Books That Caught Our Eye

3 Comments

dragonlegendsAt Mailbox Monday we encourage participants to not only share the books they received, but to check out the books others have received. Each week will share a few books that caught our eye from that weeks’ Mailbox Monday.

Please welcome Velvet as she takes on MM duties next week. We’re happy to have Velvet on board.

We encourage you to share the books that caught your eye in the comments.

MARTHA:

One in the Hand by Rhonda Parrish found at Amber Stults.

When a sword manifests in an old folk’s home it opens Autumn’s eyes to a whole world of magic, gods and giants. But before she has a chance to come to grips with her new reality, Autumn’s grandmother is attacked and put in the hospital. Autumn needs to discover what the deal is with the sword and how to protect herself and the people she loves.

And, of course, there’s also the matter of the wings that have sprouted from her back.

Can she learn about this new reality and the shadowy forces working within it in time to diffuse the situation before someone gets killed?

“I didn’t see the cover until I went to Goodreads but I liked the premise – I like wings.”

Eight Perfect Hours by Lia Louis found at Bookfan.

On a snowy evening in March, thirty-something Noelle Butterby is on her way back from an event at her old college when disaster strikes. With a blizzard closing off roads, she finds herself stranded, alone in her car, without food, drink, or a working charger for her phone.

All seems lost until Sam Attwood, a handsome American stranger also trapped in a nearby car, knocks on her window and offers assistance. What follows is eight perfect hours together, until morning arrives and the roads finally clear. The two strangers part, positive they’ll never see each other again but fate, it seems, has a different plan. As the two keep serendipitously bumping into one another, they begin to realize that perhaps there truly is no such thing as coincidence.

With plenty of charming twists and turns and Lia Louis’s “bold, standout voice” (Gillian McAllister, author of The Good Sister), Eight Perfect Hours is a gorgeously crafted novel that will make you believe in the power of fate.

“Sometimes a lighter romance like this gets my eye (even over two sci fics I was eyeing).”

VELVET:

CursesCurses by Lish McBride found at Kait Plus Books

Merit Cravan refused to fulfill her obligation to marry a prince, leading to a fairy godling’s curse. She will be forced to live as a beast forever, unless she agrees to marry a man of her mother’s choosing before her eighteenth birthday.

Tevin Dumont has always been a pawn in his family’s cons. The prettiest boy in a big family, his job is to tempt naïve rich girls to abandon their engagements, unless their parents agree to pay him off. But after his mother runs afoul of the beast, she decides to trade Tevin for her own freedom.

Now, Tevin and Merit have agreed that he can pay off his mother’s debt by using his con-artist skills to help Merit find the best match . . . but what if the best match is Tevin himself?

“The cover with that sliver of a beast peeking through grabbed me.”

IronWidowIron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao found at Juli @ A Universe in Words

The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the mecha aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall. It doesn’t matter that the girls often die from the mental strain.

When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it’s to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister’s death. But she gets her vengeance in a way nobody expected—she kills him through the psychic link between pilots and emerges from the cockpit unscathed. She is labeled an Iron Widow, a much-feared and much-silenced kind of female pilot who can sacrifice boys to power up Chrysalises instead.​

To tame her unnerving yet invaluable mental strength, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest and most controversial male pilot in Huaxia​. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily. She will miss no opportunity to leverage their combined might and infamy to survive attempt after attempt on her life, until she can figure out exactly why the pilot system works in its misogynist way—and stop more girls from being sacrificed.

“Liking the mashup of asian, scifi, queer, historical, YA.”

SERENA:

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke from Amber Stults.

Piranesi’s house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house.

There is one other person in the house-a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.

“Sometimes you just need to get into a fantasy world to escape real life. This sounds like one of those intriguing books that can take you away.”

What books caught your eyes this week?

 

3 thoughts on “Books That Caught Our Eye

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.