Modest Musings

Welcome to Modest Musings!

This is were we tell you about the books we have acquired this month.  Whether it is through purchases, NetGalley or one of our many book list emails.  Please feel free to tell us what you think and if there is a particular book you are interested in seeing us review.  We hope you enjoy what we found this Month!

Jessica’s Musings

Die for me by Amy Plum – My life had always been blissfully, wonderfully normal. But it only took one moment to change everything.

Suddenly, my sister, Georgia, and I were orphans. We put our lives into storage and moved to Paris to live with my grandparents. And I knew my shattered heart, my shattered life, would never feel normal again. Then I met Vincent.

Mysterious, sexy, and unnervingly charming, Vincent Delacroix appeared out of nowhere and swept me off my feet. Just like that, I was in danger of losing my heart all over again. But I was ready to let it happen.

Of course, nothing is ever that easy. Because Vincent is no normal human. He has a terrifying destiny, one that puts his life at risk every day. He also has enemies . . . immortal, murderous enemies who are determined to destroy him and all of his kind.

While I’m fighting to piece together the remnants of my life, can I risk putting my heart—as well as my life and my family’s—in jeopardy for a chance at love?

Welcome to the Darkness by L.M. Justus – A typical teenager, seventeen-year-old Reed Hennessy doesn’t realize how lucky he is to lead a normal life until he loses everything, including his humanity. The attacker who slaughters his family and destroys their home turns out to be a vampire, a creature Reed had considered a myth.

Now a vampire himself, but with the unique ability to walk in sunlight, Reed struggles in the dark underworld he didn’t even know existed. His only two allies in his fight to stay alive are his reluctant mentor, Nathaniel, a vampire with over two hundred years’ worth of emotional baggage, and Sarah, a rookie cop with a secret ability of her own.

Together, Reed and his companions face a harrowing, cross-country journey before stumbling into a plot which could mean the end of everything for humans and vampires alike.

Royal Date by Sariah Wilson –  This Cinderella didn’t plan on a prince . . .

Kat MacTaggart is a girl who has a plan for everything—including her holiday ski trip to Monterra with her best friend. Everything is going according to plan until she finds herself careening out of control down a mountainside and being rescued by a guy who looks like Superman’s hotter Italian cousin.

HRH Prince Nico is intrigued by the woman he saved on the slopes and her refusal to date him. He offers Kat a deal—let him show her his country and he’ll pay her to write articles that will help Monterra’s tourism industry. Kat agrees, but given her past and lingering distrust of men, she has one condition—absolutely no kissing.

Thanks to the claims of a jealous British noblewoman and the schemes of a meddling paparazzo, Kat’s rule doesn’t seem to be a problem at first. But the more Kat gets to know Nico and the people around him, the harder it is to remember her keep-your-distance plan. Should she stick to it or risk everything for a chance at happily ever after?

The Faerie Guardian by Rachel Morgan – Enter a hidden world of magic, mystery, danger and romance in this YA fantasy from Amazon bestselling author, Rachel Morgan…

Protecting humans from dangerous magical creatures is all in a day’s work for a faerie training to be a guardian. Seventeen-year-old Violet Fairdale knows this better than anyone—she’s about to become the best guardian the Guild has seen in years. That is, until a cute human boy who can somehow see through her faerie glamor follows her into the Fae realm. Now she’s broken Guild Law, a crime that could lead to her expulsion.

The last thing Vi wants to do is spend any more time with the boy who got her into this mess, but the Guild requires that she return Nate to his home and make him forget everything he’s discovered of the Fae realm. Easy, right? Not when you factor in evil faeries, long-lost family members, and inconvenient feelings of the romantic kind. Vi is about to find herself tangled up in a dangerous plot—and it’ll take all her training to get out alive.

 

Lynn’s Musings

All the Paths of Shadow by Frank Tuttle – The king’s orders were clear enough. “Move the tower’s shadow,” he bellowed. “I refuse to deliver my commencement speech from the dark.”

As the newly appointed mage to the Crown of Tirlin, Meralda Ovis has no choice but to undertake King Yvin’s ill-conceived task. Tirlin’s first female mage, and the youngest person to ever don the robes of office, Meralda is determined to prove once and for all that she deserves the title. The Tower, though, holds ancient secrets all its own. Secrets that will soon spell destruction for all of Tirlin—unless Meralda can unravel a monstrous curse laid by a legendary villain seven centuries before she was born.

An ancient curse. A haunted tower. A clamorous gathering of nobles, mages, and kings from the Five Realms come together in Tirlin for the fifth-year Accords. Meralda finds herself facing far darker foes than any mere shadow of the tower.

The Baskerville Tales by Emma Jane Holloway – These three short stories return us to the world of Emma Jane Holloway’s delightful novels featuring Evelina Cooper, the niece of the great Sherlock Holmes. Together they expand the bounds of Holloway’s irresistible vision of Victorian London, which has enchanted readers with a seamless mix of paranormal fantasy, romance, and mystery. Now this trilogy of prequels is available in one convenient eBook bundle:
 
THE ADVENTURE OF THE WOLLASTON RITUAL
Prequel to A Study in Silks
 
THE STRANGE AND ALARMING COURTSHIP OF MISS IMOGEN ROTH
Prequel to A Study in Darkness

THE STEAMSPINNER MUTINY
Prequel to A Study in Ashes

In a Victorian era ruled by a council of ruthless steam barons, mechanical power is the real monarch and sorcery the demon enemy of the Empire. Nevertheless, the most coveted weapon is magic that can run machines—something Evelina Cooper has secretly mastered. But rather than making her fortune, her special talents could mean death or an eternity as a guest at Her Majesty’s secret laboratories. What’s a polite young lady to do but mind her manners and pray she’s never found out? But first there’s murder and mayhem to deal with.

