As most of you know, I was in England for six weeks, and as such, I went a little bit crazy on the book buying, because there were so many British versions of books that are absolutely gorgeous, and I (obviously) had to have them. Then, I got back a couple days before the end of the month, and immediately went on a buying spree, because I was behind on my releases. All told, I got over 20 books over the past month. A few of them were gifts that I have already given away, but featured here are the 18 that are still in my possession and the 5 eBooks that I also bought!
1. I Capture the Castle – Dodie Smith (not yet read) –
Through six turbulent
months of 1934, 17-year-old Cassandra Mortmain keeps a journal, filling
three notebooks with sharply funny yet poignant entries about her home, a
ruined Suffolk castle, and her eccentric and penniless family. By the
time the last diary shuts, there have been great changes in the Mortmain
household, not the least of which is that Cassandra is deeply,
hopelessly, in love.
2. P.S. I Still Love You – Jenny Han– review here – (☆☆☆☆☆) – Lara Jean didn’t expect to really fall for Peter. She and Peter were just pretending. Except suddenly they weren’t. Now Lara Jean is more confused than ever. When
another boy from her past returns to her life, Lara Jean’s feelings for
him return too. Can a girl be in love with two boys at once? In this charming and heartfelt sequel to the New York Times bestseller To All the Boys I've Loved Before,
we see first love through the eyes of the unforgettable Lara Jean. Love
is never easy, but maybe that’s part of what makes it so amazing
3. The Improbable Theory of Ana and Zak – Brian Katcher – (☆☆☆☆) –
It all begins when Ana
Watson's little brother, Clayton, secretly ditches the quiz bowl
semifinals to go to the Washingcon sci-fi convention on what should have
been a normal, résumé-building school trip. If slacker Zak
Duquette hadn't talked up the geek fan fest so much, maybe Clayton
wouldn't have broken nearly every school rule or jeopardized Ana’s last
shot at freedom from her uptight parents. Now, teaming up with
Duquette is the only way for Ana to chase down Clayton in the sea of
orcs, zombies, bikini-clad princesses, Trekkies, and Smurfs. After all,
one does not simply walk into Washingcon. But in spite of Zak's
devil-may-care attitude, he has his own reasons for being as lost as
Ana-and Ana may have more in common with him than she thinks. Ana and
Zak certainly don’t expect the long crazy night, which begins as a
nerdfighter manhunt, to transform into so much more…
4. The Wrath and the Dawn – Renée Ahdieh–
Review Here – (
☆☆☆☆☆) –Every dawn brings
horror to a different family in a land ruled by a killer. Khalid, the
eighteen-year-old Caliph of Khorasan, takes a new bride each night only
to have her executed at sunrise. So it is a suspicious surprise when
sixteen-year-old Shahrzad volunteers to marry Khalid. But she does so
with a clever plan to stay alive and exact revenge on the Caliph for the
murder of her best friend and countless other girls. Shazi's wit and
will, indeed, get her through to the dawn that no others have seen, but
with a catch . . . she’s falling in love with the very boy who killed
her dearest friend. She discovers that the murderous boy-king is
not all that he seems and neither are the deaths of so many girls. Shazi
is determined to uncover the reason for the murders and to break the
cycle once and for all.
5. Emmy and Oliver – Robin Benway – (not yet read) –
Emmy’s best
friend, Oliver, reappears after being kidnapped by his father ten years
ago. Emmy hopes to pick up their relationship right where it left off.
Are they destined to be together? Or has fate irreparably driven them
apart? Emmy just wants to be in charge of her own life. She
wants to stay out late, surf her favorite beach—go anywhere without her
parents’ relentless worrying. But Emmy’s parents can’t seem to let her
grow up—not since the day Oliver disappeared. Oliver needs a moment to figure out his heart. He’d
thought, all these years, that his dad was the good guy. He never knew
that it was his father who kidnapped him and kept him on the run.
