Name the last three books you have read...

I love that people still read physical books. Over the years I’ve had to progress to audio books because every time I have picked up a book in the past few years it’s ended up on my face a few pages in, I’m useless…. Makes me sad though because I have so many books!

 

I love physical books because it's easier for me to get immersed into what I'm reading. I have tried to read books electronically it has been okay, but I haven't been able to finish an ebook yet. And I have started four or five.

 

I do love how dirt cheap ebooks are. And how little (physical) space they take up, which I really appreciated when I was moving last year. I had an absurd number of books on hand and even after giving over half away, I still have a ton. I feel like I live in a library sometimes. It's great!

 

Diana, the Roman Goddess of the hunt, lives alone on the far edge of the Roman Empire. When an old friend arrives looking for help, Diana finds herself thrust back into her old life, and old problems.

With innocent lives caught in the crossfire, Diana realizes that the only way to ensure the safety of her friends and loved ones is to do what she does best: hunt her enemies down.

Spin-off novel set in McHugh's Hellequin Chronicles Universe spotlighting/giving some of the back story for one of the supporting characters from the main series, Diana, the were-bear "Roman goddess of the hunt". Descent adventure read.


V. E. Schwab's Villains Books 1 & 2



In Vicious, V. E. Schwab brings to life a gritty comic-book-style world in vivid prose: a world where gaining superpowers doesn't automatically lead to heroism, and a time when allegiances are called into question.

Victor and Eli started out as college roommates—brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in each other. In their senior year, a shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong.

Ten years later, Victor breaks out of prison, determined to catch up to his old friend (now foe), aided by a young girl whose reserved nature obscures a stunning ability. Meanwhile, Eli is on a mission to eradicate every other super-powered person that he can find—aside from his sidekick, an enigmatic woman with an unbreakable will. Armed with terrible power on both sides, driven by the memory of betrayal and loss, the arch-nemeses have set a course for revenge—but who will be left alive at the end?



Magneto and Professor X. Superman and Lex Luthor. Victor Vale and Eli Ever. Sydney and Serena Clarke. Great partnerships, now soured on the vine.

But Marcella Riggins needs no one. Flush from her brush with death, she’s finally gained the control she’s always sought—and will use her new-found power to bring the city of Merit to its knees. She’ll do whatever it takes, collecting her own sidekicks, and leveraging the two most infamous EOs, Victor Vale and Eli Ever, against each other.

With Marcella's rise, new enmities create opportunity--and the stage of Merit City will once again be set for a final, terrible reckoning.

Good reads. Basically a grounded take on "super powers" but with a dark horror edge to it.

 

I've been reading pretty slowly lately. Here is the last book I finished and the one I'm currently reading:

Finished this one:



Being a HUGE Friends fan, I was looking forward to reading this. This was my reaction after reading it: I'm three parts horrified at everything that happened to him because of his addictions (my brother, in comparison, is like a saint with his addiction), disgusted he kept going back despite everything that happened to him and I'm in awe he's still alive to talk about it.

This guy should be dead. He should have died on several different occasions. It's amazing he's still here. That all being said, his "voice" is quite interesting. I read how people called him condescending and elitist. I didn't really get that, but his voice is definitely unique.

I'm currently reading this:



I'm also a HUGE Harry Potter fan and a HUGE Draco Malfoy fan, so I needed to buy this book. LOL.

I'm thoroughly enjoying it. He comes off as being super nice and he's very funny. I'd love to be able to talk to him in person. He seems very personable. I can't figure out if I'm really enjoying it because of his writing, or because I'm learning a bunch of behind-the-scenes stories and anecdotes from the Potter movies. I am reading this one faster than Matthew Perry's book.

 

Read the Den of Shadows quartet by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes. I can say that they definitely do come across as something a teen would write and post on Wattpad. Tons of edge, vampires, a lot of sultry looks, brooding hunks dressed in black with smouldering gazes and hair trigger tempers but they would never harm the lead girl, and snappy girl protagonists who for some reason everyone is obsessed with despite them being as interesting as a frozen pizza on a Tuesday night. But they were quick reads, so I can't complain too much. What impressed me the most though was that at the time of these books being written and published, she was actually a teenager if I'm remembering right. Imagine being 15 and being a published author, that's lowkey dope.

 

Lucas Rurik is a Riftborn fighter bent on vengeance in this thrilling urban fantasy/detective noir series from the bestselling author of the Hellequin Chronicles.

