I'm planning on reading eleven books in October. There are the usual buddy reads, book club reads (except my in person book club which is skipping a month), and the pick it for me book for this month. This will be the first month in a very long time that I have no Hercule Poirot book scheduled. I'm taking a break from those for a month or two, and then I'll get back to the short stories in that series. I also have some creepy stories scheduled for the Spooktober reading challenge.
Reading at fantasy buddy reads-
A Dance of Fang and Claw (The Ranger Archives #3) by Philip C. Quaintrell
Rangers aren’t born, they’re forged
Never
has this been more true for Asher, who must train a new ranger… or be
the one to hunt him down. Surviving an encounter with a Werewolf has
changed Russell Maybury’s life forever. If he is to salvage anything, he
must craft a new life using his abilities to do good. Should he stray,
he will answer to Asher.
Learning to fight monsters is all the
more difficult when the monsters are the ones hunting you. In his
possession, Russell holds an artefact of great significance, a relic
central to a shadow war waged for centuries untold. On the one side, the
Werewolves bring their claws. On the other, the Vorska, blood fiends
who know only the night, bring their fangs.
In over his head,
Asher must navigate a war of monsters and the machinations of ancient
mages if he is to survive. And should he survive, there is still the
Assassin that dwells within, a monster of his own making, that fights
for supremacy.
One way or another, the ranger is going to bleed…
Test of the Twins (Dragonlance Legends #3) by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
A confrontation with the Queen of Darkness is
finally within Raistlin's reach—and Caramon will do anything to stop
it—in this conclusion to the beloved Legends trilogy
Defying
the fate that claimed his evil predecessor, Raistlin opens the Portal to
the Abyss and passes through. With Crysania at his side, he engages the
Queen of Darkness in a battle for the ultimate prize—a seat among the
gods.
At the same time, Caramon and Tasslehoff are transported to
the future. They come to understand the consequences of Raistlin’s
quest—and Caramon at last realizes the painful sacrifice he must make to
prevent his brother’s success. Old friends and strange allies come
together to aid him, but Caramon must take the last, greatest step
alone: the first step into the Abyss.
Reading with the mystery book club-
This first one is a holdover from last month. I ran out of time and didn't get to it.
A Ruse of Shadows (Lady Sherlock #8) by Sherry Thomas
Charlotte Holmes is accustomed to solving
crimes, not being accused of them, but she finds herself in a dreadfully
precarious position as the bestselling Lady Sherlock series continues.
Charlotte’s success on the RMS Provence
has afforded her a certain measure of time and assurance. Taking
advantage of that, she has been busy, plotting to prise the man her
sister loves from Moriarty’s iron grip.
Disruption, however,
comes from an unexpected quarter. Lord Bancroft Ashburton, disgraced and
imprisoned as a result of Charlotte’s prior investigations,
nevertheless manages to press Charlotte into service: Underwood, his
most loyal henchman, is missing and Lord Bancroft wants Charlotte to
find Underwood, dead or alive.
But then Lord Bancroft himself
turns up dead and Charlotte, more than anyone else, meets the trifecta
criteria of motive, means, and opportunity. Never mind rescuing anyone
else, with the law breathing down her neck, can Charlotte save herself
from prosecution for murder?
Girl Number One by Jane Holland
As a young child, Eleanor Blackwood witnessed her mother's murder in woods near their farm. The killer was never found.
Now
an adult, Eleanor discovers a woman's body in the same spot in the
Cornish woods where her mother was strangled eighteen years before. But
when the police get there, the body has disappeared.
Is
Eleanor’s disturbed mind playing tricks on her again, or has her
mother’s killer resurfaced? And what does the number on the dead woman’s
forehead signify?
Grave Beginnings (The Grave Report #1) by R.R. Virdi
Thirteen...
As far as numbers go, it isn't a
great one. Hell, it's not even a good one and Vincent Graves is going
to find out just how unlucky of a number it can be.
Because someone,
or something, is killing people in the Empire state, and whatever it
is, it gives people everything they ever desired and more. And it's the
more that's the problem!
Well...it's one of the problems.
Vincent's
investigation also seems to have drawn the attention of a relentless
FBI agent and then there's the little bit where he has only thirteen
hours to solve the case, or he dies.
Talk about your literal deadlines...
...No pressure.
By
the end of this case Vincent will come to understand the meaning of an
age old proverb: Be careful what you wish for - because you just might
get it!
The Icarus Changeling (The Icarus Saga #4) by Timothy Zahn
Gregory Roarke – former bounty hunter, former
Trailblazer, current agent for the ultra-secret Icarus Group – has
received a new locate a suspected but as-yet undiscovered teleportation
portal on the backwater colony world of Alainn.
The rival Patth
are also searching for the device, and have considerably more resources
at their disposal. Fortunately, Roarke has Selene and her incredibly
sensitive Kadolian sense of smell. On paper, it should be a
straightforward enough job.
But that was before there was a
murder in the small town of Bilswift…and another one…and the discovery
that the Patth are already on the scene and have narrowed the search to a
heavily forested area in the hills and mountains east of town.
