Wishing & Waiting on Wednesday: Blackbird

Posted in Wishlist Wednesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

There’s nothing like a Wednesday for thinking about the books we want to read! My Wishing & Waiting on Wednesday post is linking up with two fabulous book memes, Wishlist Wednesday (hosted by Pen to Paper) and Waiting on Wednesday (hosted by Breaking the Spine).

My pick for this week is:

Blackbird by Anna Carey
(to be released September 16, 2014)

Synopsis via Goodreads:

This twisty, breathless cat-and-mouse thrill ride, told in the second person, follows a girl with amnesia in present-day Los Angeles who is being pursued by mysterious and terrifying assailants.

A girl wakes up on the train tracks, a subway car barreling down on her. With only minutes to react, she hunches down and the train speeds over her. She doesn’t remember her name, where she is, or how she got there. She has a tattoo on the inside of her right wrist of a blackbird inside a box, letters and numbers printed just below: FNV02198. There is only one thing she knows for sure: people are trying to kill her.

On the run for her life, she tries to untangle who she is and what happened to the girl she used to be. Nothing and no one are what they appear to be. But the truth is more disturbing than she ever imagined.

The Maze Runner series meets Code Name Verity, Blackbird is relentless and action-packed, filled with surprising twists

Sounds good and creepy, doesn’t it? Amnesia, subways, LA, on the run… I’d definitely like to find out what’s going on here! I’ve never read anything by this author, but I’m looking forward to giving this one a try.

Side note: I HATE when book blurbs compare new books to other books. Really, The Maze Runner meets Code Name Verity? I haven’t read The Maze Runner, but Code Name Verity is practically sacred to me, so I hope they’re not creating false expectations here! Do NOT invoke Code Name Verity lightly!

Okay, end of rant…

What are you wishing for this Wednesday?

Looking for some bookish fun on Thursdays and Fridays? Come join me for my regular weekly features, Thursday Quotables and Flashback Friday! You can find out more here — come share the book love!

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Do you host a book blog meme? Do you participate in a meme that you really, really love? I’m building a Book Blog Meme Directory, and need your help! If you know of a great meme to include — or if you host one yourself — please drop me a note on my Contact page and I’ll be sure to add your info!

20May2014

Wishing & Waiting on Wednesday: Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands

Posted in Wishlist Wednesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

My pick for this week is:

Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands by Chris Bohjalian
(to be released July 8, 2014)

Synopsis via Goodreads:

A heartbreaking, wildly inventive, and moving novel narrated by a teenage runaway, from the bestselling author of Midwives and The Sandcastle Girls.

Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands is the story of Emily Shepard, a homeless girl living in an igloo made of garbage bags in Burlington. Nearly a year ago, a power plant in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont had a meltdown, and both of Emily’s parents were killed. Devastatingly, her father was in charge of the plant, and the meltdown may have been his fault—was he drunk when it happened? Thousands of people are forced to leave their homes in the Kingdom; rivers and forests are destroyed; and Emily feels certain that as the daughter of the most hated man in America, she is in danger. So instead of following the social workers and her classmates after the meltdown, Emily takes off on her own for Burlington, where she survives by stealing, sleeping on the floor of a drug dealer’s house, inventing a new identity for herself, and befriending a young homeless kid named Cameron. But Emily can’t outrun her past, can’t escape her grief, can’t hide forever-and so she comes up with the only plan that she can.

I hadn’t heard anything about this upcoming new release from Chris Bohjalian until I started working on my Flashback Friday post last week about one of the author’s earliest bestsellers, Midwives. Over the years, he’s written books on a wide variety of subjects, and in genres including contemporary fiction, historical fiction, and even horror. Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands sounds completely new and different — and absolutely fascinating. I can’t wait to read this story of a teen-aged girl living on her own after a nuclear disaster. I can’t even imagine how she survives and deals with her new reality, but I’m really looking forward to finding out.

What are you wishing for this Wednesday?

Looking for some bookish fun on Thursdays and Fridays? Come join me for my regular weekly features, Thursday Quotables and Flashback Friday! You can find out more here — come share the book love!

