Monday, May 6, 2019

Tuesday Tomorrow

Storm Cursed by Patricia Briggs
Published by: Ace
Publication Date: May 7th, 2019
Format: Hardcover, 368 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"In this powerful entry in the #1 New York Times bestselling series, Mercy Thompson must face a deadly enemy to defend all she loves...

My name is Mercedes Athena Thompson Hauptman, and I am a car mechanic.
And a coyote shapeshifter.
And the mate of the Alpha of the Columbia Basin werewolf pack.

Even so, none of that would have gotten me into trouble if, a few months ago, I hadn’t stood upon a bridge and taken responsibility for the safety of the citizens who lived in our territory. It seemed like the thing to do at the time. It should have only involved hunting down killer goblins, zombie goats, and an occasional troll. Instead, our home was viewed as neutral ground, a place where humans would feel safe to come and treat with the fae.

The reality is that nothing and no one is safe. As generals and politicians face off with the Gray Lords of the fae, a storm is coming and her name is Death.

But we are pack, and we have given our word.

We will die to keep it."

FINALLY! It's finally here! That extra two month wait was excruciating but trust me, it was worth it. 

Middlegame by Seanan McGuire
Published by: Tor.com
Publication Date: May 7th, 2019
Format: Hardcover, 528 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"New York Times bestselling and Alex, Nebula, and Hugo-Award-winning author Seanan McGuire introduces readers to a world of amoral alchemy, shadowy organizations, and impossible cities in the standalone fantasy, Middlegame.

Meet Roger. Skilled with words, languages come easily to him. He instinctively understands how the world works through the power of story.

Meet Dodger, his twin. Numbers are her world, her obsession, her everything. All she understands, she does so through the power of math.

Roger and Dodger aren’t exactly human, though they don’t realise it. They aren’t exactly gods, either. Not entirely. Not yet.

Meet Reed, skilled in the alchemical arts like his progenitor before him. Reed created Dodger and her brother. He’s not their father. Not quite. But he has a plan: to raise the twins to the highest power, to ascend with them and claim their authority as his own.

Godhood is attainable. Pray it isn’t attained."

The Seanan McGuire factory just keeps going!

Nocturna by Maya Motayne
Published by: Balzer + Bray
Publication Date: May 7th, 2019
Format: Hardcover, 480 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The first in a sweeping and epic own voices debut fantasy trilogy - set in a stunning Latinx-inspired world - about a face-changing thief and a risk-taking prince who must team up to defeat a powerful evil they accidentally unleashed. Perfect for fans of Tomi Adeyemi, Leigh Bardugo, and V. E. Schwab.

To Finn Voy, magic is two things: a knife to hold under the chin of anyone who crosses her...and a disguise she shrugs on as easily as others pull on cloaks.

As a talented faceshifter, it’s been years since Finn has seen her own face, and that’s exactly how she likes it. But when Finn gets caught by a powerful mobster, she’s forced into an impossible mission: steal a legendary treasure from Castallan’s royal palace or be stripped of her magic forever.

After the murder of his older brother, Prince Alfehr is first in line for the Castallan throne. But Alfie can’t help but feel that he will never live up to his brother’s legacy. Riddled with grief, Alfie is obsessed with finding a way to bring his brother back, even if it means dabbling in forbidden magic.

But when Finn and Alfie’s fates collide, they accidentally unlock a terrible, ancient power - which, if not contained, will devour the world. And with Castallan’s fate in their hands, Alfie and Finn must race to vanquish what they have unleashed, even if it means facing the deepest darkness in their pasts."

I was sold on this book by it's comparison to Leigh Bardugo and V.E. Schwab but only because it's coupled with Latinix roots. 

Westside by W.M. Akers
Published by: Harper Voyager
Publication Date: May 7th, 2019
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"New York is dying, and the one woman who can save it has smaller things on her mind.

A young detective who specializes in “tiny mysteries” finds herself at the center of a massive conspiracy in this beguiling historical fantasy set on Manhattan’s Westside - a peculiar and dangerous neighborhood home to strange magic and stranger residents - that blends the vivid atmosphere of Caleb Carr with the imaginative power of Neil Gaiman.

