Vamps vs Zombies Giveaway Blog Hop

Since the ladies over at My Shelf Confession are hosting a month long vampire and zombie themed event - and I'm a fan - I couldn't resist jumping on board. My reading this month hasn't been very zombie or vampire themed (lots of review stuff this month) but I do have some appropriate titles in my TBR so as part of the giveaway hop part of the event, I thought offer up some of the vampire and zombie titles I have in my current TBR for the giveaway.

This'll be open internationally - as long as Book Depository ships to your area - and the winner will get their choice of one of the following titles:

Fevre Dream by George R. R. Martin
Children of the Night by Dan Simmons
Fiend by Peter Stenson (this one is quite... gory. You have been warned.)
The First Days by Rhiannon Frater

All you have to do to enter is fill out the rafflecopter below before September 1.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I realize I was a bit of a dunce here and have an extra entry with "leave a comment" (I meant to let you choose your pick on rafflecopter and then leave a comment for another entry. Oh, well!) - I also couldn't get the linky to work for the rest of the hop so do be sure to hit either the button up top or the My Shelf Confessions link up top to get the list of other hop participants. Good luck!

The Butterfly Sister by Amy Gail Hansen

Morning, everyone! Today I'm a stop on the TLC blog tour for Amy Gail Hansen's debut, The Butterfly Sister.

Though it's been less than a year, Ruby Rousseau has put her days at Tarble college behind her. She left just short of graduation and has taken a job with a local paper. In short, she's worked hard to leave the past where she feels it belongs. All of that changes one afternoon with the delivery of a suitcase. The luggage doesn't belong to Ruby - she'd borrowed the bag the previous winter - but her luggage tag is still attached. Beth, the girl who owns the case, apparently lost it while traveling. But when Ruby tries to contact Beth to return the case, she finds that Beth has gone missing. Ruby feels a connection to Beth beyond simply having known her at school and does a bit of digging of her own and the clues she finds soon lead back to Tarble. 

Yay for mystery/thrillers with literary leanings! I loved all of the Virginia Woolf and Charlotte Perkins Gilman and other literary references - and especially the way they tied into Ruby's story. This is a book I predict any bookish person will be unable to resist!

It turns out I had a bit of a predictable positive response to this book anyway due to the author's connection to New Orleans. Pieces of the book do take place there and, as a Louisiana girl, this always raises potential red flags. I've said before, though, that when an author does it right (as Amy Gail Hansen has done here), it makes me oh, so very happy!

Hansen's ability to build a wonderful setting isn't at all limited to New Orleans - though that does come across as lush and irresistible as it really is. Tarble and even Cassie's cabin all come to life in The Butterfly Sister. And while I've never attended a women's college, with this story Hansen definitely brought to mind my own college days and the ache of heartbreak, too.

I'm always leery of giving too much away in a review and I definitely want to avoid that here. The story plays out in a way that is a bit easy to see coming, but mostly due to my fondness for mysteries in general. I did so love the plot of this story, though, and especially the end (the very, very end... the epilogue). Let's just say that while I personally have no agenda, I'm not averse to sympathizing with a character who isn't all that good!

All in all, a truly enjoyable and wonderful debut!

Rating: 5/5

To see more stops on the tour, check out the official TLC tour page here.

For more on Amy Gail Hansen and her work, you can visit her website here. You can also like her on Facebook and follow her on Twitter.

The Widows of Braxton County by Jess McConkey

Morning, readers! Today I'm a stop on the TLC book tour for Jess McConkey's The Widows of Braxton County.

When Kate met Joe Krause, she thought he was a real prince. They found each other online and were soon carrying out a serious relationship. Before she knew it she was pregnant and they were married. But her new marriage soon turns out to be a bit different than she'd imagined. First there's Joe's mother: Joe never told Kate that Trudy Krause would be living with them. He insists it's only temporary but the longer their cohabitation drags out the more permanent it starts to seem. Then there's the neighbors' reception to Kate and the Krauses altogether. It seems that some of the folks in town don't think so highly of the Krause family at all. Kate soon learns that the animosity stretches back generations. Back to a murder that happened on the Krause farm a very long time ago. Rumor has it the victim still haunts the farm and has plagued the Krause family with bad luck ever since.

The Widows of Braxton County is a tense and undeniably gripping read. I am quite a fan of the dual storyline - I think it heightened the suspense and I loved the way McConkey wove the two stories together. The only real let down for me came with one of the big reveals in the end. After all the build it just didn't quite seem to live up to the expectation. It was a minor disappointment since there are about three reveals and only one missed the mark a bit for me.

I really enjoy the PS editions from Harper Collins. Here, McConkey provides an excellent little piece about the inspiration behind the book. It's amazing (or not, considering the current climate) how recently women's rights actually came to be. Hannah Krause, whose story takes place in 1890, has so little control over her life that it may be hard for someone today to fathom such a reality.

The widows of the title - Hannah, Kate, Rose, and Trudy - are the driving forces of this book. Through them, McConkey tells a story about strength and family secrets. Ultimately it's about overcoming the dark things in our past, moving beyond the so called curses that might hang over us.

