Sunday, February 16, 2014

Stacking the Shelves #36

Stacking the Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga's Review

From the Library:


The Apprentices by Maile Meloy
Two years have passed since Janie Scott last saw Benjamin Burrows, the mysterious apothecary's defiant son who stole her heart. On the other side of the world, Benjamin and his father are treating the sick and wounded in the war-torn jungles of Vietnam. But Benjamin has also been experimenting with a magical new formula that allows him to communicate with Janie across the globe. When Benjamin discovers that she's in trouble, he calls on their friend Pip for help. The three friends are thrown into a desperate chase around the world to find one another, while unraveling the mystery of what threatens them all.

Bought:

Spellcaster by Clauda Gray
When Nadia's family moves to Captive's Sound, she instantly realizes there's more to the place than meets the eye. Descended from witches, Nadia can sense that a spell has been cast over the tiny Rhode Island town - a sickness infecting everyone and everything in it. The magic at work is darker and more powerful than anything she's come across and has sunk its claws more deeply into Mateo . . . her rescuer, her friend, and the guy she yearns to get closer to even as he pushes her away.

Mateo has lived in Captive's Sound his entire life, shadowed by small-town gossip and his family's tormented past. Every generation, the local legends say, one member of the family goes mad, claiming to know the future before descending into insanity. When the strange dreams Mateo has been having of rescuing a beautiful girl from a car accident actually come true, he knows he's doomed.

Despite the forces pulling them apart, Nadia and Mateo must work together to break the chains of his terrible family curse, and to prevent a coming disaster that even now threatens the entire town, including Nadia's family, her newfound friends, and her own life.

Antigoddess by Kendare Blake
Old gods never die . . . . Or so Athena thought. But then the feathers started sprouting beneath her skin, invading her lungs like a strange cancer, and Hermes showed up with a fever eating away his flesh. So much for living a quiet eternity in perpetual health.

Desperately seeking the cause of their slow, miserable deaths, Athena and Hermes travel the world, gathering allies and discovering enemies both new and old. Their search leads them to Cassandra - an ordinary girl who was once an extraordinary prophetess, protected and loved by a god.

These days, Cassandra doesn't involve herself in the business of gods - in fact, she doesn't even know they exist. But she could be the key in a way that is only just beginning.

Because Hera, the queen of the gods, has aligned herself with others of the ancient Olympians, who are killing off rivals in an attempt to prolong their own lives. But these antigods have become corrupted in their desperation to survive, horrific creatures caricatures of their former glory. Athena will need every advantage she can get because immortals don't just flicker out.

Every one of them dies in their own way. Some choke on feathers. Others become monsters. All of them rage against their last breath.

Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake
Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: he kills the dead.

So did his father before him, until his gruesome murder by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father's mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead - keeping pesky things like the future and friends at bay.

When they arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas doesn't expect anything outside of the ordinary: move, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he's never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, but now stained red and dripping blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian house she used to call home.

But she, for whatever reason, spares his life.

Girl of Nightmares by Kendare Blake
It's been months since the ghost of Anna Korlov opened a door to Hell in her basement and disappeared into it, but ghost hunter Cas Lowood can't move on.

His friends remind him that Anna sacrificed herself so that Cas could live - not walk around half dead. He knows they're right, but in Cas's eyes, no living girl he meets can compare to the dead girl he fell in love with.

Now he's seeing Anna everywhere: sometimes when he's asleep, and sometimes in waking nightmares. But something is very wrong . . . . these aren't just daydreams. Anna seems tortured, torn apart in new and ever more gruesome ways every time she appears.

Cas doesn't know what happened to Anna when she disappeared into Hell, but he knows she doesn't deserve whatever is happening to her now. Anna saved Cas more than once, and it's time for him to return the favor.

Hold Me Closer, Necromancer by Lish McBride
Sam leads a pretty normal life. He may not have the most exciting job in the world, but he's doing all right - until a fast food prank brings him to the attention of Douglas, a creepy guy with an intense violent streak.

