Netgalley Haul | June ’18

You guys already know I have problems with self-control, right? Well, that’s even worse when I go on Netgalley… I have gotten some books in the past weeks, so I’ll be sharing my excitement with you 😍 I really should stop requesting books until I read the other ones, but it’s been hard because there are so many exciting books on NG 😕

But enough rambling, let’s get into the books…

¡click the covers to go to the NetGalley page!

The Way of All Flesh by Ambrose Parry

Edinburgh, 1847. City of Medicine, Money, Murder. Young women are being discovered dead across the Old Town, all having suffered similarly gruesome ends. In the New Town, medical student Will Raven is about to start his apprenticeship with the brilliant and renowned Dr Simpson. Simpson’s patients range from the richest to the poorest of this divided city. His house is like no other, full of visiting luminaries and daring experiments in the new medical frontier of anaesthesia. It is here that Raven meets housemaid Sarah Fisher, who recognises trouble when she sees it and takes an immediate dislike to him. She has all of his intelligence but none of his privileges, in particular his medical education. With each having their own motive to look deeper into these deaths, Raven and Sarah find themselves propelled headlong into the darkest shadows of Edinburgh’s underworld, where they will have to overcome their differences if they are to make it out alive.

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This one I got because it kind of reminded me of Jack the Ripper, who is a fascinating figure to me. Also, how can you resist this cover? 😍

Historical Fiction, Mystery & Thrillers | Oct 2, 2018

Sadie by Courtney Summers

A missing girl on a journey of revenge and a Serial—like podcast following the clues she’s left behind. Sadie hasn’t had an easy life. Growing up on her own, she’s been raising her sister Mattie in an isolated small town, trying her best to provide a normal life and keep their heads above water. But when Mattie is found dead, Sadie’s entire world crumbles. After a somewhat botched police investigation, Sadie is determined to bring her sister’s killer to justice and hits the road following a few meager clues to find him. When West McCray—a radio personality working on a segment about small, forgotten towns in America—overhears Sadie’s story at a local gas station, he becomes obsessed with finding the missing girl. He starts his own podcast as he tracks Sadie’s journey, trying to figure out what happened, hoping to find her before it’s too late.

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This one was sent to me by St. Martin’s Press and I am beyond excited to read and review it. The review will be up by late August 😉

Young Adult | Sep 4, 2018

My Whole Truth by Mischa Thrace

Seventeen-year-old Seelie Stanton never wanted to kill someone. She never wanted to be invisible in her own family, she never wanted to crush on her best friend Alyssa, and she definitely never wanted to know how effectively a mallet could destroy someone’s head. 

But the universe doesn’t care what she wants. Shane Mayfield doesn’t care what Seelie wants either. When the former high school basketball star attacks her, she has no choice but to defend herself. She saved her own life, but she can’t bring herself to talk about what happened that night. Not all of it. Not even when she’s arrested for murder.

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This cover captured my attention and, after reading the synopsis, I couldn’t resist! I’m very curious to read from the perspective of a high school student that is arrested for murder, never read anything like that before.

Mystery & Thrillers, Young Adult | Oct 2, 2018

The Girl from Berlin by Ronald H. Balson 

An old friend calls Catherine Lockhart and Liam Taggart to his famous Italian restaurant to enlist their help. His aunt is being evicted from her home in the Tuscan hills by a powerful corporation claiming they own the deeds, even though she can produce her own set of deeds to her land. Catherine and Liam’s only clue is a bound handwritten manuscript, entirely in German, and hidden in its pages is a story long-forgotten…

Ada Baumgarten was born in Berlin in 1918, at the end of the war. The daughter of an accomplished first-chair violinist in the prestigious Berlin Philharmonic, and herself a violin prodigy, Ada’s life was full of the rich culture of Berlin’s interwar society. She formed a deep attachment to her childhood friend Kurt, but they were torn apart by the growing unrest as her Jewish family came under suspicion. As the tides of history turned, it was her extraordinary talent that would carry her through an unraveling society turned to war, and make her a target even as it saved her, allowing her to move to Bologna—though Italy was not the haven her family had hoped, and further heartache awaited.

