Since mankind began, civilizations have always fallen: the Romans, the Greeks, the Aztecs…Now it’s our turn. Huge earthquakes rock the world. Cities are destroyed. But something even more awful is happening. An ancient evil has been unleashed, turning everyday people into hunters, killers, crazies.
Mason's mother is dying after a terrible car accident. As he endures a last vigil at her hospital bed, his school is bombed and razed to the ground, and everyone he knows is killed. Aries survives an earthquake aftershock on a bus, and thinks the worst is over when a mysterious stranger pulls her out of the wreckage, but she’s about to discover a world changed forever. Clementine, the only survivor of an emergency town hall meeting that descends into murderous chaos, is on the run from savage strangers who used to be her friends and neighbors. And Michael witnesses a brutal road rage incident that is made much worse by the arrival of the police--who gun down the guilty party and then turn on the bystanding crowd.
Where do you go for justice when even the lawmakers have turned bad? These four teens are on the same road in a world gone mad. Struggling to survive, clinging on to love and meaning wherever it can be found, this is a journey into the heart of darkness – but also a journey to find each other and a place of safety.
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The Gathering by Kelley Armstrong
Maya lives in a small medical-research town on Vancouver Island. How small? You can't find it on the map. It has less than two-hundred people, and her school has only sixty-eight students — for every grade from kindergarten to twelve. Now, strange things are happening in this claustrophobic town, and Maya's determined to get to the bottom of them. First, the captain of the swim team drowns mysteriously in the middle of a calm lake. A year later, mountain lions start appearing around Maya's home, and they won't go away. Her best friend, Daniel, starts getting negative vibes from certain people and things. It doesn't help that the new bad boy in town, Rafe, has a dangerous secret — and he's interested in one special part of Maya's anatomy: Her paw-print birthmark.
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I must say that I quite enjoyed the Darkest Powers series, so I finally broke down and purchased The Gathering. Fingers crossed that it lives up to the hype!
Cleopatra Confesses by Carolyn Meyer
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Goodreads |
Amazon]
It is the first century B.C. Cleopatra, the third of the pharaoh's six children, is the one that her father has chosen to be the next queen of Egypt. But when King Ptolemy is forced into exile, Cleopatra is left alone to fend for herself in a palace rife with intrigue and murder. Smart, courageous, ambitious and sensuously beautiful, she possesses the charm to cause two of history's most famous leaders to fall in love with her. But as her cruel sisters plot to steal the throne, Cleopatra realizes there is only one person on whom she can rely--herself.
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Yes, I did purchase another book on Cleopatra. I would purchase a book on something else to do with Ancient Egypt if someone wrote one!
In Other Worlds by Margaret Atwood
In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination is Margaret Atwood's account of her relationship with the literary form we have come to know as "science fiction." This relationship has been lifelong, stretching from her days as a child reader in the 1940s, through her time as a graduate student at Harvard, where she worked on the Victorian ancestors of the form, and continuing as a writer and reviewer. This book brings together her three heretofore unpublished Ellmann Lectures on 2010 - "Flying Rabbits," which begins with Atwood's early rabbit superhero creations, and goes on to speculate about masks, capes, weakling alter egos, and Things with Wings; "Burning Bushes," which follows her into Victorian otherlands and beyond; and "Dire Cartographies," which investigates Utopias and Dystopias. In Other Worlds also reprints some of Atwood's key reviews of other practitioners of the form and thoughts about SF. She also elucidates the differences (as she sees them) between "science fiction" proper, and "speculative fiction," as well as "sword and sorcery/fantasy" and "slipstream fiction." For all readers who have loved the work of Margaret Atwood, especially The Handmaid's Tale, The Blind Assassin, Oryx and Crake, and The Year of the Flood - not to mention Atwood's 100,000-plus Twitter followers - In Other Worlds is a must.
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This was one of the two books given to me in my Ninja Bag Swag from the Indigo Holiday Party. Margaret Atwood is a Canadian icon and that is enough for me. The fact that she can put our moron of a mayor in his place is just a bonus!
The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje
In the early 1950s, an eleven-year-old boy boards a huge liner bound for England. At mealtimes, he is placed at the lowly "Cat's Table" with an eccentric and unforgettable group of grownups and two other boys. As the ship makes its way across the Indian Ocean, through the Suez Canal, into the Mediterranean, the boys find themselves immersed in the worlds and stories of the adults around them. At night they spy on a shackled prisoner -- his crime and fate a galvanizing mystery that will haunt them forever.