Waistcoats & Weaponry by Gail Carriger – Class is back in session….

Sophronia continues her second year at finishing school in style–with a steel-bladed fan secreted in the folds of her ball gown, of course. Such a fashionable choice of weapon comes in handy when Sophronia, her best friend Dimity, sweet sootie Soap, and the charming Lord Felix Mersey hijack a suspiciously empty train to return their chum Sidheag to her werewolf pack in Scotland. But when Sophronia discovers they are being trailed by a dirigible of Picklemen and flywaymen, she unearths a plot that threatens to throw all of London into chaos. With her friends in mortal danger, Sophronia must sacrifice what she holds most dear–her freedom.

Gather your poison, your steel-tipped quill, and the rest of your school supplies and join Mademoiselle Geraldine’s proper young killing machines in the third rousing installment in the New York Times bestselling Finishing School series by steampunk author Gail Carriger.

The Accidental Assassin by Nichole Chase – Ava McKenzie is a creature of habit. Life is passing her by and she has nothing to show for it. She’s had the same job since she started college, she orders the same dish every time she goes to her favorite restaurant, and only reads books from authors she knows. There is nothing new or surprising in her life… until her best friend marries a man from London. When her newlywed friend asks her to house-sit while she honeymoons, Ava jumps at the chance. She thinks this could be the very thing she needs to shake up her life. Ava throws herself head first into her new lifestyle; she wants to try everything, go everywhere, and never get stuck in a rut again. Of course, offing a man in a car garage hadn’t been one of the things on her list to try.

Owen Walker spends every day in a new place with a new case. As one of the most renowned assassins in the world, he has his choice of marks—and he’s never failed in a mission. When a new hit takes him back to his hometown, he looks forward to spending time somewhere familiar. What he isn’t expecting is to help an attractive, confused American woman find out how she’s ended up on a hit man’s list.

As Ava and Owen dodge bullets, will they be able to escape their undeniable attraction to each other? Or will all of that chemistry blow up in a shower of hot and dangerous sparks?

Riot Girls – Riot Girls: Seven Free Teen Books With Girls Who Don’t Need A Hero is a collection of Young Adult Speculative Fiction (Fantasy/SciFi/Dystopian/Paranormal) for readers who like it when a girl can take care of herself. These teens don’t sit around waiting for someone to rescue them from their situation, they act!

The collection has something for everyone–dystopian societies, trained assassins, strange creatures (faeries, vampires, werewolves, and zombies), super heroes, and witches. What binds our stories together is our heroines–girls who have the inner and outer strength to take care of themselves.

Included in the collection:

xGeneration 1: You Don’t Know Me – Genre: SciFi / Superhero – Full Length Novel (95,000 words). Fourteen-year-old Janis Graystone is mostly worried about soccer, school, and keeping her older sister from running her life. But when strange things start happening to her including out-of-body experiences and the sense someone is watching her, she finds herself working with an unlikely but loyal ally to discover the source of the danger she senses around her. Rated PG-14 (Language).

The Blemished: Blemished #1 – Genre: SciFi / Dystopian – Full Length Novel (85,000 words). Below average and imperfect in a world of stunning clones, Mina Hart is denied an education and a normal life. But when she meets a new friend’s mysterious brother, she finds herself willing to share a dangerous secret…

Xoe: or Vampires, and Werewolves, and Demons, oh my! – Genre: Paranormal – Full Length Novel (50,000 words). Xoe Meyers liked her normal small-town life. But things change fast when the new guy in town turns out to be a werewolf who goes after her best friend in a big way. Determined to save her friend, she finds herself allied with creatures she never knew existed in a battle that threatens all their lives. Rated PG-13 (Language).

Magic Unbound: Book One in the Fae Unbound Series – Genre: Contemporary Urban Fantasy – Full Length Novel (45,000 words). Not-quite-sixteen year old Lizbet Moore expects a boring last month of summer vacation. What she wasn’t expecting was a fifteen-hundred-year old fae hiding in her back garden. Murderous monks, memories of her past lives, and the race to save the fae from destruction change her summer in ways she could never have imagined.

Avoidables: Book 1 – Genre: Fantasy / Dystopian – Serialized Novella-length Fiction (25,000 words). Hope is an Avoidable in a world that belongs to the Perfects. She was born with only one arm, but when she discovers that her disability is actually a gift, she joins a group of rebels who are determined to change the rules of her society. Rated PG-14 (Language, Mature Situations).

Chronicles of Steel: Raven 1: Episode 1 – Genre: Fantasy / Steampunk – Short Serialized Novelette (17,300 words). Raven was trained by her father to be a Reaper. Just as she’s saved enough lives to redeem the ones she’s taken, she agrees to take on a last mission that’s too important to ignore. Will it force her back into the life she’s trying to escape?

Halloween Magic & Mayhem by Stella Wilkinson – Genre: Paranormal / Comedy Romance – Novelette (15,000 words) . On her sixteenth birthday, Emily Rand discovers she is a powerful witch. Her experiment with a spell accidently turns a ghost back into a boy and reanimates a group of zombies. It will take all of her power to undo what she has done. Rated PG-13 (Language).

Please note: Riot Girls contains books by authors from both the United States and Great Britain. Spelling, punctuation, and sentence construction can be different from what is correct grammar on the “other side of the pond”.