My To Be Read List

I’m going camping for a long weekend tomorrow. Basically, I’m not going to have internet, but I’m going to have a crazy amount of time to read.

I thought I’d update you guys on what I’m planning to read and what I’m reading right now.

Right now, I’m halfway through reading Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. It’s different from what I usually read, but I’m loving it. Amazingly done fantasy, with incredible characterization and world building. Just the concepts alone, behind the plot and the magic in the world, were enough to suck me in. Hopefully (probably) I’ll have read the whole trilogy by the time I get back, so there will be a review for them coming soon.

Amazon description:

For a thousand years the ash fell and no flowers bloomed. For a thousand years the Skaa slaved in misery and lived in fear. For a thousand years the Lord Ruler, the “Sliver of Infinity,” reigned with absolute power and ultimate terror, divinely invincible. Then, when hope was so long lost that not even its memory remained, a terribly scarred, heart-broken half-Skaa rediscovered it in the depths of the Lord Ruler’s most hellish prison. Kelsier “snapped” and found in himself the powers of a Mistborn. A brilliant thief and natural leader, he turned his talents to the ultimate caper, with the Lord Ruler himself as the mark.
Kelsier recruited the underworld’s elite, the smartest and most trustworthy allomancers, each of whom shares one of his many powers, and all of whom relish a high-stakes challenge. Only then does he reveal his ultimate dream, not just the greatest heist in history, but the downfall of the divine despot.
But even with the best criminal crew ever assembled, Kel’s plan looks more like the ultimate long shot, until luck brings a ragged girl named Vin into his life. Like him, she’s a half-Skaa orphan, but she’s lived a much harsher life. Vin has learned to expect betrayal from everyone she meets, and gotten it. She will have to learn to trust, if Kel is to help her master powers of which she never dreamed.

Other books I’m bringing with me (that might get read, depending on the mood I’m in):

Insanity by Susan Vaught

Amazon description:

Never, Kentucky is not your average scenic small town. It is a crossways, a place where the dead and the living can find no peace. Not that Forest, an 18-year-old foster kid who works the graveyard shift at Lincoln Hospital, knew this when she applied for the job. Lincoln is a huge state mental institution, a good place for Forest to make some money to pay for college. But along with hundreds of very unstable patients, it also has underground tunnels, bell towers that ring unexpectedly, and a closet that holds more than just donated clothing….When the dead husband of one of Forest’s patients makes an appearance late one night, seemingly accompanied by an agent of the Devil, Forest loses all sense of reality and all sense of time. Terrified, she knows she has a part to play, and when she does so, she finds a heritage that she never expected.

I’ve read two of Susan Vaught’s other books, Going Underground and Freaks Like Us, and I really love her as an author. This is more paranormal than anything I’ve read from her, as far as I know, it’s the first paranormal book she’s written. I trust that she’s done an amazing job with it, and I’m really excited to read it.

Belle Epoque by Elizabeth Ross

Amazon description:

When Maude Pichon runs away from provincial Brittany to Paris, her romantic dreams vanish as quickly as her savings. Desperate for work, she answers an unusual ad. The Durandeau Agency provides its clients with a unique service—the beauty foil. Hire a plain friend and become instantly more attractive.
Monsieur Durandeau has made a fortune from wealthy socialites, and when the Countess Dubern needs a companion for her headstrong daughter, Isabelle, Maude is deemed the perfect adornment of plainness.
Isabelle has no idea her new “friend” is the hired help, and Maude’s very existence among the aristocracy hinges on her keeping the truth a secret. Yet the more she learns about Isabelle, the more her loyalty is tested. And the longer her deception continues, the more she has to lose.

I’m interested by the premise of the book. The description doesn’t give much of an explanation as to the plot, but the concept behind it is promising. My sister already read it and enjoyed it, so I probably will as well.

All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill

Amazon description:

“You have to kill him.”

Imprisoned in the heart of a secret military base, Em has nothing except the voice of the boy in the cell next door and the list of instructions she finds taped inside the drain.

Only Em can complete the final instruction. She’s tried everything to prevent the creation of a time machine that will tear the world apart. She holds the proof: a list she has never seen before, written in her own hand. Each failed attempt in the past has led her to the same terrible present-imprisoned and tortured by a sadistic man called the doctor while war rages outside.

Marina has loved her best friend James since they were children. A gorgeous, introverted science prodigy from one of America’s most famous families, James finally seems to be seeing Marina in a new way, too. But on one disastrous night, James’s life crumbles apart, and with it, Marina’s hopes for their future. Marina will protect James, no matter what. Even if it means opening her eyes to a truth so terrible that she may not survive it. At least not as the girl she once was. Em and Marina are in a race against time that only one of them can win.

The plot sounds complicated but in a good way. Again, my sister really liked it–which is a major vote of confidence for a book. I don’t think I’ve ever really read a novel that handled time travel well, so hopefully, this will break the trend.

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So I’ve got fantasy, paranormal, historical fiction (ish), and time travel. Nothing light-hearted, which I might regret later this weekend, but there wasn’t anything that looked good on my bookshelf. I’m also trying to catch up on books my sister read that I haven’t.

I probably won’t have any posts after this on until Monday. Then I’m going to try a follow-up to yesterday’s post about editing my novel, focusing on how I use Excel for plot purposes. If I get a chance, I’ll try to write some more of Hell and Styx so I can post that.

So, yeah. Wish me good books.