Hello, Muses!
July ends with a bang! In Adult books, the premise of Blood and Feathers by Lou Morgan sounds like an interesting twist on the angel mythology. Aliens? Zombies? Devil's Wake by married couple Steven Barnes & Tananarive Due might be bringing something different to the genre. In Young Adult, I am super excited for the release of Flawed by Kate Avelynn, Skylark by Meagan Spooner, and Survive by Alex Morel. Oh, and if you are a fan of Simone Elkeles and her steamy, edgy novels, you might want to check out Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry. I've already read it and should have a review up by Wednesday. All I can say is WOW.
Not much going on in the Movie department but if you are in the Olympic spirit, you may want to take a look at Going for Gold, based on a true story. I personally am interested in checking out indie romance flick Falling Overnight. And the only movie that is coming out in a blu-ray-DVD combo pack this week is We the Party. In TV Series, Hatfield & McCoys starring Kevin Costner and Bill Paxton finally comes out tomorrow, so if you missed it on the tube, here is your chance to view it. BBC series Misfits Season 1 is something I've been wanting to check out for awhile.
Enjoy!
BOOKS (July 31st-August 2nd)
ADULT
Blood and Feathers (Blood and Feathers, #1)
by: Lou Morgan
Alice shrugged. “I don’t know... guns?”
Alice isn’t having the best of days. She was late for work, she missed her bus, and now she’s getting rained on. What she doesn’t know is that her day’s about to get worse: the epic, grand-scale kind of worse that comes from the arrival of two angels who claim everything about her life is a lie.
The war between the angels and the Fallen is escalating; the age-old balance is tipping, and innocent civilians are getting caught in the cross-fire. If the balance is to be restored, the angels must act—or risk the Fallen taking control. Forever.
That’s where Alice comes in. Hunted by the Fallen and guided by Mallory—a disgraced angel with a drinking problem and a whole load of secrets—Alice will learn the truth about her own history... and why the angels want to send her to hell.
What do the Fallen want from her? How does Mallory know so much about her past? What is it the angels are hiding—and can she trust either side?
Caught between the power plays of the angels and Lucifer himself, it isn’t just hell’s demons that Alice will have to defeat..
Release Date: 31 July 2012
Care and Feeding of Stray Vampires, The (Half Moon Hollow, #2)
by: Molly Harper
Cal - who would be devastatingly sexy, if Iris allowed herself to think that way - offers Iris a hefty fee for hiding him at her place until he figures out who wants him permanently dead. Even though he’s imperious, unfriendly and doesn't seem to understand the difference between "employee" and "servant," Iris agrees, and finds herself breaking more and more of her own rules to help him - particularly those concerning nudity.
Turns out what her quiet little life needed was some intrigue & romance—in the form of her very own stray vampire
Release Date: 31 July 2012
Darklands (Deadtown, #4)
by: Nancy Holzner
Boston’s demons have been disappearing, and Vicky’s clients are canceling left and right. While fewer demons might seem like a good thing, Vicky suspects foul play. A missing Celtic cauldron from Harvard’s Peabody museum leads her to an unwelcome conclusion: Pryce, her demi-demon cousin and bitter enemy, is trying to regain his full powers.
But Pryce isn’t alone. He’s conjured another, darker villain from Vicky’s past. To stop them from destroying everything she loves, she’ll have to face her own worst fear—in the realm of the dead itself
Release Date: 31 July 2012
Devil's Wake
by: Steven Barnes & Tananarive Due
The eeriness of Devil’s Wake begins a week after tomorrow. An unprecedented infection has swept across the world, bringing an epidemic of mindless biting attacks from the infected that leave their victims “changed.” Society has broken down. The victims are more than mindless zombies. They are the result of a sinister alien life-form in the wake of the aliens’ insidious plot, humanity ultimately becomes enmeshed in a brutal struggle for control of its home, planet Earth.
Part Dawn of the Dead and part Road Warrior, Devil’s Wake is a testimony to courage, friendship, and the power of faith. Horrifying and heartbreaking, exciting and challenging, it is a compelling, brilliant story on the edge of what could be the end of it all
Release Date: 31 July 2012
Lady is a Vamp, The (Argeneau, #17)
by: Lynsay Sands
Kidnapped When Jeanne Louise Argeneau left work, she never thought she'd end up tied down by a good-looking mortal. More attracted than annoyed, she quickly realizes there is more to her abductor than meets the eye.
One desperate act leads to . . .