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

13May2014

Wishing & Waiting on Wednesday: The Girl With All The Gifts

Posted in Wishlist Wednesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

My pick for this week is:

The Girl With All The Gifts by M. R. Carey
(to be released June 10, 2014)

Synopsis via Goodreads:

Melanie is a very special girl. Dr Caldwell calls her ‘our little genius’. Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don’t like her. She jokes that she won’t bite, but they don’t laugh. Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children’s cells. She tells her favourite teacher all the things she’ll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn’t know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad.

Intriguing? Oh, yeah. Not to mention the fact that this author (writing as Mike Carey) writes The Unwritten graphic novels, which I’ve been wanting to get to as well.

Fortunately, I was just approved for an ARC of The Girl With All The Gifts, and I’m really looking forward to reading it.

What are you wishing for this Wednesday?

Looking for some bookish fun on Thursdays and Fridays? Come join me for my regular weekly features, Thursday Quotables and Flashback Friday! You can find out more here — come share the book love!

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

6May2014

Wishing & Waiting on Wednesday: Just One Night

Posted in Wishlist Wednesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Try not to squeal too loudly over this one!:

Just One Night by Gayle Forman
(An e-novella, to be released May 29, 2014)

Synopsis via Goodreads:

After spending one life-changing day in Paris with laid-back Dutch actor Willem De Ruiter, sheltered American good girl Allyson “Lulu” Healey discovered her new lover had disappeared without a trace. Just One Day followed Allyson’s quest to reunite with Willem; Just One Year chronicled the pair’s year apart from Willem’s perspective. Now, back together at last, this delectable e-novella reveals the couple’s final chapter.

Anyone who read Just One Day* and Just One Year* will need no convincing — we will finally (gasp!) find out what happened after that kiss! I may have jumped up and down just a teensy bit when I heard about this e-novella…

*If you want to read my reviews of the two novels mentioned here…

… click here for Just One Day
… click here for Just One Year

What are you wishing for this Wednesday?

Looking for some bookish fun on Thursdays and Fridays? Come join me for my regular weekly features, Thursday Quotables and Flashback Friday! You can find out more here — come share the book love!

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

29Apr2014

Wishing & Waiting on Wednesday: Season of Storms

Posted in Wishlist Wednesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

My pick this week is an upcoming reissue of a book by a favorite author:

Season of Storms by Susanna Kearsley
(Release date: September 2, 2014)

Synopsis via Goodreads:

In the early 1900s, in the elegant, isolated villa Il Piacere, the playwright Galeazzo D’Ascanio lived for Celia Sands. She was his muse and his mistress, his most enduring obsession. And she was the inspiration for his most stunning and original play. But the night before she was to take the stage in the leading role, Celia disappeared. Now, decades later, in a theatre on the grounds of Il Piacere, Alessandro D’Ascanio is preparing to stage the first performance of his grandfather’s masterpiece. A promising young actress – who shares Celia Sands’ name, but not her blood – has agreed to star. She is instantly drawn to the mysteries surrounding the play – and to her compelling, compassionate employer. And even though she knows she should let the past go, in the dark – in her dreams – it comes back.

Season of Storms was originally published in 2001, but will be reissued this year with a shiny new cover, thanks to Sourcebooks Landmark. I think this is one of the few remaining Susanna Kearsley books that I haven’t read, and with its new cover, will look perfect on my shelf next to all of her other gorgeous books. And lest anyone think I’m shallow and I’m basing this on looks alone… yes, I really do want to read the book!

What are you wishing for this Wednesday?

Looking for some bookish fun on Thursdays and Fridays? Come join me for my regular weekly features, Thursday Quotables and Flashback Friday! You can find out more here — come share the book love!

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

23Apr2014

Wishing & Waiting on Wednesday: The Ghost in the Electric Blue Suit

Posted in Wishlist Wednesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

My pick this week confuses me. Read on to find out why!

The Ghost in the Electric Blue Suit by Graham Joyce
(Release date: August 5, 2014)

Synopsis via Goodreads:

Critically acclaimed author Graham Joyce returns with a sexy, suspenseful,and slightly supernatural novel set 1976 England during the hottest summer in living memory, in a seaside resort where the past still haunts the present.

