Here are some Feb­ru­ary releases I’m really look­ing for­ward to, in par­tic­u­lar the final book in Lau­ren Oliver’s dystopian tril­ogy, some great look­ing junior fic­tion and the fol­low up to last year’s The Name of the Star, which I loved.

As always, click on the book cov­ers to see Goodreads reviews

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Eti­quette and Espi­onage by Gail Carriger

 

5th Feb­ru­ary 2013

It’s one thing to learn to curtsy prop­erly. It’s quite another to learn to curtsy and throw a knife at the same time. Wel­come to Fin­ish­ing School.

Sophro­nia Tem­min­nick at 14 is a great trial more inter­ested in dis­man­tling clocks and climb­ing trees than proper man­ners — and the fam­ily can only hope that com­pany never sees her atro­cious curtsy. Her poor mother, des­per­ate for her daugh­ter to become a proper lady, enrolls the lively tomboy in Made­moi­selle Geraldine’s Fin­ish­ing Acad­emy for Young Ladies of Quality.

But young ladies learn to finish…everything. Cer­tainly, they learn the fine arts of dance, dress, and eti­quette, but they also learn to deal out death, diver­sion, and espi­onage — in the politest pos­si­ble ways, of course. Sophro­nia and her friends are in for a rous­ing first year’s education.

 

Pan­tomime by Laura Lam

7th Feb­ru­ary 2013

R. H. Ragona’s Cir­cus of Magic is the great­est cir­cus of Ellada. Nes­tled among the glow­ing blue Penglass—remnants of a mys­te­ri­ous civil­i­sa­tion long gone—are won­ders beyond the wildest imag­i­na­tion. It’s a place where any­thing seems pos­si­ble, where if you close your eyes you can believe that the magic and knowl­edge of the van­ished Chi­maera is still there. It’s a place where any­one can hide.

Iphi­ge­nia Lau­rus, or Gene, the daugh­ter of a noble fam­ily, is uncom­fort­able in corsets and crino­line, and prefers climb­ing trees to debu­tante balls. Micah Grey, a run­away liv­ing on the streets, joins the cir­cus as an aerialist’s appren­tice and soon becomes the circus’s ris­ing star.

But Gene and Micah have bal­anc­ing acts of their own to per­form, and a secret in their blood that could unlock the mys­ter­ies of Ellada.

 

The Ruin­ing by Anna Col­lo­more

7th Feb­ru­ary 2013

Annie Phillips is thrilled to leave her past behind and begin a shiny new life on Belvedere Island, as a nanny for the picture-perfect Cohen fam­ily. In no time at all, she falls in love with the Cohens, espe­cially with Libby, the beau­ti­ful young matri­arch of the fam­ily. Life is bet­ter than she ever imag­ined. She even finds romance with the boy next door.

All too soon cracks appear in Annie’s seem­ingly per­fect world. She’s blamed for mis­takes she doesn’t remem­ber mak­ing. Her bed­room door comes unhinged, and she feels like she’s always being watched. Libby, who once felt like a big sis­ter, is sud­denly cold and unfor­giv­ing. As she strug­gles to keep up with the demands of her new life, Annie’s fear gives way to fright­en­ing hal­lu­ci­na­tions. Is she tum­bling into mad­ness, or is some­thing sin­is­ter at play?

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Dance of Shad­ows by Yelena Black

 

12th Feb­ru­ary 2013

Danc­ing with some­one is an act of trust. Ele­gant and inti­mate; you’re close enough to kiss, close enough to feel your partner’s heart­beat. But for Vanessa, dance is deadly – and she must be very care­ful who she trusts …

Vanessa Adler attends an elite bal­let school – the same one her older sis­ter, Mar­garet, attended before she dis­ap­peared. Vanessa feels she can never live up to her sister’s shin­ing rep­u­ta­tion. But Vanessa, with her glo­ri­ous red hair and fair skin, has a kind of power when she dances – she loses her­self in the music, breathes dif­fer­ent air, and the world around her turns to flames …

Soon she attracts the atten­tion of three men: gor­geous Zep, mys­te­ri­ous Justin, and the great, enig­matic chore­o­g­ra­pher Josef Zhalkovsky. When Josef asks Vanessa to dance the lead in the Fire­bird, she has lit­tle idea of the dan­ger that lies ahead – and the burn­ing forces about to be unleashed.

 

The Six Gun Tarot by S.R Belcher

13th Febu­rary 2013

Nevada, 1869: Beyond the piti­less 40-Mile Desert lies Gol­go­tha, a cat­tle town that hides more than its share of unnat­ural secrets. The sher­iff bears the mark of the noose around his neck; some say he is a dead man whose time has not yet come. His half-human deputy is kin to coy­otes. The mayor guards a hoard of myth­i­cal trea­sures. A banker’s wife belongs to a secret order of assas­sins. And a shady saloon owner, whose fin­gers are in everyone’s busi­ness, may know more about the town’s true ori­gins than he’s let­ting on.

