Lisa’s Looking Forward To #31 – September 24th, 2019

Posted September 18, 2019 by Lisa Mandina in LLFT / 28 Comments

Back to joining up with the Waiting on Wednesday Posts, and the Can’t
Wait Wednesday posts hosted by Wishful Endings.  There are a ton of books out next week that I’m excited for!

From my ARC list for September 24th, 2019:

Sounds like a great fantasy probably, and that cover is beautiful!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

IN THE KINGDOM OF AXARIA, a darkness rises.

Some call it a monster, laying waste to the villagers and their homes.
Some say it is an invulnerable demon summoned from the deepest abysses of the Immortal Realm.
Many soldiers from the royal guard are sent out to hunt it down.

Not one has ever returned.

When
Asterin Faelenhart, Princess of Axaria and heir to the throne,
discovers that she may hold the key to defeating the mysterious demon
terrorizing her kingdom, she vows not to rest until the beast is slain.
With the help of her friends and the powers she wields — though has yet
to fully understand — Asterin sets out to complete a single task. The
task that countless, trained soldiers have failed.

To kill it.

But
as they hunt for the demon, they unearth a plot to assassinate the
Princess herself instead. Asterin and her companions begin to wonder how
much of their lives have been lies, especially when they realize that
the center of the web of deceit might very well be themselves. With no
one else to turn to, they are forced to decide just how much they are
willing to sacrifice to protect the only world they have ever known.

That is, of course… if the demon doesn’t get to them first.

From
young author Coco Ma comes a dazzling new tale of adventure, power, and
betrayal, weaving together a stunning world of magic with a killer cast
in an explosive, unforgettable debut.

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE
 

Sounds like it could be an emotional read.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

Two teens meet after tragedy and learn about love, loss, and letting go

Naima
Rodriguez doesn’t want your patronizing sympathy as she grieves her
father, her hero—a fallen Marine. She’ll hate you forever if you ask her
to open up and remember him “as he was,” though that’s all her loving
family wants her to do in order to manage her complex OCD and GAD. She’d
rather everyone back the-eff off while she separates her Lucky Charms
marshmallows into six, always six, Ziploc bags, while she avoids friends
and people and living the life her father so desperately wanted for
her.

Dew respectfully requests a little more time to process the
sudden loss of his parents. It’s causing an avalanche of secret
anxieties, so he counts on his trusty voice recorder to convey the
things he can’t otherwise say aloud. He could really use a friend to
navigate a life swimming with pain and loss and all the lovely moments
in between. And then he meets Naima and everything’s changed—just not in
the way he, or she, expects.

Candace Ganger’s Six Goodbyes We Never Said
is no love story. If you ask Naima, it’s not even a like story. But it
is a story about love and fear and how sometimes you need a little help
to be brave enough to say goodbye.

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE.

I loved the idea of The Blair Witch Project, but couldn’t watch any of the movie because of the camera-work, so this sounds like my kind of story.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

In the faux-documentary
style of The Blair Witch Project comes the campfire story of a missing
girl, a vengeful ghost, and the girl who is determined to find her
sister–at all costs.

Once a year, the path appears in the forest
and Lucy Gallows beckons. Who is brave enough to find her–and who
won’t make it out of the woods?

It’s been exactly one year since
Sara’s sister, Becca, disappeared, and high school life has far from
settled back to normal. With her sister gone, Sara doesn’t know whether
her former friends no longer like her…or are scared of her, and the
days of eating alone at lunch have started to blend together. When a
mysterious text message invites Sara and her estranged friends to “play
the game” and find local ghost legend Lucy Gallows, Sara is sure this is
the only way to find Becca–before she’s lost forever. And even though
she’s hardly spoken with them for a year, Sara finds herself deep in the
darkness of the forest, her friends–and their cameras–following her
down the path. Together, they will have to draw on all of their
strengths to survive. The road is rarely forgiving, and no one will be
the same on the other side.

