Friday Finds #2

What great books did you hear about / discover this past week?

Share with us your Friday Finds!

While browsing for books for some of my challenges, I came across lots of interesting books this week, too! So, here are my finds:

"Autumn" by David Moody  - Summary: In less than twenty-four hours a vicious and virulent disease destroys virtually all of the population. Billions are killed. Thousands die every second. There are no symptoms and no warnings. Within moments of infection each victim suffers a violent and agonizing death. Only a handful of survivors remain. By the end of the first day those survivors wish they were dead. Then the disease strikes again, and all hell breaks loose...

 "The Tea Rose" by Jennifer Donnelly -  Summary: East London, 1888-a city apart. A place of shadow and light where thieves, whores, and dreamers mingle, where children play in the cobbled streets by day and a killer stalks at night, where bright hopes meet the darkest truths.
Here, by the whispering waters of the Thames, a bright and defiant young woman dares to dream of a life beyond tumbledown wharves, gaslit alleys, and the grim and crumbling dwellings of the poor.
Fiona Finnegan, a worker in a tea factory, hopes to own a shop one day, together with her lifelong love, Joe Bristow, a costermonger's son. With nothing but their faith in each other to spur them on, Fiona and Joe struggle, save, and sacrifice to achieve their dreams.
But Fiona's dreams are shattered when the actions of a dark and brutal man take from her nearly everything-and everyone-she holds dear. Fearing her own death at the dark man's hands, she is forced to flee London for New York. There, her indomitable spirit-and the ghosts of her past-propel her rise from a modest west side shopfront to the top of Manhattan's tea trade.
Fiona's old ghosts do not rest quietly, however, and to silence them, she must venture back to the London of her childhood, where a deadly confrontation with her past becomes the key to her future.

"The Winter Rose" by Jennifer Donnelly - Summary:It has been twelve years since a dark, murderous figure stalked the alleys and courts of Whitechapel. And yet, in the summer of 1900, East London is still poor, still brutal, still a shadow city to its western twin. Among the reformers is an idealistic young woman named India Selwyn-Jones, recently graduated from medical school. With the help of her influential fiance--Freddie Lytton, an up-and-coming Liberal MP--she works to shut down the area's opium dens that destroy both body and soul. Her selfless activities better her patients' lives and bring her immense gratification, but unfortunately, they also bring her into direct conflict with East London's ruling crime lord--Sid Malone.

India is not good for business and at first, Malone wants her out. But against all odds, India and Sid fall in love. Different in nearly every way, they share one thing in common--they're both wounded souls. Their love is impossible and they know it, yet they cling to it desperately. Lytton, India's fiance, will stop at nothing to marry India and gain her family's fortune.

Fractious criminal underlings and rivals conspire against Sid. When Sid is finally betrayed by one of his own, he must flee London to save his life. Mistakenly thinking him dead, India, pregnant and desperate, marries Freddie to provide a father for hers and Sid's child. India and Sid must each make a terrible sacrifice--a sacrifice that will change them both forever. One that will lead them to other lives, and other places...and perhaps--one distant, bittersweet day--back to each other. 

"Green" by Jay Lake - Summary: She was born in poverty, in a dusty village under the equatorial sun. She does not remember her mother, she does not remember her own name—her earliest clear memory is of the day her father sold her to the tall pale man. In the Court of the Pomegranate Tree, where she was taught the ways of a courtesan…and the skills of an assassin…she was named Emerald, the precious jewel of the Undying Duke’s collection of beauties.

She calls herself Green.
The world she inhabits is one of political power and magic, where Gods meddle in the affairs of mortals. At the center of it is the immortal Duke’s city of Copper Downs, which controls all the trade on the Storm Sea. Green has made many enemies, and some secret friends, and she has become a very dangerous woman indeed.

 "Salt and Silver" by Anna Katherine - Summary: When trust fund baby-turned-waitress Allie and her friends accidentally open a Door to Hell in the basement of Sally’s Diner, they don’t realize the havoc it will wreak on their Brooklyn neighborhood. Of course, the upside to murder-happy demons coming through the Door all the time is that Allie gets her own sexy and mysterious demon hunter: the dark-eyed, leather-clad, Stetson-wearing Ryan. Ryan teaches Allie everything he knows about fighting the creatures of the underworld—but refuses to give in to the sexual tension that simmers between them.  Allie has almost given up on taking her relationship with Ryan to the next level when there’s a surge in demonic activity... and the Door disappears. Now Allie and Ryan have to travel through Hell, literally, to try to stop Hell from taking over the Earth.

"Spring" (Hyddenworld, book 1) by William Horwood - Summary: The adventure of a lifetime is just beginning ...It has lain lost and forgotten for fifteen hundred years in the ancient heartland of England - a scrap of glass and metal melded by fierce fire. It is the lost core of a flawless Sphere made by the greatest of the Anglo-Saxon CraeftLords in memory of the one he loved. Her name was Spring and contained in the very heart of this work is a spark from the Fires of Creation. But while humans have lost their belief in such things, the Hydden - little people existing on the borders of our world - have not. Breaking the silence of centuries they send one of their own, a young boy, Jack, to live among humans in the hope that he may one day find what has been lost for so long. His journey leads him to Katherine, a girl he rescues from a tragic accident - it's a meeting that will change everything. It is only through their voyage into the dangerous Hyddenworld that they will realize their destiny, find love and complete the great quest that will save both their worlds from destruction. Their journey begins with Spring.

