August 2016 Book Haul
So you’ve probably realised by now – by reading my blog or following me on Twitter – that books are a massive part of my life. I can’t go a day without reading or gazing longingly at my ‘to buy’ list – knowing full well that I don’t have any money to buy them.
August has been a massive month for buying books. My parents would say that I went overboard but I say “HELL YEAH!!” but then my bank account says “please stop…!”
Here we go then… The list of the books that I bought in August. Get ready for quite a long blog post guys! Don’t say I didn’t warn you! I’ve also added the blurb underneath the picture so you can get a rough idea as to what it’s about.
From the dark heart of a Victorian prison, disgraced spiritualist Selina Dawes weaves an enigmatic spell. Is she a fraud or a prodigy? By the time it all begins to matter, you’ll find yourself desperately wanting to believe in magic.
Read my review here
If you broke Elena’s heart, Star Wars would spill out. So when she decided to queue outside her local cinema to see the new movie, she’s expecting a celebration with crowds of people who love Han, Luke, and Leia just as much as she does. What she’s not expecting is to be last in a line of only three people, to have to pee into a collectible Star Wars cup behind a dumpster or to meet an unlikely someone who just might truly understand the way she feels.
Read my review here
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children #3
The adventure that began with Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children and continued with Hollow City comes to a thrilling conclusion in Library of Souls. As the story open, sixteen-year-old Jacob discovers a powerful new ability, and soon he’s dicing through history to rescue his peculiar companions from a heavily guarded fortress. Accompanying Jacob on his journey are Emma Bloom, a girl with fire at her fingertips, and Addison MacHenry, a dog with a nose for sniffing out lost children.
They’ll travel from modern-day London to the labyrinthine alleys of Devil’s Acre, the most wretched slum in all of Victorian England. It’s a place where the fate of peculiar children everywhere will be decided once and for all.
Read my review here
The Lunar Chronicles #1
Cinder, a gifted mechanic living in New Beijing, is also a cyborg. She’s reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s sudden illness. But when he life becomes entwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s she finds herself at the centre of a violent struggle between the desires of an evil queen – and a dangerous temptation.
Cinder is caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal. Now she must uncover secrets about her mysterious past in order to protect the Earth’s future.
How did a Prince, one beloved by his people, become a bitter and reclusive monster?
A young, handsome Prince lives a life of extravagance before he is forced to pay the ultimate price for his ugly deeds. This is a story of vanity and arrogance, of love and hatred, of beastliness and, of course, beauty.
Asylum #1
Once you get in, there’s no getting out.
For sixteen-year-old Dan Crawford, the New Hampshire College Prep programme is the chance of a lifetime. Except that when Dan arrives, he finds that the usual summer housing has been closed, forcing students to stay in the crumbling Brookline Dorm – formerly a psychiatric hospital. As Dan and his new friends Abby and Jordan start exploring Brookline’s twisty halls and hidden basement, they uncover disturbing secrets about what really went on here… secrets that link Dan and his friends to the ward. And there are some secrets that refuse to stay buried.
Featuring haunting found photographs from real asylums.
Lou Clark knows a lot of things. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home. she knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick.
What Lou doesn’t know is she’s about the lose her job or that knowing what’s coming is what keeps her sane.
Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. He knows everything feels very small and rather joyless now, and he knows exactly how he’s going to put a stop to that.
What Will doesn’t know is that Lou is about to burst into his world in a riot of colour. And neither of them knows they’re going to change the other for all time.
Connie’s smart. She’s funny. But when it comes to love, she’s only human.
As a brilliant mathematician with bright red hair, Connie’s used to being considered a little unusual. But when she’s recruited for a top-secret code-breaking project, nothing can prepare her for working with someone quite unfathomable as Luke.
Read my review here
It’s 1999 and the internet is still a novelty. At a newspaper office, two colleagues, Beth and Jennifer, e-mail back and forth, discussing their lives in hilarious detail, from love troubles to family dramas. And Lincoln, a shy IT guy responsible for monitoring e-mails, spends his hours reading every exchange.
