Anthem's Fall, by S.L. Dunn

Rating: 3/5
374 pages
2014
Publisher: Prospect Hill Press
Source: LibraryThing Early Reviewers
Note: I read an ARC.

Description: Above a horrified New York City, genetics and ethics collide as the fallen emperor and a banished exile of the same herculean race ignite into battle over the city’s rooftops. In the streets below, a brilliant young scientist has discovered a technology that can defeat them both, yet might be more terrible than either.

Set both in modern New York City and in the technologically sophisticated yet politically savage world of Anthem, Anthem’s Fall unfurls into a plot where larger than life characters born with the prowess of gods are pitted against the shrewd brilliance of a familiar and unlikely heroine. (from Goodreads)

Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie

Rating: 4.5/5
384 pages
2013
Publisher: Orb
Source: B&N.com

Description: On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing her quest.

Breq is both more than she seems and less than she was. Years ago, she was the Justice of Toren--a colossal starship with an artificial intelligence linking thousands of corpse soldiers in the service of the Radch, the empire that conquered the galaxy.
 
An act of treachery has ripped it all away, leaving her with only one fragile human body. And only one purpose--to revenge herself on Anaander Mianaai, many-bodied, near-immortal Lord of the Radch. (From the back cover)

Choices of One, by Timothy Zahn

Rating: 4/5
433 pages
2011
Publisher: Del Rey
Source: Library ebook

Description: Eight months after the Battle of Yavin, the Rebellion is in desperate need of a new base. So when Governor Ferrouz of Candoras Sector proposes an alliance, offering the Rebels sanctuary in return for protection against the alien warlord Nuso Esva, Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewie are sent to evaluate the deal.

Mara Jade, the Emperor’s Hand, is also heading for Candoras, along with the five renegade stormtroopers known as the Hand of Judgment. Their mission: to punish Ferrouz’s treason and smash the Rebels for good.

But in this treacherous game of betrayals within betrayals, a wild card is waiting to be played. (from Goodreads)

Twilight's Dawn, By Anne Bishop

Rating: 3/5
435 pages
2011
Publisher: Roc
Source: Library book

Description: Anne Bishop's "darkly fascinating" (SF Site) Black Jewel novels have enthralled readers and critics alike with their mixture of fantasy, intrigue, and romance. Now in Twilight's Dawn, Bishop returns to the Blood realm with four all-new captivating novellas. (From Goodreads)

She Tempts the Duke, by Lorraine Heath

Rating: 3/5
384 pages
2012
Publisher: Avon
Source: Library book

Description: Three young heirs, imprisoned by an unscrupulous uncle, escaped—to the sea, to the streets, to faraway battle—awaiting the day when they would return to reclaim their birthright.

Sebastian Easton always vowed he would avenge his stolen youth and title. Now back in London, the rightful Duke of Keswick—returning from battle a wounded, hardened, changed man—cannot forget the brave girl who once rescued him and his brothers from certain death.

Lady Mary Wynne-Jones paid dearly for helping the imprisoned young Lords of Pembrook, and she remembers well the promise she made to Sebastian all those years ago: to meet him once more in the abbey ruins where they shared a bold, forbidden kiss. While Mary is now betrothed to another, a friendship forged with dark secrets cannot be ignored. Unexpected passion soon burns dangerously between them, tempting Sebastian to abandon his quest for retribution and fight for a love that could once again set him free. (from Goodreads)

Lord of Wicked Intentions, by Lorraine Heath

Rating: 3/5
370 pages
2013
Publisher: Avon
Source: Library ebook

Description: Lord Rafe Easton may be of noble blood, but survival taught him to rely only on himself and to love no one. Yet when he sets his eyes on Miss Evelyn Chambers, and earl's illegitimate daughter, he is determined to have her, if only as his mistress.

