Highly Anticipated Books | 2015 Edition

So here we have it, my list of highly anticipated books that release throughout the year...

1. Queen Of Shadows (Throne Of Glass Series Book #4) by Sarah J. Maas

The book cover has yet to be revealed...

UK - September 10th
US - September 1st

Everyone Celaena Sardothien loves has been taken from her. But she's at last returned to the empire—for vengeance, to rescue her once-glorious kingdom, and to confront the shadows of her past . . . 

She will fight for her cousin, a warrior prepared to die just to see her again. She will fight for her friend, a young man trapped in an unspeakable prison. And she will fight for her people, enslaved to a brutal king and awaiting their lost queen's triumphant return.

2. A Court Of Thorns And Roses by Sarah J. Maas

UK - May 5th

US - May 5th

When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a beast-like creature arrives to demand retribution for it. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she only knows about from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not an animal, but Tamlin—one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled their world. 

As she dwells on his estate, her feelings for Tamlin transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie and warning she's been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But an ancient, wicked shadow grows over the faerie lands, and Feyre must find a way to stop it . . . or doom Tamlin—and his world—forever.

3. End Of Days ( Penryn And The End Of Days Book #3) by Susan Ee

UK - May 12th

US - May 12th

After a daring escape from the angels, Penryn and Raffe are on the run. They’re both desperate to find a doctor who can reverse the twisted changes inflicted by the angels on Raffe and Penryn’s sister. As they set off in search of answers, a startling revelation about Raffe’s past unleashes dark forces that threaten them all. 

When the angels release an apocalyptic nightmare onto humans, both sides are set on a path toward war. As unlikely alliances form and strategies shift, who will emerge victorious? Forced to pick sides in the fight for control of the earthly realm, Raffe and Penryn must choose: Their own kind, or each other?

4. 99 Days by Katie Cotugno

UK - April 21st

US - April 21st

Day 1: Julia Donnelly eggs my house my first night back in Star Lake, and that’s how I know everyone still remembers everything—how I destroyed my relationship with Patrick the night everything happened with his brother, Gabe. How I wrecked their whole family. Now I’m serving out my summer like a jail sentence: Just ninety-nine days till I can leave for college, and be done. 

Day 4: A nasty note on my windshield makes it clear Julia isn’t finished. I’m expecting a fight when someone taps me on the shoulder, but it’s just Gabe, home from college and actually happy to see me. “For what it’s worth, Molly Barlow,” he says, “I’m really glad you’re back.” 

Day 12: Gabe got me to come to this party, and I’m actually having fun. I think he’s about to kiss me—and that’s when I see Patrick. My Patrick, who’s supposed to be clear across the country. My Patrick, who’s never going to forgive me.

5. Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices Book #1) by Cassandra Clare

The book cover has yet to be revealed...

UK - May 1st
US - May 1st

Los Angeles. It’s been five years since the events of the Mortal Instruments when Nephilim stood poised on the brink of oblivion and Shadowhunter Emma Carstairs lost her parents. After the blood and violence she witnessed as a child, Emma has dedicated her life to to discovering exactly what it was that killed her parents and getting her revenge. 

Raised in the Los Angeles Institute with the Blackthorn family, Emma is paired as a parabatai with her best friend, Julian Blackthorn. A series of murders in the city catch her attention — they seem to have the same characteristics as the deaths of her parents. Could the murderer be the same person? And her attention isn’t the only one caught: someone has been murdering Downworlders as well. The Fair Folk make a deal with the Institute: if the Blackthorns and Emma will investigate the killings, they’ll return Mark Blackthorn to his home. The catch: they have only two weeks to find the killers. Otherwise it’s open war between faeries and Nephilim. 

The Shadowhunters of the Institute must race against time to catch the killers, even as they begin to suspect the involvement of those closest to them. At the same time, Emma is falling in love with the one person in the world she’s absolutely forbidden by Shadowhunter Law to love. Set against the glittering backdrop of present-day Los Angeles, Emma must learn to trust her head and her heart as she investigates a demonic plot that stretches from the warlock-run nightclubs of the Sunset Strip to the enchanted sea that pounds the beaches of Santa Monica.

6. Winter (The Lunar Chronicles Book #4) by Marissa Meyer

The book cover has yet to be revealed...

UK - November 10th
US - November 10th

When Princess Winter was thirteen, the rumor around the Lunar court was that her glamour would soon be even more breathtaking than that of her stepmother, Queen Levana. In a fit of jealousy, Levana disfigured Winter. Four years later, Winter has sworn off the use of her glamour altogether. Despite her scars, Winter’s natural beauty, her grace, and her gentleness are winning admiration from the Lunar people that no amount of mind-control could achieve. 