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE

Finished this and loved it, check out my review HERE.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

 

The storm of the
century is about to hit Little Bridge Island, Florida—and it’s sending
waves crashing through Sabrina “Bree” Beckham’s love life…

When
a massive hurricane severs all power and cell service to Little Bridge
Island—as well as its connection to the mainland—twenty-five-year-old
Bree Beckham isn’t worried . . . at first. She’s already escaped one
storm—her emotionally abusive ex—so a hurricane seems like it will be a
piece of cake.

But animal-loving Bree does become alarmed when
she realizes how many islanders have been cut off from their beloved
pets. Now it’s up to her to save as many of Little Bridge’s cats and
dogs as she can . . . but to do so, she’s going to need help—help she
has no choice but to accept from her boss’s sexy nephew, Drew Hartwell,
the Mermaid Café’s most notorious heartbreaker.

But when Bree
starts falling for Drew, just as Little Bridge’s power is restored and
her penitent ex shows up, she has to ask herself if her island fling was
only a result of the stormy weather, or if it could last during clear
skies too.

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE

I like the other books I’ve read by this author, and this one sounds good too!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

Meri Beckley lives in a
world without lies. When she turns on the news, she hears only the
facts. When she swipes the pages of her online textbooks, she reads only
the truth. When she looks at the peaceful Chicago streets, she feels
the pride everyone in the country feels about the era of unprecedented
hope and prosperity over which the government presides.

But when
Meri’s mother is killed, Meri suddenly has questions that no one else
seems to be asking. And when she tries to uncover her mother’s state of
mind in her last weeks, she finds herself drawn into a secret world full
of facts she’s never heard and a history she didn’t know existed.

Suddenly,
Meri is faced with a choice between accepting the “truth” she has been
taught or embracing a world the government doesn’t want anyone to see—a
world where words have the power to change the course of a country, and
the wrong word can get Meri killed.

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE

I’ve got an ARC of this one and hope to read in the next week.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

Simmering in Patagonian myth, The Tenth Girl is a gothic psychological thriller with a haunting twist.

At
the very southern tip of South America looms an isolated finishing
school. Legend has it that the land will curse those who settle there.
But for Mavi—a bold Buenos Aires native fleeing the military regime that
took her mother—it offers an escape to a new life as a young teacher to
Argentina’s elite girls.

Mavi tries to embrace the strangeness
of the imposing house—despite warnings not to roam at night, threats
from an enigmatic young man, and rumors of mysterious Others. But one of
Mavi’s ten students is missing, and when students and teachers alike
begin to behave as if possessed, the forces haunting this unholy cliff
will no longer be ignored.

One of these spirits holds a secret
that could unravel Mavi’s existence. In order to survive she must solve a
cosmic mystery—and then fight for her life.

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE 

This one sounds really spooky!  Plus, that cover!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

Seventeen-year-old
Aderyn (“Ryn”) only cares about two things: her family, and her family’s
graveyard. And right now, both are in dire straits. Since the death of
their parents, Ryn and her siblings have been scraping together a meager
existence as gravediggers in the remote village of Colbren, which sits
at the foot of a harsh and deadly mountain range that was once home to
the fae. The problem with being a gravedigger in Colbren, though, is
that the dead don’t always stay dead.

The risen corpses
are known as “bone houses,” and legend says that they’re the result of a
decades-old curse. When Ellis, an apprentice mapmaker with a mysterious
past, arrives in town, the bone houses attack with new ferocity. What
is it that draws them near? And more importantly, how can they be
stopped for good?

Together, Ellis and Ryn embark on a journey
that will take them deep into the heart of the mountains, where they
will have to face both the curse and the long-hidden truths about
themselves.

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE.

I love this author, and I have the ARC of the first book waiting to be read still, so I didn’t bother to request this one.  Need to read the other first!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

The stunning finale of the epic fantasy duology from New York Times bestselling author Beth Revis.

Alchemy
student turned necromancer Nedra Brysstain has made a life-changing
decision to embrace the darkness–but can the boy who loves her bring
her back to the light before she pays the ultimate price?

