Book Review: Catwoman Novelization

Book: Catwoman by Elizabeth Hand
Screenplay: John Rogers, Mike Ferris and Brancato

Edition: Paperback

Description:

There’s a new Catwoman in town—a feline adventuress unlike any you’ve seen before. Discover all her sizzling secrets as she cracks her whip and sinks her claws into her most petrifying, death-defying adventure yet.

Patience Philips is a shrinking violet, not exactly a career booster at competitive Hedare Beauty, the huge cosmetics corporation where she’s a graphic designer. Self-conscious and easily unnerved, she hasn’t a chance of escaping detection after she uncovers a dirty little secret in Hedare’s top-secret research laboratory. Discovery means death, but the real shocker is what happens afterward.

In the blink of a cat’s eye, the meek designer is gone, replaced—through an ancient twist of fate—by a sleek, self-assured woman with dark, dazzling powers: Catwoman. She has scores to settle, rooftops to roam, and a sinister underworld to prowl, as she stalks her destiny like a feral feline. She also has a good-looking detective on her trail, someone who has fallen for Patience, but is drawn to Catwoman.

As two mighty forces gear up for the ultimate showdown, the fur will fly. . . .

Book Review for Tackle Your TBR Read-a-Thon book #6: Batman Returns

Book: Batman Returns by Craig Shaw Gardner

Edition: Paperback

Description:

Batman versus the criminal element. In Gotham City, evil never sleep not even for Christmas.

Today, a new danger is born—in the guise of a villainous figure with an umbrella full of savage tricks. He's the Penguin and he's out to take over the city. And he has an ally, she's sinuous and mysterious. And she's got nine ways of evading death. She's Catwoman. This time, Batman faces the showdown of his life.

Book Review for Star Wars Book Club for September: Star Wars: Red Harvest

Book: Star Wars: Red Harvest by Joe Schreiber

Edition: Paperback

Description:

Unlike those other Jedi sidelined to the Agricultural Corps—those whose abilities have not proved up to snuff—Hestizo Trace possesses one extraordinary Force talent: a gift with plants. But suddenly her quiet existence among greenhouse and garden specimens is violently destroyed by the arrival of an emissary from Darth Scabrous, a Sith Lord with a fanatical dream poised to become nightmarish reality. For the rare black orchid that Hestizo has nurtured and bonded with is the final ingredient in an ancient Sith formula—crucial to the Dark Lord's obsession, but with consequences far worse than fatal. Now, spawned by a heretofore unknown virus, the rotting, ravenous dead are rising, driven by a bloodthirsty hunger for all things living—and commanded by a Sith Master who lusts for power and the ultimate prize: immortality...no matter the cost.

Book Review for The Book Girl's Book Club for September: Supernatural: Nevermore

Book: Supernatural: Nevermore (Supernatural book #1) by Keith R.A. DeCandido

Edition: Paperback

Description:

Twenty-two years ago, Sam and Dean Winchester lost their mother to a mysterious and demonic supernatural force. In the years after, their father, John, taught them about the paranormal evil that lives in the dark corners and on the back roads of America...and he taught them how to kill it.

Sam and Dean have hit New York City to check out a local rocker's haunted house. But before they can figure out why a lovesick banshee in an '80s heavy-metal T-shirt is wailing in the bedroom, a far more macabre crime catches their attention. Not far from the house, two university students were beaten to death by a strange assailant. A murder that's bizarre even by New York City standards, it's the latest in a line of killings that the brothers soon suspect are based on the creepy stories of legendary writer Edgar Allan Poe.

Their investigation leads them to the center of one of Poe's horror classics, face-to-face with their most terrifying foe yet. And if Sam and Dean don't rewrite the ending of this chilling tale, a grisly serial killer will end their lives forevermore.

Book Review for Star Wars Book Club for January: Star Wars: The Old Republic: Deceived

Book: Star Wars: The Old Republic: Deceived (The Old Republic book #2) by Paul S. Kemp

Cover Art and Design by LucasArts

Edition: Paperback

Description:

“Our time has come. For three hundred years we prepared; we grew stronger while you rested in your cradle of power. . . . Now your Republic shall fall.”

