It’s the end of another year and how fast that year has gone…  I didn’t really buy that many books in December, I bought ten and nearly all of them were from the charity shop bookstore that I volunteer at so – thankfully – I didn’t spend a lot of money. The only two that I bought brand new was Lament for the Fallen and The Essex Serpent. Go me for being good with money… For only one month…

Anyway, let’s get into my book haul!

It began in 1692, over an exceptionally raw Massachusetts winter, when a minister’s niece began to scream and convulse. It ended less than a year later, but not before panic had infected the entire colony, nineteen men and women had been hanged, and a band of adolescent girls had brought Massachusetts to its knees…

 

 

Unwind series #1

In a society where unwanted teens are salvaged for their body parts, three runaways fight the system that would unwind them. Brought together by chance, and kept together by desperation, these unlikely companions make a harrowing cross-country journey, knowing their lives hang in the balance. If they can survive until their eighteenth birthday, they can’t be harmed 0 but when every piece of them, from their hands to their hearts, is wanted by a world gone mad, eighteen seems far, far away.

Read my review here

 

 

A Darker Shade of Magic series #1

Kell is one of the last travellers – magicians with a rare ability to travel between parallel universes connected by one magical city. There’s Grey London, without magic and ruled by the mad King George III. Red London – where magic is revered, and where Kell is raised alongside the heir to the empire. White London – where people fight to control the remaining magic and magic fights back.

And once there was Black London…

 

 

When a newborn baby dies after a routine hospital procedure, there is no doubt about who will be held responsible: the nurse who had been banned from looking after him by his father.

What the nurse, her lawyer and the father of the child cannot know is how this death will irrevocably change all of their lives, in ways both expected and not.

 

 

Agnieszka loves her village, set deep in a peaceful valley. But the nearby enchanted forest casts a shadow over her home. Many have been lost to the Wood ad none return unchanged. The villagers depend on an ageless wizard, the Dragon, to protect them from the forest’s dark magic. However, his help comes at a terrible price. A young village woman must serve him for ten years, leaving all she values behind.

Agnieszka fears her dearest friend Kasia will be picked at the next choosing, for she’s everything Agnieszka is not – beautiful, graceful and brave. Yet when the Dragon comes, it’s not Kasia he takes.

 

 

London 1893. When Cora Scabone’s husband dies, she steps into her new life as a widow with as much relief as sadness: her marriage was not a happy one, and she never suited the role of a society wife. Accompanied by her son Francis – a curious and obsessive boy – she leaves town for Essex, where she hopes fresh air and open space will provide the refuge they need.

When they take lodgings in Colchester, rumours reach them from further up the estuary that the mythical Essex Serpent, once said to roam the marshes claiming human lives, has returned to the coastal parish of Aldwinter. Cora, a keen amateur naturalist with no patience for religion of superstition, is immediately enthralled, convinced that what the local people think is a magical beast may be a previously undiscovered species. As she sets out on its tail, she is introduced to William Ransome, Aldwinter’s vicar.

Like Cora, Will is deeply suspicious of the rumours, but he thinks they are founded on moral panic, a flight from real faith. As he tries to calm his parishioners, he and Cora strike up an intense relationship, and although they agree on absolutely nothing, they find themselves inexorably drawn together and torn apart, eventually changing each other’s lives in ways entirely unexpected.

 

A Darker Shade of Magic series #2

Kell is one of the last magicians with the ability to travel between parallel universes, linked by the magical city of London. It has been four months since a mysterious obsidian stone fell into his possession and he met Delilah Bard, Four months since the Dane twins of White London fell, and the stone was cast with Holland’s dying body back into Black London.

Now Kell is visited by dreams of ominous magical events, waking only to think of Lila. And as Red London prepares for the Element Games – an international competition of magic – a certain pirate ship draws closer. But another London is coming back to life. The balance of magic is perilous, and for one city to flourish, another must fall…

 

It begins as an assignment for English class: write a letter to a dead person. Laurel chooses Kurt Cobain – he died young, and so did Laurel’s sister May – so maybe he’ll understand what Laurel is going through.

Soon Laurel is writing letters to lots of dead people – Janis Joplin, Heath Ledger, River Phoenix, Amelia Earhart, Amy Winehouse… It’s like she can’t stop. She writes about her new high school, her new friends, her first love – and her shattered life.

But the ghosts of Laurel’s past can’t be contained between the lines of a page forever. She must face up to them – before they consume her.

Read my review here

 

Something has fallen from the stars and crashed into the jungle near an isolated West African community. The locals discover a ruined vessel and, inside, the shattered body of a man. But this is a man unlike any they have seen before – a man who is perhaps something more than human.

His name is Samara and he speaks with terror of a place called Tartarus – a place where hope doesn’t exist. To go there is to face death, one way or another.

As Samara heals himself, he helps transform the lives of those who rescued him, but in so doing attracts the attention of a warlord who would rule this benighted land. Now this butcher and his gunmen – and the one, slim chance Samara has of finding his way home.

And all the while, in the darkness above waits the simmering fury that lies at the heart of Tartarus.

During a snowstorm in England in 1910, a baby is born and dies before she can take her first breath.

During a snowstorm in England in 1910, the same baby is born and lives to tell the tale.

What if there were second chances? And third chances? In fact, an infinite number of chances to live your life? Would you eventually be able to save the world from its own inevitable destiny? And would you even want to?

 

So there we go then, guys… The books that I bought in December. I am so so excited to read all of these and I cannot wait to review them for you! Have you read any of these? Any books on the list that have caught your eye? Let me know in the comments below!

 

xoxo

Kirsty

 

 

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