Lisa's Looking Forward To #31 - September 24th, 2019

Back to joining up with the Waiting on Wednesday Posts, and the Can't Wait Wednesday posts hosted by Wishful Endings.  There are a ton of books out next week that I'm excited for!

From my ARC list for September 24th, 2019:

Sounds like a great fantasy probably, and that cover is beautiful!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

IN THE KINGDOM OF AXARIA, a darkness rises.

Some call it a monster, laying waste to the villagers and their homes.
Some say it is an invulnerable demon summoned from the deepest abysses of the Immortal Realm.
Many soldiers from the royal guard are sent out to hunt it down.

Not one has ever returned.

When Asterin Faelenhart, Princess of Axaria and heir to the throne, discovers that she may hold the key to defeating the mysterious demon terrorizing her kingdom, she vows not to rest until the beast is slain. With the help of her friends and the powers she wields — though has yet to fully understand — Asterin sets out to complete a single task. The task that countless, trained soldiers have failed.

To kill it.

But as they hunt for the demon, they unearth a plot to assassinate the Princess herself instead. Asterin and her companions begin to wonder how much of their lives have been lies, especially when they realize that the center of the web of deceit might very well be themselves. With no one else to turn to, they are forced to decide just how much they are willing to sacrifice to protect the only world they have ever known.

That is, of course… if the demon doesn’t get to them first.

From young author Coco Ma comes a dazzling new tale of adventure, power, and betrayal, weaving together a stunning world of magic with a killer cast in an explosive, unforgettable debut.

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE. 
 

Sounds like it could be an emotional read.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

Two teens meet after tragedy and learn about love, loss, and letting go

Naima Rodriguez doesn’t want your patronizing sympathy as she grieves her father, her hero—a fallen Marine. She’ll hate you forever if you ask her to open up and remember him “as he was,” though that’s all her loving family wants her to do in order to manage her complex OCD and GAD. She’d rather everyone back the-eff off while she separates her Lucky Charms marshmallows into six, always six, Ziploc bags, while she avoids friends and people and living the life her father so desperately wanted for her.

Dew respectfully requests a little more time to process the sudden loss of his parents. It's causing an avalanche of secret anxieties, so he counts on his trusty voice recorder to convey the things he can’t otherwise say aloud. He could really use a friend to navigate a life swimming with pain and loss and all the lovely moments in between. And then he meets Naima and everything’s changed—just not in the way he, or she, expects.

Candace Ganger's Six Goodbyes We Never Said is no love story. If you ask Naima, it’s not even a like story. But it is a story about love and fear and how sometimes you need a little help to be brave enough to say goodbye.

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE.

I loved the idea of The Blair Witch Project, but couldn't watch any of the movie because of the camera-work, so this sounds like my kind of story.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

In the faux-documentary style of The Blair Witch Project comes the campfire story of a missing girl, a vengeful ghost, and the girl who is determined to find her sister--at all costs.

Once a year, the path appears in the forest and Lucy Gallows beckons. Who is brave enough to find her--and who won't make it out of the woods?

It's been exactly one year since Sara's sister, Becca, disappeared, and high school life has far from settled back to normal. With her sister gone, Sara doesn't know whether her former friends no longer like her...or are scared of her, and the days of eating alone at lunch have started to blend together. When a mysterious text message invites Sara and her estranged friends to "play the game" and find local ghost legend Lucy Gallows, Sara is sure this is the only way to find Becca--before she's lost forever. And even though she's hardly spoken with them for a year, Sara finds herself deep in the darkness of the forest, her friends--and their cameras--following her down the path. Together, they will have to draw on all of their strengths to survive. The road is rarely forgiving, and no one will be the same on the other side.

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE. 

