“Waiting On” Wednesday

“Waiting On” Wednesday is a meme created at Breaking the Spine to spotlight upcoming releases that we can’t wait to read.

This week I’m excited for The Best Night of Your (Pathetic) Life by Tara Altebrando.

Here’s the summary, taken from Goodreads:

An all-day scavenger hunt in the name of eternal small-town glory

The Best Night of Your (Pathetic) Life by Tara Altebrando

With only a week until graduation, there’s one last thing Mary and her friends must do together: participate in the Oyster Point High Official Unofficial Senior Week Scavenger Hunt. And Mary is determined to win.

Mary lost her spot at Georgetown to self-professed “it” bully Jake Barbone, and she’s not about to lose again. But everyone is racing for the finish line with complicated motives, and the team’s all-night adventure becomes all-night drama as shifting alliances, flared tempers, and crushing crushes take over. As the items and points pile up, Mary and her team must reinvent their strategy–and themselves–in order to win.

This book sounds like it has all the ingredients I need for a great YA book: friends on a mission, love-hate relationships, and a story spanning a single night.

This title is released on July 5, 2012.

“Waiting On” Wednesday

“Waiting On” Wednesday is a meme created at Breaking the Spine to spotlight upcoming releases that we can’t wait to read.

This week I’m impatiently awaiting the US release of Quintana of Charyn by Melina Marchetta.

Quintana of Charyn by Melina Marchetta

According to Goodreads, all we know as of now is that it is set three weeks after the events in Froi of the Exiles, and though I didn’t fall in love with Froi as I had hoped I would, I still can’t wait to see how Froi and Quintana’s story unfolds.

This title will be released in Australia on September 26, 2012; still no word on the US release date.

“Waiting On” Wednesday

“Waiting On” Wednesday is a meme created at Breaking the Spine to spotlight upcoming releases that we can’t wait to read.

This week I’m looking forward to All Spell Breaks Loose by Lisa Shearin.

Here’s the summary, taken from Goodreads:

My name is Raine Benares—and it sucks to be me. The Saghred, a soul-

All Spells Break Loose by Lisa Shearin

stealing stone that has given me unlimited power, has been stolen by a goblin prince, and with it went my magic. The Saghred is in the goblin capital of Regor, in the hands of Sarad Nukpana, who’s on the verge of becoming the most powerful mage ever…just as soon as I’m dead.

Because Sarad can’t use the stone while I’m alive. Incentive enough to plan a little trip to Regor with a small band of good friends, not-so-good friends, and outright enemies. All we need to do is destroy the Saghred, kill Sarad, and put a renegade prince on the throne. Did I mention I’ll be doing this without magic?

Shearin’s Raine Benares series is a fantasy series that knows how to have fun. I’ll be sad to see these characters go.

This title is released on May 29, 2012.

“Waiting On” Wednesday

“Waiting On” Wednesday is a meme created at Breaking the Spine to spotlight upcoming releases that we can’t wait to read.

 This week I’m so excited to finally see the amazing Chris McGrath cover for the last book in The Vampire Empire series, The Kingmakers by Clay and Susan Griffith.

There’s no summary available yet, but it doesn’t matter because this series is solid on every level: action, suspense, worldbuilding, character growth, romance. It’s got it all.

This title is released in September 2012.

“Waiting On” Wednesday

“Waiting On” Wednesday is a meme created at Breaking the Spine to spotlight upcoming releases that we can’t wait to read.

 This week I’m looking forward to A Night Like This by Julia Quinn.

Here’s the summary, taken from Goodreads:

Anne Wynter’s job as governess to three highborn young ladies can be a

A Night Like This by Julia Quinn

challenge – in a single week she finds herself hiding in a closet full of tubas, playing an evil queen in a play and tending to the wounds of the oh-so-dashing Earl of Winstead. After years of dodging unwanted advances, he’s the first man who has truly tempted her, and it’s getting harder and harder to remind herself that a governess has no business flirting with a nobleman.

Daniel Smythe-Smith might be in mortal danger, but that’s not going to stop the young earl from falling in love. And when he spies a mysterious woman at his family’s annual musicale, he vows to pursue her. But Daniel has an enemy, one who has vowed to see him dead. And when Anne is thrown into peril, he will stop at nothing to ensure their happy ending . . .

Quinn’s books never fail to put a smile on my face. Considering how much I loved the first book in the Smythe-Smith Quartet, Just Like Heaven, I can’t wait to get back into this kooky cast of characters.

This title is released on June 7, 2012.

“Waiting On” Wednesday

“Waiting On” Wednesday is a meme created at Breaking the Spine to spotlight upcoming releases that we can’t wait to read.

After sticking by Jax through her adventures for the last few years, it’s bittersweet to finally see the cover of the final book in the Sirantha Jax series, Endgame, by Ann Aguirre.

Here’s the summary, taken from Goodreads:

Sirantha Jax has the J-gene, which permits her to “jump” faster-than-light

Endgame by Ann Aguirre

ships through grimspace. She loves nothing more than that rush, but the star roads have to wait…

Her final mission takes her to La’heng, a planet subjugated during first contact. Since then, the La’hengrin homeworld has been occupied by foreign conquerors.

