New Releases I'm Looking Forward To: 4th Quarter 2019

My usual disclaimer:

Let me state, this is really based on authors or series that I'm already reading since those are the things I follow.  I'm not paid to write this blog nor do I have any affiliations with any publishers so I don't receive free books or advance notice of things except what I glean off Facebook from people who do have those contacts or what I research on my own (which again, leads back to authors that I'm already reading).  Maybe someday I'll be one of those who has the contacts and gets ARCs but it's not today.

Well, adding school to my already hectic life has definitely been challenging.  I'm still trying to figure out how to balance work, homeschooling, college, housework, all the kid activities (bowling, archery, soccer, and gymnastics currently), family life, social life, and down time for things like reading.  Not gonna lie, it's been hard but there are always books to look forward to that I will some day find the time to read.

Starting this list off with what looks to be an amazing anthology of women writers spinning tales of witches and witchcraft, both the good and the evil with Hex Life.  It caught my attention since it has Kelley Armstrong and Rachel Caine whom I enjoy and of course, opens me up to several new writers as well.  Can't wait!

Release date - October 1

Next up is Sharpest Sting by Jennifer Estep, the 18th book in the Elemental Assassin series.  Gin is still trying to figure out what the heck is up with the Circle and dear old Uncle Mason but as she digs deeper, she will uncover secrets that may have been better left off buried.

Release date - October 8

October is just filled with fun stuff coming out as Kelley Armstrong releases Wolf's Bane which is the first of a YA duology featuring Kate and Logan Danvers.  The twins are now 16 and have been sent off to a supernatural teen leadership conference but of course, something is terribly amiss and the twins are going to get to the bottom of it.  I'm excited to return to this universe.

Release date - October 15

I'm so far behind on the Jane Yellowrock series by Faith Hunter but I'm still looking forward to Shattered Bonds because it lets me know that Jane is still going strong and waiting for me to find time to read her adventures.  The synposis doesn't look good with her going off to the mountains to grieve the loss of friends (please not Molly!) and sick from a disease brought about by her magic though.

Release date - October 29

And the month wraps up with the biggest present ever from Seanan McGuire with Laughter at the Academy.  A collection of tons of her short pieces from all different genres spanning more than a decade. I love her patreon stuff (even if some of it scares the crap out of me) and I'm super excited to read what she has put together.

Release date - October 31

This list ends with the release of Dead Astronauts by Jeff VanderMeer.  This book looks incredibly bizarre with a messianic fox, a huge fish, band of rebels, a homeless woman, and many more unlikely characters trying to save Earth but I'm very intrigued.

Release date - December 3

79:120 Authority by Jeff VanderMeer

The second book in the Southern Reach trilogy.  We left the last book at the end of the 12th expedition to Area X with everyone but the biologist dead and she was heading north away from any form of civilization.  Authority starts off in the Southern Reach with Control (aka John Rodrigues) having just been put in charge of the operations there which deal with Area X since the previous director was part of the last expedition.  The assistant director is openly hostile while doing her job and making it clear that she feels he is there temporarily until the old director returns which she feels will happen any time since the other members of the expedition have already returned.  Control is feeling anything but in control as he works to try and get information out of the returned biologist and learn his way around Southern Reach, especially once he starts digging into the previous director's things: drawers filled with papers rotting under a live unpotted plant and a dead mouse, a closet with words written all over it that seem to have some significance but what he can't imagine, and a photograph of her as a child with the lighthouse keeper who was lost to Area X when it sprang up.  Now he is trying to piece together just what has gone wrong at Southern Reach and what it means in regards to Area X but the more he digs, the stranger things seem to get until he's not even about the agency he works for.

I didn't find this one quite as slow-reading as the last one but I was really hoping for answers to all the unanswered questions from the last book and I got a few and pieces of answers for a few more but in all, this seemed to raise even more questions.  It is a bit frustrating to wait and hope that the questions that I have will actually be answered, at least in enough of a fashion that I don't want to throw things, in the last book.  I'm enjoying the mystery for the most part although I wish the characters were easier to relate too.

Page count:   340p/19,502p ytd/200,540p lifetime

72:120 Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer

Yeah, I know, second time reading it this year but I picked it for my book club selection when I had my choice, especially since the second one had just come out in May.  Here's my previous review:

The first in a new trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer.  Area X has been uninhabited and off limits for a long time with only teams of specialists being allowed in past the border for years now.  Of those eleven previous exhibitions, most have never come back and those that did were never the same.