Discovering it, and finding himself returned to his old hometown, all at
once, has his heart racing and his thoughts swirling. Emmy and
Oliver were going to be best friends forever, or maybe even more, before
their futures were ripped apart. In Emmy’s soul, despite the space and
time between them, their connection has never been severed. But is their
story still written in the stars? Or are their hearts like the pieces
of two different puzzles—impossible to fit together?
6. Lois Lane: Fallout – Gwenda Bond – (not yet read) –
Lois Lane is starting a
new life in Metropolis. An Army brat, Lois has lived all over—and seen
all kinds of things. (Some of them defy explanation, like the
near-disaster she witnessed in Kansas in the middle of one night.) But
now her family is putting down roots in the big city, and Lois is
determined to fit in. Stay quiet. Fly straight. As soon as she steps
into her new high school, though, she can see it won’t be that easy. A
group known as the Warheads is making life miserable for another girl at
school. They’re messing with her mind, somehow, via the high-tech
immersive videogame they all play. Not cool. Armed with her wit and her
new snazzy job as a reporter, Lois has her sights set on solving this
mystery. But sometimes it’s all a bit much. Thank goodness for her
maybe-more-than-a friend, a guy she knows only by his screenname,
SmallvilleGuy.
7. The Land of Stories: Beyond the Kingdoms – Chris Colfer – (not yet read) –
Fairy tales are just the beginning. The
Masked Man is on the loose in the Land of Stories, and it's up to Alex
and Conner Bailey to stop him...except Alex has been thrown off the
Fairy Council, and no one will believe they're in danger. With
only the help of the ragtag group of Goldilocks, Jack, Red Riding Hood,
and Mother Goose and her gander, Lester, the Bailey twins discover the
Masked Man's secret scheme: He possesses a powerful magic potion that
turns every book it touches into a portal, and he is recruiting an army
of literature's greatest villains! So begins a race through the
magical Land of Oz, the fantastical world of Neverland, the madness of
Wonderland, and beyond. Can Alex and Conner catch up to the Masked Man,
or will they be one step behind until it's too late?
8. Whitman Illuminated: Song of Myself – Walt Whitman, Allen Crawford (☆☆☆☆☆) –
Walt Whitman’s iconic collection of poems, Leaves of Grass,
has earned a reputation as a sacred American text. Whitman himself made
such comparisons, going so far as to use biblical verse as a model for
his own. So it’s only appropriate that artist and illustrator Allen
Crawford has chosen to illuminate—like medieval monks with their own
holy scriptures—Whitman’s masterpiece and the core of his poetic vision,
“Song of Myself.” Crawford has turned the original 60-page poem from
Whitman’s 1855 edition into a sprawling 234-page work of art. The
handwritten text and illustrations intermingle in a way that’s both
surprising and wholly in tune with the spirit of the poem—they’re
exuberant, rough, and wild. Whitman Illuminated: Song of Myself is a sensational reading experience, an artifact in its own right, and a masterful tribute to the Good Gray Poet.
9. Every Last Word – Tamara Ireland Stone – (not yet read) –
If you could read my mind, you wouldn't be smiling. Samantha
McAllister looks just like the rest of the popular girls in her junior
class. But hidden beneath the straightened hair and expertly applied
makeup is a secret that her friends would never understand: Sam has
Purely-Obsessional OCD and is consumed by a stream of dark thoughts and
worries that she can't turn off. Second-guessing every move,
thought, and word makes daily life a struggle, and it doesn't help that
her lifelong friends will turn toxic at the first sign of a wrong
outfit, wrong lunch, or wrong crush. Yet Sam knows she'd be truly
crazy to leave the protection of the most popular girls in school. So
when Sam meets Caroline, she has to keep her new friend with a
refreshing sense of humor and no style a secret, right up there with
Sam's weekly visits to her psychiatrist.Caroline introduces Sam
to Poet's Corner, a hidden room and a tight-knit group of misfits who
have been ignored by the school at large. Sam is drawn to them
immediately, especially a guitar-playing guy with a talent for verse,
and starts to discover a whole new side of herself. Slowly, she begins
to feel more "normal" than she ever has as part of the popular crowd . .
