Book Haul – December

The title is a tad misleading … I have been amassing a few books (mostly audio books) here and there since October and haven’t really been too active on here recently due to work. So this is just a pile of stuff I’ve picked up and have not yet reviewed. Should keep me occupied for a while.

I also have a few ARCs yet to arrive and several Netgalley titles I’ve applied for, none of which are listed on here. Maybe occupied for more than a while!

Physical Books:

AD 916.

In the Orkney Isles, a young woman flees her home to save the life of her unborn child. Eighteen years later, a witch foretells that evil from her past is reaching out again to threaten her son.

Outlawed from his home in Iceland, Einar Unnsson is thrown on the mercy of his Uncle, the infamous Jarl Thorfinn ‘Skull Cleaver’ of Orkney. He joins forces with a Norse-Irish princess and a company of wolfskin-clad warriors to become a player in a deadly game for control of the Irish sea, where warriors are the pawns of kings and Jarls and the powerful are themselves mere game pieces on the tafl board of the Gods.

Together they embark on a quest where Einar must fight unimaginable foes, forge new friendships, and discover what it truly means to be a warrior. As the clouds of war gather, betrayal follows betrayal and Einar realises the only person he can really trust is himself.

Deep in the upper Ven Forest, close to the Boundry, woodsman Richard Cypher is intent on tracking down his father’s killers. Richard has no idea of how far his quest will take him from home, nor that his world, his very beliefs, are about to be shattered…

Kahlan Amnell, tormented by treachery and loss, is being hunted, pursued remorselessly by a bloodthirsty tyrant’s assassins. A monstrous evil is about to be unleashed upon the world and she knows her one hope of halting it is to find the last great Wizard…

Together, Richard and Kahlan have a destiny that will not be denied, a destiny that will embroil them in a war three-millennia past… a war that is about to re-ignite with world-devouring violence.

Audio Books:

The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth returns again. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow.

Moiraine Damodred arrives in Emond’s Field on a quest to find the one prophesized to stand against The Dark One, a malicious entity sowing the seeds of chaos and destruction. When a vicious band of half-men, half beasts invade the village seeking their master’s enemy, Moiraine persuades Rand al’Thor and his friends to leave their home and enter a larger unimaginable world filled with dangers waiting in the shadows and in the light.

After more than 500 years of exile, the heir to the empyre is wary about his sudden reassignment to active duty on the Goblin War’s front lines. His mission to rescue an outpost leads to a dead-end canyon deep inside enemy territory, and his suspicion turns to dread when he discovers the stronghold doesn’t exist. But whoever went to the trouble of planning his death to look like a casualty of war didn’t know he would be assigned to the Seventh Sikaria Auxiliary Squadron. In the depths of an unforgiving jungle, a legend is about to be born, and the world of Elan will never be the same.

The Night Lords were once among the most potent forces of the Imperium, Space Marines who used fear itself as their weapon. Now, cast adrift from the Emperor’s light and hunted as heretics after their monstrous betrayal, the Night Lords clad themselves in symbols of death and fight the Long War, bringing pain and terror to all who worship the corpse-god of Terra.

A summons from Warmaster Abaddon sends these rebels on a dangerous journey that leads inexorably to a conflict with the Emperor’s chosen warriors, the Blood Angels.

Audible Studios presents the second volume of the best-selling PG Wodehouse collection. In this volume, Stephen Fry lends his voice to the Blandings stories. This collection contains:

Summer Lightning

Heavy Weather

Blandings Castle and Elsewhere

Lord Emsworth and Others

Uncle Fred in the Spring Time

The Laconian Empire has fallen, setting the 1,300 solar systems free from the rule of Winston Duarte. But the ancient enemy that killed the gate builders is awake, and the war against our universe has begun again.

In the dead system of Adro, Elvi Okoye leads a desperate scientific mission to understand what the gate builders were and what destroyed them, even if it means compromising herself and the half-alien children who bear the weight of her investigation. Through the wide-flung systems of humanity, Colonel Aliana Tanaka hunts for Duarte’s missing daughter…and the shattered emperor himself. And on the Rocinante, James Holden and his crew struggle to build a future for humanity out of the shards and ruins of all that has come before.

As nearly unimaginable forces prepare to annihilate all human life, Holden and a group of unlikely allies discover a last, desperate chance to unite all of humanity, with the promise of a vast galactic civilization free from wars, factions, lies, and secrets if they win.

But the price of victory may be worse than the cost of defeat.

En route to London from New York, Flight 305 suddenly loses power and crash-lands in the English countryside, plunging a group of strangers into a mysterious adventure that will have repercussions for all of humankind.

Struggling to stay alive, the survivors soon realize that the world they’ve crashed in is very different from the one they left. But where are they? Why are they here? And how will they get back home?

Five passengers seem to hold clues about what’s really going on: writer Harper Lane, venture capitalist Nick Stone, German genetic researcher Sabrina Schröder, computer scientist Yul Tan, and Grayson Shaw – the son of a billionaire philanthropist.

As more facts about the crash emerge, it becomes clear that some in this group know more than they’re letting on – answers that will lead Harper and Nick to uncover a far-reaching conspiracy involving their own lives. As they begin to piece together the truth, they discover they have the power to change the future and the past – to save our world…or end it.

In the mysterious city of Queen Mab, the forces of light and darkness are locked in a murderous struggle for truth. The dedicated agents of the Holy Inquisition battle with their shadowy counterparts, the infamous Cognitae, to discover the encrypted identity of the enigmatic, all-powerful King in Yellow. Caught at the heart of this struggle is the pariah Alizebeth Bequin. Will she stand with the Inquisition or with the Cognitae that raised her? And if she chooses the Inquisition, will it be the wise but ruthless Ravenor or his rival, the denounced heretic Eisenhorn? Bequin must withstand an onslaught of angels, daemons, and even the monstrous warriors of the Traitor Legions, to unpick the greatest riddle of her life.

This brilliant new audiobook explores the lives of eight generations of the greatest kings and queens that this country has ever seen, and the worst. The Plantagenets – their story is the story of Britain.

England’s greatest royal dynasty, the Plantagenets, ruled over England through eight generations of kings. Their remarkable reign saw England emerge from the Dark Ages to become a highly organised kingdom that spanned a vast expanse of Europe. Plantagenet rule saw the establishment of laws and creation of artworks, monuments and tombs which survive to this day, and continue to speak of their sophistication, brutality and secrets.

Dan Jones brings you a new vision of this battle-scarred history. From the Crusades to King John’s humbling over Magna Carta and the tragic reign of the last Plantagenet, Richard II, this is a blow-by-blow account of England’s most thrilling age.

Chaos. Fury. Destruction.

The Great Change is upon us….

Some say that to change the world you must first burn it down. Now that belief will be tested in the crucible of revolution: the Breakers and Burners have seized the levers of power, the smoke of riots has replaced the smog of industry and all must submit to the wisdom of crowds.

With nothing left to lose, Citizen Brock is determined to become a new hero for the new age, while Citizeness Savine must turn her talents from profit to survival before she can claw her way to redemption. Orso will find that when the world is turned upside down, no one is lower than a monarch. And in the bloody North, Rikke and her fragile Protectorate are running out of allies…while Black Calder gathers his forces and plots his vengeance.

The banks have fallen, the sun of the Union has been torn down and in the darkness behind the scenes, the threads of the Weaver’s ruthless plan are slowly being drawn together….