A Sith warrior to rival the most sinister of the Order’s Dark Lords, Darth Malgus brought down the Jedi Temple on Coruscant in a brutal assault that shocked the galaxy. But if war crowned him the darkest of Sith heroes, peace will transform him into something far more heinous—something Malgus would never want to be but cannot stop becoming, any more than he can stop the rogue Jedi fast approaching. Her name is Aryn Leneer—and the lone Jedi Knight that Malgus cut down in the fierce battle for the Jedi Temple was her Master. Now she’s going to find out what happened to him, even if it means breaking every rule in the book.

Book Review: Star Wars: The Old Republic: Revan

Book: Star Wars: The Old Republic: Revan (The Old Republic book #1) by Drew Karpyshyn

Cover Art and Design by LucasArts

Edition: Paperback

Description:

There’s something out there: a juggernaut of evil bearing down to crush the Republic—unless one lone Jedi, shunned and reviled, can stop it.

Hero, traitor, conqueror, villain, savior—the man called Revan has been all of these. He left Coruscant a Jedi, on a mission to defeat the Mandalorians. He returned a Sith disciple, bent on destroying the Republic. The Jedi Council gave Revan his life back, but the price of redemption was the loss of his memories. All that’s left are nightmares—and deep, abiding fear. What happened beyond the Outer Rim that Revan can’t quite remember or entirely forget? One thing he’s certain of: Something dark is plotting to destroy the very existence of the Republic. With no idea how to identify the threat, let alone stop it, Revan may be doomed to fail. For he’s never faced a more powerful and diabolic enemy. But only death can stop him from trying.

Book Review: Frozen Heat

Book: Frozen Heat (Nikki Heat book #4) by Richard Castle

Cover Art by American Broadcasting Companies, Inc.

Edition: Paperback

Description:

NYPD Homicide Detective Nikki Heat arrives at her latest crime scene to find an unidentified woman stabbed to death and stuffed inside a suitcase left on a Manhattan street. Nikki is in for a big shock when this new homicide connects to the unsolved murder of her own mother. Paired once again with her romantic and investigative partner, top journalist Jameson Rook, Heat works to solve the mystery of the body in the suitcase while she is forced to confront unexplored areas of her mother's background.

Facing relentless danger as someone targets her for the next kill, Nikki's search will unearth painful family truths, expose a startling hidden life, and cause Nikki to reexamine her own past. Heat's passionate quest takes her and Rook from the back alleys of Manhattan to the avenues of Paris, trying to catch a ruthless killer. The question is, now that her mother's cold case has unexpectedly thawed, will Nikki Heat finally be able to solve the dark mystery that has been her demon for ten years?

Book Review: Star Wars: The Lost Tribe of the Sith

Book: Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith by John Jackson Miller

Cover Art and Design by David Stevenson and Scott Biel

Edition: Paperback

Description:

At last in one volume, the eight original installments of the epic Lost Tribe of the Sith eBook series . . . along with the explosive, never-before-published finale, Pandemonium—more than one hundred pages of new material!

Five thousand years ago. After a Jedi ambush, the Sith mining ship Omen lies wrecked on a remote, unknown planet. Its commander, Yaru Korsin, battles the bloodshed of a mutinous faction led by his own brother. Marooned and facing death, the Sith crew have no choice but to venture into their desolate surroundings. They face any number of brutal challenges—vicious predators, lethal plagues, tribal people who worship vengeful gods—and like true Sith warriors, counter them with the dark side of the Force.

The struggles are just beginning for the proud, uncompromising Sith, driven as they are to rule at all costs. They will vanquish the primitive natives, and they will find their way back to their true destiny as rulers of the galaxy. But as their legacy grows over thousands of years, the Sith ultimately find themselves tested by the most dangerous threat of all: the enemy within.

Book Review: The Cabin in the Woods

Book: The Cabin in the Woods Novelization by Tim Lebbon

Edition: Paperback

Description:

YOU THINK YOU KNOW THE STORY

Five friends go to a remote cabin in the woods.
Bad things happen.
If you think you know the story, think again.

Book Review for Star Wars Book Club for July: Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi: Into the Void

Book: Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi: Into the Void by Tim Lebbon

Cover Art by Torstein Nordstrand

Edition: Paperback

Description:

On the planet Tython, the ancient Je’daii order was founded. And at the feet of its wise Masters, Lanoree Brock learned the mysteries and methods of the Force—and found her calling as one of its most powerful disciples. But as strongly as the Force flowed within Lanoree and her parents, it remained absent in her brother, who grew to despise and shun the Je’daii, and whose training in its ancient ways ended in tragedy.