Love? Paul Jones has need of a vampire, and only Jeanne Louise will do. He just has to convince this beauty of a Vamp to help him . . . never imagining that he would fall in love. But with the immortal world's answer to law enforcement hunting them, their time together is running out . . . and Paul and Jeanne Louise will need to risk everything to spend an eternity together
Release Date: 31 July 2012
Moonglow (Darkest London, #2)
by: Kristen Callihan
Finally free of her suffocating marriage, widow Daisy Ellis Craigmore is ready to embrace the pleasures of life that have long been denied her. Yet her new-found freedom is short lived. A string of unexplained murders has brought danger to Daisy's door, forcing her to turn to the most unlikely of saviors . . .
Their growing passion knows no bounds . . .
Ian Ranulf, the Marquis of Northrup, has spent lifetimes hiding his primal nature from London society. But now a vicious killer threatens to expose his secrets. Ian must step out of the shadows and protect the beautiful, fearless Daisy, who awakens in him desires he thought long dead. As their quest to unmask the villain draws them closer together, Daisy has no choice but to reveal her own startling secret, and Ian must face the undeniable truth: Losing his heart to Daisy may be the only way to save his soul
Release Date: 31 July 2012
Night Forbidden (Envy Chronicles, #5)
by: Joss Ware
Somehow Bruno "Fence" Washington survived the apocalypse—emerging from a Sedona cave into a strange and terrible new world . . . fifty years later. Now, scouring the ruined earth for answers about the malevolent Strangers, the former extreme sportsman encounters an Amazonian beauty who calls to his every desire, but whose secret could mean his end.
Ana grew up in the ocean, diving far beneath the waves to the remnants of a world she never knew. Try as she might she can't resist the man who tempts her in ways she never knew possible . . . whose touch elicits truths she swore never to reveal. But the passion between them won't be denied even though it means facing a new evil rising up from the roiling waters to blanket the world in unending night
Release Date: 31 July 2012
Shadow Rising (Dark Dynasties, #3)
by: Kendra Leigh Castle
As one of the Grigori, a noble vampire dynasty shrouded in mystery, Ariane has spent her life hidden away in the desert. Like all of her kind, she is a watcher, fated to observe, forbidden to act. Yet when her best friend, Sammael, vanishes, she defies all rules and flees her safe haven to bring him home.
A shape-shifting assassin for the House of Shadows, Damien Tremaine is hired to locate Sammael. His hunt for the wayward Grigori leads him to Ariane, the rogue vamp who stands between him and his bounty. Damien never lets emotion interfere with his work, but a single touch from the sexy, beguiling vampire shatters his self-control. Drawn together by their common goal, what begins as an alliance of necessity soon becomes one of desire. But when the secret at the dark heart of the Grigori comes to light, Damien and Ariane must make a choice that could bind them eternally...or tear them—and everything they care about—apart.
Release Date: 31 July 2012
Voracious (Clare Point, #5)
by: V.K. Forrest
Voracious
After months spent eliminating some of the world’s most ruthless criminals, Aedan Brigid is on sabbatical in Clare Point. Instead of relief, he feels on edge. Part of it is due to Dallas York, the gorgeous blonde bar owner whose touch just sparked an intense, inexplicable connection. But there’s another reason too. A local woman has been brutally attacked, her face and body carved beyond recognition. And one glance tells Aedan whose grisly handiwork it is.
Centuries ago, Aedan lost his beloved to a depraved monster nicknamed Jay. Now Jay is back, more vicious than ever. Aedan is already breaking clan rules by getting involved with Dallas—even if her mysterious gift sets her apart from other humans. And soon, he’ll have to decide whether he’ll turn away from the only life he’s known to protect a love he thought he’d never feel again…
Release Date: 31 July 2012
vN: The First Machine Dynasty (The Machine Dynasty, #1)
by: Madeline Ashby
For the past five years, she has been grown slowly as part of a mixed organic/synthetic family. She knows very little about her android mother's past, so when her grandmother arrives and attacks her mother, Amy wastes no time: she eats her alive.
Now she carries her malfunctioning granny as a partition on her memory drive, and she's learning impossible things about her clade's history - like the fact that she alone can kill humans without failsafing..
Release Date: 31 July 2012
When Temptation Burns (Shadow Keepers, #6)
by: J.K. Beck
Tracking a band of conspiracy theorists eager to spill blood, Andy has uncovered the story of her career. Brooding, mysterious Ryan is an enigma—but their dance of seduction is hotter than any fantasy. As they race to stop mass murder on the streets, Andy knows that Ryan is holding back, keeping secrets. But getting close to Ryan means opening the door to a world that will challenge her deepest beliefs—including what it means to truly surrender to love.
