Fewer books than last month, even though 12 is still a lot, it feels less stressful. I'm especially looking forward to trying Engines of God by Jack McDevitt, Foreigner by CJ Cherryh, and the next Echoes Saga book, Empire of Dirt.
Reading at Fantasy Buddy Reads-
Humans call them the Monument-Makers. An unknown
race, they left stunning alien statues on distant planets in the
galaxy. Each relic is different. Each inscription defies translation.
Yet all are heartbreakingly beautiful. And for planet Earth, on the
brink of disaster, they may hold the only key to survival for the entire
human race.
A young woman navigates a web of politics,
assassination attempts, and romance in the first book of a new series
set in the world of the House Witch trilogy.
Katarina Ashowan
was not made for courtly life. Sure, her father is the famous house
witch of Daxaria so she was raised among majestic castles, proper
manners, and royal expectations. But Kat is also a mutated witch whose
power aligns predominantly with fire. She’s more comfortable riding
horses or learning to fight than she is making polite conversation and
wearing fancy dresses. Which is why her upcoming assignment—serving her
best friend, Alina, the soon-to-be crowned Troivackian queen—is anything
but ideal.
Even worse, Kat is forced to make the long journey
from Daxaria to Troivack with Alina’s extremely irksome brother, Eric,
the crown prince of Daxaria. Kat and the formerly missing prince are
constantly at each other’s throats—until, that is, they begin to form an
unexpected kinship . . . with perhaps something more flickering beneath
the surface. Now Kat must contend with the strictures of Troivackian
court, mysterious assassination attempts, and her unsettling new
feelings for Eric, all as her fiery powers are becoming harder and
harder to control.
The first book in C.J.Cherryh's eponymous
series, Foreigner begins an epic tale of the survivors of a lost
spacecraft who crash-land on a planet inhabited by a hostile, sentient
alien race. From its beginnings as a human-alien story of first contact,
the Foreigner series has become a true science fiction odyssey,
following a civilization from the age of steam through early space
flight to confrontations with other alien species in distant sectors of
space. It is the masterwork of a truly remarkable author.
THE ECHOES OF FATE WILL NOT BE FORGOTTEN. THE WORDS UTTERED A THOUSAND YEARS AGO WILL COME TO PASS, AND A NEW AGE WILL DAWN…
War
is set to ravage Illian. The elves sail from the east. The savage
Darkakin rise from the south. Valanis, the dark elf, is finally free of
his prison and eager to see his work finished. Only then will he be free
of the gods who still haunt him.
A new hope rises in The Red
Mountains. There, the last remaining dragons have been discovered.
Gideon and Galanör, human and elf, will have to work together if they
are to convince Adriel, the last of the Dragorn order, to intervene in
the coming war.
Devoid of hope and unsure what road to take,
Asher and his companions must decide what role they will play as the
realm unravels into bloodshed. The only weapon known to rival Valanis’
power is in a place the ranger has avoided for a long time, a place
where, until now, neither man nor elf would dare to tread.
Civil
war has shattered the empire in The Arid Lands as the slaves make their
stand against the highborns. But, while revolution brews, a greater
threat looms. As a thunderous cacophony of steel and savagery marches
through The Undying Mountains, who will stand before this army of death…
Reading with the Mystery Book Club-
At the age of twelve, Eve Black was the only
member of her family to survive an encounter with serial attacker the
Nothing Man. Now an adult, she is obsessed with identifying the man who
destroyed her life.
Supermarket security guard Jim Doyle has just
started reading The Nothing Man--the true-crime memoir Eve has written
about her efforts to track down her family's killer. As he turns each
page, his rage grows. Because Jim's not just interested in reading about
the Nothing Man. He is the Nothing Man.
Jim soon begins to
realize how dangerously close Eve is getting to the truth. He knows she
won't give up until she finds him. He has no choice but to stop her
first ...
How far would you go to bury the truth?
While
searching for a missing hill walker, Glencoe Mountain Rescue Team
uncovers a body - just not the one they were looking for.
Still
dealing with the fallout from their last case, DCI Jack Logan and his
team venture south from Inverness to investigate a brutal,
gangland-style execution in the wilds of the Highland countryside.
As
the victim's dark secrets are gradually revealed, Jack uncovers the rot
lurking beneath the stunning scenery, making himself the target of a
criminal more dangerous than any he has faced before.
If he isn't careful, it won't just be a murder he's dealing with in Glencoe.
Sera’s curiosity is finally satisfied about the
Repository of Forgotten Things. Just not in the manner she desired.
While she staves off boredom confined in her cell, Lord Rowan finally
reveals his hideous plan, and Sera is not having any of it.
The
shadow of the old mage’s conspiracy is cast over all of England and even
King George. Sera holds the key to unraveling the web of treachery, but
first she must escape her magical confinement and rekindle trapped
powers. From the depths of the Repository, she weaves a tapestry of
friendship and loyalty with unlikely allies.
With every passing
day, the stakes grow higher, but time is running out for both England
and Sera. The fate of the kingdom rests in her hands. The time for her
to rise and claim her destiny is now. Only by escaping the Repository
and unlocking the full potential of her magic can Sera hope to rewrite
the fate of a nation and secure her own freedom.
