I am pleased with the 15 books I read this month but I am hoping September will be better.
Body Talk: 37 Voices Explore Our Radical Anatomy by Kelly Jensen - It’s time to bare it all about bodies! We all experience the world in a body, but we don’t usually take the time to explore what it really means to have and live within one. Just as every person has a unique personality, every person has a unique body, and every body tells its own story. In Body Talk, thirty-seven writers, models, actors, musicians, and artists share essays, lists, comics, and illustrations—about everything from size and shape to scoliosis, from eating disorders to cancer, from sexuality and gender identity to the use of makeup as armor. Together, they contribute a broad variety of perspectives on what it’s like to live in their particular bodies—and how their bodies have helped to inform who they are and how they move through the world.
Enchantee by Gita Trelease - Paris in 1789 is a labyrinth of twisted streets, filled with beggars, thieves, revolutionaries – and magicians . . . When seventeen-year-old Camille is left orphaned, she has to provide for her frail sister and her volatile brother. In desperation, she survives by using the petty magic she learnt from her mother. But when her brother disappears Camille decides to pursue a richer, more dangerous mark: the glittering court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Using dark magic Camille transforms herself into the ‘Baroness de la Fontaine‘ and presents herself at the court of Versaille, where she soon finds herself swept up in a dizzying life of riches, finery and suitors. But Camille’s resentment of the rich is at odds with the allure of their glamour and excess, and she soon discovers that she’s not the only one leading a double life . . .
Four Dead Queens by Astrid Scholte - Keralie Corrington is a talented pickpocket in the kingdom of Quadara. She steals under the guidance of her mentor Mackiel, who runs a black market selling their bounty to buyers desperate for what they can't get in their own quadrant. For Quadara is a nation divided into four regions, each strictly separated from the other. Toria, the intellectual quadrant values education and ambition. Ludia, the pleasure quadrant values celebration and passion. Archia, the agricultural quadrant, values simplicity and nature. Eonia, the futurist quadrant values technology, stoicism and harmonious community. Four queens, one from each quadrant, rule as one. When on Mackiel's orders Keralie steals a particularly valuable item from a messenger, what seems like a routine theft goes horribly wrong. Keralie discovers she's intercepted instructions to murder the queens. Hoping that discovering the intended recipient will reveal the culprit-valuable information that she can barter with-Keralie teams up with Varin Bollt, the messenger she stole from, to complete his delivery and uncover the would-be murderer. But with Keralie and Varin each keeping secrets-and the lives of the queens hanging in the balance-everything is at stake, and no one can be trusted.
Heretics Anonymous by Katie Henry - When Michael walks through the doors of Catholic school, things can’t get much worse. His dad has just made the family move again, and Michael needs a friend. When a girl challenges their teacher in class, Michael thinks he might have found one, and a fellow atheist at that. Only this girl, Lucy, isn’t just Catholic... she wants to be a priest. Lucy introduces Michael to other St. Clare’s outcasts, and he officially joins Heretics Anonymous, where he can be an atheist, Lucy can be an outspoken feminist, Avi can be Jewish and gay, Max can wear whatever he wants, and Eden can practice paganism. Michael encourages the Heretics to go from secret society to rebels intent on exposing the school’s hypocrisies one stunt at a time. But when Michael takes one mission too far - putting the other Heretics at risk - he must decide whether to fight for his own freedom or rely on faith, whatever that means, in God, his friends, or himself.
Home Before Dark by Riley Sager - Maggie Holt is used to such questions. Twenty-five years ago, she and her parents, Ewan and Jess, moved into a rambling Victorian estate called Baneberry Hall. They spent three weeks there before fleeing in the dead of night, an ordeal Ewan later recounted in a memoir called House of Horrors. His tale of ghostly happenings and encounters with malevolent spirits became a worldwide phenomenon. Now, Maggie has inherited Baneberry Hall after her father's death. She was too young to remember any of the events mentioned in her father's book. But she doesn't believe a word of it. Ghosts, after all, don't exist. But when she returns to Baneberry Hall to prepare it for sale, her homecoming is anything but warm. People from the pages of her father's book lurk in the shadows, and locals aren't thrilled that their small town has been made infamous. Even more unnerving is Baneberry Hall itself - a place that hints of dark deeds and unexplained happenings. As the days pass, Maggie begins to believe that what her father wrote was more fact than fiction. That, either way, someone - or something - doesn't want her here. And that she might be in danger all over again . . .
When Life Gives You Lemons Instead of Lattes by Rayna York - Kylie’s summer after high school graduation was supposed to be celebrated in Europe, not some podunk town in Ohio. But when the FBI shows up at her parents’ California beach house looking for her father, the life she's known suddenly disintegrates. With the family assets frozen and her father on the run, the only place left to go is an old, rundown house that once belonged to her great-grandmother. Now her family is broke, her social status is in ruins, and the only internet access is at a café where a nerdy barista boy wants to be her new best friend. But life has a funny way of teaching its lessons and being catapulted into this new reality might be the help she needs to learn that sometimes you have to let go of everything you know to discover what is real.
Lock Every Door by Riley Sager - No visitors. No nights spent away from the apartment. No disturbing the other residents. These are the only rules for Jules Larson's new job as apartment sitter for an elusive resident of the Bartholomew, one of Manhattan's most high-profile private buildings and home to the super rich and famous. Recently heartbroken and practically homeless, Jules accepts the terms, ready to leave her past life behind. Out of place among the extremely wealthy, Jules finds herself pulled toward other apartment sitter Ingrid. But Ingrid confides that the Bartholomew is not what it seems and the dark history hidden beneath its gleaming facade is starting to frighten her. Jules brushes it off as a harmless ghost story - but the next day, her new friend has vanished. And then Jules discovers that Ingrid is not the first temporary resident to go missing.... Welcome to the Bartholomew...you may never leave.
