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:

Defiance by C. J. Redwine

Publisher: Balzer & Bray

Date: August 28, 2012

Pages: 416



Within the walls of Baalboden, beneath the shadow of the city's brutal leader, Rachel Adams has a secret. While other girls sew dresses and obey their male Protectors, Rachel knows how to survive in the wilderness and deftly wield a sword. When her father, Jared, fails to return from a courier mission and is declared dead, the Commander assigns Rachel a new Protector, her father's apprentice, Logan—the same boy Rachel declared her love for two years ago, and the same one who handed her heart right back to her. Left with nothing but a fierce belief in her father's survival, Rachel decides to escape and find him herself. But treason against the Commander carries a heavy price, and what awaits her in the Wasteland could destroy her.

At nineteen, Logan McEntire is many things. Orphan. Outcast. Inventor. As apprentice to the city's top courier, Logan is focused on learning his trade so he can escape the tyranny of Baalboden. But his plan never included being responsible for his mentor's impulsive daughter. Logan is determined to protect her, but when his escape plan goes wrong and Rachel pays the price, he realizes he has more at stake than disappointing Jared.

As Rachel and Logan battle their way through the Wasteland, stalked by a monster that can't be killed and an army of assassins out for blood, they discover romance, heartbreak, and a truth that will incite a war decades in the making.



 This sounds like a YA book worth taking a chance on. Rather than a simple romance the description reads like a well thought out story with an honest-to-goodness plot. The best book I read last year was YA ("Daughter of Smoke and Bone" by Laini Taylor) and if the reviews attached to "Defiance" are any indication it may be this year's YA title. Fingers crossed.







Dead Space: Catalyst by B.K. Evenson

Publisher: Tor

Date: October 2, 2012

pages: 416



Dead Space: Catalyst takes place three hundred years in the future, where mankind is tampering with the dangerous alien technology gleaned from the Black Marker, an ancient alien artifact discovered on Earth centuries earlier. Hoping to end resource constraints that threaten to make mankind extinct, the urgency sinks the already unscrupulous EarthGov to new lows. At this early stage, the Marker threat is just appearing – and is maybe even contained – except if it finds the catalyst it so desperately seeks. Two brothers, one with a special but broken mind, the other forever conflicted by the impossible chore of keeping him out of trouble, cross paths with EarthGov and the Markers at this critical juncture and forever change the course of the Marker outbreak.



Halloween comes a little early to the blog, as this week and next I'm featuring a couple of genre books that fit for that time of the year. I still mean to read Dead Space: Martyr from last year, so this is probably more of a case of a book I'm interested in reading after I've caught up. Horror and scifi combine together quite nicely methinks.