. until she finds a new reason to question her sanity and all she holds
dear.
10. Far From the Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy – (not yet read) –
Independent and spirited
Bathsheba Everdene has come to Weatherbury to take up her position as a
farmer on the largest estate in the area. Her bold presence draws three
very different suitors: the gentleman-farmer Boldwood, soldier-seducer
Sergeant Troy and the devoted shepherd Gabriel Oak. Each, in contrasting
ways, unsettles her decisions and complicates her life, and tragedy
ensues, threatening the stability of the whole community. The first of
his works set in Wessex, Hardy's novel of swift passion and slow
courtship is imbued with his evocative descriptions of rural life and
landscapes, and with unflinching honesty about sexual relationships.
11. Evelina – Frances Burney – (not yet read) –
Frances Burney's first
and most enduringly popular novel is a vivid, satirical, and seductive
account of the pleasures and dangers of fashionable life in late
eighteenth-century London. As she describes her heroine's
entry into society, womanhood and, inevitably, love, Burney exposes the
vulnerability of female innocence in an image-conscious and often cruel
world where social snobbery and sexual aggression are played out in the
public arenas of pleasure-gardens, theatre visits, and balls. But
Evelina's innocence also makes her a shrewd commentator on the excesses
and absurdities of manners and social ambitions--as well as attracting
the attention of the eminently eligible Lord Orville. Evelina,
comic and shrewd, is at once a guide to fashionable London, a satirical
attack on the new consumerism, an investigation of women's position in
the late eighteenth century, and a love story. The new introduction and
full notes to this edition help make this richness all the more readily
available to a modern reader.
12. A Study in Scarlet – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – (☆☆☆☆) –
In the debut of
literature's most famous sleuth, a dead man is discovered in a
bloodstained room in Brixton. The only clues are a wedding ring, a gold
watch, a pocket edition of Boccaccio's Decameron, and a word scrawled in
blood on the wall. With this investigation begins the partnership of
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Their search for the murderer uncovers a
story of love and revenge-and heralds a franchise of detective
mysteries starring the formidable Holmes.
13. Tiny Pretty Things – Sona Charaipotra and Dhonielle Clayton – (not yet read) –
Black Swan
meets Pretty Little Liars in this soapy, drama-packed novel featuring
diverse characters who will do anything to be the prima at their elite
ballet school. Gigi, Bette, and June, three top students at an
exclusive Manhattan ballet school, have seen their fair share of drama.
Free-spirited new girl Gigi just wants to dance—but the very act might
kill her. Privileged New Yorker Bette's desire to escape the shadow of
her ballet star sister brings out a dangerous edge in her. And
perfectionist June needs to land a lead role this year or her
controlling mother will put an end to her dancing dreams forever. When
every dancer is both friend and foe, the girls will sacrifice,
manipulate, and backstab to be the best of the best.
14. Fangirl (Special Collector's Edition) – Rainbow Rowell – (☆☆☆☆☆) –
Cath is a Simon Snow fan. Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan... But
for Cath, being a fan is her life—and she’s really good at it. She and
her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series
when they were just kids; it’s what got them through their mother
leaving. Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums,
writing Simon Snow fan fiction, dressing up like the characters for
every movie premiere. Cath’s sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can’t let go. She doesn’t want to. Now
that they’re going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn’t want to
be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort
zone. She’s got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around
boyfriend, a fiction-writing professor who thinks fan fiction is the end
of the civilized world, a handsome classmate who only wants to talk
about words... And she can’t stop worrying about her dad, who’s loving
and fragile and has never really been alone. For Cath, the question is: Can she do this? Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? Writing her own stories? And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind?