Release Date: 31 July 2012
YOUNG ADULT
Colandra's Crusade- Angels and Demons Collide (Cronkel Chronicles, #1)
by: Susie Pilkington-Wood
Release Date: 30 July 2012
Destiny (Immortal, #4)
by: Gillian Shields
Helen has always been the "crazy" one among the girls of Wyldcliffe, scarred by her bleak past and her troubled relationship with her mother, the former headmistress and leader of the Wyldcliffe coven, Mrs. Hartle.
But Miss Scratton promised Helen that a love "beyond the confines of this world" is waiting for her. Could this be Lynton, the mysterious music student who visits Wyldcliffe for his lessons? And what about the brooch her mother gave her--what can the Seal reveal about Helen's past and future?
Now that Miss Scratton is gone, life at Wyldcliffe takes an even darker turn. An unexpected threat arrives in the form of a new high master, whom Helen remembers from her unhappy childhood. Can Helen, Evie, and Sarah finally overcome Wyldcliffe's darkness? Will Lady Agnes come to their aid? And what sacrifices must they make to fulfill their destiny?
"Destiny" is the stunning conclusion to this gripping series about sisterhood, the circles of time, and love.
Release Date: 31 July 2012
Far West, The (Frontier Magic, #3)
by: Patricia C. Wrede
Eff is an unlucky thirteenth child...but also the seventh daughter in her family. Her twin brother, Lan, is a powerful double seventh son. Her life at the edge of the Great Barrier Spell is different from anyone else's that she knows.
When the government forms an expedition to map the Far West, Eff has the opportunity to travel farther than anyone in the world. With Lan, William, Professor Torgeson, Wash, and Professor Ochiba, Eff finds that nothing on the wild frontier is as they expected. There are strange findings in their research, a long prarie winter spent in too-close quarters, and more new species, magical and otherwise, dangerous and benign, than they ever expected to find. And then spring comes, and the explorers realize how tenuous life near the Great Barrier Spell may be if they don't find a way to stop a magical flood in a hurry. Eff's unique way of viewing magic has saved the settlers time and again, but this time all of Columbia is at stake if she should fail.
Release Date: 1 August 2012
Flawed
by: Kate Avelynn
Until, with a tiny kiss and a broken mind, he asks for more than she can give.
Sam Donavon has been James’s best friend—and the boy Sarah’s had a crush on—for as long as she can remember. As their forbidden relationship deepens, Sarah knows she’s in trouble. Quiet, serious Sam has decided he’s going to save her. Neither of them realize James is far more unstable than her father ever was, or that he’s not about to let Sarah forget her half of the pact..
Release Date: 31 July 2012
Otherkin (Otherkin, #1)
by: Nina Berry
Dez is a good girl who does as she’s told and tries not to be noticed.
Then she rescues a boy from a cage, and he tells her secrets about herself.
Now inside her burns a darkness that will transform her.
Everything is about to change -- and neither Caleb, nor the Otherkin, nor those who hunt them are prepared for what Dez will unleash.
Release Date: 31 July 2012
Pushing the Limits
by: Katie McGarry
So wrong for each other...and yet so right.
No one knows what happened the night Echo Emerson went from popular girl with jock boyfriend to gossiped-about outsider with "freaky" scars on her arms. Even Echo can't remember the whole truth of that horrible night. All she knows is that she wants everything to go back to normal. But when Noah Hutchins, the smoking-hot, girl-using loner in the black leather jacket, explodes into her life with his tough attitude and surprising understanding, Echo's world shifts in ways she could never have imagined. They should have nothing in common. And with the secrets they both keep, being together is pretty much impossible.Yet the crazy attraction between them refuses to go away. And Echo has to ask herself just how far they can push the limits and what she'll risk for the one guy who might teach her how to love again.
Release Date: 31 July 2012
Skylark (Skylark, #1)
by: Meagan Spooner
Her world ends at the edge of the vast domed barrier of energy enclosing all that’s left of humanity. For two hundred years the city has sustained this barrier by harvesting its children's innate magical energy when they reach adolescence. When it’s Lark’s turn to be harvested, she finds herself trapped in a nightmarish web of experiments and learns she is something out of legend itself: a Renewable, able to regenerate her own power after it’s been stripped.
Forced to flee the only home she knows to avoid life as a human battery, Lark must fight her way through the terrible wilderness beyond the edge of the world. With the city’s clockwork creations close on her heels and a strange wild boy stalking her in the countryside, she must move quickly if she is to have any hope of survival. She’s heard the stories that somewhere to the west are others like her, hidden in secret – but can she stay alive long enough to find them?