What became of Ada? How is she connected to the conflicting land deeds of a small Italian villa? As they dig through the layers of lies, corruption, and human evil, Catherine and Liam uncover an unfinished story of heart, redemption, and hope—the ending of which is yet to be written.

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This one was also sent to me by St. Martin’s Press. It’s the next book in a series – you can read my review of the previous one here. I think I’m going to enjoy this one way more, I’m very excited about it.

Historical Fiction, Mystery & Thrillers | Oct 9, 2018

Her Mother’s Grave by Lisa Regan

When two young boys discover human bones buried beneath a tree in a trailer park, Detective Josie Quinn races to join her team at the scene. She used to play in those woods as a child, happier outside and away from her abusive mother, Belinda Rose.

Josie’s past crashes into her present when a rare dental condition confirms the bones belong to a teenage foster-child who was murdered thirty years ago. A girl named Belinda Rose…

Josie hasn’t seen her mother in years but, with an undeniable connection between her mother and the dead girl, does she dare try to track her down?

Just as Josie gets closer to uncovering a secret that will shatter her world forever, another body is uncovered. It’s suddenly clear that someone very close to Josie will stop at nothing to keep the truth buried forever.

As she battles the demons from her past, can Josie stop this killer before another precious life is taken?

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Although this is part of a series I’m not familiar with, I couldn’t resist that title, so I’m gonna dive in head-first and pray that you can read these out of order 😅

General Fiction (Adult), Mystery & Thrillers | July 19, 2018

And Then There Were Crows by Alcy Leyva

New York City has always been a big fat sack of stress attacks for Amanda Grey. From turning herself into knots to evade rubbing ass cheeks with strangers on the train, to round-housing public bathroom door handles to stave off plague contaminations, Grey has always found the simple technique of avoidance best in dealing with NYC. What’s always saved her—what’s always served as her bastion from the City’s bright lights and cat-calling construction workers—was the little one-bedroom apartment in Queens she’s shared with her parents. Of course, that’s all about to change.

When her parents go on an extended vacation and leave Grey to her own devices, she quickly manages to screw everything up, soon finding herself broke, behind on rent, and facing eviction. That’s how fast life in the city goes: One second, your biggest concern is rising Metrocard costs and avoiding eye contact with creepy looking children. The next, you’re nearly murdered by a man infested with demons, one of which you’ve rented your bedroom to, and before you know it you’ve set into motion the biblical apocalypse prophesized in the Book of Revelations—literally.

Grey goes from a woman concentrated on clamping down on her own personal demons to the woman responsible for recapturing the six Shades she’s unleashed on the city. To accomplish this, she must venture out into a society even more alien to her now than before—oh, and try to stay alive, too. She manages to survive by accepting the help of Barnem, a seraphim who just happens to reside in an upstairs apartment and also just so happens to be equally terrible at human interactions as she is. Oddly, the demon Grey now shares an apartment with also steps up to help her vanquish the Shades, though she can’t be sure if it’s out of roommate loyalty or a secret plot to enslave humankind. Probably the latter.

Together the unlikely trio faces a bevy of social demons, from navigating political warfare, to breaking the curse of infomercials, to figuring out exactly how Grey becomes the leader of a cult. For Grey, it becomes harder and harder to tell the difference between the ills of society and the influence of the Shades. She begins to notice that living with her social anxieties makes her more sensitive to the oddities around her, which, ironically, seems to make her the perfect person to deal with the world’s mounting weirdness. As Grey comes to be part of a society that has accepted the strange ways we communicate with each other, she questions if the “social sanity” she felt excluded from her entire life ever really existed in the first place.

