Read: Howl's Moving Castle (Howl's Moving Castle #1) by Diana Wynne Jones

Title: Howl's Moving Castle

Series:  Howl's Moving Castle #1

Author: Diana Wynne Jones

Release Date: 1986

Genre: Fantasy, Steampunk

Book Description: Sophie has the great misfortune of being the eldest of three daughters, destined to fail miserably should she ever leave home to seek her fate. But when she unwittingly attracts the ire of the Witch of the Waste, Sophie finds herself under a horrid spell that transforms her into an old lady. Her only chance at breaking it lies in the ever-moving castle in the hills: the Wizard Howl's castle. To untangle the enchantment, Sophie must handle the heartless Howl, strike a bargain with a fire demon, and meet the Witch of the Waste head-on. Along the way, she discovers that there's far more to Howl—and herself—than first meets the eye.


Buy Link: Amazon * Bookdepository

Author Bio:

Diana Wynne Jones was the author of more than thirty critically acclaimed fantasy stories, including the Chrestomanci series and the novels Howl's Moving Castle and Dark Lord of Derkholm.

Author Links:
Website

Read: Shades of Grey (Shades of Grey #1) by Jasper Fforde

Title: Shades of Grey

Series:  Shades of Grey #1

Author: Jasper Fforde

Release Date: December 2009

Genre: Science Fiction

Book Description: Hundreds of years in the future, after the Something that Happened, the world is an alarmingly different place. Life is lived according to The Rulebook and social hierarchy is determined by your perception of colour. Eddie Russett is an above average Red who dreams of moving up the ladder by marriage to Constance Oxblood. Until he is sent to the Outer Fringes where he meets Jane -- a lowly Grey with an uncontrollable temper and a desire to see him killed. For Eddie, it's love at first sight. But his infatuation will lead him to discover that all is not as it seems in a world where everything that looks black and white is really shades of grey ...If George Orwell had tripped over a paint pot or Douglas Adams favoured colour swatches instead of towels ...neither of them would have come up with anything as eccentrically brilliant as Shades of Grey.


Buy Link: Amazon * Bookdepository

Author Bio:

Jasper Fforde is a novelist living in Wales. He is the son of John Standish Fforde, the 24th Chief Cashier for the Bank of England, whose signature used to appear on sterling banknotes, and is cousin of Desmond Fforde, married with the author Katie Fforde. His early career was spent as a focus puller in the film industry, where he worked on a number of films including Quills, GoldenEye, and Entrapment.

His published books include a series of novels starring Thursday Next: The Eyre Affair (2001), Lost in a Good Book (2002), The Well of Lost Plots (2003), Something Rotten (2004) and First Among Sequels (2007). The Big Over Easy (2005), which shares a similar setting with the Next novels, is a reworking of his first written novel, which initially failed to find a publisher. It had the working title of Nursery Crime, which is the title now used to refer to this series of books. The follow-up to The Big Over Easy, The Fourth Bear was published in July 2006 and focuses on Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Author Links:
Website

Read: The Drowned Cities (Ship Breaker #2) by Paolo Bacigalupi

Title: The Drowned Cities

Series:  Ship Breaker #2

Author: Paolo Bacigalupi

Release Date: May 2012

Genre: Science Fiction

Book Description: Soldier boys emerged from the darkness. Guns gleamed dully. Bullet bandoliers and scars draped their bare chests. Ugly brands scored their faces. She knew why these soldier boys had come. She knew what they sought, and she knew, too, that if they found it, her best friend would surely die.

In a dark future America where violence, terror, and grief touch everyone, young refugees Mahlia and Mouse have managed to leave behind the war-torn lands of the Drowned Cities by escaping into the jungle outskirts. But when they discover a wounded half-man--a bioengineered war beast named Tool--who is being hunted by a vengeful band of soldiers, their fragile existence quickly collapses. One is taken prisoner by merciless soldier boys, and the other is faced with an impossible decision: Risk everything to save a friend, or flee to a place where freedom might finally be possible.

This thrilling companion to Paolo Bacigalupi's highly acclaimed Ship Breaker is a haunting and powerful story of loyalty, survival, and heart-pounding adventure.


Buy Link: Amazon * Bookdepository

Author Bio:

Paolo Bacigalupi’s writing has appeared in High Country News, Salon.com, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. It has been anthologized in various “Year’s Best” collections of short science fiction and fantasy, nominated for three Nebula and five Hugo Awards, and won the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for best sf short story of the year.

His debut novel THE WINDUP GIRL was named by TIME Magazine as one of the ten best novels of 2009, and won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards. His short story collection PUMP SIX AND OTHER STORIES was a 2008 LOCUS Award winner for Best Collection and also named a Best Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly. His novel SHIP BREAKER won the 2011 Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature. He currently lives in Western Colorado with his wife and son, where he is working on a new novel.