Finished this and loved it, check out my review HERE.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:
 
The storm of the century is about to hit Little Bridge Island, Florida—and it’s sending waves crashing through Sabrina “Bree” Beckham’s love life…

When a massive hurricane severs all power and cell service to Little Bridge Island—as well as its connection to the mainland—twenty-five-year-old Bree Beckham isn’t worried . . . at first. She’s already escaped one storm—her emotionally abusive ex—so a hurricane seems like it will be a piece of cake.

But animal-loving Bree does become alarmed when she realizes how many islanders have been cut off from their beloved pets. Now it’s up to her to save as many of Little Bridge’s cats and dogs as she can . . . but to do so, she’s going to need help—help she has no choice but to accept from her boss’s sexy nephew, Drew Hartwell, the Mermaid Café’s most notorious heartbreaker.

But when Bree starts falling for Drew, just as Little Bridge’s power is restored and her penitent ex shows up, she has to ask herself if her island fling was only a result of the stormy weather, or if it could last during clear skies too.

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE. 

I like the other books I've read by this author, and this one sounds good too!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

Meri Beckley lives in a world without lies. When she turns on the news, she hears only the facts. When she swipes the pages of her online textbooks, she reads only the truth. When she looks at the peaceful Chicago streets, she feels the pride everyone in the country feels about the era of unprecedented hope and prosperity over which the government presides.

But when Meri’s mother is killed, Meri suddenly has questions that no one else seems to be asking. And when she tries to uncover her mother’s state of mind in her last weeks, she finds herself drawn into a secret world full of facts she’s never heard and a history she didn’t know existed.

Suddenly, Meri is faced with a choice between accepting the “truth” she has been taught or embracing a world the government doesn’t want anyone to see—a world where words have the power to change the course of a country, and the wrong word can get Meri killed.

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE. 

I've got an ARC of this one and hope to read in the next week.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

Simmering in Patagonian myth, The Tenth Girl is a gothic psychological thriller with a haunting twist.

At the very southern tip of South America looms an isolated finishing school. Legend has it that the land will curse those who settle there. But for Mavi—a bold Buenos Aires native fleeing the military regime that took her mother—it offers an escape to a new life as a young teacher to Argentina’s elite girls.

Mavi tries to embrace the strangeness of the imposing house—despite warnings not to roam at night, threats from an enigmatic young man, and rumors of mysterious Others. But one of Mavi’s ten students is missing, and when students and teachers alike begin to behave as if possessed, the forces haunting this unholy cliff will no longer be ignored.

One of these spirits holds a secret that could unravel Mavi's existence. In order to survive she must solve a cosmic mystery—and then fight for her life.

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE.  

This one sounds really spooky!  Plus, that cover!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

Seventeen-year-old Aderyn ("Ryn") only cares about two things: her family, and her family's graveyard. And right now, both are in dire straits. Since the death of their parents, Ryn and her siblings have been scraping together a meager existence as gravediggers in the remote village of Colbren, which sits at the foot of a harsh and deadly mountain range that was once home to the fae. The problem with being a gravedigger in Colbren, though, is that the dead don't always stay dead.

The risen corpses are known as "bone houses," and legend says that they're the result of a decades-old curse. When Ellis, an apprentice mapmaker with a mysterious past, arrives in town, the bone houses attack with new ferocity. What is it that draws them near? And more importantly, how can they be stopped for good?

Together, Ellis and Ryn embark on a journey that will take them deep into the heart of the mountains, where they will have to face both the curse and the long-hidden truths about themselves.

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE.

I love this author, and I have the ARC of the first book waiting to be read still, so I didn't bother to request this one.  Need to read the other first!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

The stunning finale of the epic fantasy duology from New York Times bestselling author Beth Revis.

Alchemy student turned necromancer Nedra Brysstain has made a life-changing decision to embrace the darkness--but can the boy who loves her bring her back to the light before she pays the ultimate price?