At first, their e-mails offer a welcome diversion, but the more he reads, the more he finds himself falling for one of them. By the time Lincoln realises just how head-over-heels he is, it’s too late to introduce himself.
After a series of close encounters, Lincoln eventually decided he must follow his heart… and find out if there is such a thing as love before first sight.
For some people, silence is a weapon. For Mallory ‘Mouse’ Dodge, it’s a shield.
Growing up in the foster system she learned that the best way to survive was to say nothing at all.
Now, after years of homeschooling with loving adoptive parents, Mallory must face a new milestone – spending her senior year at a normal high school.
But she never imagined she’d run into Rider Stark, the friend and protector she hasn’t seen since childhood.
It doesn’t take long for Mallory to realise that the connection she shared with Rider never faded. Yet as Rider’s life spirals out of control, Mallory must make a choice between staying silent and speaking out – for the people she loves, the life she wants and the truths that need to be heard.
In the assembly hall of an exclusive Devon school, the body of the head teacher is found hanging from the rafters.
Hours earlier he’s received a package, and only he could understand the silent message it conveyed. It meant the end.
As Exeter suggest a rising count of gruesome deaths, troubled DS Imogen Grey and DS Adrian Miles must solve the case and make their city safe again.
But as they’re drawn into the network of corruption, lies, and exploitation, every step brings them closer to grim secrets hidden at the heart of their community. And once they learn what’s motivating the killer, will they truly want to stop him?
Throne of Glass #1
Meet Celaena Sardothen. Beautiful. Deadly. Destined for greatness.
In the dark, filthy salt mines of Endovier, an eighteen-year-old girl is serving a life sentence. She is a trained assassin, the best of her kind, but she made a fatal mistake. She got caught.
Young Captain Westfall offers her a deal: her freedom in return for one huge sacrifice. Celaena must represent the prince in a to-the-death tournament – fighting the most gifted thieves and assassins in the land. Live or die, Celaena will be free. Win or lose, she is about to discover her true destiny. But will her assassin’s heart be melted?
Red Queen #1
This is a world divided by blood – Red or Silver.
The Reds are commoners, ruled by a Silver elite in possession of god-like superpowers. And to seventeen-year-old Mare, a Red girl from the poverty-stricken Stilts, it seems like nothing will ever change.
But Mare possesses a deadly talent of her own. One that threatens to destroy the balance of power.
Fearful of her potential, the Silvers hide Mare in plain view, declaring her a long-lost Silver princess. Knowing that one false move will mean her death, Mare must use her new position to bring down the regime – from the inside.
Now Mare has entered a game of betrayal and lies.
Welcome to Black spring, a picturesque town with an ugly secret.
A 17th-century woman with sewn-shut eyes and mouth walks its streets… enters its homes… watched its people when they sleep.
They call her the Black Witch.
So accustomed to her presence, the townsfolk often forget what will happen if her eyes ever open. To protect themselves, the Black Spring elders use high-tech surveillance to quarantine the town. Frustrated with the lockdown, the town’s teenagers decide to break the rules and go viral with the haunting.
But no one foresees the dark nightmare that awaits them all.
Spinster Series #3
How to start a feminist revolution:
1) Call out anything that is unfair on one gender
2) Don’t call out the same thing twice (so you can sleep and breathe)
3) Always try to keep it funny
4) Don’t let anything slide. Even when you start to break…
Lottie’s determined to change the world with her #vagilante vlog. Shame the trolls have other ideas…
Lucy always knew that her idea of Prince Charming was different to that of other girls…
And then she meets Kaelyn online – and everything starts to make sense. Could her Prince Charming be a girl?
Simon Snow is the worst Chosen One who’s ever been chosen.
That’s what his roommate, Baz says. And Baz might be evil and a vampire and a complete git, but he’s probably right.