Winter despises her stepmother, but has never dreamed of standing up to her. That is, until she realizes that she may be the only one with the power to confront the queen.

7. Charmed (The Witch Hunter Book #2) by Michelle Krys

UK - May 26th

US - May 26th

Indie has spent the last few weeks frantically searching for Paige. She's tried every spell imaginable, but witchcraft has gotten her nowhere, and she's going crazy with guilt. Despite what her warlock boyfriend, Bishop, tells her, Indie knows it's her fault her best friend was kidnapped by the Priory. And with the Priory destroyed, finding Paige feels more hopeless than ever-especially when Indie discovers that Paige isn't even on Earth. She's trapped in Los Demonios, an alternate dimension of Los Angeles filled with evil paranormals. No one who has gone there has ever come out. 

Fueled by terror and loyalty, Indie is desperate to find a way into the underworld prison. She'll worry about getting out later. But facing the dark world's most dangerous witches and warlocks on her own means keeping her plan hush-hush-and forging alliances with some sketchy people, including a seriously sexy sorcerer.

That's the list so far, if anymore crop up I will be sure to add them! What are your most anticipated books of 2015?

COHF UK TOUR | LONDON

This event came around pretty quickly as it only seemed like a couple of weeks ago that I actually brought the tickets! I was fortunate enough to get the tickets for the London event due to the early warning and it was the only local one I could attend. I had previously gone to last years summer signing for Clockwork Princess and also the promotion for the film adaptation for City Of Bones, with Jamie Campbell Bower as the guest.

The signing didn't start until 11am, so I had an early morning ahead of me, I woke up at 6am to get ready in time to catch the 8am train. I applied a rune, as it was forecasted to rain that morning, and put on my Herondale necklace/ring, I wore the appropriate shadowhunter gear with my black leggings,  black leather biker boots, grey 3/4 length sleeve and my black beanie hat.

So it took me slightly over an hour, travelling on the train to London and the various tubes I had to get to the destination. After that it was about another five or ten minutes walk to find the place of the event, so I'm glad I had an app for that or I would of had to of asked for directions!

When I started walking up to the place of the event there was already a line forming, but I was quite surprised that there weren't that many people there. As the line for last years one went through many streets! So I took my place in line, I estimated that about fifteen people were in front of me, I heard that some had been there since 4am! I should also mention the time we got there was 9.30am! As the time went by more and more people where joining the line, some had rune tops on and some had started to draw on runes while waiting. I think I recognised a few booktubers and even some people I follow on Twitter, but I was too shy to say hi, so sorry about that! And as previously predicted it did eventually rain, a lot actually, the organisers actually came out to apologise for the wait in the rain and that we would soon be allowed in the venue soon. So I think everyone was relieved by then, knowing that we would be inside soon, it wasn't until 11.30am that the doors were opened and we were let in one by one. Sarah Rees Brennan waited in the foyer to apologise for the rain, I didn't actually recognise it was her until she came up on the stage later... oops!

It was like a maze in the venue, we went down many flights of stairs and handed in our tickets to the ticket lady, on full view was a book display for Cassandra Clare and Sarah Rees Brennan's books available to purchase. But I wanted to claim my seats before looking, so we entered the cinema and managed to get seats on the third row, this was a surprise indeed! The seats were very comfy though maybe they weren't ideal for this event as we couldn't see the stage, but we were still thankful to gets seats closer to the stage, so I guess it all worked out!

After that I went back out of the cinema and went to the book stall, I was unsure of purchasing any books at all, as I had most of Cassandra Clare's books but none of Sarah Rees Brennan's. I decided after browsing for quite some time to hold off buying anymore books, due to the fact that Waterstones  sell their books for full price, so back into the cinema I went and waited for the event to begin.

We didn't have to wait that long until the organiser announced Cassandra Clare and Sarah Rees Brennan to the stage. First and foremost they asked the audience who had read City Of Heavenly Fire, a mixture of hands went up and explained they wouldn't talk about any of the spoilers but instead would read unpublished work of voicemails left on Magnus Bane's phone from Alec, Isabelle, Simon, and Clary. The timeline of the voicemails happens between City Of Lost Souls and City Of Heavenly Fire and by the angel were they funny, they had the audience completely entranced and in awe.

