My Book Haul/In My Mailbox

The Story Siren hosts a weekly meme where bloggers can share what goodies they've purchased/received this week. If you get a chance head over to The Story Siren and check out what everyone is up to!

This week a parcel of books I ordered from Amazon turned up plus I found a couple of true bargains!

Dust and Decay (Benny Imura 2) - Jonathan Maberry

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

It's six months since Benny Imura and Nix Riley saw something in the air that changed their lives. Now, after months of rigorous training with Benny's zombie-hunter brother Tom, Benny and Nix are ready to leave their home forever and search for a better future. Lilah the Lost Girl and Benny's best friend Lou Chong are going with them. Sounds easy; sounds wonderful. Except that everything that can go wrong does. Before they can even leave there is a shocking zombie attack in town. And as soon as they step into the Rot & Ruin they are pursued by the living dead, wild animals, insane murderers and the horrors of Gameland. Because in the great Rot & Ruin everything wants to kill you. Everything. And not everyone in Benny's small band of travellers will make it out alive.

I loved Rot and Ruin (review here) so I'm really excited to start this as soon as I can. I just hope I'm not disappointed, but somehow I don't think I will be!

The Last Dragonslayer - Jasper Fforde

Publisher: UK - Hodder & Stoughton

In the good old days, magic was powerful, unregulated by government, and even the largest spell could be woven without filling in the magic release form B1-7g. But somewhere, somehow, the magic started draining away. Jennifer Strange runs Kazam!, an employment agency for state-registered magicians, soothsayers and sorceresses. But work is drying up. Drain cleaner is cheaper and quicker than a spell. Why trust a cold and drafty magic carpet when jetlines offer a comfy seat and an in-flight movie? And now potions are eligible for VAT . . . But then the visions start. The Last Dragon is going to be killed by a Dragonslayer at 12.00 on Sunday. The death will unleash untold devastation on the UnUnited Kingdom, setting principality against dukedom and property developer against homesteader. And all the signs are pointing to Jennifer Strange, and saying 'Big Magic is coming' ...

Jasper Fforde is one of my favourite writers - he is just so inventive and original. There really is no-one out there writing books like his and as soon as I heard he was writing a YA book based on Dragons and magic...how could I resist? :)

The Iron Daughter (Iron Fey 2) - Julie Kagawa

Publisher: MIRA Ink

Half Summer faery princess, half human, Meghan has never fit in anywhere. Deserted by the Winter prince she thought loved her, she is prisoner to the Winter faery queen. As war looms between Summer and Winter, Meghan knows that the real danger comes from the Iron fey—ironbound faeries that only she and her absent prince have seen. But no one believes her.

This is another series that I haven't started yet but have leapt in and bought more than one book in the assumption that I will like it! The Iron King sits and stares at me in the corner so I will have to start this series soon. :)

The Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins

Publisher; UK - Scholastic

The extraordinary, ground breaking New York Times bestsellers The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, along with the third book in The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay.

Okay, so I already have Hunger Games on my TBR (and regular urges to read it from a friend), but while browsing in The Works they had the whole trilogy in paperback for £5.99 so how could I resist? And it does mean that I now have a spare copy of The Hunger Games which I will be putting up for someone to win in the near future...assuming that there are others out there that haven't read it either! :)

Jenny Pox - JL Bryan

Kindle Book

Jenny has a secret. Her touch spreads a supernatural plague.
She devotes her life to avoiding contact with people, until her senior year of high school, when she meets the one boy she can touch, and she falls in love. But there's a problem--he's under the spell of his devious girlfriend Ashleigh, who secretly wields the most dangerous power of all. Now Jenny must learn to use the deadly "Jenny pox" she's fought her entire life to hide, or be destroyed by Ashleigh's ruthless plans.

This was free on Amazon last week and I've read enough positive reviews to think it was worth checking out!

The Spellman's Strike Again - Lisa Lutz
Publisher: Pocket Books

At the ripe old age of thirty-two, former wild child Isabel "Izzy" Spellman has finally agreed to take over the family business. And the transition won't be a smooth one. First among her priorities as head of Spellman Investigations is to dig up some dirt on the competition, slippery ex-cop Rick Harkey--a task she may enjoy a little too much. Next, faced with a baffling missing-persons case at the home of an aging millionaire, Izzy hires an actor friend, Len, to infiltrate the mansion as an undercover butler--a role he may enjoy a little much. Meanwhile, Izzy is being blackmailed by her mother (photographic evidence of Prom Night 1994) to commit to regular blind dates with promising professionals--an arrangement that doesn't thrill Connor, an Irish bartender on the brink of becoming Ex-boyfriend #12. At Spellman headquarters, it's business as unusual. Doorknobs and light fixtures are disappearing every day, Mom's been spotted crying in the pantry, and a series of increasingly demanding Spellman Rules (Rule #27: No Speaking Today) can't quite hold the family together. Izzy also has to decipher weekly "phone calls from the edge" from her octogenarian lawyer, Morty, as well as Detective Henry Stone's mysterious interest in rekindling their relationsh...well, whatever it was. Just when it looks like things can't go more haywire, little sister Rae's internship researching pro bono legal cases leads the youngest Spellman to launch a grassroots campaign that could spring an innocent man from jail--or land Rae in it.


This was a complete suprise, turning up in the post on Thursday from one of my most favourite people in the world! A friend who wanted to cheer me up - and cleverly chose a book I've been after for a while which has been difficult to find in the shops. I can't wait to start reading it! :-)

So what have you picked up this week? :)