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I am auto-approved to read Black Spot Books’s titles, and when the synopsis is to my liking, I don’t think twice and immediately send it to my Kindle. The reviews say it’s dark, gruesome and hilarious, so I’m very curious 😋

General Fiction (Adult), Sci Fi & Fantasy | July 3, 2018

The House at Saltwater Point by Colleen Coble

The dangerous beauty of Lavender Tides is harboring secrets that reach around the world.

Ellie Blackmore is making a name for herself as a house flipper. But when her sister Mackenzie disappears, Ellie can’t focus on anything but uncovering what happened. Her only clue is the bloodstain on the deck of Mackenzie’s boat. Ellie knows her sister isn’t on the best of terms with her ex-husband, Jason, but he wouldn’t kill her—would he? 

Coast Guard intelligence officer Grayson Bradshaw believes Mackenzie faked her own death after stealing a seized cocaine shipment. The problem is convincing Ellie, who seems to view him as the true enemy.

Both Ellie and Grayson want truth, but truth—and family—is often more complex than it first appears. From international terrorism to the peaceful lavender fields of Puget Sound, The House at Saltwater Point is a thrilling race to uncover the truth before it’s too late.

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I saw this book on Zuky’s post a while ago and thought the synopsis was very intriguing, so I requested it as well.

Christian, Mystery & Thrillers | July 3, 2018

The Death and Life of Eleanor Parker by Kerry Wilkinson

‘I will never forget the night I drowned…’ 

A village with something to hide.

Seventeen-year-old Eleanor Parker wakes up cold and alone in the river that twists through her quiet village. She has no memory of how she got there. But she does know that another girl was drowned in the same river the summer before, held under the water by an unknown killer…

A community torn apart.

Eleanor is a normal, every day teenager. She argues with her mum, spends her days with her best friend, and is looking forward to a carefree summer of sunshine and music. Who would want to hurt her?

A shocking secret.

Determined to unlock the mystery of what really happened to her, Eleanor can’t escape the feeling that something awful links her to the previous summer’s murder. But will she find out the truth before it’s too late?

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There’s been some buzz around this book, so I was very curious. And then I read that first line of the synopsis: ‘I will never forget the night I drowned…’ – I mean goddamn, don’t you want to immediately read this? 😱

Mystery & Thrillers, Young Adult | Jul 26, 2018

Smothered by Autumn Chiklis

A humorous debut crossover young adult novel about what happens when entering the “real world” means moving back in with your mother, inspired by actress and celebrity Autumn Chiklis’ real life. Eloise “Lou” Hansen is graduating from Columbia University summa cum laude, and she’s ready to conquer the world. Just a few minor problems: she has no job, no prospects, and she’s moving back into her childhood bedroom. Lou is grimly determined to stick to a rigorous schedule to get a job and get out of her parents’ house. Shelly “Mama Shell” Hansen, on the other hand, is ecstatic, and just as determined to keep her at home. Who else will help her hide her latest binge-shopping purchases from her husband, go to SoulCycle with her, and hold her hand during Botox shots? Smothered is a hilarious roman à clef told via journal entries, text messages, emails, bills, receipts, tweets, doctor’s prescriptions, job applications and rejections, parking tickets, and pug pictures, chronicling the year that Lou moves back home after college. Told from Lou’s point-of-view, Smothered tells the story of two young(ish) women, just trying to get it right, and learning that just because we all grow up doesn’t mean we necessarily have to grow old. (After all, what is Juvaderm for?)

 

Finally, a lighter read! This one was just sent to me by St. Martin’s Press as well, and it sounds like a perfect summer read, as I said in my Summer Reading Recommendations post. My review should be up soon 😉

New Adult, Women’s Fiction | Aug 7, 2018

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Alright y’all, those were the books I got from Netgalley this month. I’m planning on taking a break from requesting until I read all of these, but we’ll see if I can stick with it 😅

Did you get any books lately? Have you read any of these? Let me know in the comments down below!!

Thank you for reading,
I’ll see you in my next post ♡