Rating: 4/5

To see more stops on the tour, check out the official TLC tour page here.

For more on Jess (aka Shirley Damsgaard) head over to her website here. You can also like her on Facebook. And finally, head over to the publisher's site here for a taste of Widows of Braxton County.

Top Ten Tuesday: Favorite Books Set in the United Kingdom

I've decided to jump on board with Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week the topic is: Favorite Books with X Setting.

Hrm. The most obvious one would be post-apocalyptic but I feel like I profile a lot of those titles already. If my online organizing was up to par, this would be much easier. I usually tag the author's home but not necessarily the actual setting for the book. I'm gonna go with books set in the United Kingdom today (I do have a ton) and hope that they're all correct in the setting (and UK is Northern Ireland, Scotland, England, and Wales - I sadly did not differentiate in my Ireland tag so these are probably all England and Scotland). I've also tried to avoid some of the usual suspects - showing off some books I haven't talked about on the blog in a while this go around.

1. The Devil's Feather by Minette Walters - I think this was my first book by Walters and I read it in one sitting - with food poisoning, if I recall correctly. When I'm sick, I'm dying, so the fact that I read this sick means it's pretty unbeatable. 

2. The Hollow Man by Oliver Harris - this debut was one of my favorite reads of 2012. I sincerely hope to see more from this author (and with this lead character if possible).

2. Case Histories by Kate Atkinson - oh, I have such a huge crush on Jackson Brodie - especially after seeing the tv show! I was definitely slow to get on this train (I only read it about a year ago) but I'm a devoted fan now! 

3. Breeding Ground by Sarah Pinborough - this book is so freaking creepy! Yes, it is horror. It's England being taken over by giant spiders (and that's not the worst part).

4. The Poison Tree by Erin Kelly - heck, anything by Erin Kelly. Her books are psychological suspense to the twisted extreme. 

5. Hanging Hill by Mo Hayder - I love most of her work, to be honest, and recommend it all. This just happens to be her latest standalone.

6. Haunted by James Herbert - I can't possibly leave off England's most excellent (and sadly missed) horror author. This is his best in my personal opinion. 

7. The Uninvited by Liz Jensen - this was such a weird book. Weird in so many great ways, though!

8. Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes - this dark and chilling debut was a total stand out. It made me an instant fan of Haynes's work (and she's got a new book out very shortly).

9. Before I Go To Sleep by S.J. Watson - if you haven't read this one, I highly recommend it. It was worth all of the hype. Now I can't wait to see the movie!

10. Apocalypse Cow by Michael Logan - 'cause it's zombie cows!

To See or Not to See: A Mish Mash TV Version

My reading mood is heavily influenced by all kinds of things around me - tv and movies most of all. I find that I've been watching a LOT of British crime dramas of late and it's got me really craving more!

First there was Masterpiece Mystery's Endeavour, a four part prequel to Inspector Morse. As such, the series is set in Endeavour's younger days in the field. I saved up my Masterpiece episodes and treated myself to a binge watch while hubs was out of town for work. I must say, I was looking forward to my evenings with Endeavour! The short series set in the 1960s does a great job of getting the viewer in the right mindset for the setting. (At least for me - someone who definitely wasn't around in the 1950s much less in England.) Shaun Evans does a wonderful job as the budding detective with a past (he was a codebreaker and while it's clear he's something of a genius, only his immediate supervisor DI Fred Thursday (played by Roger Allam) and his friend PC Jim Strange (Sean Rigby) really support him. Anton Lesser plays a maddeningly small minded and political Chief Superintendent Bright.

Endeavour is definitely one I highly recommend. Be warned, though, it'll put you in the mood for more. I've got some Louise Penny lined up in my TBR as a result!

After Endeavour, I know just about everyone was stoked for Broadchurch and I was certainly no exception. We're only one episode in and I really think it's going to be brilliant. (Sadly I hear the US will be remaking the show as well, I'm sure it'll be ruined.)

Broadchurch begins with the death of an eleven-year-old boy in a small beach town. With such a tight-knit community it's easy to see how this is going to play out in terms of tension between neighbors. And there's tension in the ranks as well! DS Ellie Miller (Olivia Colman) returns to work after leave expecting a promised promotion only to discover that it's gone to someone else. An outsider with his own checkered history. DI Alec Hardy (David Tennant) is no stranger to the media, though in episode one we know very little about the case that's made him a well known name. His own attempts to win over the respect of his new team of course adds to the drama of the show. There are some wrinkles as well - Miller's son was the dead boy's best friend.

I couldn't wait for the show to air so I went ahead with the early preview episode, which of course meant an even longer break until the second episode comes on this Wednesday.

In the meantime, Sophie Hannah has a new Zailer & Waterhouse mystery out. Kind of Cruel (or any installment in the series) should make for some good Broadchurch - y reading to tide me over!

I also had The Bletchley Circle in this weekend. I'd heard a bit about this one from other folks I follow online but had managed to miss it entirely when it aired on PBS. Fortunately it was released on DVD pretty immediately.