The voicemails took about half an hour to read back and fourth from Cassandra Clare and Sarah Rees Brennan, afterwards they said they now would be open to questions and however asked first would get a Morgenstern ring! Now what was shocking about the first question was that this particular fan out right announced a major spoiler, which caused a major gasp in the audience! I, for one didn't mind as I had already read it, however the answer I was most shocked about was for the City Of Ashes script, as all the fans know the production for COA had been postponed due to the disappointing box office numbers for City Of Bones. Anyway the script included Clary splitting into two people, I know I'm like what the hell read the books, then she said Magnus was running for mayor, err isn't the point of the shadowhunter world being secret Magnus would never do that, and then here comes the finale Jace riding mermaids, I mean stick to the source material! I'm so glad they're reworking the script, I hope they've read the book this time round, but hopefully Cassandra should get news about it in the next couple of weeks, so lets hope she tells us! The Q&A went on for about half an hour, once the last question had been answered Cassandra and Sarah left the stage to take a break and also so the organisers could set up the signing on the stage. The wait again wasn't so bad, row after row was taken to join the line, while in line we had to make sure are post it notes were on the right page, I fortunately was able to get both of my books personalised. This was due to the fact that I buy all my books and share them with my sister, so she took one and I took the other. The books I decided on bringing were City Of Heavenly Fire and The Shadowhunter Codex, I would of liked to bring all my books but there was a two book limit.

Again, the wait in line wasn't long, I'd say it took about five minutes from the line to the signing stall, my sister went before me and got my copy of The Shadowhunter Codex signed, this allowed her to tell Cassandra that these books are the reason why she got back into reading again. Cassandra then asked how did she find out about the books, to which my sister replied me! This allowed me to speak to Cassandra, it was kind of a haze, I think I said something along the lines Tumblr got me to read the books and that there awesome. Once we were moved along we were handed some swag which includes of a bookmark, postcard, and a promotional flyer for The Bane Chronicles, I did notice from Instagram and Twitter that some people were handed T-Shirts as well so I don't know how they got them!

Then just like that it was all over, I think we came out of the venue about some time after 1pm, we grabbed a pizza from PizzaHut, did some window shopping and got some books! The weather surprisingly took a turn because it had become so hot and humid, we were definitely dressed wrong for the afternoon, so we decided to head home. By the time I got home it was 5pm or sometime after, I couldn't believe the day had gone so quickly it felt like two days in one!

A great big thank you is in order for Waterstones for organising such a successful event and to Cassandra and Sarah for taking the time out of their day to come talk to their fans and sign books!

City Of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare

Many of us in the shadowhunter fandom have been highly anticipating the outcome of the final book of The Mortal Instruments series, City Of Heavenly Fire, I've been waiting two years, well slightly under two years for the release of this epic conclusion and boy was I surprised when it turned up four days before the UK initial release date. So here begins my breakdown of CoHF, I'm probably going to spoilerfy this review so don't read on unless you've already read it or if you just want to know what happens knowing spoilers will be visible.

Clary, Jace, Simon, Isabelle, and Alec must prepare to reclaim the shadowhunters victory by defeating Sebastian, Clary's own brother, and his Dark Army before the world starts to turn to ash. 

People will die, alliances will be made, other will be betrayed.

It's been awhile since I've been in the shadow hunter world, the last book I've read being Clockwork Princess, but luckily I was prompted by Cassandra Clare with her quick recaps over what had happened previously. Like the two previous books, City of Fallen Angels and City of Lost Souls, we were given other point of views other than Clary, these consisted of chapters from the eyes of Emma Carstairs, Jordan, Maia, Magnus, Sebastian, and the Seelie Queen, a very large variation of characters giving us the insight of what they're up to knowing that the other characters will be totally unaware of each others actions. All these point of views are vital to the reader to follow each and every character and how their decisions will affect the epic conclusion, if you look closely you'll be able to see what's going to happen a mile away but if you let your guard down you won't see it coming at all.

At first I found the prologue to be quite slow paced, this was probably due to being introduced to another new character, one that is very important, Emma Carstairs, and the Blackthorn family are the new characters we will be following in the next shadowhunter series, The Dark Artifices, set five years from the events in The Mortal Instruments. So it's no wonder that we were introduced to them early on and see there younger selves and how these events will affect there day to day life in The Dark Artifices. At times I did want to skip these parts but as I mentioned before these point of views are very vital in the story telling process and how they connect to each other.

We were also introduced to old characters, and I mean really really old characters, yes thats right you guessed it... Brother Zachariah, aka Jem, and not forgetting Tessa. I was so happy to find out that these two would be appearing in CoHF, I just love how these characters are constantly crossing over into all the shadowhunter series and how they react to some certain characters. I especially can't wait to read about their upcoming adventures, though I was sad to learn my copy of CoHF didn't have the exclusive comic of Jem and Tessa's wedding, so it looks like I'm going to have to find a copy in a bookstore and just read it in there!