 "Time Travelers Never Die" by Jack McDevitt - Summary: When physicist Michael Shelborne mysteriously vanishes, his son Shel discovers that he had constructed a time travel device. Fearing his father may be stranded in time—or worse—Shel enlists the aid of Dave MacElroy, a linguist, to accompany him on the rescue mission.

Their journey through history takes them from the enlightenment of Renaissance Italy through the American Wild West to the civil-rights upheavals of the 20th century. Along the way, they encounter a diverse cast of historical greats, sometimes in unexpected situations. Yet the elder Shelborne remains elusive.
And then Shel violates his agreement with Dave not to visit the future. There he makes a devastating discovery that sends him fleeing back through the ages, and changes his life forever.

 "The Best Girl" by Emma Harrison - Summary:

You Are Cordially Invited . . .
to your brother's wedding where he will marry rich, famous Marni Shay, at the River Lodge, the most elite resort in Colorado, the state you chose to go to college in so you could escape your family, except they'll all be there. Enjoy ten fun-filled days of avoiding your mother, who still thinks you're not girly enough; planning your brother's bachelor party, because you are his best man, er, girl; and, oh yeah, trying not to drool all over Hot Connor, who happens to be in your English seminar and work at the River Lodge. Put your best foot forward, and . . .
Don't miss the most joyous celebration of the year!    Yeah, right.

"Cloud of Sparrows" by Takashi Matsuoka - Summary: Warrior clans nursing ancient grudges. Western missionaries brandishing pistols. Beautiful geishas who are deadly ninjas.1861, after two centuries of isolation Japan has been forced to open its doors. Now new influences are tearing apart the old order. Japan is as unprepared for outsiders as missionaries are for samurai assassins, executions and honour killings.
Genji's life is at risk. He plans his escape to the Cloud of Sparrows but the road is long and there are many places along the way for brutal samurai to attack...
The demons of the past, the treachery of the present, an uncertain future are about to collide in the most terrifying ways.

"Autumn Bridge" by Takashi Matsuoka - Summary: The year is 1311, in the highest tower of Cloud of Sparrows Castle, a beautiful woman watches from the window as the city is set alight and a mob runs riot destroying everything they can lay their hands on. She begins to write down the events unfolding around her and the secret history of the Okumichi Clan. Six centuries later the lost scrolls fall into the hands of American missionary Emily Gibson, a new arrival at Edo Harbour and racing from her tragic past. Emily quickly finds herself translating the text, caught up in the gripping tale of ancestry, heroism and forbidden love. At the same time Emily is desperately trying to unravel the complexities in her own life as two men fight for her love. As Emily sifts through the fragile scrolls, she begins to see threads of her own life woven into the ancient writings. As past and present collide, a hidden history comes to life, and with it a secret prophecy that has been shrouded for centuries and may now finally be revealed.

 "The House of Lost Souls" by F.G. Cottam - Summary: The Fischer House was the scene of a vicious crime in the 1920s - a crime which still resonates as the century turns. At its heart was a beautiful, enigmatic woman called Pandora Gibson-Hoare, a photographer of genius whose only legacy is a handful of photographs and the clues to a mystery. Paul Seaton was lured to the house ten years ago and escaped, a damaged man. Now three students will die unless he dares to go back. But this time he has Nick Mason at his side, and maybe Mason's military skills and visceral courage will be enough.

 "Dark Echo" by F.G. Cottam - Summary: She is a seductive ship: a magnificent sailing yacht built for an American playboy. Yet her history is full of fatal accidents and three of Dark Echo's owners met tragic, violent deaths. Now she has been rebuilt, crossing the Atlantic with new owners. Only the truth about Harry Spalding, the man who built her, can save them from the same fate. It is a story of an evil man, an incredibly brave woman and a secret more powerful than any of them.

"The Pharaoh's Secret" by Marissa Moss - Summary: When Talibah and her younger brother, Adom, accompany their father, an academic, to his homeland of modern Egypt on his research assignment, they become involved in a mystery surrounding an ancient, lost pharaoh—a rare queen ruler. Someone has tried to wipe her from the record, to make it appear as if she never existed! She needs Talibah to help her and her high priest, Senenmut, reclaim their rightful place in history. Exotic locales, mysterious strangers, and a sinister archaeologist round out an adventure that is full of riddles, old tales, and, most surprisingly of all, a link to Talibah’s and Adom’s mother, who died mysteriously.

 "The Magdalena Curse" by F.G. Cottam - Summary: A man whose past threatens his family ...a little boy whose dreams are all sinister nightmares. David Hunter would do anything to protect his son Adam, but he know that the roots of Adam's terror lie in his own past, in the Amazon jungles, where he met two women. One of them was more good than bad; the other more bad than good. And she is the one who cursed David Hunter. His quest to save his son will take Hunter from a sleepy village in Highland Scotland to a fortress in the Alps and an encounter with ancient wickendness, then back home to a woman he has come to love, whose connection with ancient evil may be what is needed to save Adam.

 "13 Little Blue Envelopes" by Maureen Johnson - Summary: Inside little blue envelope 1 are $1,000 and instructions to buy a plane ticket. In envelope 2 are directions to a specific London flat. The note in envelope 3 tells Ginny: Find a starving artist. Because of envelope 4, Ginny and a playwright/thief/ bloke–about–town called Keith go to Scotland together, with somewhat disastrous–though utterly romantic–results. But will she ever see him again? Everything about Ginny will change this summer, and it's all because of the 13 little blue envelopes.