All tagged Libba Bray

Recommendation Roundup: Dec. 2013 & Jan. 2014

Recommendation Roundup: Dec. 2013 & Jan. 2014

Sarah Moon
Recommendation Roundup

I combined December and January's recommendation posts due to our year-end List of Awesome compilation. We have a ton of very mixed books to recommend this time--I think the only one we all read was Jennifer Lynn Barnes' super-fun thriller The Naturals, which our book club read in January. 

I had a particularly good run of books over the last couple months, including that I got to read a super-early copy of Lisa Schroeder's lovely new novel, The Bridge from Me to You, which was special to me for a number of reasons (disclosure: including this), but particularly because it reminded me so much of growing up in small town Oregon. 

I was also excited to discover Maureen McGowan's action-packed post-apocalyptic thriller series (Deviants and Compliance), which is a whole lot of fun--especially on audio. And, if you're looking for a charming adult novel about the suckitude of adulting, I have to point you to You Had Me at Hello--it was a bestseller in the U.K. for a reason, let me tell you. 

AND! One one final note, I was thrilled to read another super-early copy of a much-anticipated book, Gabrielle Zevin's The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, which I adored. If you like Zevin's novels, you'll love this one, trust me.

Obviously, Sandra discovered the awesomeness of Sarah Addison Allen this month--hooray for another convert! And I peer-pressured Laura into reading more Liza Palmer, as one does...

Onward to the recommendations!

A New Favorite, But Not for Everyone - The Diviners by Libba Bray

A New Favorite, But Not for Everyone - The Diviners by Libba Bray

Sandra
Books

Libba Bray writes of the wind in the first pages of The Diviners, of how it swoops through New York City, silent witness to all that has been, is and will be.

The wind existed forever. It has seen much in this country of dreams and soap ads, old horrors and bloodshed. It has played mute witness to its burning witches, and has walked along a Trail of Tears; it has seen the slave ships release their human cargo, blinking and afraid, into the ports, their only possession a grief they can never lose ... It ran with the buffalo and touched tentative fingers to the tall black hats of Puritans. It has carried shouts of love, and it has dried tears to salt tracks on more faces than it can number. 

The wind also saw the  Roaring Twenties, a time when anything seemed possible, where money flowed as freely as illegal booze. 

Evie O’Neill felt trapped in a small town with small minds. She ached to jump out of the confines of he life into the glamour and excitement she knew waited for her. Her exuberance and sometimes her rashness made Evie a poor candidate for living happily in a backwoods Ohio community. 

One evening while partying with friends and drinking way too much, Evie stretches the bounds of acceptability for the last time by revealing a town scandal. It lands her in front of her parents with her head pounding from a hangover with mom and dad shouting their displeasure and despair.

List-O-Rama: Thinking About Summer Reading

List-O-Rama: Thinking About Summer Reading

Sarah Moon
Listorama

Summer reading tends to be feast or famine for me.

My work schedule gets a bit weird, so I alternate between no free time and loads of it. As a result, I tend to be a bit more random with my reading choices (which is saying something, since I specialize in random and don't keep a reading "schedule" like many folks do) and binge on series or authors and try a lot of stuff out that piqued my interest that I previously passed up due to business, etcetera.

Here are a few (actually, a whole lot) of books I'm thinking about tackling this summer.

Darkest London Series by Kristen Callihan

I picked up the third book in Kristen Calligan's Darkest London Series at ALA earlier this year, not realizing that it was part of an ongoing series (I started reading Winterblaze and was promptly confused). I find myself more and more intrigued by historical fantasy (is that what the sub-genre is called?) and this one while having pretty trashy covers, comes highly recommended by several folks whose taste I trust.

Amazon | Goodreads

The Paranormal YA Series Enders

I have a weird habit with series endings: I kind of hate them. There's so much pressure for series to end "right" and in the case of paranormal YA, since there's not a lot that I love, love, love, with Jeri Smith-Ready's Shade trilogy, Rachel Vincent's lengthy Soul Screamersseries and Kim Derting's Body Finder quartet, it's not just series ending stress I'm facing--I'm also looking at not having a lot left in the genre that intrigues me.

Shade Series on Amazon | Goodreads
Soul Screamers on Amazon | Goodreads
The Body Finder on Amazon | Goodreads