Mix & Match #1 2017 #BookReviews

Hello Everyone! I am bringing you a book haul, TBR and a wishlist post today due to limited book post. Along with the three titles I received this week, I am going to share a few titles that I am excited about checking out later on this year. There are so many great books coming out in 2017, a lot of trilogies will be finished and some epic new ones will be started. Please let me know if there are any books in particular that you are looking forward to reading this year.

(Disclaimer: I do not own any of the blurbs or artwork included. They are all from the publishers)

 Book Haul May Week 1

Certain Signs That You Are Dead by Torkil Damhaug

Published by: Headline

This looks seriously ominous! And definitely a series I can get behind. I do try and read Scandinavian crime/thrillers when I come across them. This should do nicely 😀

Synopsis: Every killer leaves a trace…

In Akershus University Hospital, a patient disappears into thin air.

That evening, his body is found in a basement box-room, his throat cut.

When retired forensic pathologist Jennifer Plåterud is called in to examine the dead man, she has no idea of just how closely she is involved in the murder herself.

And in the merciless heat of summer, she will be forced to make connections she would have preferred to ignore…

Dark Cities by Various Authors

Published by: Titan Books

A short story collection! I was so happy to be asked to review this by Titan. It is great that I have read several of the authors that contributed to this and heard great things about a couple more too. It is all the better that these stories are centred around ‘Urban Terror’. Should be good!m

Synopsis: An anthology of horror stories in urban settings—whether back alleys, crumbling brownstones, gleaming high-rise towers, or city hall. Terrifying urban myths, malicious ghosts, cursed architecture, malignant city deities, personal demons (in business or relationships) twisted into something worse…virtually anything that inspires the contributors to imagine some bit of urban darkness. [The book won’t include zombies, vampires, or anything apocalyptic.]

Walkaway by Cory Doctorow

Published by: Head of Zeus

This novel sounds absolutely insane! And I like novels that could potentially blow my mind. Walkaway is my first Head of Zeus novel, I look forward to sharing my review with everyone!

Synopsis: In a world wrecked by climate change, in a society owned by the ultra-rich, in a city hollowed out by industrial flight, Hubert, Etc, Seth and Natalie have nowhere else to be and nothing better to do.

But there is another way. After all, now that anyone can design and print the basic necessities of life – food, clothing, shelter – from a computer, there is little reason to toil within the system. So, like thousands of others in the mid-21st century, the three of them turn their back on the world of rules, jobs, the morning commute and… walkaway.

It’s a dangerous world out there, the empty lands are lawless, hiding predators – animal and human alike. Still, when the initial pioneer walkaways flourish, the thousands become hundreds of thousands, building what threatens to become a post-scarcity utopia. But then the walkaways discover the one thing the ultra-rich have never been able to buy: how to beat death. And now it’s war – a war that will turn the world upside down.

To Be Read…

Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman

Published by: Bloomsbury

I need to get to this! I have been so busy with blog tours I have neglected to sit down and demolish this in one sitting. It will happen… soon!

Synopsis: The great Norse myths are woven into the fabric of our storytelling – from Tolkien, Alan Garner and Rosemary Sutcliff to Game of Thrones and Marvel Comics. They are also an inspiration for Neil Gaiman’s own award-bedecked, bestselling fiction. Now he reaches back through time to the original source stories in a thrilling and vivid rendition of the great Norse tales. Gaiman’s gods are thoroughly alive on the page – irascible, visceral, playful, passionate – and the tales carry us from the beginning of everything to Ragnarok and the twilight of the gods. Galvanised by Gaiman’s prose, Thor, Loki, Odin and Freya are irresistible forces for modern readers and the crackling, brilliant writing demands to be read aloud around an open fire on a freezing, starlit night.

What Goes Around by Emily Chappell

Published by: Faber & Faber

Can’t wait to get into this. It has been sat on my shelf for far too long. I have always thought about being a bike messenger. The fast pace, learning a big city and all its short cuts and getting paid to exercise. Sounds intense 😀

Synopsis: At twenty-five, Emily Chappell took up cycle couriering while she searched for a ‘real job’. Eight years on, she is still riding. As she flies through the streets of London, dancing with the traffic, Chappell records the pains and pleasures of life on wheels: the dangerous missions; the moments of fear and freedom, and ultimately the simple joy of pedalling onward.

The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida

Published by: Sceptre

This will be the third book centred around autism I have read this year. Shtum by Jem Lester and A Boy Made Of Blocks by Keith Stuart were the other two. It is such a potent and relevant subject, I appreciate the honesty that all authors treat this subject with. TRIJ is a different perspective all together. Intrigued to see where this book takes me.

