Stacking the Shelves (31)

Oh my gosh! I have a ton of new books this week. I belong to a book exchange group at BookObsessed.com. Each month, I send an eBook to one member of the group, and one month everyone else sends a book to me. My turn was May, so I received a bunch of new books for my Kindle.

Gifts:

The first e-mail to arrive and the first one I opened was from Kiri. She sent me the third and fourth books in the Genevieve Lenard mystery series, The Braque Connection and The Flinck Connection. I have *so* enjoyed this series by Estelle Ryan. Genevieve Lenard is a world-renown expert on non-verbal communication and is employed by a major insurance company in France. In addition to reading body language, she notices patterns. These skills have allowed her to resolve claims when there is fraud involved, single-handedly saving the company more than fifteen million Euros. She's also autistic.

Amberkatze sent me two very different fantasies. First is Wickedly Magical, a tale of Baba Yaga. In this series, Baba Yaga is not just one woman—the wicked witch of Russian fairy tales. Rather “Baba Yaga” is a title for a few special women with awesome powers and equally awesome responsibilities. Wickely Magical is a short work which is a prequel to the series.

Amber also sent How to Save a Kingdom, the 2nd book in Bill Allen's Journals of Myrth. Greg Hart is a small and often bullied 12-year old, but he seems to have been named in yet another prophecy. The first one was bad enough, pitting him against a dragon, and now he's been dragged back to Myrth to lead a battle against the foes of King Peter.

The next e-mail was from Lemonitsa. Her accompanying note said that she selected the oldest book on my wishlist. Cool! She sent me How Firm a Foundation, the 5th book in David Weber's Safehold series. I just adore Weber's science fiction, having read almost all of his Honor Harrington series of military space fiction. I haven't started reading Safehold, but it appears that there will be lots of battles, but it's the humans vs the aliens rather than a couple of competing human empires. Such fun is ahead of me.

Speaking of David Weber, nimrodiel sent me A Call to Duty by Weber and Timothy Zahn. It's the first in a new series set in the Honorverse, predating Honor herself by several hundred years. Nim pointed out that she had recently read A Call to Duty, and I'm sure I'll enjoy it VERY MUCH.

Have you read the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson? It's amazing. I'm so glad that he decided to write more books in the series, and even more glad that nikel27 sent this one to to me. I am really looking forward to reading The Alloy of Law. Set 300 years after the original trilogy, the industrial revolution has occurred. There are railroads, electric lights, and even skyscrapers. But magic is stronger than science and technology.

Zosime surprised me with Prudence by Gail Carriger. It's the newest book in the steampunk world of The Parasol Protectorate, and the beginning of a new series, The Custard Protocol. Prudence Alessandra Maccon Akeldama (“Rue” to her friends) is the daughter of Alexia Tarabotti and the werewolf Lord Maccon, adopted by the solitary vampire, Lord Akeldama. When Prudence is unexpectedly bequeathed a dirigible, she does what any sensible female under similar circumstances would do—she christens it the Spotted Custard and floats off to India.

KathyB sent me a gentle romance, How to Bake the Perfect Pecan Pie by Gina Henning. Lauren has been challenged to use her grandmother's recipe to bake the pecan pie for Thanksgiving dinner. But she's no baker, and she has no pecans on hand. As often happens in a romance novel, she bumps into the perfect guy while frantically searching for any grocery that still has pecans on the shelf.

I had picked up the second book in this series as a Kindle freebie, but since I have a bit of an obsession about reading series in the right order, I placed this book on my Amazon wishlist.

KathyB also included the first book in Chris Colfer's Land of Stories series of fairy tales for kids. The Wishing Spell introduces twins Alex and Conner who find themselves in a land where they come face-to-face with fairy tale characters they had read about all their lives. This fantasy for tweens (mid-grade readers) is right up my alley.

I received another David Weber Honorverse novel from Shaunesay. Cauldron of Ghosts is the third in the Crown of Slaves series that parallels and overlaps the mainline Honor Harrington series. I'm hoping it will fill in even more background on the Mesan Alliance—those bad guys behind the genetic slavery business. And some of my favorite characters are back, including Victor Cachat. 'Tis fated to be a great adventure.

But that's not all. Shaunesay tucked in Beholder's Eye by Julie Czerneda, one of my absolute favorite authors. This is the first book in Czerneda's Web Shifters series. I actually read it many years ago in paperback, but I recently discovered that it was the first of a series. I added it to my wishlist so that I could read it again and then proceed to get the others in the trilogy.

From VeganMedusa, I received Agatha H and the Voice of the Castle by Phil and Kaja Foglio. It's the third book in their Girl Genius series of novels. Agatha is the last of the Heterdynes, her parents and uncle having disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Now she's returned to her ancestral home, but cannot enter the castle until she convinces the castle's AI that she is the true Heterodyne descendant. This book, like the ones that came before, will be full of steampunk-y goodness.

 

How about you? Any new books? You're invited to tell us all about it by joining the fun at Stacking the Shelves. According to the reviewers at Tynga's Reviews who host the meme:

Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!

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