15. I Am Princess X – Cherie Priest– (not yet read) –
Best friends, big fans,
a mysterious webcomic, and a long-lost girl collide in this riveting
novel, perfect for fans of both Cory Doctorow and Sarah Dessen;
illustrated throughout with comics. Once upon a time, two best
friends created a princess together. Libby drew the pictures, May wrote
the tales, and their heroine, Princess X, slayed all the dragons and
scaled all the mountains their imaginations could conjure. Once
upon a few years later, Libby was in the car with her mom, driving
across the Ballard Bridge on a rainy night. When the car went over the
side, Libby passed away, and Princess X died with her. Once upon
a now: May is sixteen and lonely, wandering the streets of Seattle,
when she sees a sticker slapped in a corner window. Princess X? When
May looks around, she sees the Princess everywhere: Stickers. Patches.
Graffiti. There's an entire underground culture, focused around a
webcomic at IAmPrincessX.com. The more May explores the webcomic, the
more she sees disturbing similarities between Libby's story and Princess
X online. And that means that only one person could have started this
phenomenon---her best friend, Libby, who lives.
16. I'll Give You the Sun – Jandy Nelson – (☆☆☆☆☆) –
A brilliant,
luminous story of first love, family, loss, and betrayal for fans of
John Green, David Levithan, and Rainbow Rowell Jude and
her twin brother, Noah, are incredibly close. At thirteen, isolated Noah
draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next
door, while daredevil Jude cliff-dives and wears red-red lipstick and
does the talking for both of them. But three years later, Jude and Noah
are barely speaking. Something has happened to wreck the twins in
different and dramatic ways . . . until Jude meets a cocky, broken,
beautiful boy, as well as someone else—an even more unpredictable new
force in her life. The early years are Noah's story to tell. The later
years are Jude's. What the twins don't realize is that they each have
only half the story, and if they could just find their way back to one
another, they’d have a chance to remake their world. This radiant novel from the acclaimed, award-winning author of The Sky Is Everywhere will leave you breathless and teary and laughing—often all at once.
17. Heir Of Fire – Sarah J Maas – (☆☆☆☆☆) –
(spoilers!!!!!!)
Celaena Sardothien has
survived deadly contests and shattering heartbreak—but at an unspeakable
cost. Now she must travel to a new land to confront her darkest
truth...a truth about her heritage that could change her life—and her
future—forever. Meanwhile, brutal and monstrous forces are
gathering on the horizon, intent on enslaving her world. To defeat them,
Celaena must find the strength to not only fight her inner demons but
to battle the evil that is about to be unleashed. The king's assassin takes on an even greater destiny and burns brighter than ever before in this follow-up to the New York Times bestselling Crown of Midnight.
18. Love, Fortunes and Other Disasters – Kimberly Karalius – (not yet read)
In the tradition of Alice Hoffman’s Practical Magic, one girl chooses to change her fortune and her fate by falling in love.Love
is real in the town of Grimbaud, and Fallon Dupree has dreamed of
attending high school there for years. After all, generations of Duprees
have successfully followed the (100% accurate!) love fortunes from
Zita’s famous Love Charms Shop to happily marry their high school
sweethearts. It’s a tradition. So she is both stunned and devastated
when her fortune states that she will NEVER find love. Fortunately,
Fallon isn’t the only student with a terrible love fortune, and a
rebellion is brewing. Fallon is determined to take control of her own
fate—even if it means working with a notorious heartbreaker like
Sebastian. Will Fallon and Sebastian be able to overthrow Zita’s tyranny and fall in love?
19. The Winner's Curse – Marie Rutkoski – (☆☆☆☆) –
As a general’s daughter
in a vast empire that revels in war and enslaves those it conquers,
seventeen-year-old Kestrel has two choices: she can join the military or
get married. But Kestrel has other intentions. One day, she is
startled to find a kindred spirit in a young slave up for auction.
Arin’s eyes seem to defy everything and everyone. Following her
instinct, Kestrel buys him—with unexpected consequences. It’s not long
before she has to hide her growing love for Arin. But he, too,
has a secret, and Kestrel quickly learns that the price she paid for a
fellow human is much higher than she ever could have imagined. Set in a richly imagined new world, The Winner’s Curse
by Marie Rutkoski is a story of deadly games where everything is at
stake, and the gamble is whether you will keep your head or lose your
heart.