A haven for the blessed and the damned, Gol­go­tha has known many strange events, but noth­ing like the pri­mor­dial dark­ness stir­ring in the aban­doned sil­ver mine over­look­ing the town. Bleed­ing mid­night, an ancient evil is spilling into the world, and unless the sher­iff and his posse can sad­dle up in time, Gol­go­tha will have seen its last dawn…and so will all of Creation.

 

Hys­te­ria by Megan Miranda

14th Feb­ru­ary 2013

Mal­lory killed her boyfriend, Brian. She can’t remem­ber the details of that night but every­one knows it was self-defense, so she isn’t charged. But Mal­lory still feels Brian’s pres­ence in her life. Is it all in her head? Or is it some­thing more? In des­per­ate need of a fresh start, Mal­lory is sent to Mon­roe, a fancy prep school where no one knows her … or any­thing about her past.But the feel­ing fol­lows her, as do her secrets. Then, one of her new class­mates turns up dead. As sus­pi­cion falls on Mal­lory, she must find a way to remem­ber the details of both deadly nights so she can prove her innocence-to her­self and others.

 

Requiem (Delir­ium 3) by Lau­ren Oliver

 

14th Feb­ru­ary 2013

Now an active mem­ber of the resis­tance, Lena has been trans­formed. The nascent rebel­lion that was under way in Pan­de­mo­nium has ignited into an all-out rev­o­lu­tion in Requiem, and Lena is at the cen­ter of the fight.

After res­cu­ing Julian from a death sen­tence, Lena and her friends fled to the Wilds. But the Wilds are no longer a safe haven—pockets of rebel­lion have opened through­out the coun­try, and the gov­ern­ment can­not deny the exis­tence of Invalids. Reg­u­la­tors now infil­trate the bor­der­lands to stamp out the rebels, and as Lena nav­i­gates the increas­ingly dan­ger­ous ter­rain, her best friend, Hana, lives a safe, love­less life in Port­land as the fiancée of the young mayor. Requiem is told from both Lena’s and Hana’s points of view. The two girls live side by side in a world that divides them until, at last, their sto­ries converge.

 

Des­tiny, Rewrit­ten by Kathryn Fitzmaurice

 

19th Feb­ru­ary 2013

Eleven-year-old Emily Eliz­a­beth Davis has been told for her entire life that her des­tiny is to become a poet, just like her famous name­sake, Emily Dick­in­son. But Emily doesn’t even really like poetry, and she has a secret career ambi­tion that she sus­pects her English-professor mother will frown on. Then a seem­ing tragedy strikes: just after dis­cov­er­ing that it con­tains an impor­tant fam­ily secret, she acci­den­tally loses the spe­cial copy of Emily Dickinson’s poetry that was given to her at birth. As Emily and her friends search for the lost book in used book­stores and thrift shops all across town, Emily’s under­stand­ing of des­tiny begins to unravel and then rewrite itself in a mar­velous new way.

Star Crossed by Jen­nifer Echols

 

26th Feb­ru­ary 2013

Wendy Mann loves her job res­cu­ing celebri­ties from pub­lic rela­tions scrapes. She grew up with noth­ing, and now she’s drawn to glitz, glam­our, and a light­hearted lifestyle. She speaks her mind, so she’s just the tough cookie to tell stars the truth about how other peo­ple see them, even when they don’t want to hear it. But after six years at the top of her game, Wendy crosses the line. A star she was sent to save rebels against her and nearly gets her fired. To sal­vage her job, she must reha­bil­i­tate the career of a singing star­let with a pen­chant for post­ing inap­pro­pri­ate pho­tos of her­self and argu­ing online with her famous ex. Prob­lem is, the ex is rep­re­sented by Wendy’s arch neme­sis from col­lege, the hot and haughty Daniel Black­stone. And both stars are sched­uled for a col­li­sion course on national tele­vi­sion, broad­cast live from Las Vegas.

Daniel’s uneasy when he hears Wendy Mann from his firm’s most hated com­peti­tor has been brought in to revive the career of his client’s ex-girlfriend. Daniel must win at any cost. And if he has to seduce Wendy to smooth the way to their part­ner­ship, he’s will­ing to sac­ri­fice him­self for the cause. But Daniel doesn’t count on the scorch­ing heat between them—and when they get to Vegas, all bets are off.

 

The Magician’s Tower by Shawn Thomas Odyssey

26th Feb­ru­ary 2013

Despite her extra­or­di­nary mag­i­cal abil­i­ties and sleuthing skills, Oona Crate’s detec­tive agency has failed to take off. But a new chal­lenge cap­tures her attention—The Magician’s Tower Contest.