Now, from her solitary life as a Ranger keeping order across the galaxy, Lanoree has been summoned by the Je’daii Council on a matter of utmost urgency. The leader of a fanatical cult, obsessed with traveling beyond the reaches of known space, is bent on opening a cosmic gateway using dreaded dark matter as the key—risking a cataclysmic reaction that will consume the entire star system. But more shocking to Lanoree than even the prospect of total galactic annihilation, is the decision of her Je’daii Masters to task her with the mission of preventing it. Until a staggering revelation makes clear why she was chosen: The brilliant, dangerous madman she must track down and stop at any cost is the brother whose death she has long grieved—and whose life she must now fear.

Book Review for Star Wars Book Club for March: Star Wars: Catalyst

Book: Star Wars: Catalyst: A Rogue One Novel by James Luceno

Cover Design by Scott Biel

Edition: Paperback

Description:

Lauded Star Wars author James Luceno returns to pen an intense tale of ambition and betrayal that sets the stage for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

War is tearing the galaxy apart. For years the Republic and the Separatists have battled across the stars, each building more and more deadly technology in an attempt to win the war. As a member of Chancellor Palpatine’s top secret Death Star project, Orson Krennic is determined to develop a superweapon before the Republic’s enemies can. And an old friend of Krennic’s, the brilliant scientist Galen Erso, could be the key.

Galen’s energy-focused research has captured the attention of both Krennic and his foes, making the scientist a crucial pawn in the galactic conflict. But after Krennic rescues Galen, his wife, Lyra, and their young daughter, Jyn, from Separatist kidnappers, the Erso family is deeply in Krennic’s debt. Krennic then offers Galen an extraordinary opportunity: to continue his scientific studies with every resource put utterly at his disposal. While Galen and Lyra believe that his energy research will be used purely in altruistic ways, Krennic has other plans that will finally make the Death Star a reality. Trapped in their benefactor’s tightening grasp, the Ersos must untangle Krennic’s web of deception to save themselves and the galaxy itself.

Book Review for the Star Wars Book Club for January: Star Wars Trilogy

Book: Star Wars Trilogy by George Lucas, Donald F. Glut and James Kahn

Edition: Paperback

Description:

Luke Skywalker dreamed of adventures out among the stars and alien worlds. But when he intercepted a message from a beautiful captive princess, he got more than he had bargained for—and that was how the adventure of his life began. . . .

Book Review: Heat Rises

Book: Heat Rises (Nikki Heat book #3) by Richard Castle

Edition: Hardcover

Description:

The bizarre murder of a parish priest at a New York bondage club opens Nikki Heat's most thrilling and dangerous case so far, pitting her against New York's most vicious drug lord, an arrogant CIA contractor, and a shadowy death squad out to gun her down. And that is just the tip of an iceberg that leads to a dark conspiracy reaching all the way to the highest level of the NYPD.

But when she gets too close to the truth, Nikki finds herself disgraced, stripped of her badge, and out on her own as a target for killers, with nobody she can trust. Except maybe the one man in her life who's not a cop: reporter Jameson Rook.

In the midst of New York's coldest winter in a hundred years, there's one thing Nikki is determined to prove: Heat Rises.

Book Review: Man of Steel Novelization

Book: Man of Steel Novelization by Greg Cox

Edition: Paperback

Description:

A young boy learns that he has extraordinary powers, and that he is not of this Earth. As he approaches adulthood, he journeys to discover where he came from, and what he was sent here to accomplish.

But then the world faces an unimaginable threat—an invading force the likes of which has never been encountered before. When this occurs, the hero in him must emerge if he is to save the world from annihilation, and become the symbol of hope for all mankind.

Book Review: Slayer

Book: Slayer (Slayer book #1) by Kiersten White

Cover Designed by Sarah Creech
Cover Illustrations by Talexi

Edition: Barnes & Noble Exclusive Hardcover Edition (I pulled the sticker off, it was blocking the cover's artwork)

Description:

Bonus: This limited collector’s edition of Slayer contains an exclusive slayer dream sequence short story from the perspective of Faith!

