August Book Haul

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I kinda have a little bit of a problem. No matter how hard I try, I can never buy just one book. Even if I go onto a website thinking "I'm only buying the book I came here for", I can't do it. One book becomes two, which then becomes at least four. With that being said. I went a little crazy last week and bought a bunch of books. Now, much like a dragon, I want to pour over my haul and excitedly try to decide what I should read.

The Dragon Reborn by Robert Jordan || Genre: Fantasy || Amazon / Bookshop

Blurb: The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and go, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth returns again. In the Third Age, an Age of Prophecy, the World and Time themselves hang in the balance. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow.

Winter has stopped the war--almost--yet men are dying, calling out for the Dragon. But where is he? In the Heart of the Stone lies the next great test of the Dragon reborn.

Why I Want to Read It: I'm making my way through the Wheel of Time series, so it only makes sense that I bought the third book after I finished the second one. I'm excited to see where this story goes.

Batman The City of Owls by Scott Snyder || Genre: Comics || Amazon // Bookshop

Blurb: For over a century, the Court of Owls has ruled Gotham City in secret—their reach inescapable, their power unstoppable.

Until they battled the Batman.

Gotham's vigilante protector managed to escape the talons of the Court with his mind and body barely intact. The Dark Knight managed to win the battle with his deadly new aggressors, but certainly not the war. Batman was just the first part of their conquest. Now they have their sights set on something much bigger: Gotham City.


Why I Want to Read It: Let's be honest. Who couldn't use more Batman in their life?

The Shadows by Alex North || Genre: Thriller || Amazon // Bookshop

Blurb: You knew a teenager like Charlie Crabtree. A dark imagination, a sinister smile--always on the outside of the group. Some part of you suspected he might be capable of doing something awful. Twenty-five years ago, Crabtree did just that, committing a murder so shocking that it’s attracted that strange kind of infamy that only exists on the darkest corners of the internet--and inspired more than one copycat.

Paul Adams remembers the case all too well: Crabtree--and his victim--were Paul’s friends. Paul has slowly put his life back together. But now his mother, old and senile, has taken a turn for the worse. Though every inch of him resists, it is time to come home.

It's not long before things start to go wrong. Reading the news, Paul learns another copycat has struck. His mother is distressed, insistent that there's something in the house. And someone is following him. Which reminds him of the most unsettling thing about that awful day twenty-five years ago.

It wasn't just the murder.

It was the fact that afterward, Charlie Crabtree was never seen again...

Why I Want to Read It: I've been trying to get more into thrillers. A friend of mine who loves thrillers really recommended this author and I thought I might as well give his work a try.

Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan || Genre: Fantasy || Amazon // Bookshop

Blurb: Each year, eight beautiful girls are chosen as Paper Girls to serve the king. It's the highest honor they could hope for...and the most demeaning. This year, there's a ninth. And instead of paper, she's made of fire.

In this richly developed fantasy, Lei is a member of the Paper caste, the lowest and most persecuted class of people in Ikhara. She lives in a remote village with her father, where the decade-old trauma of watching her mother snatched by royal guards for an unknown fate still haunts her. Now, the guards are back and this time it's Lei they're after -- the girl with the golden eyes whose rumored beauty has piqued the king's interest.

Over weeks of training in the opulent but oppressive palace, Lei and eight other girls learns the skills and charm that befit a king's consort. There, she does the unthinkable -- she falls in love. Her forbidden romance becomes enmeshed with an explosive plot that threatens her world's entire way of life. Lei, still the wide-eyed country girl at heart, must decide how far she's willing to go for justice and revenge.


Why I Want to Read It: First of all, the cover is beautiful. Second, the blurb has me hooked and I want to know more.

Endless Apocalypse Short Stories || Genre: Science Fiction || Amazon // Bookshop

Blurb: Stories of the end of civilized life have always fascinated us, from the mythological world endings, Armageddon to Ragnorok, to the flood stories of across the Ancient world. They make us wonder what we would do if all around us came to an end: no transport, no fuel, no communications: a retreat into the desperation, the onslaught of disease, how would we survive?

Why I Want to Read It: This might be weird, but I like stories about the end of the world. Reading different authors' takes on the end of the world, and what might come after, has always appealed to me.

T-Rex Trying by Hugh Murphy || Genre: Humor || Amazon // Bookshop

Blurb: Poor T-Rex. It’s hard to be the Lizard King when you can’t even change a light bulb.

Drawn from Hugh Murphy’s wildly popular Tumblr feed of the same name, T-Rex Trying depicts the stubby-armed tyrant in a range of hilarious—yet pathos-inducing—activities that we humans take for granted.


Why I Want to Read It: This just looks cute and funny. Sometimes, I need a break from serious, hard-hitting things.

The Black Prism by Brent Weeks || Genre: Fantasy || Amazon // Bookshop

Blurb: Gavin Guile is the Prism, the most powerful man in the world. He is high priest and emperor, a man whose power, wit, and charm are all that preserves a tenuous peace. But Prisms never last, and Guile knows exactly how long he has left to live: Five years to achieve five impossible goals.

But when Guile discovers he has a son, born in a far kingdom after the war that put him in power, he must decide how much he's willing to pay to protect a secret that could tear his world apart.


Why I Want to Read It: The Lightbringer series has been on my list for a while. When I saw that it was on sale, I took that as a sign that I should buy it now and start reading the series.

