May 272014
 

Cover for Skin Game by Jim Butcher. Our hero stands in the middle, in his classic black trenchcoat and black cowboy hat, all action stance as he shoots a gun to the left, his wizard's staff in his right hand. The background is a bank vault, burning money floating around, the whole scene awash in a fiery light.Harry Dresden, Chicago’s only professional wizard, is about to have a very bad day….

Because as Winter Knight to the Queen of Air and Darkness, Harry never knows what the scheming Mab might want him to do. Usually, it’s something awful.

He doesn’t know the half of it….

Mab has just traded Harry’s skills to pay off one of her debts. And now he must help a group of supernatural villains—led by one of Harry’s most dreaded and despised enemies, Nicodemus Archleone—to break into the highest-security vault in town so that they can then access the highest-security vault in the Nevernever.

It’s a smash-and-grab job to recover the literal Holy Grail from the vaults of the greatest treasure hoard in the supernatural world—which belongs to the one and only Hades, Lord of the freaking Underworld and generally unpleasant character. Worse, Dresden suspects that there is another game afoot that no one is talking about. And he’s dead certain that Nicodemus has no intention of allowing any of his crew to survive the experience. Especially Harry

 May 27, 2014  Tagged with: ,
May 202014
 

gardner-temporaryhauntingsLenny Hodge has a gift. Everyone around him says it’s an amazing gift. If only Lenny could figure out what it is.

Lenny works for Terrifitemps!, a “temp agency” that specializes in employing gifted people—people capable of confronting The Forces of Evil and saving the world on a regular basis. Lenny barely survived his first mission. Now he has to join his team of supernatural sleuths for something even more dangerous: his first actual temp job. It’s a job filled with peril: ghosts, vampires, werecreatures, aliens, and even a tribe of Bigfoot (Bigfeet?). And is anyone prepared for the overwhelming might of the Pooka Patrol? Lenny sure isn’t…

 May 20, 2014  Tagged with: ,
May 062014
 

Cover for The Wizard's Promise by Cassandra Rose Clarke. The cover is green, with illustrated flora in the borders. In the center stands the wizard with a deer skull for a head, a colorful blue poncho with symbols of the seasons on it, and furry bear-looking legs. (I don't quite understand it either, but I'm intrigued for sure.)All Hanna Euli wants is to become a proper witch – but unfortunately, she’s stuck as an apprentice to a grumpy fisherman. When their boat gets caught up in a mysterious storm and blown wildly off course, Hanna finds herself further away from home than she’s ever been before.

As she tries to get back, she learns there may be more to her apprentice master than she realized, especially when a mysterious, beautiful, and very non-human boy begins following her through the ocean, claiming that he needs Hanna’s help.

 May 6, 2014  Tagged with: ,
May 062014
 

Cover for Last Licks by Claire Donally. In the background is a grand mansion, complete with fountain and hedge maze. A cat walks up the garden path. In the foreground is a wheelchair with a red cushion, on which sits a cat cleaning its paw.When Sunny Coolidge’s curmudgeonly boss, Oliver Barnstable, lands in rehab after breaking his leg, Sunny is stuck shuttling between their offices in Kittery Harbor, Maine, and the facility where Ollie is recuperating. And if putting up with temper tantrums from her boss wasn’t enough, his rehab roommate, Gardner Scatterwell, is a shameless flirt.

But when Scatterwell dies unexpectedly in the night, Ollie is convinced it wasn’t from natural causes. He gives Sunny a new assignment—find out who killed the old tomcat.

And speaking of cats, Shadow, Sunny’s feline partner in crime, takes a peculiar interest in the rehab’s resident angel of death—a calico cat called Portia, with an uncanny talent for cozying up to patients right before they pass away. Together, Sunny and Shadow will have to nose out clues to discover if Portia’s jinx had anything to do with Gardner’s passing—or if all his catting around finally got him fixed.