Lunar
Island is trying to heal. The necromantic plague that ravaged the land
has been eradicated, and Emperor Auguste, the young and charming leader
of the Allyrian Empire, has a plan: rid the island of necromancy once
and for all. Though Greggori “Grey” Astor wants what’s best for his
people, he knows that allying himself with Auguste threatens the one
person he loves most: necromancer Nedra Brysstain. Feeling like he
already failed to save Nedra once, Grey becomes determined to help the
Emperor rebuild Lunar Island while still keeping Nedra safe from harm.

Back
at the quarantine hospital, Nedra’s army of revenants are growing
increasingly inhuman by the day. Wracked with guilt for imprisoning
their souls, Nedra vows to discover a way to free the dead while still
keeping her sister by her side.

But, still reeling from the
trauma of the plague, the people of Lunar Island are looking for someone
to blame, and Grey can only protect Nedra for so long. And when Nedra
and Grey are thrust into a battle with an even more terrifying
adversary, Nedra will be pushed to the darkest depths of her necromantic
powers. But can Grey let her go that far?

 Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE.

So besides how cool it is that the author of this graduated from the high school where I am a librarian now, I do need to read this sequel to her first book.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:
Still reeling from her
recent battle (and grounded until she graduates) Alice must cross the
Veil to rescue her friends and stop the Black Knight once and for all.
But the deeper she ventures into Wonderland, the more topsy-turvy
everything becomes. It’s not until she’s at her wits end that she
realizes—Wonderland is trying to save her.

There’s a new
player on the board; a poet capable of using Nightmares to not only
influence the living but raise the dead. This Poet is looking to claim
the Black Queen’s power—and Alice’s budding abilities—as their own.

Dreams
have never been so dark in Wonderland, and if there is any hope of
defeating this mystery poet’s magic, Alice must confront the worst in
herself, in the people she loves, and in the very nature of fear itself.

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE

So it takes place in Kansas City, where I live, so that’s cool.  I have an ARC of this and hope to read and post a review in the next week or so!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:
By day,
seventeen-year-old Kiera Johnson is an honors student, a math tutor, and
one of the only Black kids at Jefferson Academy. But at home, she joins
hundreds of thousands of Black gamers who duel worldwide as Nubian
personas in the secret multiplayer online role-playing card game, SLAY.
No one knows Kiera is the game developer, not her friends, her family,
not even her boyfriend, Malcolm, who believes video games are partially
responsible for the “downfall of the Black man.”

But when a teen
in Kansas City is murdered over a dispute in the SLAY world, news of the
game reaches mainstream media, and SLAY is labeled a racist,
exclusionist, violent hub for thugs and criminals. Even worse, an
anonymous troll infiltrates the game, threatening to sue Kiera for
“anti-white discrimination.”

Driven to save the only world in
which she can be herself, Kiera must preserve her secret identity and
harness what it means to be unapologetically Black in a world
intimidated by Blackness. But can she protect her game without losing
herself in the process?

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE.  

  

Final Thoughts:
Two more than last week, but several I have ARCs of already.  Have you read any of these yet?  Are they
on your TBR? 
And hey, while you’re here, you should go try to win some
of my ARCs from Cleaning Up My TBR Post
HERE. The US only giveaway is open till Friday at midnight, there are even some 2019 ARCs that can be one of your two choices. 

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28 responses to “Lisa’s Looking Forward To #31 – September 24th, 2019

  1. You're killing me. The list of ones here I want to check out is too long to go into. But let's just say that I already have some on request at my library!

  2. Weird…I hit the wrong button and the comment I was in midtyping disappeared! What I said was nice picks!! Super excited for Rules for Vanishing and The Tenth Girl!! The former sounds spooky good and I am so ready for a good ghosty read!

    Thanks for visiting my WoW!

  3. You've got some great sounding books here! A Dream So Dark sounds really good. It's a new to me title. I'll have to look for it and the first book. The Bone Houses is also new to me, but I know I am going to have to check that one out. I really want to read The Tenth Girl. I hope you enjoy all of these, Lisa! Have a great weekend!

  4. I just got a copy of A Dream So Dark and I am looking forward to reading it and seeing how it is going to compare to the first one. Also, Slay sounds like the kind of book I would really enjoy as well 😀

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