Lunar Island is trying to heal. The necromantic plague that ravaged the land has been eradicated, and Emperor Auguste, the young and charming leader of the Allyrian Empire, has a plan: rid the island of necromancy once and for all. Though Greggori "Grey" Astor wants what's best for his people, he knows that allying himself with Auguste threatens the one person he loves most: necromancer Nedra Brysstain. Feeling like he already failed to save Nedra once, Grey becomes determined to help the Emperor rebuild Lunar Island while still keeping Nedra safe from harm.

Back at the quarantine hospital, Nedra's army of revenants are growing increasingly inhuman by the day. Wracked with guilt for imprisoning their souls, Nedra vows to discover a way to free the dead while still keeping her sister by her side.

But, still reeling from the trauma of the plague, the people of Lunar Island are looking for someone to blame, and Grey can only protect Nedra for so long. And when Nedra and Grey are thrust into a battle with an even more terrifying adversary, Nedra will be pushed to the darkest depths of her necromantic powers. But can Grey let her go that far?

 Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE.

So besides how cool it is that the author of this graduated from the high school where I am a librarian now, I do need to read this sequel to her first book.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:
Still reeling from her recent battle (and grounded until she graduates) Alice must cross the Veil to rescue her friends and stop the Black Knight once and for all. But the deeper she ventures into Wonderland, the more topsy-turvy everything becomes. It’s not until she’s at her wits end that she realizes—Wonderland is trying to save her.

There’s a new player on the board; a poet capable of using Nightmares to not only influence the living but raise the dead. This Poet is looking to claim the Black Queen’s power—and Alice's budding abilities—as their own.

Dreams have never been so dark in Wonderland, and if there is any hope of defeating this mystery poet’s magic, Alice must confront the worst in herself, in the people she loves, and in the very nature of fear itself.

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE. 

So it takes place in Kansas City, where I live, so that's cool.  I have an ARC of this and hope to read and post a review in the next week or so!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:
By day, seventeen-year-old Kiera Johnson is an honors student, a math tutor, and one of the only Black kids at Jefferson Academy. But at home, she joins hundreds of thousands of Black gamers who duel worldwide as Nubian personas in the secret multiplayer online role-playing card game, SLAY. No one knows Kiera is the game developer, not her friends, her family, not even her boyfriend, Malcolm, who believes video games are partially responsible for the "downfall of the Black man."

But when a teen in Kansas City is murdered over a dispute in the SLAY world, news of the game reaches mainstream media, and SLAY is labeled a racist, exclusionist, violent hub for thugs and criminals. Even worse, an anonymous troll infiltrates the game, threatening to sue Kiera for "anti-white discrimination."

Driven to save the only world in which she can be herself, Kiera must preserve her secret identity and harness what it means to be unapologetically Black in a world intimidated by Blackness. But can she protect her game without losing herself in the process?

Sound good?  Add to Goodreads HERE.  



  
Final Thoughts:
Two more than last week, but several I have ARCs of already.  Have you read any of these yet?  Are they on your TBR?  And hey, while you're here, you should go try to win some of my ARCs from Cleaning Up My TBR Post HERE. The US only giveaway is open till Friday at midnight, there are even some 2019 ARCs that can be one of your two choices. 

Review: Need by Joelle Charbonneau

First, thanks to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children's Book Group and Netgalley for allowing me to read an e-galley of this.  I got to this a little bit after it was published, as you know I've been behind on my e-galleys, although I'm hoping to get back ahead this month. I enjoyed this author's Testing trilogy, well the first two books, I haven't read the third yet.  But I felt that was a very similar story to The Hunger Games.  This story, Need, is a contemporary story that stands out all on its own.  I really enjoyed it, it was another book that just recently I've had trouble putting down because I needed to know what happened next.  It is also a staff rec for me at the bookstore where I work part time.

The story is told through several different viewpoints, all students at a high school in Wisconsin.  There is a website that has popped up, called NEED.  It is offering students an opportunity to ask for what they need if they do something that the website asks them to do.  Now I love the first thing that shows up on the website:

WANT:  A DESIRE TO POSSESS OR DO SOMETHING. A WISH.
NEED:  SOMETHING REQUIRED BECAUSE IT IS ESSENTIAL.  SOMETHING VERY IMPORTANT THAT  YOU CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT.
WHAT DO YOU NEED?