 May 6, 2014  Tagged with: ,
Apr 292014
 

Cover for Valour and Vanity by Mary Robinette Kowal. a white woman with brown curly hair in an up-do stands in the foreground in a Edwardian floral summer dress. behind her is a dark-haired and -goateed man in a white Edwardian suit, his outheld hand performing a glamour of fiery orange lights in the shape of a dragon. A medieval European church can be seen in the background.After Melody’s wedding, the Ellsworths and Vincents accompany the young couple on their tour of the continent. Jane and Vincent plan to separate from the party and travel to Murano to study with glassblowers there, but their ship is set upon by Barbary corsairs while en route. It is their good fortune that they are not enslaved, but they lose everything to the pirates and arrive in Murano destitute.

Jane and Vincent are helped by a kind local they meet en route, but Vincent is determined to become self-reliant and get their money back, and hatches a plan to do so. But when so many things are not what they seem, even the best laid plans conceal a few pitfalls. The ensuing adventure is a combination of the best parts of magical fantasy and heist novels, set against a glorious Regency backdrop.

 April 29, 2014  Tagged with: ,
Apr 152014
 

Cover for The Fireman Takes a Wife by Felicia Mason. A white, blond woman in a pink shirt and jeans greets a white, blond man in a fireman's dress uniform at the door of her warm, suburban home.Widow Summer Spencer is eager for a quiet life—without the worry of loving a man who lives life in the fast lane. But when fire chief Cameron Jackson starts to woo her, it’s tough to resist his charms. Chief Cam can’t ignore the sparks between him and the stately beauty. But when he learns she’s from the richest family in town, he’s not sure he can ever measure up to her expectations. Can he set aside his fears and give true love another chance?

 April 15, 2014  Tagged with: ,
Apr 082014
 

Cover for Steles of the Sky by Elizabeth Bear. Two people on brown horses and a small white pony ride through a beautiful maelstrom of purple, white, and gold.Re Temur, exiled heir to his grandfather’s Khaganate, has finally raised his banner and declared himself at war with his usurping uncle. With his companions—the Wizard Samarkar, the Cho-tse Hrahima, and the silent monk Brother Hsiung—he must make his way to Dragon Lake to gather in his army of followers.

Temur has many enemies, and they are not idle. The sorcerer who leads the Nameless Assassins, whose malice has shattered the peace of all the empires of the Celedon Highway, has struck at Temur’s uncle already. To the south, in the Rasan empire, a magical plague rages. To the east, the great city of Asmaracanda has burned, and the Uthman Caliph is deposed. And in the hidden ancient empire of Erem, Temur’s son has been born, and a new moon has risen in the Eternal Sky.

 April 8, 2014  Tagged with: ,
Mar 252014
 

Cover for Rotten at the Heart by Bartholomew Daniels [a white, illustrated hand holding a dagger stabs upward; the dagger is covered in realistic-looking blood; the background is the black, leathery texture of an old book.]London, 1596. With their patron’s mysterious death and their Puritan landlord’s sudden determination to evict them, William Shakespeare and the Lord Chamberlain’s Men teeter on the brink of ruin. So when the new Baron Carey–son of their late sponsor–reveals to Shakespeare his suspicions that his father was murdered, and demands that Shakespeare use his own powers of observation to ferret out the killer in exchange for Carey’s continued patronage, Will has little choice but to agree. Continue reading »

 March 25, 2014  Tagged with: ,
Mar 252014
 

Death on Blackheath by Anne PerryAs commander of the powerful Special Branch, Thomas Pitt has the job of keeping Britain safe from spies and traitors. So there’s no obvious reason why he is suddenly ordered to investigate two minor incidents: the blood, hair, and shards of glass discovered outside the home of naval weapons expert Dudley Kynaston, and the simultaneous disappearance of Mrs. Kynaston’s beautiful lady’s maid.

But weeks later, when the mutilated body of an unidentified young woman is found near Kynaston’s home, Pitt realizes that this is no ordinary police investigation. Continue reading »

 March 25, 2014  Tagged with: ,
Mar 252014
 

Lockstep by Karl SchroederWhen seventeen-year-old Toby McGonigal finds himself lost in space, separated from his family, he expects his next drift into cold sleep to be his last. After all, the planet he’s orbiting is frozen and sunless, and the cities are dead. But when Toby wakes again, he’s surprised to discover a thriving planet, a strange and prosperous galaxy, and something stranger still—that he’s been asleep for 14,000 years.

Welcome to the Lockstep Empire, where civilization is kept alive by careful hibernation. Continue reading »

 March 25, 2014  Tagged with: ,