David, a college student, takes a summer job at a run-down family resort in a dying English resort town. This is against the wishes of his family…because it was at this resort where David’s biological father disappeared fifteen years earlier. But something undeniable has called David there.

A deeper otherworldliness lies beneath the surface of what we see. The characters have a suspicious edge to them…David is haunted by eerie visions of a mysterious man carrying a rope, walking hand-in-hand with a small child…and the resort is under siege by a plague of ladybugs. Something different is happening in this town.

When David gets embroiled in a fiercely torrid love triangle, the stakes turn more and more menacing. And through it all, David feels as though he is getting closer to the secrets of his own past.

This is a darkly magic and sexy book that has a strong suspense line running through it. It’s destined to continue to pull in a wider circle of readers for the exceptionally talented Graham Joyce.

Graham Joyce catapulted right onto my favorite authors list as soon as I read his incredibly haunting and atmospheric novel The Silent Land, which was published in 2010. More recently, I read Some Kind of Fairy Tale, which had some really unique and interesting elements, although it didn’t blow me away the way The Silent Land did.

The Ghost in the Electric Blue Suit sounds like something that will definitely appeal to me, with its mix of nostalgia, suspense, and oddness.

So why am I confused? When I went back to Goodreads today to grab the image for the book, I found another book with a different title listed on the same page. As far as I can tell, the book was published in the UK in 2013 as The Year of the Ladybird — and is simply being given a new title for its US release this summer… but it took me a little bit to figure out that these are in fact the same book. Whatever they call it, though, I’m in!

What are you wishing for this Wednesday?

Looking for some bookish fun on Thursdays and Fridays? Come join me for my regular weekly features, Thursday Quotables and Flashback Friday! You can find out more here — come share the book love!

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

15Apr2014

Wishing & Waiting on Wednesday: Shifting Shadows

Posted in Wishlist Wednesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

My most wished-for book this week is:

Shifting Shadows: Stories From The World of Mercy Thompson by Patricia Briggs
(Release date: September 2, 2014)

This one is strictly for the fans! If you love the Mercy Thompson series, then you’ll be as excited as I was this week to learn that a collection of Mercy stories will be released this fall — to include a mix of new and previously published stories.

Synopsis via Goodreads:

A collection of all-new and previously published short stories featuring Mercy Thompson, “one of the best heroines in the urban fantasy genre today” (Fiction Vixen Book Reviews), and the characters she calls friends…

Includes the new stories…
“Silver”
“Roses in Winter”
“Redemption”
“Hollow”

…and reader favorites
“Fairy Gifts”
“Gray”
“Alpha and Omega”
“Seeing Eye”
“The Star of David”
“In Red, with Pearls”

I’ve read some — but not all — of the already published stories, and can’t wait to catch up on the ones I’ve missed and read some new ones as well. The Mercy series is one of my favorites, and since there won’t be another new novel until 2015, I’m delighted to get a story collection to hold me over!

What are you wishing for this Wednesday?

Looking for some bookish fun on Thursdays and Fridays? Come join me for my regular weekly features, Thursday Quotables and Flashback Friday! You can find out more here — come share the book love!

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

8Apr2014

Wishing & Waiting on Wednesday: Conversion

Posted in Wishlist Wednesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

My most wished-for book this week is:

Conversion by Katherine Howe
(Release date: July 1, 2014)

Synopsis via NetGalley:

It’s senior year at St. Joan’s Academy, and school is a pressure cooker. College applications, the battle for valedictorian, deciphering boys’ texts: Through it all, Colleen Rowley and her friends are expected to keep it together. Until they can’t.

First it’s the school’s queen bee, Clara Rutherford, who suddenly falls into uncontrollable tics in the middle of class. Her mystery illness quickly spreads to her closest clique of friends, then more students and symptoms follow: seizures, hair loss, violent coughing fits. St. Joan’s buzzes with rumor; rumor blossoms into full-blown panic.

Soon the media descends on Danvers, Massachusetts, as everyone scrambles to find something, or someone, to blame. Pollution? Stress? Or are the girls faking? Only Colleen—who’s been reading The Crucible for extra credit—comes to realize what nobody else has: Danvers was once Salem Village, where another group of girls suffered from a similarly bizarre epidemic three centuries ago . . .