Now the twelfth expedition is entering.  A group of four women; the psychologist (de facto leader), the anthropologist, the surveyor, and the biologist who is our narrator.  They are there to map out the territory, collect specimens, and bring back a report of what it has become.  They are expecting the unexpected but that doesn't begin to prepare them for what they find.  It starts with the tunnel (tower?) that they discover near the established base camp and the words written with some sort of living organism on the interior of it.  What is even more disturbing than the secrets Area X is hiding are the ones that they have brought with them over the border.  Will any of this expedition make it back to tell any of the secrets they learn?

My first time reading Jeff VanderMeer and all I can say is Wow!  I was blown away by this book.  I want to call it a psychological thriller but that doesn't do it justice.  It was thought provoking and anxiety inducing.  I spent much of my reading time biting my nails in suspense as to just what the heck was going on.  There was so much subtlety and nuance to almost everything that I know I will have to read it again just to try and catch half of it.  I can't wait for the  next one!  And can I just say, I love that they are bringing all three books in the trilogy out this year?!  

Re-reading it made it much easier to get a lot more details than the first time through but only increased my number of questions about Area X.  I'm now about 1/3 of the way into the second one and while it's answered some of the questions I had, I know have a whole new stack of questions as well.

Page count: 195p/17,631p ytd/198,669p lifetime

New Releases I'm Looking Forward To: 2nd & 3rd Quarters 2014

My usual disclaimer:
Let me state, this is really based on authors or series that I'm already reading since those are the things I follow.  I'm not paid to write this blog nor do I have any affiliations with any publishers so I don't receive free books or advance notice of things except what I glean off Facebook from people who do have those contacts or what I research on my own (which again, leads back to authors that I'm already reading).  Maybe someday I'll be one of those who has the contacts and gets ARCs but it's not today.

Yeah, this is kind of late for the second quarter so I figured I'd combo it with the 3rd and be early on that one.  2nd quarter is pretty slow in terms of the authors I put up on my calendar so it just sort of slipped my mind until now when I had a few minutes to sit down and update it so here goes:

With nothing on my book release calendar for April, May started off in a lovely way with Sparrow Hill Road by Seanan McGuire.  A new book that may be a standalone or may eventually be part of a series, we follow the tale of Rose, a 16-year-old girl killed in 1952 who has been searching for a way to be free of her haunting existence for 60 years.

Release Date: May 6

That it pairs up with Authority by Jeff Vandermeer makes for strange looks at the bookstore since honestly I'm not sure they could be that much different from each other.  Authority is the second in the Southern Reach trilogy and I'm hoping it answers at least some of the questions that Annihilation brought up because that was one incredibly freaky, disturbing, but amazing book but dang it, I want some answers!!!

Release Date: May 6

On a weird Wednesday release, my friend Amy Sprenger's new book came out.  Yes Mommy: The Mayhem and Madness of Not Saying No is her story of going an entire month without saying no to her three children (ages 7, 5, 3) and how everyone survived.

Release Date: May 7

Odin's Ravens is the second in a YA series by Armstrong and Marr.  I haven't read the first one yet but my third son completely loved it and bought this one with his own money so he could have it NOW!  I think that says something.  He is also insisting that I read both of them so that will be on my summer reading list but hey, any book where you combining Thor's hammer, modern day kids, and a whole lot of Valkyries to start the description sounds pretty awesome and with those authors I'm quite happy to accede to my kid's wishes.

Release Date:  May 13

Skin Game by Jim Butcher is one where I'm on the fence about it.  I mean, I know I'll buy it and read it but I still can't get over my disappointment that he brought Harry back completely from the dead.  I get that you can't have Dresden's Files without Harry Dresden but I get a little tired of books where they keep making the baddies bigger and bigger but you always know that the hero is going to win through some deus ex machina.  Butcher had the balls to kill off his main character and bring him back as a ghost for a whole book and Holy Cow that was BRILLIANT!!!  And then he ruined it all by bringing him back fully although in service to the Winter Fae Queen. There's only been one book since that happened so I'm reserving judgement on if this series has just become unreadable for me (as the Drizzt books did after Wulfgar was brought back) or if Mr. Butcher will find a way to keep my interest.

Release Date: May 27

June is quiet again but July opens HUGE with Night's End by Yasmine Galenorn which sees the end of the Indigo Court series.  Cicely and Rhiannon have been crowned and in charge but Myst is by no means willing to roll over and die.  She is gathering her power and her army and there will be more blood spilled before this war is over.

Release Date: July 1

And to pair up with that is How the White Trash Zombie Got Her Groove Back by Diana Rowland.  This series is just fun but it looks like sh*t's about to get real as it's zombie v. zombie when Saberton tries to take on the Zombie Maffia and Angel will end up in the middle, we can be sure.