The peace between the Rift and humanity has always been tenuous. It’s up to the Guilds to protect it, removing whomever—or whatever—poses a threat, whether human or rift-fused. Lucas Rurik used to be part of the Raven Guild. That is, until someone murdered all of its members—except for him.

That was seven years ago. Now, Lucas keeps to himself, avoiding getting too close to anyone lest they become targets themselves. But when one of his oldest friends at the Rift-Crime Unit calls upon him for help with a case that’s already taken down people who mean a lot to him, Lucas can’t resist stepping back into the fray.

Something is killing FBI and RCU agents alike—something unlike anything Lucas has ever seen before, on Earth or in the Rift. Even more concerning, the gruesome assaults seem to be linked to Dr. Callie Mitchell, a depraved and disturbed individual who treats the rift-fused like her own personal lab rats.

And when someone Lucas thought he could trust turns on him, he realizes these killings aren’t just the random attacks of some terrifying new kind of fiend. They’re connected to whoever killed off his Guild all those years ago—and that’s something Lucas just can’t let lie . . .



Lucas Rurik confronts a cult determined to remake the world—no matter the cost—in this urban fantasy noir from the author of the Hellequin Chronicles.

Lucas Rurik is no stranger to navigating the tricky territory between humans and those touched by the Rift. After all, as the last surviving member of the Raven Guild, protecting the peace is his job. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

As much as Lucas would like to be out hunting for Dr. Callie Mitchell—a deranged scientist with a bad habit of experimenting on the rift-fused—his friends at the Rift-Crime Unit require his expertise on a perilous case. It seems a mysterious kingpin known as the Croupier has been making some shady deals, and revenants, riftborn, and humans alike are winding up dead in the process. Now, with the help of chained revenant Nadia and FBI-agent-turned-revenant Emily West, it’s up to Lucas to track down the anonymous crime lord before anyone else is hurt.

But as Lucas gets closer to his target, he discovers this is no ordinary manhunt. The Croupier is leading a dangerous group of zealots who want to destroy both the rift and humanity—and they’ll stop at nothing to make their so-called Blessed plans a reality . .


Good start off for a new series with book three scheduled for a June release.





Stormy Bay is a dying town nestled against an eerily placid ocean, and Ray Lilly is trapped in it. He can barely remember his name let alone his mission for the Twenty Palace society. Worse, he realizes that for some time now he’s been living as a puppet, his body and mind under the complete domination of an unknown power, and the townsfolk think this puppet is his real identity.

And that power can still seize control of Ray’s body at any time, forcing him and the people around him to playact in nonsense stories that center around a mysterious boy and his monster dog.

The town and its people shift and change, but only Ray seems to notice. He has no idea what sort of magic has imprisoned all these ordinary folks in Stormy Bay, but he does know he needs to get them, and himself, out.

But that might mean crossing a line he has never crossed before. While Ray has certainly taken lives in his work for the society, it was always in self-defense or in the desperate moments before impending calamity. Can he bring himself to commit cold-blooded murder, even to save dozens of lives?

I wondered after reading Connolly's last Twenty Palaces novella if he would continue with the new character mission/motivation he set up at the end in other full length novels or novellas. Looks like he's going full novel route with this and a follow up novel (The Flood Circle) that's already out. This works as a good jumping on point into the current stories going forward with all of the previous books working as background story for the two series protagonists, especially when it comes to Ray Lilly. In previous books the readers along with Lilly were discovering the the who, what, where & why's of the supernatural world he foolishly stumbled into now he, along with the readers, have a better understanding of the weird happenings taking place as the story progresses.

 

The ninth novel of the bestselling Rivers of London urban fantasy series returns to the adventures of Peter Grant, detective and apprentice wizard, as he solves magical crimes in the city of London.

There is a world hidden underneath this great city.

The London Silver Vaults—for well over a century, the largest collection of silver for sale in the world. It has more locks than the Bank of England and more cameras than a paparazzi convention.

Not somewhere you can murder someone and vanish without a trace—only that’s what happened.

The disappearing act, the reports of a blinding flash of light, and memory loss amongst the witnesses all make this a case for Detective Constable Peter Grant and the Special Assessment Unit.

Alongside their boss DCI Thomas Nightingale, the SAU find themselves embroiled in a mystery that encompasses London’s tangled history, foreign lands and, most terrifying of all, the North!

And Peter must solve this case soon, because back home his partner Beverley is expecting twins any day now. But what he doesn’t know is that he’s about to encounter something—and somebody—that nobody ever expects…






The three original spellbooks, source of all magic in the world, have been found, and Ray Lilly has already “acquired” one. Now he and his "boss" Annalise Powliss are on a historic mission to get the other two and they’re ready to kill anyone who gets in their way.