Pick it for me book-
New beginnings take courage…
She’s a fifty-five-year-old widow feeling like she’s lost herself.
On
a whim of her aching heart, Alice McIntyre buys the Star Gazer Inn and
is looking for a fresh start…something to put a spark back into her
life.
But first she has to tell her four sons, who have problems
of their own but have smothered her with their protective instincts.
She’s lived on the huge South Texas ranch just outside of Corpus Christi
since their father carried her over the threshold. She’s raised them on
the massive McIntyre Ranch—one of the largest, wealthiest in Texas.
It’s been her home and theirs. Will they understand that it’s time for
her to leave? Time for her to move on?
Jackson McIntyre is
shocked by his mother’s announcement. Guilt-ridden in the aftermath of
his father’s accident, Jackson is determined to do whatever it takes to
help his mother find her way to move forward. But this new idea of hers
has him reeling.
Nina lives next door to the inn and is living a
quiet life, keeping a low profile. She has her reasons. Will the opening
of the inn and her new neighbors, especially the oldest son of the new
innkeeper, tempt her to step back into the light and out of the shadows
of her past?
Lisa, Alice’s best friend and recent divorcee, has
been traveling the world since the breakup that left her shaken and
feeling just as lost as Alice. A brilliant cook with a flair for
entertaining, she loves Alice’s idea and joins her to open the inn. But
Lisa has her own secrets.
Can these two friends, and their new neighbor Nina, find fresh starts as they ready the Star Gazer Inn for its new beginning?
Will Nina find the courage to take one more chance on love with her new friend’s son?
The Hercule Poirot Book-
A revolution in the Middle East has a direct and
deadly impact upon the summer term at Meadowbank, a picture-perfect
girls' school in the English countryside. Prince Ali Yusuf, Hereditary
Sheikh of Ramat, whose great liberalizing experiment -- 'hospitals,
schools, a Health Service' -- is coming to chaos, knows that he must
prepare for the day of his exile. He asks his pilot and school friend,
Bob Rawlinson, to care for a packet of jewels. Rawlinson does so, hiding
them among the possessions of his niece, Jennifer Sutcliffe, who is
bound for Meadowbank. Rawlinson is killed before he can reveal the
hiding place—or even the fact that he has employed his niece as a
smuggler. But someone knows, or suspects, that Jennifer has the jewels.
As murder strikes Meadowbank, only Hercule Poirot can restore the peace.
Reading for Book Club-
There he was in his sailboat in the middle of
the Atlantic, all alone and loving it. Well, there was a US Navy carrier
group on his southern horizon, but he was a Navy guy himself, so he
didn't mind. Then came the UFOs, hurtling in from the Outer Black to
overfly the carriers at Mach 17. Their impossible aerobatics were bad
enough—but then they started shooting at each other. And at the Navy.
With nukes. Little ones at first, but winding up with a 500 megatonner
at 90 miles that fried every piece of electronics within
line-of-sight.Richard Ashton thought he was just a ringside observer to
these now over-the-horizon events. Until the crippled alien lifeboat
came drifting down and homed in on his sailboat; suddenly he has his
hands full of an unconscious, critically wounded and impossibly human
alien warrior who also happens to be a gorgeous female.That's when
things got interesting.
Other Books I would like to get to-
Myra Whitlock has a gift. One many would kill for.
She’s an artist whose portraits alter people’s real-life bodies, a
talent she must hide from those who would kidnap, blackmail, and worse
in order to control it. Guarding that secret is the only way to keep her
younger sister safe now that their parents are gone.
But one
frigid night, the governor’s wife discovers the truth and threatens to
expose Myra if she does not complete a special portrait that would
resurrect the governor's dead son. Desperate, Myra ventures to his
legendary stone mansion.
Once she arrives, however, it becomes
clear the boy’s death was no accident. Someone dangerous lurks within
these glittering halls. Someone harboring a disturbing obsession with
portrait magic.
Myra cannot do the painting until she knows
what really happened, so she turns to the governor’s older son, a
captivating redheaded poet. Together, they delve into the family’s most
shadowed affairs, racing to uncover the truth before the secret Myra
spent her life concealing makes her the killer’s next victim.
Every year in the United States there are
fifteen thousand murders, give or take a few hundred. Of those, nearly
forty percent go unsolved.
In this six-part audio series,
Christina Walsh is determined to change that. After struggling with the
loss of her father, she sets out on a journey to bring the justice that
has eluded her to the families of other victims. And she starts with a
particularly strange case. The murder of world-renowned violinist Leona
McPherson who mysteriously disappeared years ago after a concert at the
Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. As Christina digs deeper, the story gets
stranger. Leona was a prodigy, someone too good to be forgotten, but
that’s exactly what has happened. She’s been forgotten. Entirely. By
everyone who knew her. From the gushing music critic in her hometown to
the detectives investigating her murder, even her own mother.
So
Christina embarks on a cross-country mission, with her roommate Sophie,
to figure out what happened to Leona. In the process, she uncovers a
trail of similar victims who have suffered the same fate. But if no one
can remember the victims, how can the killer possibly be caught?
Christina’s only leads come from a crazed homeless man’s ramblings, a
mysterious glass eye, and an otherworldly totem. Is Christina crazy or
has she stumbled upon something so implausible it must be true?