It’s 1921, and a thirteen-mile fence running the length of Broadway splits the island of Manhattan, separating the prosperous Eastside from the Westside - an overgrown wasteland whose hostility to modern technology gives it the flavor of old New York. Thousands have disappeared here, and the respectable have fled, leaving behind the killers, thieves, poets, painters, drunks, and those too poor or desperate to leave.

It is a hellish landscape, and Gilda Carr proudly calls it home.

Slightly built, but with a will of iron, Gilda follows in the footsteps of her late father, a police detective turned private eye. Unlike that larger-than-life man, Gilda solves tiny mysteries: the impossible puzzles that keep us awake at night; the small riddles that destroy us; the questions that spoil marriages, ruin friendships, and curdle joy. Those tiny cases distract her from her grief, and the one impossible question she knows she can’t answer: “How did my father die?”

Yet on Gilda’s Westside, tiny mysteries end in blood - even the case of a missing white leather glove. Mrs. Copeland, a well-to-do Eastside housewife, hires Gilda to find it before her irascible merchant husband learns it is gone. When Gilda witnesses Mr. Copeland’s murder at a Westside pier, she finds herself sinking into a mire of bootlegging, smuggling, corruption - and an evil too dark to face.

All she wants is to find one dainty ladies’ glove. She doesn’t want to know why this merchant was on the wrong side of town—or why he was murdered in cold blood. But as she begins to see the connection between his murder, her father’s death, and the darkness plaguing the Westside, she faces the hard truth: she must save her city or die with it.

Introducing a truly remarkable female detective, Westside is a mystery steeped in the supernatural and shot through with gunfights, rotgut whiskey, and sizzling Dixieland jazz. Full of dazzling color, delightful twists, and truly thrilling action, it announces the arrival of a wonderful new talent."

Why has no one tried to bring about the infusion of Caleb Carr and Neil Gaiman before?

Romanov by Nadine Brandes
Published by: Thomas Nelson
Publication Date: May 7th, 2019
Format: Hardcover, 352 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The history books say I died.

They don’t know the half of it.

Anastasia “Nastya” Romanov was given a single mission: to smuggle an ancient spell into her suitcase on her way to exile in Siberia. It might be her family’s only salvation. But the leader of the Bolshevik army is after them, and he’s hunted Romanov before.

Nastya’s only chances of saving herself and her family are either to release the spell and deal with the consequences, or to enlist help from Zash, the handsome soldier who doesn’t act like the average Bolshevik. Nastya has only dabbled in magic, but it doesn’t frighten her half as much as her growing attraction to Zash. She likes him. She thinks he might even like her.

That is, until she’s on one side of a firing squad...and he’s on the other."

I've always been drawn to the Romanovs, that time in Russian history seems so magical, and here we have actual magic as well! Dream come true!

The Woman in the Blue Cloak by Deon Meyer
Published by: Atlantic Monthly Press
Publication Date: May 7th, 2019
Format: Hardcover, 160 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Early on a May morning in the depth of South Africa’s winter, a woman’s naked body, washed in bleach, is discovered on a stone wall beside the N2 highway at the top of Sir Lowry’s Pass, some thirty-five miles from Cape Town. The local investigation stalls, so the case is referred to Captain Benny Griessel and his colorful partner Vaughn Cupido of the Hawks - the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigations. The woman proves to be Alicia Lewis, an expert in old Dutch Masters paintings specializing in the recovery of valuable lost art. Discovering the two men she had contacted before coming to South Africa reveals what she was seeking - a rare painting by Carel Fabritius, Rembrandt’s finest student, not seen since it disappeared from Delft in 1654. But how Lewis died, why, and at whose hand shocks even the two veteran detectives.

The Woman in the Blue Cloak is a compact jewel of a thriller, filled with Deon Meyer’s earthy dialogue, clever plotting, and the memorable characters that have peopled all of Deon Meyer’s award-winning novels."

Paintings that have disappeared from history? Yes please!

Black Berry and Wilde Rose by Sonia Velton
Published by: Blackstone Publishing
Publication Date: May 7th, 2019
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Set in eighteenth-century Spitalfields, London, Blackberry and Wild Rose is the rich and atmospheric tale of a household of Huguenot silk weavers as the pursuit of the perfect silk design leads them all into ambition, love, and betrayal.