Author Links:
Website

Read: Obsidian (Lux #1) by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Title: Obsidian

Series:  Lux #1

Author: Jennifer L. Armentrout

Release Date: May 2012

Genre: Science Fiction

Book Description: Starting over sucks.

When we moved to West Virginia right before my senior year, I'd pretty much resigned myself to thick accents, dodgy internet access, and a whole lot of boring.... until I spotted my hot neighbor, with his looming height and eerie green eyes. Things were looking up.

And then he opened his mouth.

Daemon is infuriating. Arrogant. Stab-worthy. We do not get along. At all. But when a stranger attacks me and Daemon literally freezes time with a wave of his hand, well, something...unexpected happens.

The hot alien living next door marks me.

You heard me. Alien. Turns out Daemon and his sister have a galaxy of enemies wanting to steal their abilities, and Daemon's touch has me lit up like the Vegas Strip. The only way I'm getting out of this alive is by sticking close to Daemon until my alien mojo fades.

If I don't kill him first, that is.


Buy Link: Amazon * Bookdepository

Author Bio:

# 1 NEW YORK TIMES and USA TODAY Bestselling author Jennifer L. Armentrout lives in West Virginia.

When she's not hard at work writing, she spends her time, reading, working out, watching zombie movies, and pretending to write. She shares her home with her husband, his K-9 partner named Diesel and her hyper Jack Russell Loki. Her dreams of becoming an author started in algebra class, where she spent her time writing short stories. Therefore explains her dismal grades in math. Jennifer writes Young Adult Contemporary, Urban Fantasy/Paranormal and Romance. She writes New Adult and Adult romance under the pen name J.Lynn

She is the author of the Covenant Series (Spencer Hill Press) the Lux Series (Entangled Teen) and the upcoming YA Don't Look Back (2014) and untitled YA (Fall 2014) from Disney/Hyperion. She is also published with Harlequin Teen and HarperCollins.

Author Links:
Website

Spotlight: Love Unfeigned by Nadine C. Keels

Title: Love Unfeigned

Author: Nadine C. Keels

Release Date: February 2013

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Book Description: Love to the chords of a classic jazz band… From the first time Lorraine, a plucky and competitive girl, contends on the playground against Isaiah, an impish boy whose smile gleams in more ways than one, the two of them can’t help knowing each other. Neither can they avoid passions and misfortunes lining the path to young adulthood, and when the breakup of Isaiah’s family disrupts the haven he’s shared with Lorraine, their natural relationship is eventually threatened by jealousy, grave trauma, and abandonment. As one year follows another, and another, what might it take to reunite these two companions in love: love undeniably real and unbounded by time? "Everything didn’t have to turn out perfect. I just wanted you there.”  


Buy Link: Amazon  

Author Bio:
 
Nadine. A French name, meaning, "hope." Spreading hope to her readers and audiences, author, editor, and speaker Nadine C. Keels of Seattle, Washington is well-known for The Song of Nadine, the powerful lyrical poetry seen in four of her several books, heard in her dynamic spoken word presentations on local and national platforms, and found on her spoken word album, Hope. Lyricized. Drawing from her lifelong passion for highly enjoyable and transformational fiction, Nadine has written Love & Eminence: A Suite of Stories as well as two novels and a novella, Love Unfeigned. In response to inquiries from other aspiring authors, Nadine put together a simple reference entitled Write Your Genius, Genius!: A Rather Quick Guide to Book Writing. Being the founder of Prismatic Prospects, a communication company based in Seattle, Nadine has served as editor and co-editor for a number of titles, and it is her aim to be a proven wellspring of inspiration for creativity and innovation in the marketplace.

Author Links:
Website

Read: Divergent (Divergent #1) by Veronica Roth

Title: Divergent

Series:  Divergent #1

Author: Veronica Roth

Release Date: February 2012

Genre: Science Fiction, Dystopian

Book Description: In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue--Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is--she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made. Together they must undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, some with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends really are--and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes exasperating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers unrest and growing conflict that threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect society, Tris also learns that her secret might help her save the ones she loves . . . or it might destroy her.


Buy Link: Amazon * Bookdepository

Author Bio:

Veronica Roth is from a Chicago suburb. She studied creative writing at Northwestern University, and wrote DIVERGENT (Katherine Tegen Books, May 2011) and INSURGENT (May 2012). The third and final book in The Divergent Trilogy, ALLEGIANT, will come out on October 22, 2013. In the meantime she will spend endless hours browsing Wikipedia in her pajamas as she eats corn flakes. (Or some other kind of bland breakfast cereal.)