Inspired by true events—from seventeenth-century colonial life to the halls of a modern-day high school—Conversion casts a spell. With her signature wit and passion, New York Times bestselling author Katherine Howe delivers an exciting and suspenseful novel, a chilling mystery that raises the question, what’s really happening to the girls at St. Joan’s?

Katherine Howe’s first novel, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, is one of my go-to books when it comes to both academic settings and modern-day connections to witchcraft. Conversion is this author’s first young adult novel, and I think it sounds pretty terrific. The book blurbs describe it as “Prep meets The Crucible” — and that’s enough right there to make me want to read it!

What are you wishing for this Wednesday?

Looking for some bookish fun on Thursdays and Fridays? Come join me for my regular weekly features, Thursday Quotables and Flashback Friday! You can find out more here — come share the book love!

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

1Apr2014

Wishing & Waiting on Wednesday: Secrets of the Lighthouse

Posted in Wishlist Wednesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

My most wished-for book this week is:

Secrets of the Lighthouse by Santa Montefiore
(Release date: August 5, 2014)

Synopsis via NetGalley:

Set in Ireland on the wild coast of Connemara, this hauntingly romantic novel tells the story of a young woman who goes in search of her family’s past and ends up discovering her future.

Ellen Trawton is running away from it all. She hates her job, she doesn’t love the aristocratic man to whom she is engaged, and her relationship with her controlling mother is becoming increasingly strained. So Ellen leaves London, fleeing to the one place she knows her mother won’t find her, her aunt’s cottage in Connemara. Cutting all her ties with chic London society, Ellen gives in to Ireland’s charm and warmth, thinking her future may lie where so much of her past has been hidden. Her imagination is soon captured by the compelling ruins of a lighthouse where, five years earlier, a young mother died in a fire.

The ghost of the young wife, Caitlin, haunts the nearby castle, mourning the future she can never have there. Unable to move on, she watches her husband and children, hoping they might see her and feel her love once more. But she doesn’t anticipate her husband falling in love again. Can she prevent it? Or can she let go and find a way to freedom and happiness?

The ruggedly beautiful Connemara coastline with its tightknit community of unforgettable characters provides the backdrop for this poignant story of two women seeking the peace and love they desperately need. For each, the key will be found in the secrets of the past, illuminated by the lighthouse.

I love the lighthouse setting, and hope the ghost story aspect will be as good as it sounds!

What are you wishing for this Wednesday?

Looking for some bookish fun on Thursdays and Fridays? Come join me for my regular weekly features, Thursday Quotables and Flashback Friday! You can find out more here — come share the book love!

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

18Mar2014

Wishing & Waiting on Wednesday: Evergreen

Posted in Wishlist Wednesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

My most wished-for book this week is:

Evergreen by Rebecca Rasmussen
(Release date: July 8, 2014)

Synopsis via Goodreads:

From the celebrated author of The Bird Sisters, a gorgeously rendered and emotionally charged novel that spans generations, telling the story of two siblings, raised apart, attempting to share a life.

It is 1938 when Eveline, a young bride, follows her husband into the wilderness of Minnesota. Though their cabin is rundown, they have a river full of fish, a garden out back, and a new baby boy named Hux. But when Emil leaves to take care of his sick father, the unthinkable happens: a stranger arrives, and Eveline becomes pregnant. She gives the child away, and while Hux grows up hunting and fishing in the woods with his parents, his sister, Naamah, is raised an orphan. Years later, haunted by the knowledge of this forsaken girl, Hux decides to find his sister and bring her home to the cabin. But Naamah, even wilder than the wilderness that surrounds them, may make it impossible for Hux to ever tame her, to ever make up for all that she, and they, have lost. Set before a backdrop of vanishing forest, this is a luminous novel of love, regret, and hope.

Doesn’t this sound terrific? I love the wilderness setting, and the family dynamics sound fascinating. Can’t wait!

What are you wishing for this Wednesday?

Looking for some bookish fun on Thursdays and Fridays? Come join me for my regular weekly features, Thursday Quotables and Flashback Friday! You can find out more here — come share the book love!

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