Held every five years, no one has ever com­pleted the array of dan­ger­ous tasks (such as rac­ing on fly­ing car­pets or defeat­ing a horde of angry apes). As the com­pe­ti­tion com­mences, a case emerges. A rare punchbowl—one with unpar­al­leled mag­i­cal powers—has dis­ap­peared from the car­ni­val sur­round­ing the Magician’s Tower. If Oona can find the cul­prit, she could use the bowl to answer her ques­tion about her mother’s and sister’s tragic deaths so many years ago—was she really at fault?

 

City of a Thou­sand Dolls by Miriam Forster

 

26th Feb­ru­ary 2013

Nisha was aban­doned at the gates of the City of a Thou­sand Dolls when she was just a child. Now six­teen, she lives on the grounds of the iso­lated estate, where orphan girls appren­tice as musi­cians, heal­ers, cour­te­sans, and, if the rumors are true, assas­sins. Nisha makes her way as Matron’s assis­tant, her clos­est com­pan­ions the mys­te­ri­ous cats that trail her shadow. Only when she begins a for­bid­den flir­ta­tion with the city’s hand­some young courier does she let her­self imag­ine a life out­side the walls. Until one by one, girls around her start to die.

Before she becomes the next vic­tim, Nisha decides to uncover the secrets that sur­round the girls’ deaths. But by get­ting involved, Nisha jeop­ar­dizes not only her own future in the City of a Thou­sand Dolls—but her own life.

 

Dualed by Elsie Chapman

 

26th Feb­ru­ary 2013

The city of Kersh is a safe haven, but the price of safety is high. Every­one has a genetic Alternate—a twin raised by another family—and cit­i­zens must prove their worth by elim­i­nat­ing their Alts before their twen­ti­eth birth­day. Sur­vival means advanced school­ing, a good job, marriage—life.

Fifteen-year-old West Grayer has trained as a fighter, prepar­ing for the day when her assign­ment arrives and she will have one month to hunt down and kill her Alt. But then a tragic mis­step shakes West’s con­fi­dence. Stricken with grief and guilt, she’s no longer cer­tain that she’s the best ver­sion of her­self, the ver­sion wor­thy of a future. If she is to have any chance of win­ning, she must stop run­ning not only from her Alt, but also from love … though both have the power to destroy her.

 

Frag­ments (Par­tials 2) by Dan Wells

 

26th Feb­ru­ary 2013

Kira Walker has found the cure for RM, but the bat­tle for the sur­vival of humans and Par­tials is just begin­ning. Kira has left East Meadow in a des­per­ate search for clues to who she is. That the Par­tials them­selves hold the cure for RM in their blood can­not be a coincidence–it must be part of a larger plan, a plan that involves Kira, a plan that could save both races. Her com­pan­ions are Afa Demoux, an unhinged drifter and for­mer employee of Par­a­Gen, and Samm and Heron, the Par­tials who betrayed her and saved her life, the only ones who know her secret. But can she trust them?

Mean­while, back on Long Island, what’s left of human­ity is gear­ing up for war with the Par­tials, and Mar­cus knows his only hope is to delay them until Kira returns. But Kira’s jour­ney will take her deep into the over­grown waste­land of postapoc­a­lyp­tic Amer­ica, and Kira and Mar­cus both will dis­cover that their great­est enemy may be one they didn’t even know existed.

 

The Mad­ness Under­neath by Mau­reen Johnson

26th Feb­ru­ary 2013

After her near-fatal run-in with the Jack the Rip­per copy­cat, Rory Dev­ereaux has been liv­ing in Bris­tol under the close watch of her par­ents. So when her ther­a­pist sud­denly sug­gests she return to Wex­ford, Rory jumps at the chance. But Rory’s brush with the Rip­per touched her more than she thought pos­si­ble: she’s become a human ter­mi­nus, with the power to elim­i­nate ghosts on con­tact. She soon finds out that the Shades—the city’s secret ghost-fighting police—are respon­si­ble for her return. The Rip­per may be gone, but now there is a string of new inex­plic­a­ble deaths threat­en­ing Lon­don. Rory has evi­dence that the deaths are no coin­ci­dence. Some­thing much more sin­is­ter is going on, and now she must con­vince the squad to lis­ten to her before it’s too late.

 

His Dark Lady by Vic­to­ria Lamb

 

28th Feb­ru­ary 2013

Lon­don, 1583. When young, aspir­ing play­wright William Shake­speare encoun­ters Lucy Mor­gan, one of Queen Eliz­a­beth I’s ladies-in-waiting, the two fall pas­sion­ately in love. He declares Lucy the inspi­ra­tion for his work, but what secret is Will hid­ing from his muse? Mean­while, Lucy has her own secret — and one that could destroy her world if exposed.