Today I bought two books due to the fact that I had $10 in Borders bucks that were going to disappear if I didn’t use them over the next couple of days.  We can’t have that happening!  I was hoping to get the next Lee and Taro book by Moira J. Moore, but the bookstore didn’t have it so I ended up with these two instead:

The Decoy PrincessThe Decoy Princess by Dawn Cook

Dawn Cook is also Kim Harrison, the author of the popular urban fantasy series The Hollows.  Even though I have a lot of catching up to do on The Hollows series (I’ve read the first and liked it enough to buy the next few but I haven’t picked them up yet due to having a severe case of Book ADD), I keep wanting to pick up The Decoy Princess when I see it in the bookstore.  This time I gave in to temptation since they didn’t have my first choice book and this also sounds like fun – a girl raised as a princess discovers she is actually a decoy for the real princess.  There is one sequel, Princess at SeaAn excerpt from The Decoy Princess is available on Dawn Cook’s website.

Princess Contessa’s dreams of living happily ever after marrying a prince are shattered when her “parents” reveal that she’s actually a street urchin they raised as their daughter to thwart assassins from their real target.

Mind GamesMind Games by Carolyn Crane

I love The Thrillionth Page, the blog of Carolyn Crane, which I’ve known about since before I even knew she was writing a book.  She’s hilarious – how can you not love her post entitled “Why aren’t men like Jamie Fraser?” in response to a question she found in her search stats?  So even though I’m getting a bit urban-fantasied out, I’m excited about reading Mind Games, the first book in the Disillusionists trilogy.  Plus there are vigilantes and some of the reviews mention moral ambiguity, which I love, so that just makes it even more intriguing.  Chapter One is available online.  The second book, Double Cross, is also available now, and the third book does not yet have an official release date but will probably be out during the second half of next year.

Mind Games heroine Justine Jones isn’t your typical kick-ass type – she’s a hopeless hypochondriac whose life is run by fear.

She’s lured into a restaurant, Mongolian Delites, by tortured mastermind Sterling Packard, who promises he can teach her to channel her fears. In exchange, she must join his team of disillusionists – vigilantes hired by crime victims to zing their anxieties into criminals, resulting in collapse and transformation.

Justine isn’t interested in Packard’s troupe until she gets a taste of the peace he can promise. Soon she enters the thrilling world of neurotic crime fighters who battle Midcity’s depraved and paranormal criminals.

Eventually, though, she starts wondering why Packard hasn’t set foot outside the Mongolian Delites restaurant for eight years. And about the true nature of the disillusionists.