'Gaining their ink was just the first step. Now they have to earn it.'

Christian Blake, an unruly English teenager, finds himself in a mysterious tattoo parlour in Connaught Square where he is possessed by a Rune God, Hagalaz, and given the power to harness the forces of nature. Only problem? Hagalaz doesn't like to play nice. He is the God of Disruption, and he is intent on making Christian's life a living hell.

Christian’s mentor, The Raven, pulls him from his relative comfort in London and takes him across the world to join his Tribe, a group of four unlikely teenagers with their own newly-gifted magical powers. They are tasked with taking on the forces of evil brewing across the globe: The Settlers, a growing group of aliens that have slowly integrated themselves into the mainstream of Planet Earth's politics and positions of power.

They have a dark secret, and it the Tribe's mission to discover what that is and to put a stop to it. But nothing is what it seems, for it will take much more than the powers of a few long-forgotten gods to put an end to the impending global catastrophe that threatens to destroy everything and anyone in its path. 

There's something about tracking your reading on Goodreads that is so satisfying to me. It's so much fun at the end of the year to look back over all the titles I've read. And I'm a bit competitive in that I like to try and beat my goal from the year before. (Okay, okay, a LOT competitive.) 

I've read 130 books in 2018. Out of those, only seventeen were five star reads for me so it was actually rather easy to pick my top ten of the year. For me, five-star reads are books that 1) stay with me long after I've finished them and 2) books that I would have no problem picking up and rereading. Using those two qualifiers helps me to not get too star happy! It's actually pretty challenging for me to rate a book five stars. While I might really enjoy a book, most books are not something that I'd tuck away and reread on a rainy day.  

Kingdom of Salt & Sirens Boxed Set Publication date: TBA Genres: Fairy Tales, Retelling, Young Adult

The Little Mermaid but not as you remember it… 

Beneath the turbulent seas, beyond the smokey depths, lies a Kingdom that exists in your wildest imagination. 

A world where mermaids swim, sirens sing and shipwrecks hide mysterious creatures.

Make waves with our 11 magical retellings of the timeless classic, The Little Mermaid.

Dive into a world filled with adventure, love and magic!

One click now for your happily ever after.

Authors include:

J.A Armitage

R. Castro

Jennifer Ellision

Mira Crest

K.M Pyne

Laura Greenwood

Jacque Stevens

Scarlett Kol

Anne Stryker

Nikki Landis

Song of Sacrifice
Janell Rhiannon
(Homeric Chronicles, #1)
Publication date: December 26th 2018
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Historical

The heart of the Trojan War belongs to the women.

Mothers and daughters; wives and war prizes, whisper to us across time…

…remember our songs alongside the mighty men of myth.
As the Age of Heroes wanes, the gods gamble more fiercely with mortals’ lives than they ever have before. Women must rely on their inner strength and cunning to survive the wars men wage for gold and glory.
Clytemnestra of Mycenae struggles for control of her life after Agamemnon ruthlessly rips it apart. Leda of Sparta survives a brutal assault by Zeus, shouldering a terrible secret in silence. Penelope raises Ithaka’s sole heir alone, praying for Odysseus’ swift return. Thetis, the sea nymph, despairs of her son’s destiny and resorts to forbidden magic to save him. Hecuba of Troy mourns the loss of her second son to a dark prophesy. And Shavash of Pedasus prepares her daughter to marry the greatest warrior who ever lived.
In a world where love leads to war and duty leads to destruction, the iron hearts of heroines will conquer all.
Sing, Muse, sing their song of sacrifice…
Replaces Song of Princes as the first book in the Homeric Chronicles.

The fight for survival started with a blast.

Then it started snowing in May and the grid failed.

Then they came.

Who are they? And what do they want?

Find out in this addicting post-apocalyptic survival horror thriller that will leave you wanting more. 

When a mysterious blast goes off in a small college town, triggering a blizzard, the few survivors must decide whether to stay or leave and face the monsters who came with the snow.

In the Blue, the world’s last city, all is not well.

Julia is stuck within its walls. She serves the nobility from a distance until she meets Lucas, a boy who believes in fairytales that Julia’s world can’t accommodate. The Blue is her prison, not her castle, and she’d escape into the trees if she didn’t know that contamination and death awaited humanity outside.

But not everyone in the Blue is human, and not everyone can be contained.

Beyond the city’s boundaries, in the wild forests of the Red, Cameron has precious little humanity left to lose. As he searches for a lost queen, he finds an enemy rising that he thought long dead. An enemy that the humans have forgotten how to fight.

One way or another, the walls of the Blue are coming down. The only question is what side you’ll be on when they do.

The world runs on ARCs. Altered Reality Chips. Small implants behind the left ear that allow people to experience anything they could ever imagine. The network controls everything, from traffic, to food production, to law enforcement. Some proclaim it a Golden Age of humanity. Others have begun to see the cracks. Few realize that behind it all, living within every brain and able to control all aspects of society, there exists a being with an agenda all his own: the singularity called Adam, who believes he is God.

Jimmy Mahoney’s brain can’t accept an ARC. Not since his football injury from the days when the league was still offline. “ARC-incompatible” is what the doctors told him. Worse than being blind and deaf, he is a man struggling to cling to what’s left of a society that he is no longer a part of. His wife spends twenty-three hours a day online, only coming off when her chip forcibly disconnects her so she can eat. Others are worse. Many have died, unwilling or unable to log off to take care of even their most basic needs.

After being unwittingly recruited by a rogue singularity to play a role in a war that he doesn’t understand, Jimmy learns the truth about Adam and is thrown into a life-and-death struggle against the most powerful mathematical mind the world has ever known. But what can one man do against a being that exists everywhere and holds limitless power? How can one man, unable to even get online, find a way to save his wife, and the entire human race, from destruction?

Harley Baker's obsession with the afterlife leads him to experiment with astral projection, but when he doesn't take the necessary precautions before an OBE, he comes back to find that a demon has taken over his body. While in spirit form, Harley watches the impostor romance the girl he's crushing on, ace his college exams, and impress his best friend with opportunities for wealth beyond his wildest dreams. 

Not only does Harley have to figure out how to get his body back before he's trapped in the astral plane forever, but he has to stop the demon from a plan that will veil the world in darkness and enslave the human race.

(Veiled, #2) Publication date: November 25th 2018 Genres: Adult, Urban Fantasy

History believes me to be a merciless savage. A terror upon the Earth known as The Impaler. Archaic lore whispers I am the first of the vampire lineage.

These claims … are all painted in bloody truth.
Now, while the world watches in fear, a war is brewing. Humans are targeting vampires in merciless attacks to force us back into the shadows.
They woke me to be their weapon.

They know not my loathing for my own kind.

Even I cannot say for certain whose side I’m on.
I have bowed before the alter of darkness rooted in the Nosferatu bloodline. Been forced to drink of its bitter sacrament. They refer to me as The Son of The Dragon, and I laugh. For I, alone, know that malevolent essence is one no man could ever tame.