Turns out Douglas is a necromancer who raises the dead for cash and sees potential in Sam. Then Sam discovers he's a necromancer, too, but with strangely latent powers. And his worst nightmare wants to join forces . . . . or else.

With only a week to figure things out, Sam needs all the help he can get. Luckily he lives in Seattle, which has nearly as many paranormal types as it does coffee places. But even with newfound friends, will Sam be able to save his skin?

Necromancing the Stone by Lish McBride
With the defeat of the evil Douglas behind him, Sam LaCroix is getting used to his new life. Okay, so he hadn't exactly planned on being a powerful necromancer with a seat on the local magical council and a capricious werewolf sort-of-girlfriend, but things are going fine, right?

Well . . . . not really. He's pretty tired of getting beat up by everyone and their mother, for one thing, and he can't help but feel that his new house hates him. His best friend is a werebear, someone is threatening his sister, and while Sam realizes that he himself has a lot of power at his fingertips, he's not exactly sure how to use it. Which, he has to admit, is a bit disconcerting.

But when everything starts falling apart, he decides it's time to step up and take control. His attempts to do so just bring up more questions, though, the most important of which is more than a little alarming: Is Douglas really dead?

Lucinda's Secret by Tony DiTerlizzi & Holly Black
Let the story of my niece and nephews be a warning. The more you know, the more danger you're in. And trust me, you don't want to meddle with the Little People. --S.S.

ARCs:

Going Over by Beth Kephart
In the early 1980s, Ada and Stefan are young, would-be lovers living on opposite sides of the Berlin Wall - Ada lives with her mother and grandmother and paints graffiti on the Wall, and Stefan lives with his grandmother in the East and dreams of escaping to the West.

The Falconer by Elizabeth May
Edinburgh, Scotland, 1844

Lady Aileana Kameron, the only daughter of the Marquess of Douglas, was destined for a life carefully planned around Edinburgh's society events - right up until a faery killed her mother.

Now it's the 1844 winter season and Aileana slaughters faeries in secret, in between the endless rounds of parties, tea, and balls. Armed with modified percussion pistols and explosives, she sheds her aristocratic facade every night to go hunting. She's determined to track down the faery who murdered her mother, and to destroy any who prey on humans in the city's many dark alleyways.

But the balance between high society and her private war is a delicate one, and as the fae infiltrate the ballroom and Aileana's father returns home, she has decisions to make. How much is she willing to lose - and just how far will Aileana go for revenge?


This Week, On The Reading Hedgehog.........

February 10, 2014 - Monday
February 11, 2014 - Tuesday
February 12, 2014 - Wednesday
February 13, 2014 - Thursday
February 14, 2014 - Friday
February 15, 2014 - Saturday

Next Week, On The Reading Hedgehog.........

February 17, 2014 - Monday
Review: Enders - Lissa Pirce
February 18, 2014 - Tuesday
Top Ten Tuesday #32: Top 10 Tuesday REWIND!
February 19, 2014 - Wednesday
Waiting on Wednesday #36 + WWW Wednesday #6
February 20, 2014 - Thursday
Review: The Unbound - Victoria Schwab
February 21, 2014 - Friday
Review: Vicious - V. E. Schwab
February 22, 2014 - Saturday
Guest Post: Storyline Pet Peeves

4 comments:

  1. Anna Dressed in Blood is so good, and that's coming from someone who is scared of horror! I still need to read Girl of Nightmares, but boy or boy, it's great! I also own Antigoddess and need to get on that too. You get some great books from the library, I'm so jealous! Great collection :)

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    1. Everyone has told me it's good. They also said that GIRL OF NIGHTMARES wasn't as good, but I hate having an incomplete series. :) I'm saving ANNA and GIRL for October, but I'm going to start in on ANTIGODDESS as soon as possible.

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  2. Great haul! I loved Anna Dressed in Blood. Really want Antigoddess too! I'm a new GFC follower.
    Check out my STS

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    Replies
    1. I'm really looking forward to reading them both. :) Thanks for following, Lisa!

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