The following books are my most anticipated books of 2014 (not in any particular order)
January 7, 2014
Aida Palmer performs a
spirit medium show onstage at Chinatown’s illustrious Gris-Gris
speakeasy. However, her ability to summon (and expel) the dead is more
than just an act.
Winter Magnusson is a notorious bootlegger
who’s more comfortable with guns than ghosts—unfortunately for him, he’s
the recent target of a malevolent hex that renders him a magnet for
hauntings. After Aida’s supernatural assistance is enlisted to banish
the ghosts, her spirit-chilled aura heats up as the charming bootlegger
casts a different sort of spell on her...
On the hunt for the
curseworker responsible for the hex, Aida and Winter become drunk on
passion. And the closer they become, the more they realize they have
ghosts of their own to exorcise…
January 28, 2014
Darrow is a miner and a
Red, a member of the lowest caste in the color-coded society of the
future. Like his fellow Reds, he digs all day, believing that he and his
people are making the surface of the planet livable for future
generations. Darrow has never seen the sky.
Yet he spends his life willingly, knowing that his blood and sweat will one day result in a better future for his children.
But
Darrow and his kind have been betrayed. Soon he discovers that humanity
already reached the surface generations ago. Vast cities and sprawling
parks spread across the planet. Darrow and Reds like him are nothing
more than slaves to a decadent ruling class.
Inspired by a
longing for justice, and driven by the memory of lost love, Darrow joins
a resistance group in order to infiltrate the ruling class and destroy
society from within. He will stop at nothing to bring down his
enemies... even if it means he has to become one of them to do so.
January 21, 2014
Of the various star
systems that make up the Confederation, most lie thousands of
light-years from First Earth-and out here, no one is free. The agencies
that govern the Confederation are as corrupt as the crime bosses who
patrol it, and power is held by anyone with enough greed and
ruthlessness to claim it. That power is derived from one thing:
metatech, the devices that allow people to travel great distances faster
than the speed of light.
Jeth Seagrave and his crew of teenage
mercenaries have survived in this world by stealing unsecured metatech,
and they're damn good at it. Jeth doesn't care about the politics or the
law; all he cares about is earning enough money to buy back his
parents' ship, Avalon, from his crime-boss employer and getting himself
and his sister, Lizzie, the heck out of Dodge. But when Jeth finds
himself in possession of information that both the crime bosses and the
government are willing to kill for, he is going to have to ask himself
how far he'll go to get the freedom he's wanted for so long.
Avalon
is the perfect fit for teens new to sci-fi as well as seasoned sci-fi
readers looking for more books in the YA space-and a great match for
fans of Joss Whedon's cult hit show Firefly.
February 4, 2014
You know the theory that ghosts are energy trapped when someone dies violently? It’s true. I know it for a fact...
My
name is Jensen Murphy, and thirty years ago I was just an ordinary
California girl. I had friends, family, a guy who might be The One.
Ordinary—until I became a statistic, one of the unsolved murders of the
year. Afterwards, I didn’t go anywhere in pursuit of any bright light—I
stayed under the oak tree where my body was found, and relived my death,
over an over. So when a psychic named Amanda Lee Minter pulled me out
of that loop into the real world, I was very grateful.
So I’m now
a ghost-at-large—rescued by Amanda (I found out) to be a supernatural
snoop. I’m helping her uncover a killer (not mine—she promises me we’ll
get to that) which should be easy for a spirit. Except that I’ve found
out that even ghosts have enemies, human—and otherwise…
February 25, 2014
Night Owls book
store is the one spot on campus open late enough to help out even the
most practiced slacker. The employees’ penchant for fighting the evil
creatures of the night is just a perk…
Valerie McTeague’s
business model is simple: provide the students of Edgewood College with a
late-night study haven and stay as far away from the underworld
conflicts of her vampire brethren as possible. She’s lived that life,
and the price she paid was far too high to ever want to return.
Elly Garrett hasn’t known any life except that of fighting the
supernatural werewolf-like beings known as Creeps or Jackals. But she
always had her mentor and foster father by her side—until he gave his
life protecting a book that the Creeps desperately want to get their
hands on.
When the book gets stashed at Night Owls for safe
keeping, those Val holds nearest and dearest are put in mortal peril.
Now Val and Elly will have to team up, along with a mismatched crew of
humans, vampires, and lesbian succubi, to stop the Jackals from getting
their claws on the book and unleashing unnamed horrors
February 25, 2014
A deadly virus and an impossible discovery unite in one enthralling can’t-miss read...