The Bletchley Circle takes place nine years after the War and features a group of women who were former codebreakers. When Susan (played by Anna Maxwell Martin) begins to notice a pattern concerning a number of recent kidnappings and murders, she puts her old skills to use to try and figure out where the killer might strike next. Even knowing about her past, the police take her only marginally seriously. When another woman is killed Susan and her old Bletchley Park companions come together to catch the killer themselves.

Bletchley Circle was great! It's short - just three episodes - but the story is really fantastic and the cast is pretty perfect: in addition to Martin, you have Julie Graham as Jean, Sophie Rundle as Lucy, and Rachel Stirling as Millie.

If Bletchley is appealing and you're looking for something along those lines to read, I have to recommend Charles Todd's Bess Crawford series. It's a bit of a different time period (WWI compared to the post WWII period of Bletchley but I think Bess and the Bletchley girls would get along grandly!).

And to round out my British mystery binge watching week, I decided it was also time to dive into The Fall. The gals over at Read Me Deadly reminded me I'd had that one queued up for some time. The Fall is a five episode series starring Gillian Anderson as a DS Stella Gibson. She's sent to Ireland to help with an investigation and soon links the murder to a previous similar case. Unfortunately, the local cops don't want any rumors of a serial killer running around and Gibson is told to focus on the case in question. Meanwhile, the killer is in fact moving in on a new victim and lining up his next target as well.

The Fall is dark. Really dark. In fact, of all the shows, Endeavour is probably your safest bet if you're looking for something not quite so dark and graphic. I'd put Bletchley next as it does go into a bit more detail than Endeavour. Broadchurch is one I'm expecting to get much darker before we're done there, and The Fall sets the scene for some pretty twisted stuff to come in just the first episode.

For fans of the darker stuff, Elizabeth Haynes's latest, Human Remains, is due out August 20. Per her recommendation, I'm also adding Lisa Cutts's debut, Never Forget, to my must read list.

I definitely recommend each of the shows listed - I'm enjoying them all immensely - but again caution viewers who may be averse to darker shows. Endeavour is pretty safe as is Bletchley for the most part. I'm only one ep into both The Fall and Broadchurch but I do expect them both to be on the darker scale of the spectrum both in terms of subject and graphic violence.

More good news for all you British crime fans - I'm sure you all know that Luther is due back in September on BBCA!!!

(Can we please get Marchlands and Lightfields soon, too?)

New releases 8/13/13

Some of the new titles hitting shelves this week are:

Bad Blood by Arne Dahl

Let Me Go by Chelsea Cain

Elysian Fields by Suzanne Johnson

Winds of Salem by Melissa de la Cruz

Tell My Sorrows to the Stones by Christopher Golden

Tragic by Robert K. Tanenbaum

A Clockwork Heart by Liesel Schwarz

Brave Hearts by Carolyn Hart (reissue)

Strong Rain Falling by Jon Land

Blood of Tyrants by Naomi Novik

Breathless by Anne Sward

Assault at Sunrise by Michael Shea

Unthinkable by Clyde Phillips

Fallen Land by Patrick Flanery

Dancer, Daughter, Traitor, Spy by Elizabeth Kiem

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by April Genevieve

The Shade of the Moon by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Forgive Me Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick

The Darkest Night by Shana Abe

New on DVD:
The Company You Keep
The Big Wedding

New reviews at Bookbitch.com:
The Crown by Nancy Bilyeau
Box Office Poison by Phillipa Bornikova
This Is W.A.R. by Lisa Roecker and Laura Roecker

Pre Pub Book Buzz: Clockwork Universe: Steampunk vs Aliens

This is the current cover mockup

So this one is a bit far out there - it's due out end of May 2014 - but it's such a cool project that I wanted to highlight it today.

This is to be the first anthology from the newly created Zombies Need Brains, LLC. Their initial focus for now are sci fi and fantasy anthologies (which I love) that will be funded by Kickstarters. This first has already met its goal but is still open until August 16 (so if you take part now you're basically pre ordering the anthology but also funding cool extra stuff for the new publishing company. Here's the link to their Kickstarter if you're interested.

And here's a bit about this super cool anthology:

...a science fiction and fantasy anthology titled CLOCKWORK UNIVERSE: STEAMPUNK vs. ALIENS, containing approximately 14 all-original (no reprint) short stories from established SF&F authors in the field—including Bradley Beaulieu, Caitlin Kittredge, Gini Koch, Scott Lynch, Gail Z. Martin, Seanan McGuire, and Ian Tregillis, plus others. The book will be edited by Patricia Bray and Joshua Palmatier, both editors of the DAW Books anthologies After Hours: Tales from the Ur-bar and The Modern Fae’s Guide to Surviving Humanity.

If you're a fan of sci fi and fantasy, if you love the authors listed above, if you're interested in helping out a new publisher with a super cool idea, or if you love anthologies and discovering new writers, check out the Kickstarter and go ahead and pre order the book! As I said, it's already met it's goal (and I'm definitely looking forward to my copy and whatever else Zombies Need Brains does in the future).