As I have said before, I use this purely so I can promote books both new releases and backlist titles!

Books I Purchased Myself

Plot: Kinch Na Shannack owes the Takers Guild a small fortune for his education as a thief, which includes (but is not limited to) lock-picking, knife-fighting, wall-scaling, fall-breaking, lie-weaving, trap-making, plus a few small magics. His debt has driven him to lie in wait by the old forest road, planning to rob the next traveler that crosses his path. But today, Kinch Na Shannack has picked the wrong mark. Galva is a knight, a survivor of the brutal goblin wars, and handmaiden of the goddess of death. She is searching for her queen, missing since a distant northern city fell to giants. Unsuccessful in his robbery and lucky to escape with his life, Kinch now finds his fate entangled with Galva’s. Common enemies and uncommon dangers force thief and knight on an epic journey where goblins hunger for human flesh, krakens hunt in dark waters, and honor is a luxury few can afford.

Plot: She’s got his back. He’s got her heart. They’ve got a secret. What could possibly go wrong?
Hannah Brooks looks more like a kindergarten teacher than somebody who could kill you with her bare hands. But the truth is, she’s an elite bodyguard and she’s just been hired to protect a superstar actor from his stalker. Jack Stapleton’s a Hollywood heartthrob – captured by paparazzi on beaches the world over, rising out of the waves in clingy board shorts and glistening like a Roman deity. When Jack’s mom gets sick, he comes home to the family’s Texas ranch to help out. Only one catch: He doesn’t want his family to know about his stalker. Or the bodyguard thing. And so Hannah – against her will and her better judgment – finds herself pretending to be Jack’s girlfriend as a cover. Protecting Jack should be easy. But protecting her own heart? That’s the hardest thing she’s ever done…

Plot: It’s been nearly a decade since the horrifying murder of sixteen-year-old Joan Wilson rocked Crow-on-Sea, the events of that terrible night are now being published for the first time. That story is Penance, a dizzying feat of masterful storytelling, where Eliza Clark manoeuvres us through accounts from the inhabitants of this small seaside town. Placing us in the capable hands of journalist Alec. Z. Carelli, Clark allows him to construct what he claims is the ‘definitive account’ of the murder – and what led up to it. Built on hours of interviews with witnesses and family members, painstaking historical research, and most notably, correspondence with the killers themselves, the result is a riveting snapshot of lives rocked by tragedy, and a town left in turmoil. The only question is: how much of it is true?

Plot: The many lives of theoretical physicist Elsie Hannaway have finally caught up with her. By day, she’s an adjunct professor, toiling away at grading labs and teaching thermodynamics in the hopes of landing tenure. By other day, Elsie makes up for her non-existent paycheck by offering her services as a fake girlfriend, tapping into her expertly honed people pleasing skills to embody whichever version of herself the client needs. Honestly, it’s a pretty sweet gig—until her carefully constructed Elsie-verse comes crashing down. Because Jack Smith, the annoyingly attractive and broody older brother of her favorite client, turns out to be the cold-hearted experimental physicist who ruined her mentor’s career and undermined the reputation of theorists everywhere. And that same Jack who now sits on the hiring committee at MIT, right between Elsie and her dream job. Elsie is prepared for an all-out war of scholarly sabotage but…those long, penetrating looks? Not having to be anything other than her true self when she’s with him? Will falling into an experimentalist’s orbit finally tempt her to put her most guarded theories on love into practice?

Plot: On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing her quest. Once, she was the Justice of Toren – a colossal starship with an artificial intelligence linking thousands of soldiers in the service of the Radch, the empire that conquered the galaxy. Now, an act of treachery has ripped it all away, leaving her with one fragile human body, unanswered questions, and a burning desire for vengeance.

Plot: Groundhog Day meets Guardians of the Galaxy in Django Wexler’s laugh-out-loud fantasy tale about a young woman who, tired of defending humanity from the Dark Lord, decides to become the Dark Lord herself. Davi has done this all before. She’s tried to be the hero and take down the all-powerful Dark Lord. A hundred times she’s rallied humanity and made the final charge. But the time loop always gets her in the end. Sometimes she’s killed quickly. Sometimes it takes a while. But she’s been defeated every time. This time? She’s done being the hero and done being stuck in this endless time loop. If the Dark Lord always wins, then maybe that’s who she needs to be. It’s Davi’s turn to play on the winning side.

Books Sent From Publishers/Through Netgalley

Plot: When a mishap with a pain au chocolat ruins the most important presentation of Dr Clara Clancy’s career, the last person she expects to come to her rescue is the impossibly good-looking and all-round super-nice guy from her university days, Dr Henry Fraser.​ Back during their time together at Oxford, Clara was seemingly the only person immune to The Hot Henry Effect – a genuine scientific phenomenon whereby those around Henry fall instantly and helplessly in love with him, the outcomes of which he has remained entirely oblivious to.​ Now, reunited and back working together, it’s not long before they slip back into their easy friendship. But both Henry and Clara are keeping secrets – if they can’t be honest with themselves, what hope is there of them being honest with each other? And will Clara really be able to resist the Hot Henry Effect for long?​

Plot: In 17th-century Rome, men are falling like flies and nobody knows why…Hidden within the alleys and shadows of the Eternal City lies a criminal magical underworld of witches, sorceresses and a mysterious circle of female poisoners working under the guise of a cosmetics shop.Since her childhood in Palermo, Giulia has dedicated her life to helping the broken and abused – the wives, daughters, and mistresses of Italy. She is known to be many things – healer, midwife, abortionist and poisoner. It only takes a few drops of an undetectable lethal poison to murder each of Giulia’s victims, which come to number a thousand men.Pope Alessandro VII is determined to rid the city of witches and heretics, including this circle of murderous poisoners. But what great lengths will he go to stop these cunning women?

