Countdown: September 2013

It's the month of beginnings...or at least that's how I've always looked at it.  It's a month when many schools open again and the new terms start.  For me at the job I currently work at it was the beginning of my contract and marks the time every year when modifications need to be made and changes get implemented.  It's also a great month for new reads.  It seems that Summer comes with a lot of great titles but I think a lot of September reads get passed over or overlooked because of all the craziness that tends to go on during this month.  Here are a few titles I've got my eye on that are releasing this September, and I'm sure you'll want to add them to your lists as well.

Countdown Pick #1:  The Coldest Girl In Coldtown by Holly Black (09/17/2013)

COLDTOWN WAS DANGEROUS, TANA KNEW. A GLAMOROUS CAGE, A PRISON FOR THE DAMNED AND ANYONE WHO WANTED TO PARTY WITH THEM.

Tana lived in a world where walled cities called Coldtowns exist. In them, quarantined monsters and humans mingle in a decadently bloody mix of predator and prey. The only problem is, once you pass through Coldtown's gates, you can never leave.

One morning, after a perfectly ordinary party, Tana wakes up surrounded by corpses. The only other survivors of this massacre are her exasperatingly endearing ex-boyfriend, infected and on the edge, and mysterious boy burdened with a terrible secret. Shaken and determined, Tana enters a race against the clock to save the three of them the only way she knows how: by going straight to the wicked, opulent heart of Coldtown itself.

Black's previous series have won her a spot in my opinion as a great author and one that's capable of taking readers on adventures their imaginations would never have thought to conjure up.  I can't wait to see what she has in store for her readers this time around.

Countdown Pick #2:  Thin Space by Jody Casella (09/10/2013)

Ever since the car accident that killed his twin brother, Marshall Windsor has been consumed with guilt and crippled by secrets of that fateful night. He has only one chance to make amends, to right his wrongs and set things right. He must find a Thin Space—a mythical point where the barrier between this world and the next is thin enough for a person to step through to the other side. 

But, when a new girl moves into the house next door, the same house Marsh is sure holds a thin space, she may be the key—or the unraveling of all his secrets.

As they get closer to finding a thin space—and closer to each other—Marsh must decide once and for all how far he’s willing to go to right the wrongs of the living…and the dead.

Goodreads has got a contest going on until the 30th for your chance to win one of 5 ARCs that they're giving away.  So hurry on over to the giveaway now and see if you'll be one of the lucky winners!

Countdown Pick #3:  The Waking Dark by Robin Wasserman (09/10/2013)

They called it the killing day. Twelve people dead, all in the space of a few hours. Five murderers: neighbors, relatives, friends. All of them so normal. All of them seemingly harmless. All of them now dead by their own hand . . . except one. And that one has no answers to offer the shattered town. She doesn't even know why she killed—or whether she'll do it again.

Something is waking in the sleepy town of Oleander's, Kansas—something dark and hungry that lives in the flat earth and the open sky, in the vengeful hearts of upstanding citizens. As the town begins its descent into blood and madness, five survivors of the killing day are the only ones who can stop Oleander from destroying itself. Jule, the outsider at war with the world; West, the golden boy at war with himself; Daniel, desperate for a different life; Cass, who's not sure she deserves a life at all; and Ellie, who believes in sacrifice, fate, and in evil. Ellie, who always goes too far. They have nothing in common. They have nothing left to lose. And they have no way out. Which means they have no choice but to stand and fight, to face the darkness in their town—and in themselves.