To me that totally set up the story.  The first people who get in on the website only have to invite a certain number of friends to join in order to get their "need" granted.  The first requests are things like iphones, money, tickets to concerts, etc.  But one of the main characters, Kaylee, what she asks for is really a need.  Her younger brother needs a kidney or he might die.  But so far she's found no one who is a match for him.  Their father left when he got sick, and so she doesn't know if he will be a match.  She does what she is required, invites other people to join.  Soon, once everyone at the high school has been invited, the requests from the website become different.  They don't seem like anything big.  Leaving a note at someone's house. Delivering a box of cookies to someone's house and just leaving them on the porch.  Digging a hole in someone's yard and putting a doll in it like a grave.  But soon these little errands don't seem so innocent.  The girl who gets the cookies is allergic to peanuts, and there are peanuts in the cookies.  The grave dug is in Kaylee's yard, and she knows it refers to her brother.  Someone's dogs are killed. Fires are set.  Pills are exchanged that cause someone to not get the medicine they need.  People are kidnapped.  When Kaylee figures out that the website is what caused the hole to be dug in her yard, she tries to alert the police to the website. But it goes down and they can't see what has happened. 

After Kaylee begins to look bad, it comes back up, with a promise of her need not being granted if she does something like that again. See one thing I forgot to tell you, it's kinda like fight club, one of the rules is you don't talk about it.  When someone that Kaylee cares about is kidnapped, she starts to worry about figuring out who is really running this site, and getting all the craziness stopped.  Other kids on the site will play a part too.  One of them is enjoying the things he is being asked to do because he enjoys hurting people.  One enjoys it because he knows that is something he wants to do some day, and is smart enough to try to figure out exactly what is going on and work the system to his benefit.  In the end Kaylee will not only be faced with potential death, but find things out about her family and best friend that will devastate her, even while they do  explain a lot of what has happened.

And while I started suspecting who we find out is orchestrating it all at one point, the reason they are doing it is a good twist, one I didn't guess.  I really liked this book a lot better than I liked the Testing trilogy.  It is was so unique and really a great story.  I definitely recommend it!

Independent Study (The Testing #2) by Joelle Charbonneau

First, thanks to HMH Books for Young Readers and Edelweiss for allowing me to read this e-galley.  Especially if they read my not so stellar review of the first book HERE.  Now the first book was good, it was just so similar to The Hunger Games that I had trouble reading it.  But I knew it was a pretty good story idea, and did have some unique bits, and so I did want to read on and see if the 2nd book could salvage the story for me.  And I have to say that it did.
In the first book, students from the colonies surrounding the main city of the new civilization were selected to come in and be tested.  The different tests checked their intelligence, problem solving skills, etc.  And a final test for those that made it that far included a type of Hunger Games type of situation.  Only those competing weren't told to kill, but some did in order to increase their chances of passing the test first.  And at the end of the testing, those left, all had their memories erased.  The main character Cia did have her memories erased, but she had left herself a recording of things that she needed to remember and people not to trust.  Her boyfriend, Tomas, seems to maybe remember more, and when Cia has a memory of him taking a pill that will help him keep his memories, she realizes that he does remember.  This book starts off with one more test, one where they decide which career path the students will be proceeding on.  Cia really wants to work with mechanical things, what has always been her strength. But somehow she gets selected for the government/leadership path.  Tomas gets his first choice, biomechanical engineering, where Cia thought she would be as well.  But Cia learns from one of the people who helped her in the first book that she must do whatever is necessary to succeed.  And she realizes just how true this is when she sees one of the students get redirected, and decides to follow him to see what that really means. She learns that it means he dies.  He isn't sent out to the colonies or back home as originally thought or intimated by those in charge.  And soon Cia learns she is being kept under watch, because many of the things she has done to pass the tests have put a red flag up to those in charge.  They assume she has help, even though the things that have caught their attention are only things that anyone who stopped and thought before acting would figure out.  And she wants to help end the Testing the way it is, so that people die.  She finds out from Michal that if she can get an internship in a good place, she might be able to get important information to pass on to the rebels to help with the cause.  But for all of this she must look like she is doing as she should.  She gets the highest number of classes, 9, and the highest internship, working with the president of the Commonwealth. She ends up with allies in other unlikely places.  Her government mentor, Ian, seems to want to help for some reason.  And one or two of the students that are from the city, that didn't go through the Testing in the last book turn out to be helpful as well.
We're left with a bit of a cliffhanger at the end, and I am definitely ready to read on and see what happens next.  Because while she ends up with some new allies, she also finds people that were thought to be on her side, may not really be.
Once again, I will be able to recommend to fans of The Hunger Games, only now I can do it without the trepidation of such an identical story, really it is getting much more original as it goes.