Author Links:
Website

Read: Among Others by Jo Walton

Title: Among Others

Author: Jo Walton

Release Date: January 2011

Genre: Fantasy

Book Description: 'It doesn't matter. I have books, new books, and I can bear anything as long as there are books.'

The compelling story of a girl trying to cope with her troubled childhood, a diary of her first encounters with great novels of fantasy and SF, and a spellbinding tale of escape.

Fifteen-year-old Morwenna lives in Wales with her twin sister and a mother she hates. When her twin dies, Mori blames her mother and runs away from home into the arms of her erstwhile father in England. He sends Mori to a boarding school where, with her Welsh accent, her crippled leg and her unhealthy interest in the contents of the library, she is a social outcast. Not that Mori minds so much, because in the Sci-Fi and Fantasy novels she adores, she has friends and isn't alone in understanding that magic is real. For Mori knows about magic, she has lived with it all her life; and she knows, too, that danger lurks: her mother is hunting her down, and Mori must be prepared to do battle when she eventually finds her.


Buy Link: Amazon * Bookdepository

Author Bio:

Jo Walton has published nine novels and three poetry collections, with another novel and an essay collection due out in 2014. She won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2002, the World Fantasy Award in 2004 for Tooth and Claw, and the Hugo and Nebula awards in 2012 for Among Others. She comes from Wales but lives in Montreal where the food and books are much better. She writes science fiction and fantasy, reads a lot, talks about books, and eats great food. It worries her slightly that this is exactly what she always wanted to do when she grew up.

Author Links:
Website

Cover Reveal: The Impaler Legacy Omnibus Edition by Ioana Visan

   
The Impaler Legacy
Omnibus Edition

by Ioana Visan 

In a world crawling with vampires, Romania is the safest place left on earth. Thanks to the Little Council, there hasn't been a vampire on Romanian ground in over five centuries, until one day when Liana Cantacuzino is ordered to bring one in, covertly.

Enter Maximilien Hess, a thousand-year-old vampire determined to ruin the existing order of things. When all is revealed, Hess's secret changes everything, and a reluctant alliance is formed because the alternative is much worse.

The Impaler Legacy Omnibus, a vampire saga like no other.

Coming out this spring! 

Sign up for the Blog Tour here.

Read: Vampire Academy (Vampire Academy #1) by Richelle Mead

Title: Vampire Academy

Series:  Vampire Academy #1

Author: Richelle Mead

Release Date: August 2007

Genre: Urban fantasy 

Book Description: St. Vladimir’s Academy isn’t just any boarding school—it’s a hidden place where vampires are educated in the ways of magic and half-human teens train to protect them. Rose Hathaway is a Dhampir, a bodyguard for her best friend Lissa, a Moroi Vampire Princess. They’ve been on the run, but now they’re being dragged back to St. Vladimir’s—the very place where they’re most in danger. . . .

Rose and Lissa become enmeshed in forbidden romance, the Academy’s ruthless social scene, and unspeakable nighttime rituals. But they must be careful lest the Strigoi—the world’s fiercest and most dangerous vampires—make Lissa one of them forever.


Buy Link: Amazon * Bookdepository

Author Bio:

Scorpio Richelle Mead is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of urban fantasy books for both adults and teens. Originally from Michigan, Richelle now lives in Seattle, Washington where she works on her three series full-time: Georgina Kincaid, Dark Swan, and Vampire Academy.

A life-long reader, Richelle has always loved mythology and folklore. When she can actually tear herself away from books (either reading or writing them), she enjoys bad reality TV, traveling, trying interesting cocktails, and shopping for dresses. She's a self-professed coffee addict and has a passion for all things wacky and humorous.

Author Links:
Website

Read: The Iron King (The Iron Fey #1) by Julie Kagawa

Title: The Iron King

Series:  The Iron Fey #1

Author: Julie Kagawa

Release Date: February 2010

Genre: Fantasy

Book Description: Meghan Chase has a secret destiny; one she could never have imagined.

Something has always felt slightly off in Meghan's life, ever since her father disappeared before her eyes when she was six. She has never quite fit in at school or at home.

When a dark stranger begins watching her from afar, and her prankster best friend becomes strangely protective of her, Meghan senses that everything she's known is about to change.

But she could never have guessed the truth - that she is the daughter of a mythical faery king and is a pawn in a deadly war. Now Meghan will learn just how far she'll go to save someone she cares about, to stop a mysterious evil, no faery creature dare face; and to find love with a young prince who might rather see her dead than let her touch his icy heart.


Buy Link: Amazon * Bookdepository

Author Bio:

Sarah Rees Brennan is Irish and currently lives in Dublin. For a short stint, she lived in New York and became involved with a wide circle of writers who encouraged and supported her, including Holly Black and Cassandra Clare. She has developed a wide audience through her popular blog, mistful.livejournal.com, where she writes movie parodies, book reviews and some stories.