Release Date: 1 August 2012
Survive
by: Alex Morel
Jane is on a plane on her way home to Montclair, New Jersey, from a mental hospital. She is about to kill herself. Just before she can swallow a lethal dose of pills, the plane hits turbulence and everything goes black. Jane wakes up amidst piles of wreckage and charred bodies on a snowy mountaintop. There is only one other survivor: a boy named Paul, who inspires Jane to want to fight for her life for the first time.
Jane and Paul scale icy slopes and huddle together for warmth at night, forging an intense emotional bond. But the wilderness is a vast and lethal force, and only one of them will survive.
Release Date: 2 August 2012
MOVIES & TV SERIES (July 31st)
MOVIES
4.3.2.1
Directed by: Noel Clarke
Writer/director Noel Clarke (Kidulthood, Adulthood) returns to the helm for this frenetic urban thriller following four friends who went their separate ways, but find their fates colliding following a chance meeting with a group of ruthless diamond thieves. Jo (Emma Roberts, Cassandra (Tasmin Egerton), Kerrys (Shanika Warren-Markland) and Shannon (Ophelia Lovibond) used to be inseparable, but lately they've begun to grow apart. As Jo struggles for a sense of direction while earning a meager income in a sterlile supermarket, Cassandra races off to New York for a fling with a guy she met online, militant feminist Kerrys wages an unrelenting war against a male dominated society, and Shannon falls into a treacherous, self-destructive tailspin. But just when it seemed as if these old friends were headed down different paths, a brazen crime thrusts them back together for an exhilarating adventure that will prove just how unpredictable life can really be. Sean Pertwee and Kevin Smith co-star.
Release Date: 31 July 2012
Dead Season
Directed by: Adam Deyoe
In the aftermath of the zombie apocalypse, desperate survivors Elvis and Tweeter flee America for the safety of a tropical island, only to find that the locals have lost their humanity, and pose an even greater danger than the flesh eaters back on familiar shores. In addition to be the first feature film shot on the Canon 7D camera, Dead Season also holds the unique distinction of being the first film shot on the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico since Peter Brook's Lord of the Flies.
Release Date: 31 July 2012
Detention
Directed by: Joseph Kahn
An apocalyptic fantasy, horror, science fiction, action- thriller, body swapping, time-traveling teen romantic comedy starring Josh Hutcherson, Dane Cook and Shanley Caswell, Detention follows the local students of Grizzly Lake as they survive their final year of high school. Bringing even more angst to student life, a slasher killer has chosen their high school as his new home of slaughter. It becomes a race against time to stop the killer, which will in turn save the world - if only they can get out of detention.
Release Date: 31 July 2012
Falling Overnight
Directed by: Conrad Jackson
Falling Overnight tells the story of twenty-two year old Elliot Carson on the day before he has risky surgery to remove a brain tumor. Facing what could be his last night, Elliot's path intersects with Chloe Webb, a young photographer who invites him to her art show. Elliot welcomes the distraction and as the night descends, Chloe takes him on an intimate and exhilarating journey through the city. But as morning approaches, and Chloe learns of Elliot's condition, the magic of the evening unravels, and they must together face the uncertainty of Elliot's future.
Release Date: 31 July 2012
Firstborn
Directed by: Michael Apted
A teenager and his kid brother spar with their mother's shady new boyfriend in this dramatic thriller from veteran British director Michael Apted. When her ex-husband remarries, Wendy (Teri Garr) feels despondent -- until she starts dating handsome, unctuous Sam (Peter Weller), an underemployed salesman with no shortage of big ideas. Excited to finally feel good about herself again, Wendy invites Sam to move in and offers to invest in his get-rich-quick schemes. None of this sits well with her sons, Jake (Christopher Collet) and Brian (Corey Haim), who remain unimpressed with Sam even after he convinces Wendy to buy Jake a motorbike. They're even less jazzed when Sam stops currying favor and turns disciplinarian even while pulling Wendy into his hard-partying lifestyle. Within a few months, Brian's on the verge of expulsion for picking fights at school, and even honor-role student Jake is mouthing off to his teachers. As for Wendy, she's too busy taking beatings and doing cocaine to notice that her family has fallen apart. It isn't until Jake gets wise to the industrial quantities of white powder squirreled away under the floorboards that he comes up with a plan to get Sam out of their lives forever. Although onetime Tiger Beat heartthrob Christopher Collet plays Firstborn's title role, the films' supporting cast is littered with actors whose stars would far eclipse his (Sarah Jessica Parker, Robert Downey Jr.) -- though in some cases only for a little while (Corey Haim).