If they succeed, the Twenty Palace Society will become more powerful than it has ever been and could truly safeguard humanity from both extra-dimensional predators and the people who summon them.

But this time their enemies are more formidable than any they’ve ever faced before. What starts as a covert mission to hunt sorcerers quickly collapses into a desperate—and very public—struggle to survive. Can Ray and Annalise track down and kill these sorcerers before they execute a plan to drive the human race to the edge of extinction?





Lucas Rurik faces unwanted celebrity, ancient enemies, and dangerous zealots in a thrilling urban-fantasy noir from the author of the Hellequin Chronicles.

Centuries of life experience inside and outside the Rift couldn’t prepare former Raven Guild member and riftborn detective Lucas Rurik for his latest set of challenges. First, when his capture of a prominent political figure “trends” on social networks, he finds himself the target of both the media and the public. Then, Noah Kaya, an Ancient, tracks him down for help on a job. As a rule, Lucas doesn’t trust the Ancients; they always seem to have an ulterior motive. But something about this gig just won’t let Lucas say no.

It seems one of Noah’s close friends disappeared right after becoming the lead suspect in a murder case. The problem is the guy in question isn’t the type to knock someone off. Not to mention a whole lot of rift-walkers have recently gone missing, the crime scene reeks of pure rift energy, and a deranged killer who Lucas thought was long deceased might not actually be dead after all.

Soon, what was originally a simple search for a missing person devolves into a dangerous game of cat and mouse with an age-old enemy—and it could bring Lucas face-to-face with Dr. Callie Mitchell, the depraved scientist he’s been hunting for months . . .

 

Since a few years have gone by since the first novel came out, I did an audiobook "re-read" of it in order to recap the events that played out and ended up audio booking the bridging novella & second novel as well for one big story read.




Since time immemorial, the Spires have sheltered humanity. Within their halls, the ruling aristocratic houses develop scientific marvels, foster trade alliances, and maintain fleets of airships to keep the peace.

Captain Grimm commands the merchant ship Predator. Loyal to Spire Albion, he has taken their side in the cold war with Spire Aurora, disrupting the enemy’s shipping lines by attacking their cargo vessels. But when the Predator is damaged in combat, Grimm joins a team of Albion agents on a vital mission in exchange for fully restoring his ship.

And as Grimm undertakes this task, he learns that the conflict between the Spires is merely a premonition of things to come. Humanity’s ancient enemy, silent for more than ten thousand years, has begun to stir once more. And death will follow in its wake...






Benedict Sorellin-Lancaster hasn’t even broken in his lieutenant’s insignia when he’s summoned to meet with the Spirearch of Spire Albion himself for a very special—and very secret—purpose. The Spirearch needs Benedict to retrieve a bag he’s “misplaced” on the Colony Spire known as Dependence, which has strangely cut off all contact with the outside world. It’s a delicate mission at best, a potential bloodbath at worst.

To this end, the Spirearch has supplied Benedict with backup in the form of three Warriorborn. But unlike the courageous lieutenant, this trio has formerly used its special gifts for crime, carnage, and outright bloody murder. And all of them were caught and imprisoned because of Benedict. Now, if they behave—and make it back alive—they’ll go free.

But when the odd squad reaches Dependence, they soon discover something waiting for them: a horrific weapon that could shatter the balance of power among the Spires. And Benedict will have to bring his own Warriorborn skills to bear if he, his team, and Spire Albion are to have any hope of survival . . .







For centuries the Cinder Spires have safeguarded humanity, rising far above the deadly surface world. Within their halls, aristocratic houses rule, developing scientific marvels and building fleets of airships for defense and trade.

Now, the Spires hover on the brink of open war.

Everyone knows it's coming. The guns of the great airship fleets that control the skies between the last bastions of humanity will soon speak in anger, and Spire Albion stands alone against the overwhelming might of Spire Aurora's Armada and its new secret weapon--one capable of destroying the populations of entire Spires.

A trading summit at Spire Olympia provides an opportunity for the Spirearch, Lord Albion, to secure alliances that will shape the outcomes of the war, and to that end he dispatches privateer Captain Francis Madison Grimm and the crew of the AMS Predator to bolster the Spirearch's diplomatic agents.

It will take daring, skill, and no small amount of showmanship to convince the world to stand with Spire Albion--assuming that it is not already too late.