Author Links:
Website

Read: Chapterhouse: Dune (Dune Chronicles #6) by Frank Herbert

Title: Chapterhouse: Dune

Series: Dune Chronicles #6

Author: Frank Herbert

Release Date: 1985

Genre: Science fiction 

Book Description: The desert planet Arrakis, called Dune, has been destroyed. Now, the Bene Gesserit, heirs to Dune's power, have colonized a green world--and are turning it into a desert, mile by scorched mile.

Here is the last book Frank Herbert wrote before his death. A stunning climax to the epic Dune legend that will live on forever...


Buy Link: Amazon * Bookdepository

Author Bio:

Frank Herbert (1920-86) was born in Tacoma, Washington and worked as a reporter and later editor of a number of West Coast newspapers before becoming a full-time writer.  

He is best known for the novel Dune and its five sequels. The Dune saga, set in the distant future and taking place over millennia, dealt with themes such as human survival and evolution, ecology, and the intersection of religion, politics, and power, and is widely considered to be among the classics in the field of science fiction.

Author Links:
Website

Read: The Demon's Lexicon (The Demon's Lexicon #1) by Sarah Rees Brennan

Title: The Demon's Lexicon

Series:  The Demon's Lexicon #1

Author: Sarah Rees Brennan

Release Date: June 2009

Genre: Urban fantasy

Book Description: Sixteen-year-old Nick and his brother, Alan, are always ready to run. Their father is dead, and their mother is crazy—she screams if Nick gets near her. She’s no help in protecting any of them from the deadly magicians who use demons to work their magic. The magicians want a charm that Nick’s mother stole—and they want it badly enough to kill. Alan is Nick’s partner in demon slaying and the only person he trusts in the world. So things get very scary and very complicated when Nick begins to suspect that everything Alan has told him about their father, their mother, their past, and what they are doing is a complete lie. . .


Buy Link: Amazon * Bookdepository

Author Bio:

Sarah Rees Brennan is Irish and currently lives in Dublin. For a short stint, she lived in New York and became involved with a wide circle of writers who encouraged and supported her, including Holly Black and Cassandra Clare. She has developed a wide audience through her popular blog, mistful.livejournal.com, where she writes movie parodies, book reviews and some stories.

Author Links:
Website

Read: City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments #1) by Cassandra Clare

Title: City of Bones

Series:  The Mortal Instruments #1

Author: Cassandra Clare

Release Date: March 2007

Genre: Urban fantasy 

Book Description: When fifteen-year-old Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder -- much less a murder committed by three teenagers covered with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre weapons. Then the body disappears into thin air. It's hard to call the police when the murderers are invisible to everyone else and when there is nothing―not even a smear of blood―to show that a boy has died. Or was he a boy?

This is Clary's first meeting with the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the earth of demons. It's also her first encounter with Jace, a Shadowhunter who looks a little like an angel and acts a lot like a jerk. Within twenty-four hours Clary is pulled into Jace's world with a vengeance, when her mother disappears and Clary herself is attacked by a demon. But why would demons be interested in ordinary mundanes like Clary and her mother? And how did Clary suddenly get the Sight? The Shadowhunters would like to know...

Exotic and gritty, exhilarating and utterly gripping, Cassandra Clare's ferociously entertaining fantasy takes readers on a wild ride that they will never want to end.


Buy Link: Amazon * Bookdepository

Author Bio:

Cassandra Clare is the author of City of Bones, the first book in the Mortal Instruments trilogy and a New York Times bestseller. She was born overseas and spent her early years traveling around the world with her family and several trunks of books. Cassandra lives in Brooklyn with her boyfriend, their two cats, and these days, even more books.

Author Links:
Website

Read: Heretics of Dune (Dune Chronicles #5) by Frank Herbert

Title: Heretics of Dune

Series: Dune Chronicles #5

Author: Frank Herbert

Release Date: 1984

Genre: Science fiction 

Book Description: With more than ten million copies sold, Frank Herbert's magnificent Dune books stand among the major achievements of the human imagination. In this, the fifth and most spectacular Dune book of all, the planet Arrakis--now called Rakis--is becoming desert again. The Lost Ones are returning home from the far reaches of space. The great sandworms are dying. And the children of Dune's children awaken from empire as from a dream, wielding the new power of a heresy called love...


Buy Link: Amazon * Bookdepository

Author Bio:

Frank Herbert (1920-86) was born in Tacoma, Washington and worked as a reporter and later editor of a number of West Coast newspapers before becoming a full-time writer.  

He is best known for the novel Dune and its five sequels. The Dune saga, set in the distant future and taking place over millennia, dealt with themes such as human survival and evolution, ecology, and the intersection of religion, politics, and power, and is widely considered to be among the classics in the field of science fiction.

Author Links:
Website