Synopsis: Written by Naoki Higashida when he was only thirteen, this remarkable book provides a rare insight into the often baffling behaviour of autistic children. Using a question and answer format, Naoki explains things like why he talks loudly or repeats the same questions, what causes him to have panic attacks, and why he likes to jump. He also shows the way he thinks and feels about his world – other people, nature, time and beauty, and himself. Abundantly proving that people with autism do possess imagination, humour and empathy, he also makes clear how badly they need our compassion, patience and understanding.

David Mitchell and his wife have translated Naoki’s book so that it might help others dealing with autism and generally illuminate a little-understood condition. It gives us an exceptional chance to enter the mind of another and see the world from a strange and fascinating perspective.

The book also features eleven original illustrations, inspired by Naoki’s words, by the artistic duo Kai and Sunny.

My Wishlist #1

 A Dark So Deadly by Stuart MacBride

Published by: HarperCollins UK

I have been enjoying MacBride ever since I read Half Heads a couple of years ago. So good! I have been hearing some pretty great things about A Dark So Deadly. Looking forward to getting my hands on a copy!

Synopsis: Welcome to the Misfit Mob

It’s where Police Scotland dumps the officers it can’t get rid of, but wants to: the outcasts, the troublemakers, the compromised. Officers like DC Callum MacGregor, lumbered with all the boring go-nowhere cases. So when an ancient mummy turns up at the Oldcastle tip, it’s his job to find out which museum it’s been stolen from.

But then Callum uncovers links between his ancient corpse and three missing young men, and life starts to get a lot more interesting. O Division’s Major Investigation Teams already have more cases than they can cope with, so, against everyone’s better judgement, the Misfit Mob are just going to have to manage this one on their own.

No one expects them to succeed, but right now they’re the only thing standing between the killer’s victims and a slow, lingering death. The question is, can they prove everyone wrong before he strikes again?

How To Stop Time by Matt Haig

Published by: Canongate Books

I adored The Humans and recommend it to everyone I meet. Leave here and go read it now! (pause) Now you are back and have read it, you can get excited with me about How To Stop Time. It sounds like Matt may have struck gold again 😀

Synopsis: Tom Hazard has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old, but owing to a rare condition, he’s been alive for centuries. From Elizabethan England to Jazz-Age Paris, from New York to the South Seas, Tom has seen a lot, and now craves an ordinary life.

Always changing his identity to stay alive, Tom has the perfect cover – working as a history teacher at a London comprehensive. Here he can teach the kids about wars and witch hunts as if he’d never witnessed them first-hand. He can try to tame the past that is fast catching up with him. The only thing Tom must not do is fall in love.

How to Stop Time is a wild and bittersweet story about losing and finding yourself, about the certainty of change and about the lifetimes it can take to really learn how to live.

October: The Story of the Russian Revolution by China Miéville.

Published by: Verso Books

China Mieville is one of the most mind-binding and dedicated authors I have ever read. His style of writing is one-of-a-kind and I can’t wait to read about the Russian Revolution from his unique perspective.

Synopsis: On the centenary of the Russian Revolution, China Miéville tells the extraordinary story of this pivotal moment in history.

In February of 1917 Russia was a backwards, autocratic monarchy, mired in an unpopular war; by October, after not one but two revolutions, it had become the world’s first workers’ state, straining to be at the vanguard of global revolution. How did this unimaginable transformation take place?

In a panoramic sweep, stretching from St Petersburg and Moscow to the remotest villages of a sprawling empire, Miéville uncovers the catastrophes, intrigues and inspirations of 1917, in all their passion, drama and strangeness. Intervening in long-standing historical debates, but told with the reader new to the topic especially in mind, here is a breathtaking story of humanity at its greatest and most desperate; of a turning point for civilisation that still resonates loudly today.

The Dragon’s Legacy by Deborah A. Wolf

Published by: Titan Books

You know when you come across a book that you know in your soul you have to have..? This is it 😀

Synopsis: In the heart of the singing desert, the people are fading from the world. Mothers bear few live children, the warriors and wardens are hard-pressed to protect those who remain, and the vash’ai—the great cats who have called the people kithren for as long as there have been stories— bond with fewer humans each year.

High above, the Sun Dragon sings a song of life and love, while far below, the Earth Dragon slumbers as she has since the beginning of time. Her sleep is fitful, and from the darkness of her dreams come whispers of war… and death.

Sulema is a newly minted warrior of the people and a true Ja’Akari—a daughter of the unforgiving desert. When a mysterious young man appears in her home of Aish Kalumm, she learns that the Dragon King is dying in distant Atualon. As the king fades, so does the magic that sings the Earth Dragon to sleep.

There are those who wish to keep the dragon trapped in endless slumber. Others would tap her power to claim it for their own. And there are those who would have her wake, so they might laugh as the world burns.

Thank you for stopping by to check out my first Mix & Match post. I come across and receive so many excellent books that I needed to share them all with you! Please let me know if you have read any of these books, have them on your TBR or are now very excited to check them out 😀

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