This week there were three books added to the pile – one bought from the Borders closing sale (wah!), one review copy, and one belated gift that took a while to get here.  In other news, there will be a giveaway this week and I’m hoping to finish a review I’m working on today, especially since I now have 4 books to review, but I seem to have a case of review writer’s block this week for some reason.

Heroes Adrift by Moira J. Moore

This would be the book I ended up with after sadly wandering around my local Borders for a bit and lamenting the lack of a real bookstore to go to soon. (Although we may end up with a bookstore in the area yet – our Borders was always busy and actually did well so there has at least been talk of that one being bought. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for that and for it continuing to have such a well-stocked scifi and fantasy section!)  This is where I bought so many wonderful books – Elfland, The Native Star, many of the Kate Daniels and Mercy Thompson books, and some of the Miles Vorkosigan books.  It’s where I went when I finished Gabriel’s Ghost and HAD to have Shades of Dark RIGHT NOW.  It’s where I got the first two Lee and Taro books that precede Heroes Adrift, and it’s now where I got the third even though I may not have a chance to get the rest there.

With the July 26th release of the lastest book, there are now 6 books in the Lee and Taro series in the following order: Resenting the Hero (Review), The Hero Strikes Back (Review), Heroes Adrift, Heroes at Risk, Heroes Return, and Heroes at Odds.  All the books in the series are available both as mass market paperbacks and ebooks. I read the first two and thought they were great fun.  I’ve been finding they’re the perfect books to read when I just want a fast-paced, entertaining book that keeps me glued to the pages from start to finish.

The Empress wants to locate the descendants of her exiled sister. No magically-bonded Pair is more ill-suited for the job than long-suffering Shield Lee Mallorough and her all-too-charming Source Shintaro Karish. Yet it’s a mission they can’t refuse.

Bricks by Leon Jenner

This debut novel will be released on August 4th in the UK, although it seems to already be shipping from Amazon UK.  There is a hardcover edition and an ebook edition.  I have the hardcover and it’s a really short book with some illustrations and an appendix that takes up the last 30 pages.  While I haven’t read it yet, I’ve gotten the impressions that it’s not a plot-heavy book but one more focused on the prose and the main character’s reflections.

This is the story of a bricklayer. A master of his craft, he keeps its sacred teachings secret. For him a house is the dwelling place of a soul, and a house must be built in the right spirit or the soul inside it will suffer. The building of an arch is a ritual to obtain a right relation with the earth and a connection with the truth. The bricklayer also recalls his previous life as a Druid priest. He talks about the creation of the sacred landscape of these islands; how even a simple stick lying on the ground would tell people the direction they needed to go in; how when people stared at the stars, they were staring at their own mind. This Druid was also a builder of worlds, one of a group of higher beings able to move in an infinite number of universes that create and end constantly. These higher beings are eternal, know everything, and hold everything together. The speak mind to mind. They can prevent battles simply by walking between the two charging armies. The reader sees the world through the eyes of this great, magical being at the time of the Roman invasion, and learns how he tricked Julius Caesar and set in train the series of events that would lead to Caesar’s assassination on the Ides of March. But as the bricklayer continues, he worries he is losing his ancient, sacred powers. The vision begins to fray at the edges as we learn how he has recently taken violent revenge on yobs who have mocked him. Is he really connected to a once living Druid priest, or is he gradually losing himself in his own fantasies?

X-Men: Fatal Attractions by a whole lot of different people

This goes with the earlier gift with 2 X-Men comics.  I just had to wait longer for this one since it is out of print and took a lot longer to get here because of it.  Once again, it features Magneto and therefore sounds awesome.

Magneto; a man embittered by loss. Avalon; a world created for the survival of his chosen people–mutants–sworn to follow a madman’s lead. Charles Xavier; the most powerful mind on earth, whose Dream for peaceful co-existence between humans and mutants may be the earth’s last hope. Wolverine; the berserker mutant whose adamantium skeleton may be the very thing that destroys him.X-Men! X-Force! X-Factor! And Excalibur! Still reeling from the death of one of their own–they now face their greatest enemy in a battle that could mean the end of the world!