Most
disturbing of all is the discovery that one of Selene’s people, a
Kadolian teenaged boy named Tirano, is working at one of Bilswift’s fish
markets. A boy who may have lost his parents before his proper
socialization was completed. A boy who may be connected to both the
murders and the Patth.
A boy who may be the potentially dangerous wild card that the Kadolians call changelings.
Pick it for me book-
The Fate of Mercy Alban by Wendy Webb
From award-winning novelist Wendy Webb comes a
spine-tingling mystery about family secrets set in a big, old haunted
house on Lake Superior.
Grace Alban has spent twenty years away
from her childhood home, the stately Alban House, for reasons she would
rather forget. But when her mother's unexpected death brings Grace and
her teen-age daughter home, she finds more haunting the halls and
passageways of Alban House than her own personal demons.
Long-buried
family secrets, a packet of old love letters and a lost manuscript
plunge Grace into a decades-old mystery about a scandalous party at
Alban House, when a world-famous author took his own life and Grace's
aunt disappeared without a trace. The night has been shrouded in secrecy
by the powerful Alban family for all of these years, and Grace realizes
her family secrets tangle and twist as darkly as the secret passages of
Alban House. Her mother was intending to tell the truth about that
night to a reporter on the very day she died - could it have been
murder? Or was she a victim of the supposed Alban curse? With the help
of the disarmingly kind--and attractive—Reverend Matthew Parker, Grace
must uncover the truth about her home and its curse before she and her
daughter become the next victims.
Spooktober reads-
The Ghost Line by Andrew Neil Gray and J.S. Herbison
The luxury cruise ship the Martian Queen was
decommissioned years ago, set to drift back and forth between Earth and
Mars on the off-chance that reclaiming it ever became profitable for the
owners. For Saga and her husband Michel the cruise ship represents a
massive payday. Hacking and stealing the ship could earn them enough to
settle down, have children, and pay for the treatments to save Saga’s
mother’s life.
But the Martian Queen is much more than their
employer has told them. In the twenty years since it was abandoned,
something strange and dangerous has come to reside in the decadent
vessel. Saga feels herself being drawn into a spider’s web, and must
navigate the traps and lures of an awakening intelligence if she wants
to go home again.
The Lonely Dead by April Henry
A killer is on the loose, and only one girl has
the power to find him. But in this genre-bending YA thriller, she must
first manage to avoid becoming a target herself.
For Adele, the
dead aren’t really dead. She can see them and even talk to them. But
she’s spent years denying her gift. When she encounters her ex best
friend Tori in a shallow grave in the woods and realizes that Tori is
actually dead -- that gift turns into a curse. Without an alibi, Adele
becomes the prime suspect in Tori’s murder. She must work with Tori’s
ghost to find the real killer. But what if the killer finds Adele first?
Master mystery-write April Henry adds a chilling paranormal twist to this incredibly suspenseful young adult novel.
The Locked Door by Freida McFadden
Some doors are locked for a reason…
While
eleven-year-old Nora Davis was up in her bedroom doing homework, she
had no idea her father was killing women in the basement.
Until the day the police arrived at their front door.
Decades
later, Nora’s father is spending his life behind bars, and Nora is a
successful surgeon with a quiet, solitary existence. Nobody knows her
father was a notorious serial killer. And she intends to keep it that
way.
Then Nora discovers one of her young female patients has
been murdered. In the same unique and horrific manner that her father
used to kill his victims.
Somebody knows who Nora is. Somebody
wants her to take the fall for this unthinkable crime. But she’s not a
killer like her father. The police can’t pin anything on her.
As long as they don’t look in her basement.
Arrowood by Laura McHugh
Arrowood is the most ornate and grand of the
historical houses that line the Mississippi River in southern Iowa. But
the house has a mystery it has never revealed: It's where Arden
Arrowood's younger twin sisters vanished on her watch twenty years
ago--never to be seen again. After the twins' disappearance, Arden's
parents divorced and the Arrowoods left the big house that had been in
their family for generations. And Arden's own life has fallen apart: She
can't finish her master's thesis, and a misguided love affair has ended
badly. She has held on to the hope that her sisters are still alive,
and it seems she can't move forward until she finds them. When her
father dies and she inherits Arrowood, Arden returns to her childhood
home determined to discover what really happened to her sisters that
traumatic summer.
Arden's return to the town of Keokuk--and the
now infamous house that bears her name--is greeted with curiosity. But
she is welcomed back by her old neighbor and first love, Ben Ferris,
whose family, she slowly learns, knows more about the Arrowoods' secrets
and their small, closed community than she ever realized. With the help
of a young amateur investigator, Arden tracks down the man who was the
prime suspect in the kidnapping. But the house and the surrounding town
hold their secrets close--and the truth, when Arden finds it, is more
devastating than she ever could have imagined.
Arrowood is
a powerful and resonant novel that examines the ways in which our lives
are shaped by memory. As with her award-winning debut novel, The Weight of Blood,
Laura McHugh has written a thrilling novel in which nothing is as it
seems, and in which our longing for the past can take hold of the
present in insidious and haunting ways.