A Girl Called Ari by P.J. Sky || Genre: Science Fiction || Amazon

Blurb: In a distant future… A world divided… A walled city in a devastated wasteland…

For Starla, a struggle for power becomes a struggle to survive when she finds herself on the wrong side of the wall. Lost in the wasteland, she faces warring factions, bloodthirsty creatures, and the endless burning sun. And then there’s Ari… who is she really? And can she trust this girl from the wasteland to lead her back to the city gates?

One thing’s for sure, Starla’s once privileged life will never be the same.


Why I Want to Read It: The premise sounds interesting. I've also been trying to read more science fiction recently and this book called to me for some reason.

The Orphanage of Gods by Helena Coggan || Genre: Fantasy || Amazon // Bookshop

Blurb: Twenty years ago, the humans came for their gods.

In the bloody revolution, gods were all but wiped out. Ever since, the children they left behind have been imprisoned in an orphanage, watched day and night by the ruthless Guard. Any who show signs of divine power vanish from their beds in the night, all knowledge of their existence denied.

No one has ever escaped the orphanage.

Until now.

Seventeen-year-old Hero is finally free - but at a terrible price. Her sister has been captured by the Guard and is being held in a prison in the northern sea. Hero desperately wants to get her back, and to escape the murderous Guardsmen hunting her down. But not all the gods are dead, and the ones waiting for Hero in the north have their own plans for her - ones that will change the world forever...

As she advances further and further into the unknown, Hero will need to decide: how far is she willing to go to do what needs to be done?

Why I Want to Read It: It's hard to beat a premise like "humans have deposed the gods". Adding in the other aspects of the plot shown in the blurb, I just couldn't resist.

Have you read any of these books? Would you recommend them? Are there any books you recently purchased that you'd recommend?

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April Book Haul

With everything going on, I've been doing a lot of reading. As a result, I've inevitably gone on more than one book-buying binge recently. Strangely, all of the books I purchased arrived on the same day, so I've decided to make a book haul post to show off my purchases.

(Please note, all book blurbs are copied from Goodreads.com)

And I Darken by Kiersten White || Genre: Fantasy

Blurb: No one expects a princess to be brutal. And Lada Dragwlya likes it that way. Ever since she and her gentle younger brother, Radu, were wrenched from their homeland of Wallachia and abandoned by their father to be raised in the Ottoman courts, Lada has known that being ruthless is the key to survival. She and Radu are doomed to act as pawns in a vicious game, an unseen sword hovering over their every move. For the lineage that makes them special also makes them targets. 

Lada despises the Ottomans and bides her time, planning her vengeance for the day when she can return to Wallachia and claim her birthright. Radu longs only for a place where he feels safe. And when they meet Mehmed, the defiant and lonely son of the sultan, Radu feels that he’s made a true friend—and Lada wonders if she’s finally found someone worthy of her passion. 

But Mehmed is heir to the very empire that Lada has sworn to fight against—and that Radu now considers home. Together, Lada, Radu, and Mehmed form a toxic triangle that strains the bonds of love and loyalty to the breaking point.

God Emperor of Dune by Frank Herbet || Genre: Science Fiction

Blurb: More than three thousand years have passed since the first events recorded in DUNE. Only one link survives with those tumultuous times: the grotesque figure of Leto Atreides, son of the prophet Paul Muad'Dib, and now the virtually immortal God Emperor of Dune. He alone understands the future, and he knows with a terrible certainty that the evolution of his race is at an end unless he can breed new qualities into his species. But to achieve his final victory, Leto Atreides must also bring about his own downfall.

Prelude to Extinction by Andreas Karpf || Genre: Science Fiction

Blurb: When Jack Harrison climbed down the short ladder from the airlock and stepped onto the debris covered soil, the ground crackled with the sound of dried leaves and twigs. Warm sunlight shined through his helmet, making him almost forget the decade he just spent captaining Earth’s first ship to another star system. The serene tropical surroundings, though, stood in stark contrast to the long abandoned structures that lay nearby.

Evidence points to a massacre – the systematic extermination of an alien colony hundreds of millennia ahead of humanity. Time, however, has erased any trace of the attackers. Jack and his crew barely start probing the ruins before their curiosity betrays them as an abandoned alien device cuts them off from their main ship. Lost and short on supplies, survival soon becomes their only goal. Even their short-lived rescue by an alien race, who themselves are under siege, offers little hope. As they struggle to find a way home, signs begin pointing to a danger darker than any they could have foreseen. Jack knows that playing it safe may no longer be an option – but his only other choice is to confront a threat that they don’t even begin to understand.

Batman Volume 1: The Court of Owls by Scott Snyder || Genre: Comics

Blurb: After a series of brutal murders rocks Gotham City, Batman begins to realize that perhaps these crimes go far deeper than appearances suggest. As the Caped Crusader begins to unravel this deadly mystery, he discovers a conspiracy going back to his youth and beyond to the origins of the city he's sworn to protect. Could the Court of Owls, once thought to be nothing more than an urban legend, be behind the crime and corruption? Or is Bruce Wayne losing his grip on sanity and falling prey to the pressures of his war on crime?

Superman, Volume 1: Son of Superman by Peter J. Tomasi || Genre: Comics

Blurb: After the stunning events of DC Universe: Rebirth, the world is left without Superman! Luckily, there is another Man of Steel to fill his shoes: the pre-Flashpoint Kal-El! However, can this new Superman protect the world while raising a super-son with his wife, Lois Lane? And should they help their boy use his new and rapidly increasing abilities, or hide them from the world?

Those are the books I bought during my book-buying sprees. I know it's not a huge haul, but it's more books than I've bought in a while, and I felt like sharing them.

Have you bought any new books recently? Any books you'd recommend?

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