When Esther Thorel, wife of a master silk weaver, rescues Sara Kemp from a brothel, she thinks she is doing Gods will, but her good deed is not returned. Sara quickly realizes that the Thorel household is built on hypocrisy and lies and soon tires of the drudgery of life as Esthers new ladys maid. As the two womens relationship becomes increasingly fractious, Sara resolves to find out what it is that so preoccupies her mistress

Esther has long yearned to be a silk designer. When her early water colors are dismissed by her husband, Elias, as the daubs of a foolish girl, she continues her attempts in secret. It may have been that none of them would ever have become actual silks, were it not for the presence of the extraordinarily talented Bisby Lambert in the Thorel household. Brought in by Elias to weave his masterpiece on the Thorels loom in the attic of their house in Spitalfields, the strange cadence of the loom as Bisby works is like a siren call to Esther. The minute she first sets foot in the garret and sees Bisby Lambert at his loom, marks the beginning of Blackberry and Wild Rose, the most exquisite silk design Spitalfields has ever seen, and the end of the Thorel households veneer of perfection.

As unrest among the journeyman silk weavers boils over into riot and rebellion, it leads to a devastating day of reckoning between Esther and Sara."

While I could say what first caught my eye is the weavers and how much I love that home art, but really, I just love the word Spitalfields... 

The Lady and Her Secret Lover by Jenn LeBlanc
Published by: Illustrated Romance
Publication Date: May 7th, 2019
Format: Kindle, 366 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"When Ellie and Lou fall in love, it is with great abandon. And they have grand ideas. A small cottage, a garden, a goat to manage the weeds, sheep for wool to knit.

But the truth of the matter lies in the reality. Louisa must marry, to the satisfaction of her father, and so must Ellie - whose family hopes for a title to add legitimacy to their status, opening doors in the ton. And when Louisa’s father discovers them together nothing can ever be the same.

A friend rescues Louisa from a horrible fate, sending her into hiding for her own protection. For three long years, Louisa remains in exile out of fear of what her father could do.

Necessity returns Louisa to London, and as soon as she does, the memories of her beautiful Ellie haunt her. But Louisa has no idea if Ellie is even here, or unmarried, or still in want of her as Louisa is and has been since that first moment she saw her across the shimmering ballroom. Louisa fears discovering the truth of it all, that she was but a passing fancy born of the excitement of the heat of a first season.

Will she find Ellie? Will the woman still want her? And even if so, what can they do now that they couldn’t do before?

Nothing has changed, but everything is different."

I'm liking this trend of mainstream romance embracing LGBTQ relationships in other eras.

Tightrope by Amanda Quick
Published by: Berkley
Publication Date: May 7th, 2019
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"An unconventional woman and a man shrouded in mystery walk a tightrope of desire as they race against a killer to find a top secret invention in this novel from New York Times bestselling author Amanda Quick.

Former trapeze artist Amalie Vaughn moved to Burning Cove to reinvent herself, but things are not going well. After spending her entire inheritance on a mansion with the intention of turning it into a bed-and-breakfast, she learns too late that the villa is said to be cursed. When the first guest, Dr. Norman Pickwell, is murdered by his robot invention during a sold-out demonstration, rumors circulate that the curse is real.

In the chaotic aftermath of the spectacle, Amalie watches as a stranger from the audience disappears behind the curtain. When Matthias Jones reappears, he is slipping a gun into a concealed holster. It looks like the gossip that is swirling around him is true - Matthias evidently does have connections to the criminal underworld.

Matthias is on the trail of a groundbreaking prototype cipher machine. He suspects that Pickwell stole the device and planned to sell it. But now Pickwell is dead and the machine has vanished. When Matthias’s investigation leads him to Amalie’s front door, the attraction between them is intense, but she knows it is also dangerous. Amalie and Matthias must decide if they can trust each other and the passion that binds them, because time is running out."

A cursed house? A killer robot? Cryptography? Yes, yes, and yes! 

After the Party by Cressida Connolly
Published by: Pegasus Books
Publication Date: May 7th, 2019
Format: Kindle, 272 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"A captivating novel of manners that tells the story of a dark and disturbing period of British history, by a master storyteller.