Plot: An ultimatum from her professor thrusts Summer Preston into an unexpected collision with hockey captain Aiden Crawford. She’s caught in a delicate balance between fulfilling her lifelong dream of becoming a sport psychologist and veering far away from this god-awful sport. For Aiden Crawford, being the captain of the college hockey team has its perks, except when a reckless mistake by his team threatens to jeopardize their entire season. Consequently, his coach nominates him as the subject of a research paper. It’s the last thing he wants to do, especially since the girl leading the project looks like she could wield his skates as a weapon. Summer can’t stand his blasé approach to life, and Aiden doesn’t understand her uptight, scheduled one. They are off to a rocky start, and provoking each other is what they do best, but defeat isn’t something either of them is willing to accept.

Plot: Welcome to Ballyrowan. This sleepy corner of rural Ireland may seem tranquil, but scratch the surface and you’ll find a hotbed of gossip and intrigue – endless material for mouthing – and a town full of people only too happy to oblige in spreading the bad news. Narrated by several generations of eccentric villagers, Mouthing traces the fortunes of one small community from the mid-20th century to the early 21st, in a series of highly confessional and darkly hilarious monologues. The good people of Ballyrowan delight in twisting the knife, in tormenting one another, in perfecting the art of schadenfreude. And, it becomes clear, none of them are entirely reliable witnesses. As each character offers their version of ‘the truth’, upending our assumptions at every turn, we see how feuds are passed down through the generations, how families are estranged or reunited and fortunes made or lost, how strict social expectations can shift and loosen over decades (and how some things remain stubbornly unchanged). And we see how secret hopes and private sorrows, triumph and humiliation, pleasure and grief are all absorbed into the merciless chorus of mouthing.

Plot: Dennis Knuckleyard is a hapless eighteen-year-old who works and lives in a second-hand bookstore. One day, his boss and landlady, Coffin Ada, sends him to retrieve some rare books, one of which, Dennis discovers, should not exist. A London Walk by Rev. Thomas Hampole is a fictitious book that appears in a real novel by another author. Yet A London Walk is physically there in his hands, nonetheless. Coffin Ada tells Dennis the book comes from the other London, the Great When, a version of the city that is beyond time. In the Great When, epochs blend and realities and unrealities blur, while concepts such as Crime and Poetry are incarnated as wondrous and terrible beings. But, Coffin Ada tells Dennis, if he does not return the book to this other London, he will be killed. So begins Dennis’ adventure in Long London. Delving deep into the city’s occult underbelly and tarrying with an eccentric cast of sorcerers, gangsters, and murderers, Dennis finds himself at the center of an explosive series of events that may endanger both Londons.

Plot: An orphan since the age of four, Sciona has always had more to prove than her fellow students. For twenty years, she has devoted every waking moment to the study of magic, fueled by a mad desire to achieve the impossible: to be the first woman ever admitted to the High Magistry. When she finally claws her way up the ranks to become a highmage, however, she finds that her challenges have just begun. Her new colleagues will stop at nothing to let her know she is unwelcome, beginning with giving her a janitor instead of a qualified lab assistant. What neither Sciona nor her peers realize is that her taciturn assistant was once more than a janitor; before he mopped floors for the mages, Thomil was a nomadic hunter from beyond Tiran’s magical barrier. Ten years have passed since he survived the perilous crossing that killed his family. But working for a highmage, he sees the opportunity to finally understand the forces that decimated his tribe, drove him from his homeland, and keep the Tiranish in power. Through their fractious relationship, mage and outsider uncover an ancient secret that could change the course of magic forever—if it doesn’t get them killed first. Sciona has defined her life by the pursuit of truth, but how much is one truth worth with the fate of civilization in the balance?

Plot: On a backstreet in Tokyo lies a pawnshop, but not everyone can find it. Most will see a cozy ramen restaurant. And only the chosen ones—those who are lost—will find a place to pawn their life choices and deepest regrets. Hana Ishikawa wakes on her first morning as the pawnshop’s new owner to find it ransacked, the shop’s most precious acquisition stolen, and her father missing. And then into the shop stumbles a charming stranger, quite unlike its other customers, for he offers help instead of seeking it. Together, they must journey through a mystical world to find Hana’s father and the stolen choice—by way of rain puddles, rides on paper cranes, the bridge between midnight and morning, and a night market in the clouds. But as they get closer to the truth, Hana must reveal a secret of her own—and risk making a choice that she will never be able to take back.

Plot: An old friend of Kosuke Kindaichi’s invites the scruffy detective to visit the remote mountain village of Onikobe in order to look into a twenty-year-old murder case. But no sooner has Kindaichi arrived than a new series of murders strikes the village – several bodies are discovered staged in bizarre poses, and it soon becomes clear that the victims are being killed using methods that match the lyrics of an old local children’s song… The legendary sleuth investigates, but soon realises must unravel the dark and tangled history of the village, as well as that of its rival families, to get to the truth.