Stacking the Shelves: February Book Haul part 1

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews as a way to share books you've received recently. 

Between things I've bought, been given, borrowed, and got from work, I've got quite a stack of books this month! I know we're not quite at the end of February yet but I'm going to break it into two haul posts and do the other one next week.

I went on a 'London Bookshop Crawl' a couple of weeks ago, visiting lots of independent bookshops, organised by Bex at An Armchair By The Sea. I was very restrained and came home with two books:

The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet, by Becky Chambers. I've seen so many people talking
about this book and loving it since it cam out, I had to give it a go. It's space opera, I'm a couple of chapters in and really enjoying it so far.







Vendetta, by Gail Z Martin. Second book in an urban fantasy series, the main character is a
psychometric who runs an antique shop and takes dangerous magical objects out of public circulation.




A couple more books I'm very excited about are:
Dumplin, by Julie Murphy. I've seen great reviews from a lot of US book bloggers about this, and it just came out in the UK. Hopefully I'll get to reading this one soon.






Beyond Ruin, by Kit Rocha. The latest book in the 'Beyond' series, this one is
an ARC and comes out on Tuesday. I'll be doing a release day post with a giveaway, so come back on Tuesday to enter!






And then there were these, which I don't know much about (with the exception of the Julia Kagawa books, which my friend Karen has been raving about for years), but they sounded good, and were in the freebie box at work:

My final book is one my Dad got me, and that's The Death Of Dulgath, by Michael J. Sullivan. It's book 3 of the Riyria Chronicles. I haven't read the rest of the series yet, but my parents (who got me in to reading fantasy in the first place) have all of his other books and love them. 

What books did you get recently? Have you read any of these? Don't forget to come back on Tuesday for the Beyond series giveaway!

~Ailsa

Book review: Deadly Curiosities by Gail Z Martin

Title: Deadly Curiosities
Author: Gail Z Martin
Release date: June 2014
Publisher: Solaris
Source: Bought
Genre: Urban Fantasy

Description: Welcome to Trifles & Folly, a store with a dark secret. Proprietor Cassidy Kincaide continues a family tradition begun in 1670 - acquiring and neutralising dangerous supernatural items. It's the perfect job for Cassidy, whose psychic gift lets her touch an object and know its history. Together with her business partner Sorren, a 500-year-old vampire and former jewel thief, Cassidy makes it her business to get infernal objects off the market.

When a trip to a haunted hotel unearths a statue steeped in malevolent power, and a string of murders draws a trail to the abandoned old Navy yard, Cassidy and Sorren discover a diabolical plot to unleash a supernatural onslaught on their city.

It's time for Kincaide and her team to get rid of these Deadly Curiosities before the bodies start piling up. 

My thoughts: This is one of the most action-packed stories I've read for a while. The first chapter sees Cassidy and her colleague Teag hearing about a haunted guest house which someone wants their help with. To simplify the story a little I'll say that they also have to deal with a variety of 'haunted' objects which cause Cassidy, with her magical gifts, to go a bit funny. Teag & Cassidy both think all the hauntings and negative feelings around these objects are linked together and connected to a string of brutal murders which are happening in the city but they can't figure out how.

I thought it was an incredibly spooky story - a lot of the danger & fear in the books comes from shadowy things seen out the corner of the eye, or things moving in mirrors if you look at them long enough, which is exactly the sort of thing that creeps me out. I get paranoid and jumpy and this book really uses that kind of fear to crank up the tension of the characters in the story. They know that there are bad things watching them but they have a hard time getting a clear look at them and figuring out what it is.

Aside from the action and the creepy bad guys, I really liked the voice of it and the way Gail Z Martin paints the world. I believe she has written several short stories set in this world, and although this book is the first in a series you can really tell, reading it, that those other stories exist. For instance, Teag has some magical powers of his own and it says those are a recent discovery for him. The way it's talked about, I'd be willing to bet there are stories with Teag learning about this gift somewhere. The back cover description also emphasises the vampire Sorren but he actually comes in to the story later on and seems to be more in the role of 'big back up they call in an emergency'. Again, I expect he has more of a role in other stories. For all that it's obvious this world has been built up over other stories, I think it works very well and it doesn't affect the telling of this particular story. I didn't feel like I needed to have read the other things first, but it did make me want to read them now!

One thing keeping me from giving this a perfect score is that there is no hint of romance (except between Teag & his boyfriend but they're very solidly a couple already) and I am partial to just a little bit of romance. However, it's not necessarily a bad thing at this stage in a series and it gives me hope that this will go the way of my favourites and gradually bring in a little hint of romance over several stories, building it up realistically. Although the book takes place over the time of a couple of weeks, there really wasn't any time for Cassidy to be thinking romantically, after all!

As one of the best starts to an urban fantasy series that I've read in the last year, I'm giving this one 7/10. I hope there's a sequel soon and I imagine this series can grow in to 10 star ratings as it goes on.

~Ailsa

Buy it: The Book Depository