Notable New Releases [Aug. 28 - Sept. 3]

This week brought about a lot of exciting new releases including a Kindle Single from Stephen King.  These are the new releases that caught my eye this week.  They are ordered by release date.

Notable New Releases

Roil by Trent Jamieson
Pub Date: August 30, 2011
Amazon | Kindle

[Read my review of Roil]

Shale is in trouble - the creature-filled darkness known as the Roil is expanding, consuming the land, swallowing cities whole. Where once there were 12 metropolises, now only 4 remain.

It's up to a drug addict, an old man and a woman bent on revenge to try to save their city - and the world.

---

The Unwanteds by Lisa McMann
Pub Date: August 30, 2011
Amazon | Kindle

Every year in Quill, thirteen-year-olds are sorted into categories: the strong, intelligent Wanteds go to university, and the artistic Unwanteds are sent to their deaths.

Thirteen-year-old Alex tries his hardest to be stoic when his fate is announced as Unwanted, even while leaving behind his twin, Aaron, a Wanted. Upon arrival at the destination where he expected to be eliminated, however, Alex discovers a stunning secret--behind the mirage of the "death farm" there is instead a place called Artime.

In Artime, each child is taught to cultivate their creative abilities and learn how to use them magically, weaving spells through paintbrushes and musical instruments. Everything Alex has ever known changes before his eyes, and it's a wondrous transformation.

But it's a rare, unique occurence for twins to be separated between Wanted and Unwanted, and as Alex and Aaron's bond stretches across their separation, a threat arises for the survival of Artime that will pit brother against brother in an ultimate, magical battle.

---

With Fate Conspire by Marie Brenna
Pub Date: August 30, 2011
Amazon | Kindle

Marie Brennan returns to the Onyx Court, a fairy city hidden below Queen Victoria's London. Now the Onyx Court faces its greatest challenge.

Seven years ago, Eliza's childhood sweetheart vanished from the streets of Whitechapel. No one believed her when she told them that he was stolen away by the faeries.

But she hasn't given up the search. It will lead her across London and into the hidden palace that gives refuge to faeries in the mortal world. That refuge is now crumbling, broken by the iron of the underground railway, and the resulting chaos spills over to the streets above.

Three centuries of the Onyx Court are about to come to an end. Without the palace's protection, the fae have little choice but to flee. Those who stay have one goal: to find safety in a city that does not welcome them. But what price will the mortals of London pay for that safety?

---

The Terminal Experiment by Robert J. Sawyer
Pub Date: August 30, 2011 (Re-release)
Amazon | Kindle

[A Nebula Award–winning and Hugo Award–nominated novel—back in print and updated to reflect current technology.]

Dr. Peter Hobson has created three electronic simulations of his own personality. But they all have escaped from Hobson's computer into the web-and one of them is a killer. 

---

Dust & Decay (Benny Imura #2) by Jonathan Maberry
Pub Date: August 30, 2011

Six months have passed since the terrifying battle with Charlie Pink-eye and the Motor City Hammer in the zombie-infested mountains of the Rot & Ruin. It’s also six months since Benny Imura and Nix Riley saw something in the air that changed their lives. Now, after months of rigorous training with Benny’s zombie-hunter brother Tom, Benny and Nix are ready to leave their home forever and search for a better future. Lilah the Lost Girl and Benny’s best friend Lou Chong are going with them.

Sounds easy. Sounds wonderful. Except that everything that can go wrong does. Before they can even leave there is a shocking zombie attack in town. But as soon as they step into the Rot & Ruin they are pursued by the living dead, wild animals, insane murderers and the horrors of Gameland –where teenagers are forced to fight for their lives in the zombie pits. Worst of all…could the evil Charlie Pink-eye still be alive?

In the great Rot & Ruin everything wants to kill you. Everything…and not everyone in Benny’s small band of travelers will make it out alive.

---

Cuckoo by Richard Wright
Pub Date: August 31, 2011
Amazon Kindle

Greg Summers knows the answers to the questions. Until one day he returns home to discover that his wife no longer recognises him; that his wife is married to another man called Greg Summers.

Perhaps it is an elaborate hoax, yet that wouldn’t explain the vivid flashbacks to his childhood, or the violent eruptions of blood that accompany them. Nor does it explain the stray memories that seem to belong to an entirely separate man called Richard Jameson.

One of these men is a lie, and neither wishes it to be he. On the run from a creature that cannot exist, his comfortable truths shattered, Greg finds his whole knowledge of the world questionable. If he does not know himself, what can he trust himself to know?

Greg Summers and Richard Jameson are about to discover that the fight to survive is all in the mind...

---

The Poisoned House by Michael Ford
Pub Date: September 1, 2011
Amazon

[Read my review of The Poisoned House]

Life can be cruel for a servant girl in 1850s London. Fifteen-year-old Abi is a scullery maid in Greave Hall, an elegant but troubled household. The widowed master of the house is slowly slipping into madness, and the tyrannical housekeeper, Mrs.Cotton, punishes Abi without mercy. But there's something else going on in Greave Hall, too. An otherworldly presence is making itself known, and a deadly secret will reveal itself---a secret that will shatter everything Abi knows. 

---

Dead Bad Things (Thomas Usher #2) by Gary McMahon
Pub Date:  September 1, 2011 (Print Date: September 27, 2011)
Amazon Kindle

HE SOUGHT TO FLEE HIS TRAGIC PAST, but when Thomas Usher hears a clockwork voice on the phone, and sees ever-more disturbing visions in a derelict warehouse, Usher realizes that he has to return home - for the sake of his own sanity.

Meanwhile, a deadly figure from Usher's past threatens to undermine the very fabric of reality.

---

Mile 81 by Stephen King
Pub Date: September 1, 2011
Amazon Kindle

With the heart of Stand By Me and the genius horror of Christine, Mile 81 is Stephen King unleashing his imagination as he drives past one of those road signs...

At Mile 81 on the Maine Turnpike is a boarded up rest stop on a highway in Maine. It's a place where high school kids drink and get into the kind of trouble high school kids have always gotten into. It's the place where Pete Simmons goes when his older brother, who's supposed to be looking out for him, heads off to the gravel pit to play "paratroopers over the side." Pete, armed only with the magnifying glass he got for his tenth birthday, finds a discarded bottle of vodka in the boarded up burger shack and drinks enough to pass out.

Not much later, a mud-covered station wagon (which is strange because there hadn't been any rain in New England for over a week) veers into the Mile 81 rest area, ignoring the sign that says "closed, no services." The driver's door opens but nobody gets out.

Doug Clayton, an insurance man from Bangor, is driving his Prius to a conference in Portland. On the backseat are his briefcase and suitcase and in the passenger bucket is a King James Bible, what Doug calls "the ultimate insurance manual," but it isn't going to save Doug when he decides to be the Good Samaritan and help the guy in the broken down wagon. He pulls up behind it, puts on his four-ways, and then notices that the wagon has no plates.

Ten minutes later, Julianne Vernon, pulling a horse trailer, spots the Prius and the wagon, and pulls over. Julianne finds Doug Clayton's cracked cell phone near the wagon door — and gets too close herself. By the time Pete Simmons wakes up from his vodka nap, there are a half a dozen cars at the Mile 81 rest stop. Two kids — Rachel and Blake Lussier — and one horse named Deedee are the only living left. Unless you maybe count the wagon.

What books caught your eye this week?