It is the summer of 1938 and Phyllis Forrester has returned to England after years abroad. Moving into her sister’s grand country house, she soon finds herself entangled in a new world of idealistic beliefs and seemingly innocent friendships. Fevered talk of another war infiltrates their small, privileged circle, giving way to a thrilling solution: the appointment of a great and charismatic new leader who will restore England to its former glory.

At a party hosted by her new friends, Phyllis lets down her guard for a single moment, with devastating consequences. Years later, Phyllis, alone and embittered, recounts the dramatic events which led to her imprisonment and changed the course of her life forever.

Powerful, poignant, and exquisitely observed, After the Party is an illuminating portrait of a dark period of British history which has yet to be fully acknowledged."

Sometimes I suffer from WWI fatigue, but who can resist a country estate and a party with devastating consequences?

Every Tool's a Hammer: Life Is What You Make It by Adam Savage
Published by: Atria Books
Publication Date: May 7th, 2019
Format: Hardcover, 288 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Every Tool’s a Hammer is a chronicle of my life as a maker. It’s an exploration of making and of my own productive obsessions, but it’s also a permission slip of sorts from me to you. Permission to grab hold of the things you’re interested in, that fascinate you, and to dive deeper into them to see where they lead you.

Through stories from forty-plus years of making and molding, building and break­ing, along with the lessons I learned along the way, this book is meant to be a toolbox of problem solving, complete with a shop’s worth of notes on the tools, techniques, and materials that I use most often. Things like: In Every Tool There Is a Hammer - don’t wait until everything is perfect to begin a project, and if you don’t have the exact right tool for a task, just use whatever’s handy; Increase Your Loose Tolerance - making is messy and filled with screwups, but that’s okay, as creativity is a path with twists and turns and not a straight line to be found; Use More Cooling Fluid - it prolongs the life of blades and bits, and it prevents tool failure, but beyond that it’s a reminder to slow down and reduce the fric­tion in your work and relationships; Screw Before You Glue - mechanical fasteners allow you to change and modify a project while glue is forever but sometimes you just need the right glue, so I dig into which ones will do the job with the least harm and best effects.

This toolbox also includes lessons from many other incredible makers and creators, including: Jamie Hyneman, Nick Offerman, Pixar director Andrew Stanton, Oscar-winner Guillermo del Toro, artist Tom Sachs, and chef Traci Des Jardins. And if everything goes well, we will hopefully save you a few mistakes (and maybe fingers) as well as help you turn your curiosities into creations.

I hope this book inspires you to build, make, invent, explore, and - most of all - enjoy the thrills of being a creator."

Why was Mythsbusters ever cancelled? WHY!?! 

Storm Cursed by Patricia Briggs
Published by: Frances Lincoln Children's Books
Publication Date: May 7th, 2019
Format: Hardcover, 32 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"New in the critically acclaimed Little People, BIG DREAMS series, discover the life of David Bowie, the starman who dazzled audiences with his music.

As a child, young David had a head full of songs and ideas. He was inspired by the pop and mod scenes in Britain to pick up the saxophone. After earning his stripes in some of the coolest bands in London, David splashed onto the solo scene. His songwriting talent and musical skill made him one of rock and roll's all-time greatest artists. This moving book features stylish and quirky illustrations and extra facts at the back, including a biographical timeline with historical photos and a detailed profile of the musician's life.

Little People, BIG DREAMS is a best-selling series of books and educational games that explore the lives of outstanding people, from designers and artists to scientists and activists. All of them achieved incredible things, yet each began life as a child with a dream.

This empowering series offers inspiring messages to children of all ages, in a range of formats. The board books are told in simple sentences, perfect for reading aloud to babies and toddlers. The hardcover versions present expanded stories for beginning readers. Boxed gift sets allow you to collect a selection of the books by theme. Paper dolls, learning cards, matching games, and other fun learning tools provide even more ways to make the lives of these role models accessible to children.

Inspire the next generation of outstanding people who will change the world with Little People, BIG DREAMS!"

I want to be all, go out and buy this book, but instead, I'm going to be all, avoid this book, it's so inaccurate and incomplete it angered the Bowie fan in me. And that's about 100% of me, so there was a lot of anger.

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