Release Date: July 1

Deborah Harkness's All Souls trilogy will wrap up with the release of The Book of Life.  The last one was a little slow with a lot of time travel stuff going on but apparently this one is back in present day with a lot more action as Matthew and Diana have to find the missing pages of Ashmole 782 in order to protect not only the present but the future as well.

Release Date: July 15

Poison Promise by Jennifer Estep comes out just a week later so I've got something light to read mid-summer.  Gin is always a great character (if she could just stop with the constant repetitive monologueing) and I continue to enjoy the series.  I'm really hoping that things are going to go somewhere with Owen as well because I loved them together.  While the write-up for this one is all about some new drug coming into Ashland I'm also hoping that there is more development in the mysterious villain that has been being hinted at for several books now.

Release Date: July 22

July ends with as big a bang it started with Magic Breaks by Ilona Andrews.  The first time in hardback for this series and it looks to be amazing!  Kate's relationship with Roland is out in the open and that battle seems to be coming down the pipes fast, probably not in this book but my guess would be sooner rather than later.

Release Date: July 29

August is another big month and kicks off with Revenant by Kat Richardson.  I admit that I'm a few books behind in this series so again, that is a project for this summer so I can be ready to read this when it comes out because it looks to be intense with secret cults and bone yards and ghost armies.

Release Date: August 5

Cursed Moon by Jaye Wells is the sequel to Dirty Magic which came out earlier this year and was just fantastic.  A gritty world where magic is all around but there is both legal and illegal magic and now with a rare Blue Moon about to occur, magic will be unpredictable and it's up to Kate and her team to help the local law enforcement keep things from exploding....literally.

Release Date: August 12

Robin Hobb has a new trilogy starting up with Fool's Assassin which means I need to step it up and finish reading the Fool's trilogy this summer (hmmmm...there are apparently several series that need my time, darn you Game of Thrones!) as it looks like this series will take place after that one (and I seriously hope has nothing to do with the Dragon series she just finished up or I'm SERIOUSLY behind).  I loved the Farseer trilogy and the first book in the Fool's trilogy as Ms. Hobb has such a rich world and the characters are wonderfully flawed and believable.

Release Date: August 12

Visions by Kelley Armstrong also comes out and is another one where I'm behind in the series but in my defense, I wasn't sure I was going to start this series before my Book Pusher/Dealer at the local bookstore said the first one was wonderful and I would like it.  I'm hoping to have the first one read before this one comes out to see if the series is one I'm going to like.  It looks interesting enough and I've loved her other works that I've read so here's hoping.

Release Date: August 19

September starts with three great new releases and I'm going to have a hard time to figure out which to read first.  My guess is it will be The Winter Long by Seanan McGuire as it's been almost a year since I last got a Toby fix and I'm jonesing.  Not much in the way of details has been hinted at about this one except that Toby is going to have to learn the truth of her own past and considering what has been hinted at about that, oh boy!

Release Date: September 2

Next I'll curl up with Shifting Shadows by Patricia Briggs.  I just got a Mercy and Adam fix so I can hold off briefly but this short story collection looks to be wonderful and I hope that we get to learn more about other characters as well...so long as I still get some Mercy and Adam (let's not get crazy and cut them out completely).

Release Date: September 2

Then I have to hope I can find the time for Acceptance by Jeff Vandermeer as the Southern Reach trilogy is closed out.  Since I have just barely gotten the 2nd book in the trilogy and haven't had a chance to read it yet (darn end of school stuff getting in the way of my reading time!) I don't even know what to hope for with this one.  The Amazon write-up talks about a new expedition into Area X and the threat to the world being greater than they imagined so it sounds just dreamy.

Release Date: September 2

And as if those weren't enough, it's recently been revealed that the last of Kim Harrison's the Hollow's series will be coming out in September as well instead of torturing us all and making us wait until next year.  The Witch With No Name will finally see Rachel getting her happily ever after but we all know that it can't be simple with Rachel and really, what will that even end up meaning for her?  Settling down to play Suzie Homemaker doesn't seem quite her style.

Release Date: September 9

I get a few weeks off to try and catch-up with all those new releases before the release of Priestess Dreaming by Yasmine Galenorn comes out and I get my dose Camille and her sisters.  The war has been heating up big time and it looks like Aveal is sending Camille on a mission to wake up Merlin with Morgaine as a traveling companion.  Camille's not so sure if that is a good idea and I'm with her on that one since they have not exactly been buddies to this point.

Release Date: September 30

So you can easily see why the 2nd quarter round-up didn't happen since there were only a few books in May but good golly there is a lot of reading to be done in the 3rd quarter (and 4th too since I just looked at how that is shaping up) so I need to get cracking on catching up with some of these series in June when it's quiet and school is out if I'm to have any hope because I know me and I'll want to be reading every book on this list as soon as I get my hands on it!