The Bookbabe's Book Discoveries for the Month of April

Here are a list of a couple of the books that I found interesting this month. All of these books can be purchased on Amazon.com or at the Book Depsitory.

Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder 

Synopsis: About to be executed for murder, Yelena is offered an extraordinary reprieve. She'll eat the best meals, have rooms in the palace- and risk assassination by anyone trying to kill the Commander of Ixia. 

And so Yelena chooses to become a food taster. But the chief of security, leaving nothing to chance, deliberately feeds her Butterfly's Dusté and only by appearing for her daily antidote will she delay an agonizing death from the poison. 
As Yelena tries to escape her new dilemma, disasters keep mounting. Rebels plot to seize Ixia and Yelena develops magical powers she can't control. Her life is threatened again and choices must be made. But this time the outcomes aren't so clear.

God Help the Child by Toni Morrison

Synopsis: At the center: a young woman who calls herself Bride, whose stunning blue-black skin is only one element of her beauty, her boldness and confidence, her success in life, but which caused her light-skinned mother to deny her even the simplest forms of love. There is Booker, the man Bride loves, and loses to anger. Rain, the mysterious white child with whom she crosses paths. And finally, Bride’s mother herself, Sweetness, who takes a lifetime to come to understand that “what you do to children matters. And they might never forget.”

Very Good Lives by J.K. Rowling

Synopsis: In 2008, J.K. Rowling delivered a deeply affecting commencement speech at Harvard University. Now published for the first time in book form, VERY GOOD LIVES presents J.K. Rowling's words of wisdom for anyone at a turning point in life. How can we embrace failure? And how can we use our imagination to better both ourselves and others?

Drawing from stories of her own post-graduate years, the world famous author addresses some of life's most important questions with acuity and emotional force.

Angelology by Danielle Trussoni

Synposis: There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. —Genesis 6:5

Sister Evangeline was just a girl when her father entrusted her to the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in upstate New York. Now, at twenty-three, her discovery of a 1943 letter from the famous philanthropist Abigail Rockefeller to the late mother superior of Saint Rose Convent plunges Evangeline into a secret history that stretches back a thousand years: an ancient conflict between the Society of Angelologists and the monstrously beautiful descendants of angels and humans, the Nephilim.

For the secrets these letters guard are desperately coveted by the once-powerful Nephilim, who aim to perpetuate war, subvert the good in humanity, and dominate mankind. Generations of angelologists have devoted their lives to stopping them, and their shared mission, which Evangeline has long been destined to join, reaches from her bucolic abbey on the Hudson to the apex of insular wealth in New York, to the Montparnasse cemetery in Paris and the mountains of Bulgaria.

At the Water's Edge by Sarah Gruen

Synopsis: After disgracing themselves at a high society New Year’s Eve party in Philadelphia in 1944, Madeline Hyde and her husband, Ellis, are cut off financially by his father, a former army colonel who is already ashamed of his son’s inability to serve in the war. When Ellis and his best friend, Hank, decide that the only way to regain the Colonel’s favor is to succeed where the Colonel very publicly failed—by hunting down the famous Loch Ness monster—Maddie reluctantly follows them across the Atlantic, leaving her sheltered world behind.

 
The trio find themselves in a remote village in the Scottish Highlands, where the locals have nothing but contempt for the privileged interlopers. Maddie is left on her own at the isolated inn, where food is rationed, fuel is scarce, and a knock from the postman can bring tragic news. Yet she finds herself falling in love with the stark beauty and subtle magic of the Scottish countryside. Gradually she comes to know the villagers, and the friendships she forms with two young women open her up to a larger world than she knew existed. Maddie begins to see that nothing is as it first appears: the values she holds dear prove unsustainable, and monsters lurk where they are least expected.
 
As she embraces a fuller sense of who she might be, Maddie becomes aware not only of the dark forces around her, but of life’s beauty and surprising possibilities.

The Bookbabe Reviews: Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas

Okay, this books finally chapters had me on twitter asking Sarah J. Maas to consider moving up the publication date of the next book (which is slated to come out in September). So much happened in this book that kept me up nights trying to get to the next chapter. So in this book we find Celanea in Wendlyn trying to gain intel in the royal family so that she can warn them about the King of Adarlan. She doesn't get to accomplish this mission because she ends up running into Rowan; a Fae male warrior and Prince that comes looking for her. He takes her to Mistward a fortess full on Demi Fae where she comes to meet her Aunt Maeve, Queen of the Fae. Celaena only agrees to come because she needs information about the Wyrdkeys and how she can find and destory them. Along the way we see Celaena fight her way through her grief as she deals with the lost of Nehemia. We  also get to know Rowan a little better; at first he is very aloof and keeps Celaena at arms length. But, by the end of the book things has changed. He has sworned to protect her and I think there may be something else growing there too. (Though they are distant cousins and that would be rather strange if anything does happen). There are a few things that I loved about this installment into the series. First, we get to meet some new and very interesting characters such as Manon Blackbeak and her 13. These witches are badass. These women live to be ruthless and cunning and are raised to believe that they where born without a heart of soul. We also meet Aedion Ashryver, who is a relative of Celaena's and is as loyal to the King as he would like some in the court to believe. Second, we also get to see Dorian come into his own and that comes in part with him actually accepting who he is and with his new found love Sorscha. I was really rooting for this couple but, wow oh wow how the King set them up. The last few chapters of the book really had me wanting to cry and scream and oh the feels. Last but not least; we get some deeper insights into the deaths of Celaen's parents. We also get a glimpse at King of Adarlan before the end of magic in their lands. We find out that he may have some power of his own and not power that was bought on from the ring that he wears. I am hoping that my theory about him is correct and that there is more to him than meets the eye. All I can say is that the next installment of this series can not come soon enough. My over all rating for this book is 5 stars; it more than exceeds my expectations for the third book in a series. It is one of the best sequels I have read in some time.

Quotes I loved: 

Quote:

"There were cells in the bowels of the mines that they  used to punish slaves. Cells so dark you would wake up in them and think you'd been blinded. They locked me in there sometimes - once for three weeks straight. And the only thing that got me through it was reminding myself of my name, over and over and over again - I am Celaena Sardothien......Celaena Who did not fear or despair, Celaena who was a weapon honed by death"

Quote: "It would not take a monster to destroy a monster - but light, light to drive out darkness.

Quote:

"All I want is for my people to be free and my queen restored to her throne" (Aedion)

"They Burned the antler throne, Aedion. There is no throne for her"

"Then I will build one myself from the bones of our enemies"

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