Here are a few new and future releases which I’m planning to read.
First up is Attica Locke’s debut mystery novel Black Water Rising. It’s been nominated for a 2010 Edgar Award, and will be released in paperback in the US on the 20th of April.
Blurb: Jay Porter is hardly the lawyer he set out to be. His most promising client is a low-rent call girl, and he runs his fledgling law practice out a dingy strip mall. But he’s long since made peace with his path to the American Dream, carefully tucking away his darkest sins: the guns, the FBI file, the trial that nearly destroyed him.
Houston, Texas, 1981. It’s here that Jay believes he can make a fresh start. That is, until the night he impulsively saves a drowning woman’s life – and opens a Pandora’s Box. Her secrets put Jay in danger, ensnaring him in a murder investigation that could cost him his practice, his family, and even his life. But before he can get to the bottom of a tangled mystery that reaches into the upper echelons of Houston’s corporate powerbrokers, Jay must confront the demons of his past.
Despite an abundance of product placement and so-called “shitkicker” boots, I can’t quite bring myself to give up the crack that is J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood urban fantasy series. The eighth book, Lover Mine, will be released on the 27th of April.
Blurb: In the darkest corners of the night in Caldwell, New York, a conflict like no other rages. Long divided as a terrifying battleground for the vampires and their enemies, the city is home to a band of brothers born to defend their race: the warrior vampires of the Black Dagger Brotherhood.
John Matthew has come a long way since he was found living among humans, his vampire nature unknown to himself and to those around him. After he was taken in by the Brotherhood, no one could guess what his true history was- or his true identity. Indeed, the fallen Brother Darius has returned, but with a different face and a very different destiny. As a vicious personal vendetta takes John into the heart of the war, he will need to call up on both who he is now and who he once was in order to face off against evil incarnate.
Xhex, a symphath assassin, has long steeled herself against the attraction between her and John Matthew. Having already lost one lover to madness, she will not allow the male of worth to fall prey to the darkness of her twisted life. When fate intervenes, however, the two discover that love, like destiny, is inevitable between soul mates.
For some bizarre reason, I forgot to include Instant Temptation by Jill Shalvis on my April shopping list. This contemporary romance is the conclusion to her Wilder Brothers trilogy which is set in the snowy Californian Sierras.
Blurb: Harley is the only tow-truck driver in Wishful, California, and she has a newly minted wildlife biology degree and an attitude TJ Wilder just can’t understand. When they’re thrown together in Desolation Wilderness—she to check on the status of several coyote groups she’s monitoring, he to make sure she’s safe—their longtime attraction and turbulent past conspire to take their relationship to the next level.
Which new books are you looking forward to reading?
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I already have several new releases under my belt – Silver Borne by Patricia Briggs, A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner – and I’m anxiously awaiting Ilona Andrew’s new book in the Magic series, Magic Bleeds.
Elizabeth Moon finally wrote another book in the Paksenarrion universe and I snapped that one up too. *grin*
@Carolyn: Thank you for reminding me of the new Megan Whalen Turner book! I still have to read the third one in the serious but I definitely want to read A Conspiracy of Kings when I’m done. I came late to the Mercy Thompson series, so I’ll be waiting for Silver Borne to be released in paperback.
I haven’t read any of Jill Shalvis’s work. Do you like all of them, some of them, or only a few? Is she worth the trouble to start reading a new author? If so, which book of hers do you recommend I start with? And what’s the heat level? Thanks!!
@Keira Soleore: The only Jill Shalvis books I’ve read are the Wilder Brothers trilogy. The first and second titles are Instant Attraction and Instant Gratification. I gave them ‘B’ and ‘B-’ respectively. They are solid comfort reads; straight contemporary romances without paranormal elements or suspense subplots.
In addition to contemporary single titles, Jill Shalvis writes for Harlequin Blaze. The sex scenes in the Wilder books are also pretty explicit.
Thanks, Sarah. Read the excerpts of all three. Sounds like solid beginnings. I’ll give the first one a try.
Hex Hall, Angelology, the new Meredith Duran and Rachel Gibson, the new Simone Elkeles… I think that’s it.