Lucky by Alice Sebold - In a memoir hailed for its searing candor and wit, Alice Sebold (The Lovely Bones) reveals how her life was utterly transformed when, as an 18-year-old college freshman, she was brutally raped and beaten in a park near campus. What propels this chronicle of her recovery is Sebold's indomitable spirit - as she struggles for understanding; as her dazed family and friends sometimes bungle their efforts to provide comfort and support; and as, ultimately, she triumphs, managing through grit and coincidence to help secure her attacker's arrest and conviction.
Macario’s Scepter by M.J. McGriff - An unlikely Chosen One, her pirate captain ex-lover, and a nun. A prophecy that unleashes a fire-breathing sea serpent pouring its wrath on the isles. A magical scepter with the power to destroy—or save—the world.Samara is a ship wrecked at sea. She can’t seem to get anything right, especially her love life. Her former pirate captain, the famous Baz Blackwater, broke her heart and stranded her on an island of religious hypocrites. Samara wants nothing more than to escape to the freedom of the sea, so when her ex-lover shows up offering a chance at a magical treasure—and secret revenge—she jumps at the chance.Seraphina prays every day for her wayward twin sister to stop chasing the pirate life and find the peace she’s discovered in her own quiet life at the convent. But Samara has nothing but contempt for her sister’s beliefs and religious rituals. Yet when Seraphina uncovers an ancient prophecy revealing the horrifying curse of the treasure Samara and Baz seek, she must leave her convent—risking the wrath of her Order—and search for the truth about Macario’s scepter.In a world of friendship and betrayal, monsters and magic, seedy pubs and adventure on the high seas, will Samara’s magical powers, Baz’s cunning plans, and Seraphina’s unshakable faith be enough to slay a cursed sea serpent destroying everything they love?
The Merciful Crow by Margaret Owen - A future chieftain. Fie abides by one rule: Look after your own. Her Crow caste of undertakers and mercy-killers takes more abuse than coin, but when they’re called to collect royal dead, she’s hoping they’ll find the payout of a lifetime. A fugitive prince. When Crown Prince Jasimir turns out to have faked his death, Fie’s ready to cut her losses - and perhaps his throat. But he offers a wager that she can’t refuse: Protect him from a ruthless queen, and he’ll protect the Crows when he reigns. A too-cunning bodyguard. Hawk warrior Tavin has always put Jas’ life before his, magically assuming the prince’s appearance and shadowing his every step. But what happens when Tavin begins to want something to call his own?
The Invisible by Seb Doubinsky - It's election time in New Babylon, and President Maggie Delgado is running for re-election but is threatened by the charismatic populist Ted Rust. Newly appointed City Commissioner Georg Ratner is given the priority task to fight the recent invasion of Synth in the streets of the capital, a powerful hallucinogen drug with a mysterious origin. When his old colleague asks him for help on another case and gets murdered, things become more and more complicated, and his official neutrality becomes a burden in the political intrigue he his gradually sucked into. Supported by Laura, his trustful life partner and the Egyptian goddess Nut, Ratner decides to fight for what he believes in, no matter the cost.
The Places I’ve Cried in Public by Holly Bourne - Amelie fell hard for Reese. And she thought he loved her too. But she's starting to realise that real love isn't supposed to hurt like this. So now she's retracing their story, revisiting all the places he made her cry. Because if she works out what went wrong, perhaps she can finally learn how to get over him.
This Train is Being Held by Ismee Williams - Alex is a baseball player. A great one. His papi is pushing him to go pro, but Alex maybe wants to be a poet. Not that Papi would understand or allow that. Isa is a dancer. She'd love to go pro, if only her Havana-born mom weren't dead set against it...just like she's dead set against her daughter falling for a Latino. And Isa's privileged private-school life - with her dad losing his job and her older brother struggling with mental illness - is falling apart. Not that she'd ever tell that to Alex. Fate - and the New York City subway - bring Alex and Isa together. Is it enough to keep them together when they need each other most?
Warrior of the Wild by Tricia Levenseller - As her father's chosen heir, 18-year-old Rasmira has trained her whole life to become a warrior and lead her village. But when her coming-of-age trial is sabotaged and she fails the test, her father banishes her to the monster-filled wilderness with an impossible quest: To win back her honor, she must kill the oppressive god who claims tribute from the villages each year or die trying.
We Used To Be Friends by Amy Spalding - Told in dual timelines - half of the chapters moving forward in time and half moving backward - We Used to Be Friends explores the most traumatic breakup of all: that of childhood besties. At the start of their senior year in high school, James (a girl with a boy's name) and Kat are inseparable, but by graduation, they're no longer friends. James prepares to head off to college as she reflects on the dissolution of her friendship with Kat while, in alternating chapters, Kat thinks about being newly in love with her first girlfriend and having a future that feels wide open. Over the course of senior year, Kat wants nothing more than James to continue to be her steady rock, as James worries that everything she believes about love and her future is a lie when her high-school sweetheart parents announce they're getting a divorce. Funny, honest, and full of heart, We Used to Be Friends tells of the pains of growing up and growing apart.
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