After her father's death, Evelyn Chambers never imagined she would be sold to the highest bidder, yet circumstances give her little choice except to accept the lord's indecent proposal. Rafe is wealthy, as well as ruthless. Yet his coldness belies deep passion and deeper secrets. If she must be his, Evelyn intends to lay bare everything the Lord of Pembrook is hiding. But dark discoveries threaten to destroy them both until unexpected love guides the last lost lord home. (from GoodReads)

Concealed in Death, by J.D. Robb

Rating: 3.5/5
402 pages
2014
Publisher: Putnam
Source: Library book

Description: In a decrepit, long-empty New York building, Lieutenant Eve Dallas’s husband begins the demolition process by swinging a sledgehammer into a wall. When the dust clears, there are two skeletons wrapped in plastic behind it. He summons his wife immediately—and by the time she’s done with the crime scene, there are twelve murders to be solved. (From Goodreads)

Wool, by Hugh Howey

Rating: 5/5
56 pages
2011
Publisher: Broad Reach
Source: Amazon.com

Description: They live beneath the earth in a prison of their own making. There is a view of the outside world, a spoiled and rotten world, their forefathers left behind. But this view fades over time, ruined by the toxic airs that kill any who brave them.

So they leave it to the criminals, those who break the rules, and who are sent to cleaning. Why do they do it, these people condemned to death? Sheriff Holston has always wondered. Now he is about to find out. (from Goodreads)

101 Places To Not See Before You Die, by Catherine Price

Rating: 3/5
235 pages
2010
Publisher: Harper Collins ebooks
Source: Library ebook

Description: From the Grover Cleveland Service Area to the Beijing Museum of Tap Water to, of course, Euro Disney, "101 Places Not to See Before You Die" brings you lively tales of the most ill-conceived museums, worst theme parks, and grossest Superfund sites that you'll ever have the pleasure of not visiting. Journalist Catherine Price travels the globe for stories of misadventure to which any seasoned traveler can relate--including guest entries from writers such as Nicholas Kristof, Mary Roach, Michael Pollan, Rebecca Solnit, and A. J. Jacobs--and along the way she discovers that the worst experiences are often the ones we'll never forget. (From Goodreads)

Trapped Under the Sea, by Neil Swidey

Rating: 5/5
407 pages
2014
Publisher: Crown
Source: LibraryThing Early Reviewers

My copy is an uncorrected proof.

Description: In the 1990s, Boston built a sophisticated waste treatment plant on Deer Island that was poised to show the country how to rebound from environmental ruin. The state had been dumping barely treated sewage into the waterfor so long that Boston had had America's filthiest harbor, with a layer of "black mayonnaise" coating the sea floor. Fisheries collapsed, wildlife fled, and locals referred to floating tampon applicators as "beach whistles." But before the dumping could stop, a team of divers had to make a perilous journey to the end of a 10-mile-tunnel, devoid of light and air, to complete the construction. Five went in, but not all of them came out. (from the backcover)

Lord of Temptation, by Lorraine Heath

Rating: 3.5/5
376 pages
2012
Publisher: Avon
Source: Library ebook

Description: Three young heirs, imprisoned by an unscrupulous uncle, escaped—to the sea, to the streets, to faraway battle—awaiting the day when they would return to reclaim their birthright.

Once upon a time, he was Lord Tristan Easton—now he is Crimson Jack, a notorious privateer beholden to none, whose only mistress is the sea. But all that will change when exquisite Lady Anne Hayworth hires his protection on a trip into danger and seduction. . .

Desperation brought Anne to the bronzed, blue-eyed buccaneer. But after the Captain demands a kiss as his payment, desire will keep her at his side. She has never known temptation like this—but to protect her heart, she knows she must leave him behind. Yet Tristan cannot easily forget the beauty—and when they meet again in a London ballroom, he vows he won't lose her a second time, as fiery passion reignited takes them into uncharted waters that could lead the second lost lord home... (from Goodreads)

Discount Armageddon, by Seanan McGuire

Rating: 5/5
344 pages
2012
Publisher: Daw
Source: Present

Description: The Price family has spent generations studying the monsters of the world, working to protect them from humanity - and to protect humanity from them. Enter Verity Price. Despite being trained from birth as a cryptozoologist, she'd rather dance a tango than tangle with a demon, and is spending a year in Manhattan while she pursues her career in professional ballroom dance. 
Sounds pretty simple, right? It would be, if it weren't for the talking mice, the telepathic mathematicians, the asbestos supermodels, and the trained monster-hunter sent by the Price family's old enemies, the Covenant of St. George.
To complicate matters further, local cryptids are disappearing, strange lizard-men are appearing in the sewers, and someone's spreading rumors about a dragon sleeping underneath the city.... (from the back cover)

William Shakespeare's Star Wars, by Ian Doescher

Rating: 3/5
172 pages
2013
Publisher: Quirk Books
Source: Library book

Description: Star Wars IV: A New Hope rewritten in the style of Shakespeare.

Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal, by Mary Roach

Rating: 4.5/5
327 pages
2013
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company
Source: Library book

Description: Science writer Mary Roach explores the human digestive system and gets answers to questions you probably never would have though to ask in the first place.

Awoken, by Serra Elinsen

Rating: 4/5
310 pages
2013
Publisher: Self Published
Source: Amazon.com

Description: In his house at R’lyeh, great Cthulhu lies dreaming... of her.

What would you do if you discovered you were the only one in the world with the hidden power to keep it from utter annihilation?

What if you had no idea what that power might even be?

Andromeda Slate, the self-proclaimed most ordinary girl in America, can’t figure out why the gorgeous but mysterious new boy at high school seems to hate her so much. It couldn't have anything to do with the strange dream she had the night before he first showed up in class, could it? The dream where the very same boy rescued her from a giant, green, tentacled sea monster?

And it couldn’t have anything to do with that time she read aloud from that ancient tome of eldritch magic, the Necronomicon... could it?

Andi Slate never imagined she’d find herself in a situation where somehow she was the key to saving the world.

Her life is about to get a whole lot less ordinary. (From the back cover)

The Fishing Widow, by Amy K. Marshall

Rating: 3.5/5
460 pages
2013
Publisher: Alaskan Gothic Press
Source: LibraryThing Early Reviewers

Description: There’s an old saying that goes: The difference between a fairy tale and a fisherman’s tale is this… a fairy tale begins, “Once Upon A Time,” and a fisherman’s tale begins, “This Ain’t No Bullshit.” 

Supernatural terror stalks the crew of the purse seiner the F/V “The Case In Point” during the March 2010 Sitka Herring Sac Roe Fishery in Southeast Alaska. As the herring war intensifies, each boat is an island, and being alone can cost you everything. As the web spins from the depths, the past is not so distant; the lines between history and myth begin to blur. The forgotten horror surrounding the 1835 loss of the Nantucket whaler “The Covenant” threatens to overwhelm the present. One among the seven men aboard “The Case In Point” is unwittingly marked by a woman beautiful and cursed, who not only desperately needs his help, but needs, desperately, to tear out his heart and consume his crew. (from LibraryThing)

The De-Textbook, by Cracked.com

Rating: 3/5
207 pages
2013
Publisher: Plume
Source: LibraryThing Early Reviewers

Description: It’s Cracked, but true. You Might Be a Zombie and Other Bad News was a New York Times bestseller and has already returned to print seven times. Now, the writers at the Internet’s #1 most-read humor site have created a dementedly hilarious textbook parody. By the time we were out of school, we’d learned that spinach is full of iron, there are three primary colors, and we have five senses. Unfortunately, these and most of the other “facts” we crammed into our heads are simply not true. The De-Textbook is here to erase it all—easily, painlessly, and hilariously. (From LibraryThing)

Joyland, by Stephen King

Rating: 4.5/5
7 discs
Narrator: Michael Kelly
2012
Publisher: Simon and Schuster Audio
Source: Library book

Description: College student Devin Jones took the summer job at Joyland hoping to forget the girl who broke his heart. But he wound up facing something far more terrible: the legacy of a vicious murder, the fate of a dying child, and dark truths about life-and what comes after-that would change his world forever. (From the back cover)

Betrayal, by Julian Stockwin

Rating: 3/5
344 pages
2013
Publisher: McBooks Press
Source: LibraryThing Early Reviewers

Description: Cape Colony is proving a tiresome assignment for Thomas Kydd’s daring commander-in-chief Commodore Popham: South America’s Spanish colonies are in a ferment of popular unrest. Rumors of a treasure hoard of Spanish silver spur him to assemble a makeshift invasion fleet and launch a bold attack on the capital of the Viceroyalty of the River Plate in Buenos Aires. Navigating the treacherous bars and mud flats of the river, the British invasion force wins a battle against improbable odds, taking the capital and the silver. But the uprising that promises the end of Spanish rule never arrives and the locals begin to see dark conspiracies behind the invader’s actions. Now Kydd’s men must face resistance and the betrayal of their closest allies. Can they save themselves and their prize? (From Goodreads)

Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, by Reza Aslan

Rating: 4/5
272 pages
2013
Publisher: Random House
Source: Library book

Description: From the bestselling author of No God but God comes a provocative & well-researched biography challenging long-held assumptions about Jesus. (From the dust jacket)