I've read quite a few reviews already about this topic, which is about how the characters react to other character deaths, and that is simply because they have no time to mourn the dead. They've been through so much already that they need to pull all their strength together to beat Sebastian and his Dark Army before their emotions consume them. Though it is evident they struggle to contain their emotions throughout, which causes arguments to break out and not seeing eye to eye over tactics. 

Something that the Clave tended to overlook was Clary's relationship with Sebastian and that she is the key over defeating him. I'm guessing after the event of CoHF they've got some major restructuring to do within the Clave and how they handle threats previously made towards them.

Now its time to discuss the six deaths that could be inevitably prevented, some who I had predicted there deaths months ago. Once I read through each death I didn't feel any emotion towards any of them, other than the last one, but I suppose you can only resurrect a certain amount of times otherwise it becomes predictable and less of a shock. Some of you may know who I'm talking about, which leads to the next part, something that I could not process what was happening, the majority of that time I was thinking is this real...

Two words, Part Two, yes I said two twice, now it's three times, anyway that scared the hell out of me I was pretty much thinking they had gone into some alternative universe, seeing that they entered a demon realm maybe this universe was their hell. But no it was just a demon messing with their inner emotions, Clary's alternate reality was just perfection, I mean from reading that scene I could tell this is totally going to become a fanfic right now. Cassandra Clare is such a tease, messing with us like that!

But when my emotions were at there highest it was the last chapter and well the majority of the epilogue, I did not expect any of that coming at all. Though I did have a theory a certain character would become mortal again, so I was right about that but not about the process in which that would happen. It was heartbreaking to see these characters interact and knowing the other has no memory of the other, that was just a stab in the heart, its something that no-one should go through, especially after all they've been through. 

So now it's finally over, its kind of sad knowing that we'll never read about these characters again, but I can't wait to see the characters who survived City of Heavenly Fire appear in the next shadowhunter series, which of course as you know by now will be The Dark Artifices. I think CoHF is one of my new favourites in the series, though it does come in third place, second is City of Glass and first is City of Bones. The characters were very well written and definitely developed over the course of the book, considering how far they've all come on this journey together. I really like how we were given a bittersweet ending that I believe that everyone will approve of, as many people have already said its a sad, but happy ending.

Thank you Cassandra Clare for this amazing universe you have created and keep on creating, I look forward to reading all the other shadowhunter series you plan to bring out.

*****

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You can get City Of Heavenly Fire online or at your nearest available bookstore.
I brought my copy which I preordered from The Book Depository.

CITY OF HEAVENLY FIRE UK ANNOUNCEMENT

Cassandra Clare announced through her official Tumblr the new altered UK release date of City Of Heavenly Fire, which has now been moved from Tuesday May 27th 2014 to Wednesday May 28th 2014. I know its a day later and not a month which I'm thankful for but now we've lost a day of reading so now we have to keep out of the land of spoilers and just hope for the best.

For legal reasons, combined with the bank holiday on Monday 26th May we aren’t able to get books to shops any earlier – we’re working hard and most shops will have stock ready to sell on Wednesday 28th May, eBooks will be available from that day also.

However if you're impatient to wait an extra day there will be a UK launch party on Tuesday May 27th 2014, which is being held at The Bloomsbury Theatre in London. By purchasing a ticket includes that you receive a special paperback edition of City Of Heavenly Fire with bonus illustrations. Information for the event can be found below.

Tuesday 27th May at 1pm – 4pm
Venue: The Bloomsbury Theatre, 15 Gordon Street, London, WC1H 0AH 

Tickets £15, including an exclusive, early copy of City of Heavenly Fire.
Join us at this special Shadowhunter Super Fan event and be one of the first people in country to get your hands on a copy of City of Heavenly Fire, a day earlier than books will be available in the shops or for online retailers. Your copy will include a comic strip episode exclusive to Walker Books editions, and a full-colour fold out poster with new character art. 

At our exclusive Shadowhunter Fan event there will be free rune body art painting, nail-art manicure bar, freebies, giveaways and a secret film screening to be announced!Your ticket includes your early copy of City of Heavenly Fire, booking and more information can be found here: http://bit.ly/COHFlaunchUK

But if you can't make it to the event there is also time to attend Cassandra Clare's UK and Ireland tour  with dates yet to be announced, however it has definitely confirmed to start at the beginning of June.

CITY OF HEAVENLY FIRE SNIPPET

Cassandra Clare released another new snippet last night on her official Tumblr page, which you can find here.

“And I suppose you know who Magnus’ father is?” Luke said.

“I paid a lot of money once to find it out,” Raphael said.