The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau

First, thanks to Houghton Mifflin for letting me read an e-galley of this.  First let me say that this was a pretty good book.  It is one I will definitely recommend to anyone who enjoyed The Hunger Games and wants to read more stories like that.
This is a future America after many horrible wars with other countries, biological, nuclear, just about every type of war I'd guess, from what is left.  The main character is Malencia, or Cia, who is getting ready to graduate.  And she hopes that she will be called to the testing, like her father was.  But graduation comes and goes, even though there was a rumor of a Commonwealth official attending, they don't show up.  At least not that day.  But soon after someone does arrive, and there are 4 people chosen from her town.  Each town has been built back up, the people there are working on some kind of technology or science to help the world get back to what it was, at least easier living, and enough food.  Cia's town has been really good with agriculture, working on the genetics of plants to make hardier strains that can survive in the soils and with the water that has been left polluted from the wars.  They also are working on ways to fix the water and irrigation.  Before Cia leaves for testing, her father pulls her aside, and tells her that the testing is something that he can't remember, they wiped his memories afterwards so he wouldn't be able to give new candidates an unfair advantage.  But he still has nightmares, and he believes things happened that he doesn't want to remember, and so warns her not to trust anyone.  As soon as they get on the road, their official, I think his name is Michael, also seems to be giving Cia clues and hints.  One of the other people from her town going is Tomas, a good friend of hers, someone she's been attracted to, but never figured he would be to her, as he was very handsome, and sought after by most of the girls in the town.  She feels that he is someone she can trust, and she lets him in on what her father told her.  She also tells him when she notices cameras pretty much everywhere they go.  Because their transport was late, they are the last to arrive, and all the other testing candidates watch them as they come in.  They are seen to be probably weak, as their town hasn't had any candidates in a long time.  Although Cia had learned from her father, there may have been a reason for that, a teacher that kept them from going, to save them.  Cia soon learns how deadly the tests can be, even just solving logic problems, or teamwork.  If the stress of the testing gets to the candidates, the officials say that happens.  The final test is the ones leftover being released near what used to be Chicago, and having to find their way back to the town where they began.  They are dropped on their own, and there are no instructions to kill, but some do, to raise their chances of getting to the end?  Or just because that is the kind of people they are?  Don't know.  But the officials don't seem to care.  Cia must decide if Tomas is someone she can really trust, or is she keeping her enemy close.
So, really good story.  But, my only complaint, it was really so close to The Hunger Games.  As I was reading, I just kept feeling like all that had been written just like The Hunger Games.  Now, that's a compliment really, because The Hunger Games are so good.  But for me it was too much the same.  So as I said before, definitely a good read for people who want something just like that.  But as much as I read, I want something new, that I can't figure out what is going to happen, so that I can't stop turning pages.  And while this wasn't boring, I wasn't on the edge of my seat wondering what would happen next.  It was a good read though.  So if  you like this type of book, and don't mind books being too similar to others, you will enjoy it!