Telling Tales | A Birthday Book Haul

So, it was my birthday on the 5th and my boyfriend and I went into Waterstones… The rest, they say, is history. I treated myself to a few titles, then proceeded to walk into The Works the next day and treated myself again. My bank balance is currently unhappy with me, but I’m buzzing with excitement! Here’s what I bought!

To Drink Coffee with a Ghost | Amanda Lovelace

Series: things that h(a)unt
Genre: Poetry, Nonfiction, Mental Health, Feminism, Adult, Autobiography
Summary: “You cannot have a funeral for your mother without also having a funeral for yourself.” This book poses the ever-lingering question: What happens when someone dies before they’re able to redeem themselves?

 

 

 

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Chain of Gold | Cassandra Clare

Series: The Last Hours
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy
Summary: Welcome to Edwardian London, a time of electric lights and long shadows, the celebration of artistic beauty and the wild pursuit of pleasure, with demons waiting in the dark. For years there has been peace in the Shadowhunter world. James and Lucie Herondale, children of the famous Will and Tessa, have grown up in an idyll with their loving friends and family, listening to stories of good defeating evil and love conquering all. But everything changes when the Blackthorn and Carstairs families come to London…and so does a remorseless and inescapable plague.
James Herondale longs for a great love, and thinks he has found it in the beautiful, mysterious Grace Blackthorn. Cordelia Carstairs is desperate to become a hero, save her family from ruin, and keep her secret love for James hidden. When disaster strikes the Shadowhunters, James, Cordelia and their friends are plunged into a wild adventure which will reveal dark and incredible powers, and the true cruel price of being a hero…and falling in love.

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Meat Market | Juno Dawson

Series: London Triloy
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Feminism, Fiction
Summary: Jana Novak’s history sounds like a classic model cliché: tall and gangly, she’s uncomfortable with her androgynous looks until she’s unexpectedly scouted and catapulted to superstardom.
But the fashion industry is as grimy as it is glamorous. And there are unexpected predators at every turn.
Jana is an ordinary girl from a south London estate, lifted to unimaginable heights. But the further you rise, the more devastating your fall…

 

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Into the Crooked Place | Alexandra Christo

Series: Into the Crooked Place
Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult, LGBT, Magic, Fiction, Queer
Summary: Magic rules the city of Creije Capital and Tavia Syn knows just how many tricks she needs up her sleeve to survive. Selling dark magic on the streets for her kingpin, she keeps clear of other crooks, counting the days until her debt is paid and she can flee her criminal life.
But then, one day, with her freedom in sight, Tavia uncovers a sinister plot that threatens to destroy the realm she calls home. Desperate to put an end to her kingpin’s plan, Tavia forms an unlikely alliance with three crooks even more deadly than her:
Wesley, the kingpin’s prodigy and most renewed criminal in the realm
Karam, an underground fighter with a penchant for killing first and forgetting to ask questions
And Saxony, a Crafter in hiding who will stop at nothing to avenge her family
With the reluctant saviours assembled, they embark on a quest to put an end to the dark magic before it’s too late. But even if they can take down the kingpin and save the realm, the one thing they can’t do is trust each other.

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Ghosts of the Shadow Market | Cassandra Clare et al.

Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult, Short Stories, Urban Fantasy, Paranormal, Romance, LGBT
Summary: The Shadow Market is a meeting point for faeries, werewolves, warlocks and vampires. There the Downworlders buy and sell magical objects, make dark bargains, and whisper secrets they do not want the Nephilim to know. Through two centuries, however, there has been a frequent visitor to the Shadow Market from the City of Bones, the very heart of the Shadowhunters. As a Silent Brother, Brother Zachariah is sworn keeper of the laws and lore of the Nephilim. But once he was a Shadowhunter called Jem Carstairs, and his love, then and always, is the warlock Tessa Gray.
Follow Brother Zachariah and see, against the backdrop of the Shadow Market’s dark dealings and festive celebrations, Anna Lightwood’s first romance, Matthew Fairchild’s great sin and Tessa Gray plunged into a world war. Valentine Morgenstern buys a soul at the Market and a young Jace Wayland’s soul finds safe harbor. In the Market is hidden a lost heir and a beloved ghost, and no one can save you once you have traded away your heart. Not even Brother Zachariah…

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Beautiful Broken Things | Sara Barnard

Series: Beautiful Broken Things
Genre: Contemporary, Young Adult, Mental Health
Summary: Best friends Caddy and Rosie are inseparable. Their differences have brought them closer, but as she turns sixteen Caddy begins to wish she could be a bit more like Rosie – confident, funny and interesting. Then Suzanne comes into their lives: beautiful, damaged, exciting and mysterious, and things get a whole lot more complicated. As Suzanne’s past is revealed and her present begins to unravel, Caddy begins to see how much fun a little trouble can be. But the course of both friendship and recovery is rougher than either girl realises, and Caddy is about to learn that downward spirals have a momentum of their own.

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A Quiet Kind of Thunder | Sara Barnard

Genre: Contemporary, Young Adult, Romance, Mental Health
Summary: Steffi has been a selective mute for most of her life – she’s been silent for so long that she feels completely invisible. But Rhys, the new boy at school, sees her. He’s deaf, and her knowledge of basic sign language means that she’s assigned to look after him. To Rhys, it doesn’t matter that Steffi doesn’t talk, and as they find ways to communicate, Steffi finds that she does have a voice, and that she’s falling in love with the one person who makes her feel brave enough to use it.

 

 

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Goodbye, Perfect | Sara Barnard

Genre: Contemporary, Young Adult
Summary: Eden McKinley knows she can’t count on much in this world, but she can depend on Bonnie, her solid, steady, straight-A best friend. So it’s a complete shock when, five days before the start of their GCSEs, Bonnie runs away with a guy Eden knows nothing about. And it’s the last person she would ever have expected.
As the days pass, and her world begins to unravel, Eden is forced to question everything she thought she knew about her best friend and herself. 

 

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The Spinster Club Series | Holly Bourne

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Mental Health, Feminism
Summary: All Evie wants is to be normal. She’s almost off her meds and at a new college where no one knows her as the girl-who-went-crazy. She’s even going to parties and making friends. There’s only one thing left to tick off her list…
But relationships are messy – especially relationships with teenage guys. They can make any girl feel like they’re going mad. And if Evie can’t even tell her new friends Amber and Lottie the truth about herself, how will she cope when she falls in love?

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