Waiting on Wednesday

This is a blog meme hosted by Jill over at Breaking the Spine to spotlight upcoming books. This week we're featuring picks chosen by SQT and Jim.



SQT's can't wait to read selection is:

The White Forest by Adam McOmber


Publisher: Touchstone

Date: September 11, 2012

Pages: 320



In the bestselling tradition of The Night Circus and Sarah Waters’s The Little Stranger, Adam McOmber’s hauntingly original debut novel follows a young woman in Victorian England whose peculiar abilities help her infiltrate a mysterious secret society. 




Young Jane Silverlake lives with her father at a crumbling family estate on the edge of Hampstead Heath. Jane has a secret—an unexplainable gift that allows her to see the souls of manmade objects—and this talent isolates her from the outside world. Her greatest joy is wandering the wild heath with her neighbors, Madeline and Nathan. But as the friends come of age, their idyll is shattered by the feelings both girls develop for Nathan, and by Nathan’s interest in a cult led by Ariston Day, a charismatic mystic popular with London's elite. Day encourages his followers to explore dream manipulation, with the goal of discovering a new virtual reality, a place he calls the Empyrean.




A year later, Nathan has vanished, and the famed Inspector Vidocq arrives in London to untangle the events that led up to Nathan’s disappearance. As a sinister truth emerges, Jane realizes she must discover the origins of her talent and use it to find Nathan herself, before it’s too late.




I was sold the instant I came to the part about the "souls of manmade objects." I'm really curious to see how that idea is developed and what it means for inanimate objects to have a soul- as well as the bit about dream manipulation. The rest of the storyline looks pretty good too. Very atmospheric with a nice bit of intrigue.



Jim's can't wait to read selection is:






The Lost Stars: Tarnished Knight by Jack Campbell


publisher: ACE


date: 10/2/12


pages: 384



The authority of the Syndicate Worlds government is crumbling. Civil war and rebellion are breaking out in many star systems despite the Syndicate government's brutal attempts to suppress disorder—and Midway is one of those star systems.



Artur Drakon and Gwen Iceni have been betrayed by the Syndicate and launch a battle for control over Midway. If their coup is to succeed, they must put aside their differences to prevent the population of the system from rising up against them—and to ferret out saboteurs determined to reestablish Syndicate rule...



Essentially a second (parallel) series to The Lost Fleet by the same author, as John Geary's fleet heads into alien space, this series will tell the stories of those who are left behind in the wake of the defeat of the Syndicate worlds. I'm curious if this series will be less ship-bound and therefore feature a slightly different aspect of this setting than what fans are normally used to. Either way, this is an author I love and a series I enjoy, so I'm looking forward to reading it.