This week, two of my favorite things, a fantasy book and strange facts about Roman life. And let’s begin…
The House on Durrow Street by Galen Beckett. This is the follow-up to The Magicians & Mrs. Quent which I read earlier this year. While I thought parts of The Magicians & Mrs. Quent were a little disconnected, I liked the characters and the world enough to want to read more. This one comes out on September 28th. Description from Barnes & Noble: Her courage saved the country of Altania and earned the love of a hero of the realm. Now sensible Ivy Quent wants only to turn her father’s sprawling, mysterious house into a proper home. But soon she is swept into fashionable society’s highest circles of power—a world that is vital to her family’s future but replete with perilous temptations. Yet far greater danger lies beyond the city’s glittering ballrooms—and Ivy must race to unlock the secrets that lie within the old house on Durrow Street before outlaw magicians and an ancient ravening force plunge Altania into darkness forever.
Cabinet of Roman Curiosities: Strange Tales and Surprising Facts from the World’s Greatest Empire by J.C. McKeown. I love anything about Roman history so this one had to go on the list. Description from Barnes & Noble: Here is a whimsical and captivating collection of odd facts, strange beliefs, outlandish opinions, and other highly amusing trivia of the ancient Romans. We tend to think of the Romans as a pragmatic people with a ruthlessly efficient army, an exemplary legal system, and a precise and elegant language. A Cabinet of Roman Curiosities shows that the Romans were equally capable of bizarre superstitions, logic-defying customs, and often hilariously derisive views of their fellow Romans and non-Romans.
Friday Finds is hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Leave a comment here with a link to your own finds, or share your answers at Should Be Reading. Happy Friday.
The Skewed Throne, The Cracked Throne, and The Vacant Throne by Joshua Palmatier. The series takes place in a city called Amenkor and follows a young girl named Varis who has the ability to see innocence and guilt in colors and develops a knack for murder. She eventually becomes the Mistress of Amenkor and tries to lead the city through political turmoil while fighting to keep the city’s citizens from starvation. When an alliance with another city becomes a possibility, Varis must find an ancient stone throne that was lost centuries earlier to seal the alliance. I tried to sum up each book in a sentence so this short description covers all three books.
Green Rider, First Rider’s Call, and The High King’s Tomb by Kristin Britain. This series is a quest tale with a medieval fantasy setting. In the first book, Karigan is expelled from school, and in a forest on the way home, she finds a Green Rider, a magically bound individual who is carrying a message for the King. She takes his magic brooch and takes over his mission becoming a Green Rider herself. The second book sees tainted magic seeping into the world and Karigan, poisoned by the magic, begins seeing visions of the first Green Rider who tells her how she must overcome a great evil. In the final book, Karigan receives a message from a dead magician and she begins to accept that she is destined for extraordinary things, especially after the god of death’s horse shows up for her.
The Distant Hours by Kate Morton. Marg from 
The Gin Closet by Leslie Jamison. Alayne from 
On Folly Beach by Karen White. I read another Karen White book earlier this year and enjoyed it. I’ve been meaning to pick up another but my library doesn’t have many of her books which annoys me but I won’t go into my latest set annoyances with the library system. That’s another post. This one is about a woman who buys a bookstore in Folly Beach, SC while mourning the loss of her husband and finds love letters that draw her and the former owner’s sister into a mystery surrounding WWII.
Just Book Reading 