20. The Girl at Midnight – Melissa Grey – (not yet read) –
Beneath the streets of
New York City live the Avicen, an ancient race of people with feathers
for hair and magic running through their veins. Age-old enchantments
keep them hidden from humans. All but one. Echo is a runaway pickpocket
who survives by selling stolen treasures on the black market, and the
Avicen are the only family she's ever known. Echo is clever and
daring, and at times she can be brash, but above all else she's fiercely
loyal. So when a centuries-old war crests on the borders of her home,
she decides it's time to act. Legend has it that there is a way
to end the conflict once and for all: find the Firebird, a mythical
entity believed to possess power the likes of which the world has never
seen. It will be no easy task, though if life as a thief has taught Echo
anything, it's how to hunt down what she wants . . . and how to take
it. But some jobs aren't as straightforward as they seem. And this one might just set the world on fire.
21. The Start of Me and You – Emery Lord – Review Here – (☆☆☆☆☆)
Brimming with heartfelt relationships and authentic high-school dynamics The Start of Me and You proves that it’s never too late for second chances. It’s
been a year since it happened—when Paige Hancock’s first boyfriend died
in an accident. After shutting out the world for two years, Paige is
finally ready for a second chance at high school . . . and she has a
plan. First: Get her old crush, Ryan Chase, to date her—the perfect way
to convince everyone she’s back to normal. Next: Join a club—simple,
it’s high school after all. But when Ryan’s sweet, nerdy cousin, Max,
moves to town and recruits Paige for the Quiz Bowl team (of all things!)
her perfect plan is thrown for a serious loop. Will Paige be able to
face her fears and finally open herself up to the life she was meant to
live?
22. Open Road Summer – Emery Lord – (☆☆☆☆☆) –
After breaking up with
her bad-news boyfriend, Reagan O’Neill is ready to leave her rebellious
ways behind. . . and her best friend, country superstar Lilah
Montgomery, is nursing a broken heart of her own. Fortunately,
Lilah’s 24-city tour is about to kick off, offering a perfect
opportunity for a girls-only summer of break-up ballads and healing
hearts. But when Matt Finch joins the tour as its opening act, his
boy-next-door charm proves difficult for Reagan to resist, despite her
vow to live a drama-free existence. This summer, Reagan and Lilah
will navigate the ups and downs of fame and friendship as they come to
see that giving your heart to the right person is always a risk worth
taking. A fresh new voice in contemporary romance, Emery Lord’s gorgeous writing hits all the right notes.
23. The Summer of Chasing Mermaids – Sarah Ockler – Review Here – (☆☆☆☆) –
The youngest of six
talented sisters, Elyse d’Abreau was destined for stardom—until a
boating accident took everything from her. Now, the most beautiful
singer in Tobago can’t sing. She can’t even speak. Seeking quiet
solitude, Elyse accepts a friend’s invitation to Atargatis Cove. Named
for the mythical first mermaid, the Oregon seaside town is everything
Elyse’s home in the Caribbean isn’t: An ocean too cold for swimming,
parties too tame for singing, and people too polite to pry—except for
one. Christian Kane is a notorious playboy—insolent, arrogant,
and completely charming. He’s also the only person in Atargatis Cove who
doesn’t treat Elyse like a glass statue. He challenges her to express
herself, and he admires the way she treats his younger brother
Sebastian, who believes Elyse is the legendary mermaid come to life. When
Christian needs a first mate for the Cove’s high-stakes Pirate Regatta,
Elyse reluctantly stows her fear of the sea and climbs aboard. The
ocean isn’t the only thing making waves, though—swept up in Christian’s
seductive tide and entranced by the Cove’s charms, Elyse begins to
wonder if a life of solitude isn’t what she needs. But changing course
again means facing her past. It means finding her inner voice. And
scariest of all, it means opening her heart to a boy who’s best known
for breaking them . .
xx
Sunny .
