Never Enough Shelf Space: Steampunk

Showing posts with label Steampunk. Show all posts

Saturday, August 1, 2015

Top 5 Best Book Covers: August 2015

Top 5 Best Book Covers is monthly meme created by The Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. The rules are simple: on the first Saturday of every month, post your 5 favorite books covers that are being released in the current month!

#1
MECHANICA
Author: Tera Lynn Childs (Twitter)
Genre(s): YA, Steampunk, Fairytale Retold
Release Date: August 4, 2015

Nicolette’s awful stepsisters call her “Mechanica” to demean her, but the nickname fits: she learned to be an inventor at her mother’s knee. Her mom is gone now, though, and the Steps have turned her into a servant in her own home.

But on her sixteenth birthday, Nicolette discovers a secret workshop in the cellar and begins to dare to imagine a new life for herself. Could the mysterious books and tools hidden there—and the mechanical menagerie, led by a tiny metal horse named Jules—be the key to escaping her dreary existence? With a technological exposition and royal ball on the horizon, the timing might just be perfect for Nicolette to earn her freedom at last.

Gorgeous prose and themes of social justice and family shine in this richly imagined Cinderella retelling about an indomitable inventor who finds her prince . . . but realizes she doesn't want a fairy tale happy ending after all.

Cover Characteristic: Swords

Hosted by Sugar & Snark

Each week we will post a characteristic and choose 5 of our favorite cover’s with that characteristic.

Cover Characteristic: Yellow Covers

Hosted by Sugar & Snark

Each week we will post a characteristic and choose 5 of our favorite cover’s with that characteristic.

Top 5 Best Book Covers: May 2015

#1
RICOCHET
Author: Keri Lake (Twitter)
Genre(s): Adult, Contemporary Romance, Romantic Suspense
Release Date: May 2015

The only sure way to destroy a man is to take what he cannot live without.
Three years ago, I had everything.

A beautiful wife.
A son.
A reason for living.

Until a ruthless task force, assembled under Mayor Michael Culling, with a brutal strategy to make the streets of Detroit ‘safe’, ripped away everything I loved in a deadly hunt called The Culling.

They tried to kill me, too. I wish they had. Now I'm cursed by the memories of that night, and the words I whispered to my dying wife.

A promise—to avenge the wrong and set it right.

I’m no longer Nick Ryder. I’m a masked vigilante. Faceless. Loveless. Fearless. A man with nothing left to lose—one who's seen the dark and violent truth behind the city’s flawless veneer.

Michael Culling doesn’t know who I am. Or what I want. All he knows is that I’ve kidnapped his beautiful wife.

An eye for an eye—isn’t that how the saying goes? And Aubree Culling is the perfect pawn to destroy him.

If she doesn’t destroy me first.

Top 5 Best Book Covers: March 2015

#1
Title: Fairy Tale Reform School: Flunked
Author: Jen Calonita (Twitter)
Genre: Middle Grade, Fairy Tales, Magic
Release Date: March 3, 2015

Would you send a villain to do a hero's job? An exciting new twisted fairy tale series from award-winning author Jen Calonita.

Full of regret, Cinderella's wicked stepmother, Flora, has founded the Fairy Tale Reform School with the mission of turning the wicked and criminally mischievous into upstanding members of Enchantasia.

Impish, sassy 12-year-old Gilly has a history of petty theft and she's not too sorry about it. When she lifts a hair clip, she gets tossed in reform school-for at least three months. But when she meets fellow students Jax and Kayla, she learns there's more to this school than its sweet mission. There's a battle brewing and she starts to wonder: can a villian really change?

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books I Can't Believe I Haven't/Want To Read From the Dystopian Genre

Top Ten Tuesday is weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish, as they are "particularly fond of lists".

This Week's Topic:

Top Ten Books I Can't Believe I Haven't/Want To Read From X Genre

My Answer:

My fill-in-the-blank genre is Dystopian. I've been quite fond of this genre since reading Brave New World, which was the sign assigned-reading novel from high school that I actually loved. Dystopian has more than exploded in recent years, especially when it comes to YA. That said, there are quite a few books I haven't read that pretty much everyone else in the bloggersverse seems to have read—or even finished the entire series. The they are::

THESE BROKEN STARS
Book Series:: Starbound, Book #1
Author:: Amie Kaufman (Twitter) & Meagan Spooner (Twitter)
Genre(s):: YA, Dystopian, Science Fiction

Luxury spaceliner Icarus suddenly plummets from hyperspace into the nearest planet. Lilac LaRoux and Tarver Merendsen survive -- alone. Lilac is the daughter of the richest man in the universe. Tarver comes from nothing, a cynical war hero. Both journey across the eerie deserted terrain for help. Everything changes when they uncover the truth.

The Starbound Trilogy: Three worlds. Three love stories. One enemy.

Why I Picked It:: I met Amie and Meagan at an event a few years back, and was intrigued by both ladies, the story and their writing process, which each writing the male and female leads' POV respectively. And the cover is unbelievably gorgeous, which is a huge pull for me. I've even got an autographed copy. No excuses here.

Cover Characteristic: Intricate Covers

Hosted by Sugar & Snark

Each week we will post a characteristic and choose 5 of our favorite cover’s with that characteristic.

Top 5 Best Book Covers: December 2014

#1
Title: Ticker
Author: Lisa Mantchev (Facebook | Twitter)
Genre: YA, Steampunk
Release Date: December 1, 2014

A girl with a clockwork heart must make every second count.

When Penny Farthing nearly dies, brilliant surgeon Calvin Warwick manages to implant a brass “Ticker” in her chest, transforming her into the first of the Augmented. But soon it’s discovered that Warwick killed dozens of people as he strove to perfect another improved Ticker for Penny, and he’s put on trial for mass murder.

On the last day of Warwick’s trial, the Farthings’ factory is bombed, Penny’s parents disappear, and Penny and her brother, Nic, receive a ransom note demanding all of their Augmentation research if they want to see their parents again. Is someone trying to destroy the Farthings...or is the motive more sinister?

Desperate to reunite their family and rescue their research, Penny and her brother recruit fiery baker Violet Nesselrode, gentleman-about-town Sebastian Stirling, and Marcus Kingsley, a young army general who has his own reasons for wanting to lift the veil between this world and the next. Wagers are placed, friends are lost, romance stages an ambush, and time is running out for the girl with the clockwork heart.