All that’s about to change.

Now, as part of a grass-roots resistance, Jax means to liberate the La’hengrin. Political intrigue and guerrilla warfare are new to her; this will be the most dangerous game she’s ever played—spies and conspiracies, a war of weapons and hearts, and everyone might not make it out alive…

Aguirre hasn’t pulled any punches in the past, so I’m actually pretty trepidatious heading into this last installment, but I have faith that Aguirre will take her cast of characters where they need to go, if not necessarily where fans want them to go.

This title is released on August 28, 2012.

“Waiting On” Wednesday

“Waiting On” Wednesday is a meme created at Breaking the Spine to spotlight upcoming releases that we can’t wait to read.

After months of waiting, we finally get to see the wonderful new Chris McGrath cover art for Ashes of Honor by Seanan McGuire.

Ashes of Honor by Seanan McGuire

There’s no summary available yet, but it’s a Toby Daye book, so it will inevitably be one of the best urban fantasies of the year.

This title will be released on September 4, 2012.

“Waiting On” Wednesday

“Waiting On” Wednesday is a meme created at Breaking the Spine to spotlight upcoming releases that we can’t wait to read.

Last week finally saw the reveal of the cover for Karen Marie Moning’s Iced.

Iced by Karen Marie Moning

There’s no cover blurb yet, but here’s what Moning’s revealed about the Fever series spinoff so far.

“I’m currently working on a trilogy that features Dani, Christian MacKeltar, Ryodan, and the mysterious ‘Dancer,’ set primarily in Fever-Dublin. Each installment in the trilogy is a stand-alone mystery, however there are larger plot arcs unfolding in the background…

..For those of you who have been worrying—the trilogy is not YA. If I had to categorize it, I would say it straddles the line between YA and adult uneasily. …Many of the questions I left unanswered in the FEVER series are addressed in this new series.

Exciting news: I’ve agreed to write two more books after that. Once the new trilogy is complete, I’m returning to the core story begun in the FEVER series, and will resume writing about Mac, Barrons, V’lane, Cruce, the Unseelie king, the concubine, the Song of Making.

All in all, there are five more books coming about the Fever World!”

 

“Waiting On” Wednesday

“Waiting On” Wednesday is a meme created at Breaking the Spine to spotlight upcoming releases that we can’t wait to read.

This week I’m looking forward to Thieftaker by D.B. Jackson.

Here’s the summary, taken from Goodreads:

Boston, 1767: Revolution is brewing as the British Crown imposes

Thieftaker by D.B. Jackson

increasingly onerous taxes on the colonies, and intrigue swirls around firebrands like Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty. But for Ethan Kaille, a thieftaker who makes his living by conjuring spells that help him solve crimes, politics is for others…until he is asked to recover a necklace worn by the murdered daughter of a prominent family.
Suddenly, he faces another conjurer of enormous power, someone unknown, who is part of a conspiracy that reaches to the highest levels of power in the turbulent colony. His adversary has already killed—and not for his own gain, but in the service of his powerful masters, people for whom others are mere pawns in a game of politics and power. Ethan is in way over his head, and he knows it. Already a man with a dark past, he can ill afford to fail, lest his livelihood be forfeit. But he can’t stop now, for his magic has marked him, so he must fight the odds, even though he seems hopelessly overmatched, his doom seeming certain at the spectral hands of one he cannot even see.

From this description, it sounds like Thieftaker will satisfy my recent craving for tales of fantasy and intrigue. A beautiful Chris McGrath doesn’t hurt, either.

This title is released on July 17, 2012.

“Waiting On” Wednesday

“Waiting On” Wednesday is a meme created at Breaking the Spine to spotlight upcoming releases that we can’t wait to read.

This week I’m curious about Delilah S. Dawson’s Wicked As They Come.

Here’s the summary, taken from Goodreads:

Have you ever heard of a Bludman? They’re rather like you and me—only

Wicked As They Come by Delilah S. Dawson

more fabulous, immortal, and mostly indestructible. (They’re also very good kissers.)

Delilah S. Dawson’s darkly tempting debut drops her unsuspecting heroine into a strange faraway land for a romantic adventure that’s part paranormal, part steampunk . . . and completely irresistible.

When Tish Everett forces open the ruby locket she finds at an estate sale, she has no idea that a deliciously rakish Bludman has cast a spell just for her. She wakes up in a surreal world, where Criminy Stain, the dashing proprietor of a magical traveling circus, curiously awaits. At Criminy’s electric touch, Tish glimpses a tantalizing future, but she also foresees her ultimate doom. Before she can decide whether to risk her fate with the charming daredevil, the locket disappears, and with it, her only chance to return home. Tish and Criminy battle roaring sea monsters and thundering bludmares, vengeful ghosts and crooked Coppers in a treacherous race to recover the necklace from the evil Blud-hating Magistrate. But if they succeed, will Tish forsake her fanged suitor and return to her normal life, or will she take a chance on an unpredictable but dangerous destiny with the Bludman she’s coming to love?

I’ve heard some interesting things about this one, and it looks like just the right amount of crazy was thrown in. I’ll be keeping an eye out for it.

This title is released on March 27, 2012.