Half the time Simon can’t even make his wand work, and the other half, he sets something on fire. His mother’s avoiding him, his girlfriend broke up with him, and there’s a magic-eating monster running around wearing Simon’s face. Baz would be having a field day with all this, if he were here – it’s their last year at Watford School of Magicks, and Simon’s infuriating nemesis didn’t even bother to show up.
Cassie and Lia did everything together, including staying thin. But then Cassie died. Now the voice in Lia’s head is telling her to stay strong. Lose more. Weigh Less.
Is she strong enough to fight it?
Read my review here
It’s the height of the summer when Elm Hill lido opens, having stood empty for years.
For Natalie Steele – constantly striving to be the perfect wife, mother, and teacher – it offers her an opportunity for escape. And she can’t believe her luck when the glamorous Lara Channing draws her into her elite circle of friends. Soon Natalie is spending long, careless days at the pool, while real life with her family begins to feel very far away.
But has this unexpected change in fortune come at a price?
Just who are these people Natalie is spending all her time with – and what do they want from her?
Why are dark memories of another summer now starting to resurface?
And, without realising, could Natalie have been swept dangerously out of her depth?
The Raven Cycle #1
Even if Blue hadn’t been told her true love would die if she kissed him, she would stay away from boys. Especially the ones from the local private school. Known as Raven Boys, they only mean trouble.
But this is the year that everything will change for Blue.
This is the year she will be drawn into the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys. And the year Blue will discover that magic does exist.
This is the year she will fall in love.
Read my review here
Delirium #1
They say that the cure for love will make me happy and safe forever. And I’ve always believed them. Until now.
There was a time when love was the most important thing in the world. People would go to the end of the world to find it. They would tell lies for it. Even kill for it.
But now love has been declared a dangerous disease.
Everyone who turns eighteen must be immunised with a procedure called the cure. Lena Haloway is looking forward to being able to live the safe, predictable life the government claims the cure will bring. But meeting Alex, an enigmatic boy from the Wilds, might just make her question everything she’s been raised to believe.
Gone #1
Suddenly it’s a world without adults.
In Perdido Beach, all the kids under fifteen have been trapped, cut off from the outside world.
Sam Temple and his friends join the fight for survival, but when some kids start to develop strange powers, everyone is forced to choose a side.
It’s the accident season, the same time every year. Bones break, skin tears, bruises bloom.
The accident season has been part of seventeen-year-old Cara’s life for as long as she can remember: a month of mysterious injuries and tragedies, which cast a constant shadow over Cara and her family.
This year, the accident season will break more than just bones. Because Cara is starting to ask questions – and all her family’s secrets will rise to the surface.
Best friends Dave and Julia were determined to never be clichés, so they even wrote their own Never List of everything they vowed they’d never, ever do in high school.
Some of the rules have been easy to follow, but Dave has a secret: he’s broken rule No.8, never pine silently after someone for the entirety of high school. It’s either that or break rule No.10, never date your best friend.
Dave has loved Julia for as long as he can remember. So, when she suggests they do every Never on the list, Dave is happy to play along. He even dyes his hair an unfortunate shade of green. It starts as a joke, but then a funny thing happens: Dave and Julia discover they’ve actually been missing out on high school.
Read my review here
One, two, three… Lisa Dale shuts her eyes and counts to one hundred during a game of hide-and-seek. When she opens them, her four-year-old daughter Ella is gone.
The police, the media and Lisa’s family all think they know who snatched Ella. But what if the person who took her isn’t a stranger? What if they are convinced they are doing the right thing? And what id Lisa’s little girl is in danger of disappearing forever?
So there we go guys, the very very long list of the books that I bought during August! I know I’m a bit slow to jump on some bandwagons such as The Throne of Glass series, the Gone series, and the Red Queen series, but I’M HERE NOW AND I CAN FINALLY JOIN THE HYPE!
Have any books caught your eye? Have you already read any of these books? Let me know!
xoxo
Kirsty