Release Date: 31 July 2012
Going For Gold
Directed by: David Blair 
The powerful and uplifting story of how two men from very different backgrounds triumphed against the odds, capturing Olympic Gold and embodying the battling spirit of the 1948 London games. The fact that the games took place at all was astonishing in itself, as Britain was still struggling with the damaging after effects of war. The film follows the compelling journey to the Olympic final of an unlikely pairing of competitors, boatbuilder’s son Bert Bushnell and Eton and Oxford-educated Richard “Dickie” Burnell. Thrown together as double sculling partners just six weeks before the games, they had to confront and overcome vast differences in their personal and professional lives, as well as push themselves to their physical and emotional limits.
Release Date: 31 July 2012
LOL
Directed by: Lisa Azuelos
An authentic story that perfectly captures coming of age in today's digital world, LOL is a remake of the hugely popular 2008 French film LOL (Laughing Out Loud). Starting a new year of high school, Lola (Miley Cyrus), (or "Lol," as her friends call her), works to find the right balance between family, school, friends and romance. Broken-hearted by her ex, Lol's world is soon turned upside down when she is surprised to find her best friend, Kyle (Douglas Booth), a musician in an up and coming rock band, could possibly be the love of her life. In her quest towards independence, self-identity and young adulthood, Lol discovers that while Facebook "status" is easy to change; true relationships are worth the effort.
Release Date: 31 July 2012
We the Party
Directed by: Mario Van Peebles
A revealing look at contemporary youth culture, writer-director Mario Van Peebles' We the Party shows teenagers as they are, not as adults would like them to be. Set amidst the latest trends in music, dance and fashion, We the Party is a colorful, cutting-edge comedy set in an ethnically diverse Los Angeles high school during America's first black president. The film focuses on five friends as they deal with romance, money, prom, college, sex, bullies, facebook, fitting in, standing out, and finding themselves. Evoking such classic teen comedies as The Breakfast Club and House Party but with an attitude and style all its own, We the Party captures the hopes, confusion, challenges and dreams of today's teenagers as they plunge headlong into an uncertain future.
Release Date: 31 July 2012
TV SERIES
Fog and Crimes: Series 1
The River Po dominates the region of Ferrara with its seasons, its power and its mystery. It nourishes the close-knit fishing communities who live on its banks, and it also hides their secrets. Secrets that are sometimes uncovered by people like police inspector Franco Soneri. Almost as inscrutable as the river itself, he stands brooding at crime scenes chomping on a cigar, trying to see what others are missing. In the ensuing investigations, he and his team often stumble upon old wounds left over from World War II, when differing political alliances turned neighbors into enemies. Passion for his job makes him Ferrara's best investigator but takes a toll on his relationship with the beautiful Ukrainian lawyer, Angela Cornelio. Filmed on location in the atmospheric countryside of northern Italy, these mysteries are inspired by the best-selling crime novels by Valerio Varesi.
Release Date: 31 July 2012
Hatfields & McCoys: Complete Miniseries
The Hatfield-McCoy saga centers on "Devil" Anse Hatfield and Randall McCoy. Close friends and comrades during the Civil War, they returned to their neighboring homes - Hatfield in West Virginia, McCoy just across the Tug River border in Kentucky - to increasing tensions, misunderstandings and resentments that soon exploded into all-out warfare between the families. As hostilities grew, friends, neighbors and outside forces joined the fight, bringing the two states to the brink of another Civil War.
Release Date: 31 July 2012
Melrose Place: Season 7, Volume 1
A nighttime soap opera about the lives, careers, trials and tribulations of a group of young people living in an apartment building in the trendy neighborhood of Melrose Place. The show was a spin off of Beverly Hills 90210 and starred Heather Locklear as the scheming Amanda Woodward, head of her own advertising agency and owner of the apartment building.
Release Date: 31 July 2012
Melrose Place: Season 7, Volume 2
A nighttime soap opera about the lives, careers, trials and tribulations of a group of young people living in an apartment building in the trendy neighborhood of Melrose Place. The show was a spin off of Beverly Hills 90210 and starred Heather Locklear as the scheming Amanda Woodward, head of her own advertising agency and owner of the apartment building.
Release Date: 31 July 2012
Misfits: Season 1
Kelly, Nathan, Curtis, Alisha and Simon are five unruly teenagers forced to do community service as payback for their crimes. But when a freak electrical storm hits their town, strange things begin to happen to them that are way out of their control. In fact, they have no idea that they've actually turned into superheroes, each with a power they didn't choose or want - a power which reveals each of their deepest, darkest insecurities. But while they just want to finish their community service and get through the challenges of everyday teenage life - relationships, friendships, parents and sex - fate has another task in store for them: they must save their town from the evil that has descended upon it. If you think life's tough for your average superhero, it's even tougher when you've got a curfew...
Release Date: 31 July 2012
