The Leaning Pile of Books is a feature where I talk about books I got over the last week – old or new, bought or received for review consideration. Since I hope you will find new books you’re interested in reading in these posts, I try to be as informative as possible. If I can find them, links to excerpts, author’s websites, and places where you can find more information on the book are included.

This week I bought a new book in one of my favorite series, and three other books showed up in the mail.

Magic Rises by Ilona Andrews

Magic Rises (Kate Daniels #6) by Ilona Andrews

The latest book in the Kate Daniels series was just released last week (mass market paperback/ebook). An excerpt from the beginning of the book was posted on the author’s website early (before copyedits).

I pre-ordered it, and I am SO EXCITED about reading it since Kate Daniels is my favorite urban fantasy series! The third and fourth books especially are amazing. The first five books in the series are as follows:

  1. Magic Bites (Review)
  2. Magic Burns (Review)
  3. Magic Strikes (Review)
  4. Magic Bleeds (Review)
  5. Magic Slays (Review)

There are also several related novellas, and there is a related novel about Kate’s best friend Andrea, Gunmetal Magic.

 

Atlanta is a city plagued by magical problems. Kate Daniels will fight to solve them—no matter the cost.

Mercenary Kate Daniels and her mate, Curran, the Beast Lord, are struggling to solve a heartbreaking crisis. Unable to control their beasts, many of the Pack’s shapeshifting children fail to survive to adulthood. While there is a medicine that can help, the secret to its making is closely guarded by the European packs, and there’s little available in Atlanta.

Kate can’t bear to watch innocents suffer, but the solution she and Curran have found threatens to be even more painful. The European shapeshifters who once outmaneuvered the Beast Lord have asked him to arbitrate a dispute—and they’ll pay him in medicine. With the young people’s survival and the Pack’s future at stake, Kate and Curran know they must accept the offer—but they have little doubt that they’re heading straight into a trap…

Omens by Kelley Armstrong

Omens (Cainsville #1) by Kelley Armstrong

The first book in a new series by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Otherworld series will be released on August 20 (hardcover/ebook). The first 8 chapters can be read on the author’s website.

I’ve been wanting to read the Otherworld books but find the length of the series rather intimidating so I was intrigued to see Kelley Armstrong has a brand new series!

 

#1 New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong begins her new series with Omens, featuring a compelling new heroine thrust into a decades-old murder case and the dark mysteries surrounding her strange new home.

Twenty-four-year-old Olivia Taylor Jones has the perfect life. The only daughter of a wealthy, prominent Chicago family, she has an Ivy League education, pursues volunteerism and philanthropy, and is engaged to a handsome young tech firm CEO with political ambitions.

But Olivia’s world is shattered when she learns that she’s adopted. Her real parents? Todd and Pamela Larsen, notorious serial killers serving a life sentence. When the news brings a maelstrom of unwanted publicity to her adopted family and fiancé, Olivia decides to find out the truth about the Larsens.

Olivia ends up in the small town of Cainsville, Illinois, an old and cloistered community that takes a particular interest in both Olivia and her efforts to uncover her birth parents’ past.

Aided by her mother’s former lawyer, Gabriel Walsh, Olivia focuses on the Larsens’ last crime, the one her birth mother swears will prove their innocence. But as she and Gabriel start investigating the case, Olivia finds herself drawing on abilities that have remained hidden since her childhood, gifts that make her both a valuable addition to Cainsville and deeply vulnerable to unknown enemies. Because there are darker secrets behind her new home and powers lurking in the shadows that have their own plans for her.

Mage's Blood by David Hair

Mage’s Blood (Moontide Quartet #1) by David Hair

Mage’s Blood will be released in hardcover and ebook in September.

 

Most of the time the Moontide Bridge lies deep below the sea, but every 12 years the tides sink and the bridge is revealed, its gates open for trade.

The Magi are hell-bent on ruling this new world, and for the last two Moontides they have led armies across the bridge on ‘crusades’ of conquest.

Now the third Moontide is almost here and, this time, the people of the East are ready for a fight … but it is three seemingly ordinary people that will decide the fate of the world.

Box Office Poison by Phillipa Bornikova

Box Office Poison (Linnet Ellery #2) by Phillipa Bornikova

Box Office Poison will be released on August 6 (hardcover/ebook), following This Case Is Gonna Kill Me. An excerpt from Box Office Poison is available on Tor.com; they also have an excerpt from the first book.

 

What happens when exquisitely beautiful elves start getting all the roles in Hollywood? Human actors sue, that’s what. In a desperate attempt to keep the squabbling inside the Screen Actors Guild from going public, the president of SAG forces the two sides into arbitration.

Enter Linnet Ellery, a human lawyer working for a vampire law firm, to serve as arbitrator. Linnet discovers that there are sinister forces at work in Tinsel Town determined to shatter the fragile peace between elves, vampires, werewolves, and humans. Someone has been coercing famous elven actors into committing sudden and terrible acts of violence against humans in a series of tragedies that could turn the tide of public opinion against all the supernatural Powers.

During the course of her investigations Linnet realizes that a puzzling secret surrounds her, and that a strange power has been affecting the very course of her life. . . .