Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews

When the magic is up, rogue mages cast their spells and monsters appear, while guns refuse to fire and cars fail to start. But then technology returns, and the magic recedes as unpredictably as it arose, leaving all kinds of paranormal problems in its wake.

Kate Daniels is a down-on-her-luck mercenary who makes her living cleaning up these magical problems. But when Kate’s guardian is murdered, her quest for justice draws her into a power struggle between two strong factions within Atlanta’s magic circles.

The Masters of the Dead, necromancers who can control vampires, and the Pack, a paramilitary clan of shapechangers, blame each other for a series of bizarre killings—and the death of Kate’s guardian may be part of the same mystery. Pressured by both sides to find the killer, Kate realizes she’s way out of her league—but she wouldn’t have it any other way…

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Sleep Smarter by Shawn Stevenson

 Sleep Smarter: 21 Essential Strategies to Sleep Your Way to A Better Body, Better Health, and Bigger Success by Shawn Stevenson  


When it comes to health, there is one criminally overlooked element: sleep. Good sleep helps you shed fat for good, stave off disease, stay productive, and improve virtually every function of your mind and body. That’s what Shawn Stevenson learned when a degenerative bone disease crushed his dream of becoming a professional athlete. Like many of us, he gave up on his health and his body, until he decided there must be a better way. Through better sleep and optimized nutrition, Stevenson not only healed his body but also achieved fitness and business goals he never thought possible.

 

In Sleep Smarter, Stevenson shares easy tips and tricks to discover the best sleep and best health of your life. With his 14-Day Sleep Makeover, you’ll learn how to create the ideal sleep sanctuary, how to hack sunlight to regulate your circadian rhythms, which clinically proven sleep nutrients and supplements you need, and stress-reduction exercises and fitness tips to keep you mentally and physically sharp.

Sleep Smarter is the ultimate guide to sleeping better, feeling refreshed, and achieving a healthier, happier life.

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The Magicians (Magicians Trilogy) by Lev Grossman

The Magicians is a book that will take you by surprise. In a genre populated by epic fantasy quests and magical swords, by overused cliche's, thin characters and even thinner plots, this book is an ode to something more profound, something more substantial; it's fantasy that's decided to grow up; fantasy where there is not always a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, fantasy where heroes don't always win and if they do come out on top, they sometimes suffer from depression and post-traumatic stress.

This is part Harry Potter on downers and suffering from clinical depression, part Alice trapped in a Wonderland gone nightmarish wrong. At its heart, the Magicians is really the story of a boy-become-man struggling to give the world meaning in a world that has no meaning.
What does this all mean? The Magicians is fantasy that's more than fantasy.

If you are looking for a happy-go-lucky read where the world is saved and everyone finds true love and does a victory dance into the sunset, you may want to skip this one. For the rest of you who want to taste something different (and this one has a lot of zing to it folks), Lev Grossman's The Magicians delivers.

The Magicians takes a number of children's classics such as Harry Potter, Chronicles of Narnia, Alice and Wonderland and transfigures them, moving them from the simple innocent child fiction into the adult land with adult problems to deal with.

This is a series of three books and you absolutely must read all three books before you start casting your judgment (don't post how much you hated the first book unless you've read all three books). By the end of the third book (which was just released 2014), the full scope of the events in the first and second books are bought to a close and the circle completed.

This is a series where each book becomes better, where the characters grow, make mistakes, more mistakes, then learn. It's quite remarkable, really, by the end of the tale you feel like you have been there and back again (and you have)  you've left the Shire had a grand adventure, and returned only to find it's not the same because the characters are not the same, having learned and grown up.

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Signal to Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

This charming literary fantasy is pitched to adults but will resonate for readers of all ages. After all, we were all once teenagers, and can remember a time when we discovered that one band that seemed to be speaking directly to us, transmitting a message so powerful it felt like it could change the world. For Meche, an oddball teenager living in Mexico City in the late ’80s, that becomes literally true when she discovers she can cast spells using music. She and her friends decide to use her newfound ability to repair their broken lives, but things don’t go exactly as planned. From there, the story jumps 20 years into the future, as Meche returns home to try to put the wrong things right once again.

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The Princess Bride by William Goldman

What happens when the most beautiful girl in the world marries the handsomest prince of all time and he turns out to be...well...a lot less than the man of her dreams?

As a boy, William Goldman claims, he loved to hear his father read the S. Morgenstern classic, The Princess Bride. But as a grown-up he discovered that the boring parts were left out of good old Dad's recitation, and only the "good parts" reached his ears.

Now Goldman does Dad one better. He's reconstructed the "Good Parts Version" to delight wise kids and wide-eyed grownups everywhere.

What's it about? Fencing. Fighting. True Love. Strong Hate. Harsh Revenge. A Few Giants. Lots of Bad Men. Lots of Good Men. Five or Six Beautiful Women. Beasties Monstrous and Gentle. Some Swell Escapes and Captures. Death, Lies, Truth, Miracles, and a Little Sex.

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The Drafter by Kim Harrison

With a brilliant, punchy premise and plenty of action,The Drafter is a thriller with a sci-fi edge that will push buttons for both newcomers and fans of Harrison’s Rachel Morgan urban fantasy series. Peri is a Drafter, someone with the ability to rewind time 30 seconds and change the past. But every time she Drafts, her own memories are muddled—a confusion Jack, her lover and partner at Opti, the secret government agency they are both a part of, helps her muddle through. When Peri discovers her own name on a list of corrupt Opti employees, she suddenly has reason to doubt Jack—and herself, as she realizes her entire existence has been manipulated.

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The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

It’s just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. . . .

Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak’s groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau.

This is an unforgettable story about the ability of books to feed the soul.

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