In My Mailbox (#30)

Goodreads Summary:

After centuries of calm, the Nameless One is stirring. An army is gathering: giants, ogres and other creatures joining forces from across the Desolate Lands, united for the first time in history under one black banner. By the spring, or perhaps sooner, the Nameless One and his forces will be at the walls of the great city of Avendoom. Unless Shadow Harold, master thief, can find some way to stop them.

Epic fantasy at its best, Shadow Prowler is the first in a trilogy that follows professional thief Shadow Harold on his quest for a magic Horn that will restore peace to the kingdom of Siala. Accompanied by an elfin princess, ten Wild Hearts – the most experienced and dangerous royal fighters – and the King’s court jester (who may be more than he seems …or less), Harold must outwit angry demons, escape the clutches of a band of hired murderers, survive ten bloody skirmishes …and reach the burial grounds before dark. Can he escape a fate worse than death?

Valley of the Dead

Kim Paffenroth (Permuted Press)

Publication Date: 2010

ARC: 208 pages

Genre: Horror

Goodreads Summary:

For seventeen years of his life, the whereabouts of the medieval Italian poet Dante Alighieri is unknown to modern scholars. All we know is that during this time, he traveled as an exile across Europe, while working on his epic poem, The Divine Comedy. In his masterpiece he describes a journey through the three realms of the afterlife. The volume describing hell, Inferno, is the most famous of the the three.

Valley of the Dead is the real story behind Inferno. In his wanderings, Dante stumbles on a zombie infestation, and the things he sees there – people being devoured, burned alive, boiled in pitch, torn apart by dogs, eviscerated, impaled, crucified, etc. – become the basis of all the horrors he describes in Inferno. Afraid to be labeled a madman, Dante made the terrors he witnessed into a more “believable” account of an otherworldly adventure with demons and mythological monsters, but now the real story can finally be told.

Willow

Julia Hoban (Dial Books)

Publication Date: 23 Feb 2010 (PB)

Hardback: 329 pages

Genre: Romance

Goodreads Summary:

Seven months ago, on a rainy March night, sixteen year- old Willow’s parents died in a horrible car accident. Willow was driving. Now her older brother barely speaks to her, her new classmates know her as the killer orphan girl, and Willow is blocking the pain by secretly cutting herself. But when one boy—one sensitive, soulful boy—discovers Willow’s secret, it sparks an intense relationship that turns the “safe” world Willow has created for herself upside down.

Dead Streets

Tim Waggoner (Angry Robot Books)

Publication Date: 4 March 2010

Paperback: 416 pages

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Goodreads Summary:

Meet Matt Richter. Private Eye. Zombie. His mean streets are the city of the dead, the shadowy realm known as Nekropolis. Book two of the Nekropolis series sends Matt Richter out on another deathly adventure. More pulp than Pulp Fiction, more butt-kicking than Buffy, Dead Streets is the second in this deathly new series.

The Poison Tree

Erin Kelly (Hodder & Stroughton)

Publication Date: 10 June 2010

ARC: 340 pages

Genre: Psychological Suspense

Goodreads Summary:

It is the sweltering summer of 1997, and Karen is a straight-laced, straight-A university student. When she meets the impossibly glamorous Biba, a bohemian orphan who lives in a crumbling old mansion in Highgate with her enigmatic brother Rex, she is soon drawn into their world — but something terrible is about to happen, and someone’s going to end up dead. Already drawing comparisons to Barbara Vine, Tana French and Sophie Hannah, Erin Kelly is an extraordinarily talented new author.

Shadows (Dark Touch #1)

Amy Meredith (Red Fox)

Publication Date: 1 April 2010

Paperback: 281 pages

Genre: Paranormal, Gothic Romance

Reading Level: Young Adult

Goodreads Summary:

Fifteen-year-old Eve Evergold is cute, sassy and enjoying a busy social life. What she doesn’t know yet is that someone close to her is an evil demon that only she has the supernatural power to defeat. She needs to work out who it is – and fast! Because although there’s something very attractive about the dark side…dating a demon? Pure hell!

Temptation Street

Shari Low (Piatkus)

Publication Date: 6 May 2010

ARC: 311 pages

Genre: Chick-Lit

Goodreads Summary:

Suze has a niggling feeling that her husband Karl’s marital sat-nav has taken a wrong turn and led him down the road to temptation. What’s a suspicious wife to do?

Mel knows that her sweet, docile husband Joe would never, ever cheat. But when Suze, her sister-in-law, hires a honeytrap to test Karl, the results blow Mel’s world apart.

Is this the end of the road for both couples? Or is relationship misbehaviour much more fun when it’s a two-way street?

**As this book is not a genre I would review on BCC, it is now on it’s way to Rhiana-Reads for review!**

The Twenty Year Itch

Linda Kelsey (Hodder & Stroughton)

Publication Date: 18 March 2010

Paperback: 416 pages

Genre: Chick-Lit

Amazon Summary:

Can love survive long-term in the twenty-first century? Julie is beginning to doubt it. When her husband of twenty years announces that he is chucking his job to embark on an adult gap year leaving his salary and Julie behind, she puts her marriage under the microscope.

Turning to her friends for comfort and advice, Julie finds that their relationships are falling apart too. Surely they can’t all be innocent victims? Or all bad wives? Is there no such thing as an enduring marriage? Does that twenty-year itch just have to be scratched?

While this emotional maelstrom rages around her, meeting someone new is the last thing on Julie’s mind. Until a chance encounter propels her onto a sexual collision course with a man who spells danger…

**As this book is not a genre I would review on BCC, it is now on it’s way to Chrissie’s Corner for review!**

Solace of the Road

Siobhan Dowd (David Fickling)

Publication Date: 4 March 2010

Paperback: 261 pages

Reading Level: Young Adult