Looking back from deep within adulthood, and gradually moving back and forth from the decks and holds of the ship to the years that follow the narrator unfolds a spellbinding and layered tale about the magical, often forbidden discoveries of childhood and the burdens of earned understanding, about a life-long journey that began unexpectedly with a sea voyage.
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This was the second book in my Ninja Bag Swag. Michael Ondaatje is also another awesome Canadian author. Plus, he is a Giller Prize Winner!
So Pretty It Hurts by Kate White
Bailey Weggins, the thirty-something, true crime journalist for Buzz, a leading celebrity magazine, needs a break. Plenty busy with her day job, her freelance work, and trying to get her first book noticed, she barely has time for her recently exclusive boyfriend, Beau Regan, much less herself. When Beau goes out of town, Bailey accepts an invitation with her friend Jesse to a music mogul's weekend house in upstate New York.
But, the relaxing weekend getaway turns out to be more like an Agatha Christie whodunit. A weird tension has infected all the guests—a glamorous crowd of journalists and models, including the famous, and famously thin, supermodel Devon Barr. An impending snowstorm only adds to the tension. When Devon’s cold, lifeless body is found in her bed, Bailey immediately suspects foul play: she can’t shake the memory of a fearful and angry Devon shivering in the woods outside the house, whispering , “I have to get out here . . . It’s not safe for me.”
When evidence goes missing from the crime scene, Bailey once again finds herself a moving target—running closer to the truth and farther from safety.
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This one was my Waiting on Wednesday pick sometime back in September. I am so stoked to actually have an ARC of this one. I can't wait to read it, but I am probably going to wait until the new year as the book doesn't come out until March 2012!
Birthdays for the Dead by Stuart MacBride
The gritty new standalone crime novel from the No. 1 bestselling author of Shatter the Bones and Dark Blood Detective Constable Ash Henderson has a dark secret! Five years ago his daughter, Rebecca, went missing on the eve of her thirteenth birthday. A year later the first card arrived: homemade, with a Polaroid picture stuck to the front -- Rebecca, strapped to a chair, gagged and terrified. Every year another card: each one worse than the last. The tabloids call him The Birthday Boy. He's been snatching girls for twelve years, always in the run-up to their thirteenth birthday, sending the families his homemade cards showing their daughters being slowly tortured to death. But Ash hasn't told anyone about Rebecca's birthday cards -- they all think she's just run away from home -- because if anyone finds out, he'll be taken off the investigation. And he's sacrificed too much to give up before his daughter's killer gets what he deserves!
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So I received an ARC of Stuart MacBride's upcoming book Birthday's for the Dead earlier this week at an event at the HarperCollins Canada HQ. Stuart is flipping hysterical and if you ever have a chance to attend a reading or signing with him, do it! I dragged Evie along with me and we had a blast. We learned things that I probably shouldn't write here. Let's just say it all had to do with ways to kill a person.
The Lens and the Looker by Lory S. Kaufman
There's hope for the future, but what about the past?
It’s the 24th century and humans, with the help of artificial intelligences (A.I.s) have finally created the perfect post-dystopian society. To make equally perfect citizens for this world, the elders have created History Camps, full sized recreations of cities from Earth’s distant pasts. Here teens live the way their ancestors did, doing the same dirty jobs and experiencing the same degradations. History Camps teach youths not to repeat the mistakes that almost caused the planet to die. But not everything goes to plan.
In this first of a trilogy, we meet three spoiled teens in the year 2347. Hansum almost 17, is good looking and athletic. Shamira, 15, is sassy, independent and an artistic genius. Lincoln, 14, is the smart-aleck. But you don’t have to scratch too far beneath the surface to find his insecurities.
These three “hard cases” refuse the valuable lessons History Camps teach. But when they are kidnapped and taken back in time to 1347 Verona, Italy, they only have two choices; adapt to the harsh medieval ways or die. The dangers are many, their enemies are powerful, and safety is a long way away. It’s hardly the ideal environment to fall in love – but that’s exactly what happens. In an attempt to survive, the trio risks introducing technology from the future. It could save them – or it could change history.
