August Wrap Up

I only read 11 books in August but I was pleased that I read a lot of 5 stars books and completed two series that have been on my TBR for a while so it was a good reading month for me.

Reflected in You by Sylvia Day – Gideon Cross. As beautiful and flawless on the outside as he was damaged and tormented on the inside. He was a bright, scorching flame that singed me with the darkest of pleasures. I couldn’t stay away. I didn’t want to. He was my addiction . . . my every desire . . . mine. My past was as violent as his, and I was just as broken. We’d never work. It was too hard, too painful . . . except when it was perfect. Those moments when the driving hunger and desperate love were the most exquisite insanity. We were bound by our need. And our passion would take us beyond our limits to the sweetest, sharpest edge of obsession . . .

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All the Ugly and Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood – As the daughter of a drug dealer, Wavy knows not to trust people, not even her own parents. It’s safer to keep her mouth shut and stay out of sight. Struggling to raise her little brother, Donal, eight-year-old Wavy is the only responsible adult around. Obsessed with the constellations, she finds peace in the starry night sky above the fields behind her house, until one night her star gazing causes an accident. After witnessing his motorcycle wreck, she forms an unusual friendship with one of her father’s thugs, Kellen, a tattooed ex-con with a heart of gold. By the time Wavy is a teenager, her relationship with Kellen is the only tender thing in a brutal world of addicts and debauchery. When tragedy rips Wavy’s family apart, a well-meaning aunt steps in, and what is beautiful to Wavy looks ugly under the scrutiny of the outside world.

Finlay Donovan is Killing It by Elle Cosimano – Finlay Donovan, single mum and floundering crime writer, is having a hard time. Her ex-husband went behind her back to fire the nanny, and this morning she sent her four-year-old to school with hair duct-taped to her head after an unfortunate incident with scissors. Making it to lunch with her literary agent is a minor victory but, as she’s discussing the plot of her latest crime novel, the conversation is misinterpreted by a woman sitting nearby as that of a hit-woman offering her services to dispose of a ‘problem’ husband. And when the woman slips Finlay a name and a promise of a large sum of cash, Finlay finds herself plotting something much bigger than her novel. And, after all, they do always say: write what you know. . .

As Good As Dead by Holly Jackson – Pip Fitz-Amobi is haunted by the way her last investigation ended. Soon she’ll be leaving for Cambridge University but then another case finds her . . . and this time it’s all about Pip. Pip is used to online death threats, but there’s one that catches her eye, someone who keeps asking: who will look for you when you’re the one who disappears? And it’s not just online. Pip has a stalker who knows where she lives. The police refuse to act and then Pip finds connections between her stalker and a local serial killer. The killer has been in prison for six years, but Pip suspects that the wrong man is behind bars. As the deadly game plays out, Pip realises that everything in Little Kilton is finally coming full circle. If Pip doesn’t find the answers, this time she will be the one who disappears . . .

The Tropic of Serpents by Marie Brennan – Attentive readers are already familiar with how a bookish young woman named Isabella first set out on the historic course that would lead her to becoming the world’s premier dragon naturalist. Three years after her journey through Vystrana, the illustrious (and occasionally scandalous) Lady Trent defies convention to embark on an expedition to the war-torn continent of Eriga, home of the legendary swamp-wyrm. Accompanied by an old associate and a runaway heiress, Isabella must brave oppressive heat, palace intrigues, gossip, and other hazards in order to satisfy her fascination with all things draconian, even if it means venturing deep into the forbidden jungle known as the Green Hell… where her courage, resourcefulness, and scientific curiosity will be tested as never before.

Bloody Bones by Laurell K. Hamilton – First, there were the dead in the graveyard, two hundred years dead. I’d been hired to raise them to settle a dispute over who owned the land they were buried in. Then there were the three dead teenagers in the woods, slaughtered in a way I’d never seen before. And then they found the dead girl, drained of blood and left in her bed. I knew what that meant of course. It didn’t take a degree in preternatural studies to figure out that something was wrong. And I was right in the middle of it. My name is Anita Blake. Welcome to my life …

The Killing Dance by Laurell K. Hamilton – The first hit man came after me at home, which should be against the rules. Then there was a second, and a third. Word on the street is that Anita Blake, preternatural expert and vampire killer extraordinaire, is worth half a million dollars. Dead, not alive. So what’s a girl to do but turn to the men in her life for help? Which in my case means an alpha werewolf and a master vampire. With professional killers on your trail, it’s not a bad idea to have as much protection as possible, human or otherwise. But I’m beginning to wonder if two monsters are better than one…

Burnt Offerings by Laurell K. Hamilton – That’s what I’ve always said. That’s what I’ve always believed. But now I’m the one sharing a bed with the Master Vampire of the City. I’m Anita Blake, the woman the vampires call the Executioner. From part of the solution, I’ve become part of the problem. So it hits close to home when an arsonist begins to target vampire-owned businesses all over town – an arsonist who seems to want to destroy more than just property. It’s the monsters who are in danger now. And it’s up to the Executioner to save them from the inferno.

Waking Gods by Sylvain – A twenty-story-tall metallic figure appears in the middle of Regent’s Park. The caretakers at London Zoo notice it first at around 4am. The figure, or robot, bears a great resemblance to the UN robot known as Themis . . . Who made Themis? It’s been ten years since Themis – a giant alien metal robot – was revealed to the world by Dr Rose Franklin. It now stands at the heart of the Earth Defense Corps – in case the makers of Themis return to claim it. Why did they leave it here? Rose and her team are still seeking answers to Themis’s origins when a second and even bigger robot appears in London’s Regent’s Park. A military response backfires, reducing half the city to bare earth. And what if they come back? As more robots appear across the world, Rose knows it’s a race against time to discover where they’ve come from, what they want and – most importantly – how to stop them . . .

Only human by Sylvain Neuvel – We always thought the biggest threat to humanity would come from the outside. We were wrong . . . Ten years ago, alien robots descended to Earth killing one hundred million people. And when they retreated, they took brilliant scientist Dr Rose Franklin and her team with them. Now, after nearly ten years on another world, Rose and the Earth Defence Corps manage to escape – only to find that a devastating new war has begun. This time, between humans. As the human race looks set to destroy itself, Rose and her comrades must find a way to unite Earth. The stakes couldn’t be higher, as the aliens intend to finish the annihilation they started . . .

The Lost Files by Sylvain Neuvel – A collection of short stories set in the Themis Files universe.

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