just give you shivers? I cannot wait for this book. And you know what makes it even sweeter? The fact that James Marsters is reading the audiobook of it. Yes that’s right guys, SPIKE IS READING THE AUDIOBOOK. So not only am I squeeing about the book, I will also be buying it in audiobook format just to have his dulcet tones speak to me.

A darkly compelling mix of romance, fairy tale, and suspense from a new voice in teen fiction
The trees swallowed her brother whole, and Jenny was there to see it. Now seventeen, she revisits the woods where Tom was taken, resolving to say good-bye at last. Instead, she's lured into the trees, where she finds strange and dangerous creatures who seem to consider 
her the threat. Among them is Jack, mercurial and magnetic, with secrets of his own. Determined to find her brother, with or without Jack's help, Jenny struggles to navigate a faerie world where stunning beauty masks some of the most treacherous evils, and she's faced with a choice between salvation or sacrifice--and not just her own.
This is one of those books that comes together in a beautifulness of extra bits that makes me want to pick it up despite knowing very little about it. I was struck first off by the cover (yes I know, I’m terribly shallow) and then the title, which just has something about it and prompted me to look at the blurb and there’s something that just tugs at me and makes me want to pick this one up. I’m very much in a fairy tale mood at the moment, and I’m hoping this is going to hit the right spots.

A storm. Rain-lashed city streets. A flash of lightning. A scruffy lad sees a girl leap desperately from a horse-drawn carriage, in a vain attempt to escape her captors. Can the lad stand by and let her be caught again? Of course not, because he's ...Dodger.

We’ve got a new Pratchett almost within reach – need I say more?

Evie O'Neill has been exiled from her boring old hometown and shipped off to the bustling streets of New York City--and she is pos-i-toot-ly thrilled. New York is the city of speakeasies, shopping, and movie palaces! Soon enough, Evie is running with glamorous Ziegfield girls and rakish pickpockets. The only catch is Evie has to live with her Uncle Will, curator of The Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult--also known as "The Museum of the Creepy Crawlies."
When a rash of occult-based murders comes to light, Evie and her uncle are right in the thick of the investigation. And through it all, Evie has a secret: a mysterious power that could help catch the killer--if he doesn't catch her first.

Guys we are so being spoilt this month – a new Libba Bray book?! Oh yes please. Again, nothing more than that was needed to get this firmly onto my list, but then I saw the blurb and oh my yes please some more. Another twenties book? And by such a fantastic author? I am so there.

“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.”
It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.
Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.
His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.
But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.
For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

Maggie Stiefvater had me with The Scorpio Races, and as a result this new offering from her has me supremely excited. I’m wondering what we’re going to get from such an eclectic author who can take romance from making out every couple of pages in ‘Shiver’ to the slow burn that I fell in love with in ‘The Scorpio Races’. Whatever the result, I cannot wait to get my hands on this book.

In the sequel to the acclaimed The Girl of Fire and Thorns, a seventeen-year-old princess turned war queen faces sorcery, adventure, untold power, and romance as she fulfills her epic destiny.
Elisa is the hero of her country. She led her people to victory against a terrifying enemy, and now she is their queen. But she is only seventeen years old. Her rivals may have simply retreated, choosing stealth over battle. And no one within her court trusts her-except Hector, the commander of the royal guard, and her companions. As the country begins to crumble beneath her and her enemies emerge from the shadows, Elisa will take another journey. With a one-eyed warrior, a loyal friend, an enemy defector, and the man she is falling in love with, Elisa crosses the ocean in search of the perilous, uncharted, and mythical source of the Godstone's power. That is not all she finds. A breathtaking, romantic, and dangerous second volume in the Fire and Thorns trilogy.

I fell, completely unexpectedly and very thoroughly in love with ‘Fire and Thorns’ last year, and as a result this has been hotly anticipated since June 2011. Everything I’ve heard from early reviews marks this as even better than the first book, and I can’t wait to see where Carson takes us next in this fantastic debut fantasy series.

When Barry Fairweather dies in his early forties, the town of Pagford is left in shock.
Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war.
Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils…Pagford is not what it first seems.
And the empty seat left by Barry on the parish council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations?

I’m sure I’m not the only person who is waiting nervously and excitedly for the end of the month, because September 27th marks the release of the first adult novel from J. K. Rowling, and her first full novel since the Harry Potter series. Despite the lack of Horcruxes, wands and butterbeer, I still can’t wait to see what she’s written next with her first foray into adult fiction.

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