Sixteen-year-old
Mia Kish has always been afraid of the dark. After all, she’s baby Mia,
the one who fell down a well. That was years ago, though the darkness
still haunts her. But when her classmates and teachers at ritzy
Westbrook Academy start dying of old age from a bizarre and frightening
virus that ages its victims years in a matter of hours, Mia becomes
haunted by a lot more than the dark. Their deaths are gruesome and Mia
worries she and her friends may be next. In order to survive, Mia and
her small crew must break quarantine and outrun armed soldiers in hazmat
suits who shoot first and ask questions later.
And there’s only
one place to go—the Cave, aka Fenton Electronics. Mia knows it’s somehow
connected and hopes her dad, Director of Fenton Electronics, who has
always been strangely secretive about his work, has the answers she
needs, and more importantly a cure to save everyone before the whole
town succumbs to the mysterious virus. Unfortunately, it’s not answers
Mia discovers, but something far more treacherous and impossible than
even the virus itself.
March 4, 2014
Dusty Everhart might be
able to predict the future through the dreams of her crush, Eli Booker,
but that doesn’t make her life even remotely easy. When one of her
mermaid friends is viciously assaulted and left for dead, and the
school’s jokester, Lance Rathbone, is accused of the crime, Dusty’s as
shocked as everybody else. Lance needs Dusty to prove his innocence by
finding the real attacker, but that’s easier asked than done. Eli’s
dreams are no help, more nightmares than prophecies.
To make
matters worse, Dusty’s ex-boyfriend has just been acquitted of
conspiracy and is now back at school, reminding Dusty of why she fell
for him in the first place. The Magi Senate needs Dusty to get close to
him, to discover his real motives. But this order infuriates Eli, who
has started his own campaign for Dusty’s heart.
As Dusty takes on
both cases, she begins to suspect they’re connected to something
bigger. And there’s something very wrong with Eli’s dreams, signs that
point to a darker plot than they could have ever imagined.
March 11, 2014
When Liv Bloom lands an
art scholarship at Wickham Hall, it’s her ticket out of the foster
system. Liv isn’t sure what to make of the school’s weird traditions and
rituals, but she couldn’t be happier—especially when Malcolm Astor,
fellow artist and scion of one of the school’s original families, starts
falling for her. Fellow scholarship kid Gabe Nichols warns her not to
get involved with a “Wicky,” but things are finally going Liv’s way, and
all she wants to do is enjoy it.
But Liv’s bliss is cut short
when she is viciously murdered. In death, she discovers that she’s the
latest victim of a dark conspiracy that spans 150 years and many, many
lives. Gabe, cursed with the ability to see their ghosts, turns out to
be Liv’s only link to the world of the living.
Liv must rely
on Gabe’s help to prove to Malcolm that she’s still present… lingering
with the other spirits. Together, Liv, Gabe, and Malcolm fight to expose
the terrible truth that haunts the halls of Wickham before more lives
are lost.
May 6, 2014
America, today. A
continent upended by the deaths of tens of millions of women from a
synthetic hormone in meat. Now teen girls are the country’s most
valuable commodity, watched over by guards, gates and Paternal Controls
on phones, internet and media.
Seventeen-year-old Avie knows her
life is over when her father contracts her in marriage to millionaire
businessman Jess Hawkins to raise money for his ailing biotech company.
Destined to be moulded into Hawkins’s perfect First Lady as he runs for
governor on the Paternalist ticket, Avie knows she has to get away - to
save who she is and everything she wants her life to be.
Yates,
Avie’s childhood friend turned revolutionary, knows Avie has what it
takes to make it to freedom in Canada. But on a perilous flight from the
mansions of Los Angeles and Malibu to the cover of an exclusive escort
service in Las Vegas, Avie begins to learn dangerous truths about who
really controls the US government. As her friendship with Yates turns
to love, and pursued to the snowy Canadian border by government agents,
she must discover whether she really is ‘a girl called fearless’. . .
August 5, 2014
There are whispers of a
ghost in the slaughterhouse where sixteen-year-old Wen assists her
father in his medical clinic—a ghost who grants wishes to those who need
them most. When one of the Noor, men hired as cheap factory labor,
humiliates Wen, she makes an impulsive wish of her own, and the Ghost
grants it. Brutally.
Guilt-ridden, Wen befriends the Noor,
including their outspoken leader, a young man named Melik. At the same
time, she is lured by the mystery of the Ghost and learns he has been
watching her … for a very long time.
As deadly accidents fuel
tensions within the factory, Wen must confront her growing feelings for
Melik, who is enraged at the sadistic factory bosses and the prejudice
faced by his people at the hand of Wen’s, and her need to appease the
Ghost, who is determined to protect her against any threat—real or
imagined. She must decide whom she can trust, because as her heart is
torn, the factory is exploding around her … and she might go down with
it.
Other honorable mentions (since I haven't read the most recent in the series, but KNOW it's going to be spectacular!)
What are your 'Must Reads' of 2014?!
