The latest recommendations from our book club members.
Title: Throne of Glass
Meet Celaena Sardothien.
Beautiful. Deadly. Destined for greatness.
In a land without magic, where the king rules with an iron hand, Celaena, an assassin, is summoned to the castle. She comes not to kill the king, but to win her freedom. If she defeats twenty-three killers, thieves, and warriors in a competition, she is released from prison to serve as the king’s champion. The Crown Prince will provoke her. The Captain of the Guard will protect her. But something evil dwells in the castle of glass—and it’s there to kill. When her competitors start dying one by one, Celaena’s fight for freedom becomes a fight for survival, and a desperate quest to root out the evil before it destroys her world.
Title: Fury Born
When assassins ambush her best friend, Rielle Dardenne risks everything to save him, exposing herself as one of a pair of prophesied queens: a queen of light, and one of blood. To prove she is the Sun Queen, Rielle must endure seven elemental magic trials. If she fails, she will be executed as the Blood Queen...unless the trials kill the queen first.
One thousand years later, the legend of Queen Rielle is a fairy tale to Eliana Ferracora. A bounty hunter for the Undying Empire, Eliana believes herself untouchable--until her mother vanishes. To find her, Eliana joins a rebel captain and discovers that the evil at the empire's heart is more terrible than she ever imagined.
As Rielle and Eliana fight in a cosmic war that spans millennia, their stories intersect, and the shocking connections between them ultimately determine the fate of their world--and of each other.
Title: Lockwood and Co.
Wanted: Junior Field Operative for well known psychic investigation agency, Lockwood and Co...
A sinister Problem has occurred in London: all nature of ghosts, haunts, and spectres are appearing throughout the city, and they are not exactly friendly. Only young people have the psychic abilities required to see and eradicate these unnatural foes. Many different Detection Agencies have cropped up to handle the dangerous work, and they are in fierce competition for business. In 'The Screaming Staircase', the plucky and talented Lucy Carlyle teams up with Anthony Lockwood, the charismatic leader of Lockwood & Co, a small agency that runs independent of any adult supervision. After an assignment leads to both a grisly discovery and a disastrous end, Lucy, Anthony, and their sarcastic colleague, George, are forced to take part in the perilous investigation of Combe Carey Hall, one of the most haunted houses in England.
Will Lockwood & Co. survive the Hall's legendary Screaming Staircase and Red Room to see another day?
Title: Maybe a Fox
Sylvie and Jules, Jules and Sylvie
Better than just sisters, better than best friends. Jules’ favourite thing is collecting rocks, and Sylvie’s is running – fast. But Sylvie is too fast, and when she runs to the most dangerous part of the river one snowy morning to throw in a wish rock, she is so fast that no one sees what happens when she disappears. At that very moment, in another part of the woods, a shadow fox is born: half of the spirit world, half of the animal world. She, too, is fast, and she senses danger. When Jules goes to throw one last wish rock into the river for her lost sister, the human and shadow worlds collide with unexpected consequences. Written in alternate voices – one Jules, the other the fox – this searingly beautiful tale tells of one small family’s moment of heartbreak as it unfolds into something epic, mythic, shimmering and, most of all, hopeful.
Title: The Cattleman's Journey
Reece
Cattleman Reece Weston had never held a baby until the night he saved pregnant Jess Cassidy during a raging storm and delivered her tiny daughter. Now alone, with crippling debts to her name, Jess has never forgotten her rescuer. So she seizes the chance to repay the favour.
Reece is usually content with the silence of the outback - no emotions, no distractions. But, with the woman who's been haunting his dreams in his homestead with her adorable baby uttering 'da' as her first word, his resolve starts to crumble...
Jack
Isabella Martineau is tired of being a princess - it's time she broke free and lived by her own rules, not by royal decree. Freedom beckons in the Australian outback, where Isabella meets rugged stranger Jack Kingsley-Laird, who quickly discovers that her cool, regal exterior hides a wild and adventurous woman!
But will their mutual attraction be enough to bridge the gap between their two different worlds?
Jonno
Camille Devereaux: sexy, successful and single.
Jonno Rivers: ruggedly handsome outback landowner, rated one of Australia's most desirable bachelors.
When Camille meets Jonno, sparks fly! Their very different lifestyles can't change the fact that they find each other irresistible. In fact, the powerful chemistry between them is proof that opposites really do attract. But Camille soon finds there is nothing more terrifying than the uncertainty of a new relationship. Will she give up her independence in exchange for a future with Jonno? He's going to do everything it takes to convince her.
Title: The Cruel Prince
"Of course I want to be like them. They're beautiful as blades forged in some divine fire. They will live forever."
And Cardan is even more beautiful than the rest. I hate him more than all the others. I hate him so much that sometimes when I look at him, I can hardly breathe.
Jude was seven years old when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King.
To win a place at the Court, she must defy him--and face the consequences.
In doing so, she becomes embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, discovering her own capacity for bloodshed. But as civil war threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.
Title: Bone Criers Moon
Bone Criers are the last descendants of an ancient famille charged with using the magic they draw from animal bones to shepherd the dead into the afterlife-lest they drain the light from the living.
Ailesse has been prepared since birth to become their matriarch, but first she must complete her rite of passage: to kill the boy she's destined to love.
Bastien's father was slain by a Bone Crier and he's been seeking revenge ever since. Now his vengeance must wait, as Ailesse's ritual has begun and their fates are entwined-in life and in death.
Title: Serpent and Dove
Bound as one, to love, honor, or burn.
Two years ago, Louise le Blanc fled her coven and took shelter in the city of Cesarine, forsaking all magic and living off whatever she could steal. There, witches like Lou are hunted. They are feared. And they are burned.
As a huntsman of the Church, Reid Diggory has lived his life by one principle: Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. But when Lou pulls a wicked stunt, the two are forced into an impossible situation-marriage.
Lou, unable to ignore her growing feelings, yet powerless to change what she is, must make a choice. And love makes fools of us all.
Title: The Aurora Cycle
The year is 2380, and the graduating cadets of Aurora Academy are being assigned their first missions. Star pupil Tyler Jones is ready to recruit the squad of his dreams, but his own boneheaded heroism sees him stuck with the dregs nobody else in the Academy would touch . . .
A cocky diplomat with a black belt in sarcasm
A sociopath scientist with a fondness for shooting her bunkmates
A smart-ass techwiz with the galaxy’s biggest chip on his shoulder
An alien warrior with anger management issues
A tomboy pilot who’s totally not into him, in case you were wondering
And Ty’s squad isn’t even his biggest problem–that’d be Aurora Jie-Lin O’Malley, the girl he’s just rescued from interdimensional space. Trapped in cryo-sleep for two centuries, Auri is a girl out of time and out of her depth. But she could be the catalyst that starts a war millions of years in the making, and Tyler’s squad of losers, discipline-cases and misfits might just be the last hope for the entire galaxy.
NOBODY PANIC.