Weekly Reading List #290 - Cyn's Workshop

Hello there everyone! I hope everyone is doing well! Just so you know my delivery went well and now I have a beautiful baby girl. She is absolutely precious and I love her so much. My two-year-old son goes from wanting to rock her and take care of her to being scared of her. It is absolutely adorable. And, as you might imagine, my time now split between two kids, my reading time has gone down just a notch. I’m still making time to read, but I am tired quite often so I am reading slower than I usually do.

But regardless, I am still making time to read. So on that note, check out my latest reading list of reviews to come. Happy reading everyone!

1. The Oracle Year: A Novel

by Charles Soule

From bestselling comic-book franchise writer Charles Soule comes a clever and witty first novel of a twentysomething New Yorker who wakes up one morning with the power to predict the future—perfect for fans of Joe Hill and Brad Meltzer, or books like This Book Is Full of Spiders and Welcome to Night Vale.

Knowledge is power. So when an unassuming Manhattan bassist named Will Dando awakens from a dream one morning with 108 predictions about the future in his head, he rapidly finds himself the most powerful man in the world. Protecting his anonymity by calling himself the Oracle, he sets up a heavily guarded Web site with the help of his friend Hamza to selectively announce his revelations. In no time, global corporations are offering him millions for exclusive access, eager to profit from his prophecies.

He’s also making a lot of high-powered enemies, from the President of the United States and a nationally prominent televangelist to a warlord with a nuclear missile and an assassin grandmother. Legions of cyber spies are unleashed to hack the Site—as it’s come to be called—and the best manhunters money can buy are deployed not only to unmask the Oracle but to take him out of the game entirely. With only a handful of people he can trust—including a beautiful journalist—it’s all Will can do to simply survive, elude exposure, and protect those he loves long enough to use his knowledge to save the world.

Delivering fast-paced adventure on a global scale as well as sharp-witted satire on our concepts of power and faith, Marvel writer Charles Soule’s audacious debut novel takes readers on a rollicking ride where it’s impossible to predict what will happen next.

2. Gold Spun

by Brandie June

If Nor can’t spin gold, she can always spin lies.

When seventeen-year-old Nor rescues a captured faerie in the woods, he gifts her with a magical golden thread she can use to summon him for a favor. Instead, Nor uses it for a con — to convince villagers to buy straw that can be transformed into gold. Her trick works a little too well, attracting the suspicion of Prince Casper, who hates nobody more than a liar.

Intent on punishing Nor, he demands that she spin a room of straw into gold and as her reward, he will marry her. Should she refuse or fail, the consequences will be dire. Desperate for help, Nor summons the faerie’s aid, launching a complicated dance as she must navigate between her growing feelings for both the prince and faerie boy and who she herself wishes to become.

3. Return of the Evening Star

by Diane Rios

A mysterious hospital deep in the Oregon woods is sending marauding ambulances into the countryside, looking for new patients. Mowing down anything in their path, the deadly ambulance drivers have forced the people and animals of the land into hiding.

Twelve-year-old Chloe Ashton has returned to Fairfax and is desperate to find her mother. Together with her friends—the magical cook Mrs. Goodweather, carpenter Brisco Knot, and clever white rat Shakespeare—she hatches a plan to enter the hospital and stop the bloodshed.

At the same time a rumor reaches them from the east: Silas the Stargazer is coming, and he is bringing an army. An animal army.