An Update and Info for September’s Read

Hello readers!
First of all, thank you from the bottom of my heart to the about ten of you who attended our first meeting on the third. I had no idea how this was going to go, and I was delightfully surprised that it went better than I ever could have imagined. You are an amazing group of people, and you brought so many insights and thoughtful ideas that I never would have come up with on my own. I’m thrilled to see how this group progresses and expands.
Next up, and this will be reflected in the calendar and about page, we are changing our meeting dates to Friday’s at 10pm EDT. Hopefully this will allow more people to comfortably attend without a workday on the horizon. I am still trying to figure out how best to work with our overseas readers who have to get up tragically early if they want to attend. Let’s all invade Canada and bring them with us!
Since I will be otherwise occupied on the 14th, our next meeting (where we will talk about the entirety of The Fifth Season) will be on August 21 at 10:00 pm EDT.
Friendly reminder to join the Discord server if you haven’t already. You can find the link to it in the social menu on this page. Also invite your friends to vote on our next book and join us! Remember that this is a commitment free group: attend if you want, skip a meeting if you like.

September’s Options

We will be reading urban fantasy this month, and I tried to find some options that you may not have read before.

You will find synopses for each book below, as well as links to their Goodreads pages. Below the summaries is the section where you can vote. Voting will close on August 15 at 11:59pm.

We will meet to discuss the first half of whatever book is chosen on September 4, and our final meeting for it will be on September 18. You can always check the calendar at the bottom of the homepage or reach out in the Discord group for info.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Around the world, black hand prints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.
In a dark and dusty shop, a devil’s supply of human teeth grows dangerously low.
And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherworldly war.
Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real, she’s prone to disappearing on mysterious “errands”, she speaks many languages – not all of them human – and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she’s about to find out.
When beautiful, haunted Akiva fixes fiery eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?

Sinister Magic by Lindsay Buroker

(Note: this book does not appear to be on Bookshare)

I’m Val Thorvald, and I’m an assassin.
When magical bad guys hurt people, I take care of them. Permanently.
This doesn’t make me popular with the rest of the magical community—as you can tell from the numerous break-ins and assassination attempts I’ve endured over the years. But thanks to my half-elven blood, a powerful sword named Chopper, and a telepathic tiger with an attitude, I’ve always been able to handle my problems with aplomb. Maybe some cursing and swearing, too, but definitely aplomb.
That changes when my boss is afflicted with a mysterious disease, a government agent starts investigating me, and a godforsaken dragon shows up in the middle of my latest job.
I’ve taken down vampires, zombies, and ogres, but dragons are way, way more powerful. And it doesn’t look like this one is going to like me.
Worse than that, he wants to use his magic to compel me to do his bidding, as if I’m some weak-minded minion.
That’s not going to happen. I’d die before being some dragon’s slave.
But if I can’t figure out a way to avoid him, save my boss, and get rid of the government spook, I’m screwed. Or dead. Or screwed and dead. And that’s never comfortable.

The Rook by Daniel O’Malley

The body you are wearing used to be mine.” So begins the letter Myfanwy Thomas is holding when she awakes in a London park surrounded by bodies all wearing latex gloves. With no recollection of who she is, Myfanwy must follow the instructions her former self left behind to discover her identity and track down the agents who want to destroy her.
She soon learns that she is a Rook, a high-ranking member of a secret organization called the Chequy that battles the many supernatural forces at work in Britain. She also discovers that she possesses a rare, potentially deadly supernatural ability of her own.
In her quest to uncover which member of the Chequy betrayed her and why, Myfanwy encounters a person with four bodies, an aristocratic woman who can enter her dreams, a secret training facility where children are transformed into deadly fighters, and a conspiracy more vast than she ever could have imagined.

A Madness of Angels by Kate Griffin

For Matthew Swift, today is not like any other day. It is the day on which he returns to life.
Two years after his untimely death, Matthew Swift finds himself breathing once again, lying in bed in his London home.
Except that it’s no longer his bed, or his home. And the last time this sorcerer was seen alive, an unknown assailant had gouged a hole so deep in his chest that his death was irrefutable…despite his body never being found.
He doesn’t have long to mull over his resurrection though, or the changes that have been wrought upon him. His only concern now is vengeance. Vengeance upon his monstrous killer and vengeance upon the one who brought him back.

Vote here!