Nina and her twin sister, Artemis, are far from normal. It's hard to be when you grow up at the Watchers Academy, which is a bit different from your average boarding school. Here teens are trained as guides for Slayers—girls gifted with supernatural strength to fight the forces of darkness. But while Nina's mother is a prominent member of the Watchers Council, Nina has never embraced the violent Watcher lifestyle. Instead, she follows her instincts to heal, carving out a place for herself as the school medic.

Until the day Nina's life changes forever.

Thanks to Buffy, the famous (and infamous) Slayer that Nina's father died protecting, Nina is not only the newest Chosen One—she's the last Slayer, ever. Period.

As Nina hones her skills with her Watcher-in-training, Leo, there's plenty to keep her occupied: a monster fighting ring, a demon who eats happiness, a shadowy figure that keeps popping up in Nina's dreams...

But it's not until bodies start turning up that Nina's new powers will truly be tested—because someone she loves might be next.

One thing is clear: Being Chosen is easy. Making choices is hard.

Book Review: Teen Wolf issue #3

Book: Teen Wolf issue #3 by David Tischman with illustration by Stephen Mooney, color by Adam Chong and letters by Ed Dukeshire

Cover by Joe Corroney

Edition: Digital

Description:

PARTY! Scott goes on the offensive, attacking Allison's father and the Hunters in a last-ditch attempt to get the serum that will enable him to return to human form. And he better do it quick. Lydia's party is in two hours and Allison's laid down an ultimatum--if he doesn't show up, their relationship is over.

Jackson gets off on watching Scott's life crumble, but nothing motivates a teen-age Werewolf like a hot girl threatening to break up with him. Can a last-minute assist from Derek and Stiles help save the day? Scott deals with the idea that he may never be human again, as the first comic book story based on MTV's new hit series concludes!

Book Review: The Dark Knight Rises (Novelization)

Book: The Dark Knight Rises by Greg Cox

Edition: Paperback

Description:

EVERY HERO HAS A JOURNEY...EVERY JOURNEY HAS AN END...

Eight years have passed since Batman was last seen in Gotham City. Bruce Wayne's alter ego is hunted by the law, and nothing -- it seems -- can bring him back. Not even a brazen theft committed by the enigmatic and seductive cat burglar Selina Kyle -- inside the walls of Wayne Manor itself.

But then a deadly new threat appears, as if out of nowhere. Bane. Huge, powerful, and terrifyingly methodical, Bane is bent on spreading chaos and death. Commissioner Gordon and the GCPD are unable to stop him and have nowhere to turn. But after so many years, can the Dark Knight once again save Gotham from its gravest threat yet?

Book Review: Teen Wolf issue #2

Book: Teen Wolf issue #2 by David Tischman with illustration by Stephen Mooney, color by Adam Chong and letters by Ed Dukeshire

Cover by Joe Corroney

Edition: Digital

Description:

Scott is on the run as he tries to deal with life as a full-time Werewolf. His Mom, school, Allison, the team--the excuses are piling up and everyone wants to know what's wrong. Adding to the drama, Scott's arch-rival Jackson is using Scott's disappearance to try and poison Allison against him. It's up to Stiles to discover the truth: a bio-engineered virus is causing Scott's condition. But who's behind the attack? And is there an antidote? Derek Hale may have the answer.

Book Review: Teen Wolf issue #1

Book: Teen Wolf issue #1 by David Tischman with illustration by Stephen Mooney, color by Adam Chong and letters by Ed Dukeshire

Cover by Stephen Mooney and Adam Chong

Edition: Digital

Description:

Scott McCall's life is a living nightmare. Sure, he's co-captain of the Beacon Hills High Lacrosse Team and he's got a hot new girlfriend named Allison who adores him - but Scott was bitten by a werewolf. And every time he gets excited, the claws come out. And the hair. And the fangs. Which might be okay, except Allison's father leads a specially trained group of Hunters who want him dead. Scott's managed to keep his secret safe, but what happens when he can't reverse the process? In this original comic book story based on MTV's new hit series, Scott's stuck - and nothing can change him back. Will he stay a Werewolf forever? The horror begins here.

Book Review: Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Rift part 2

Book: Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Rift part 2 by Gene Luen Yang with illustrations and cover by Gurihiru and lettering by Michael Heisler

Edition: Paperback

Description:

The Past Returns!

Avatar Aang and his friends seek answers to the mysteries surrounding a refinery on land sacred to the Air Nomads. As Toph uncovers a startling truth about her father's involvement with the refinery, Aang travels to the spirit world, discovering a secret as surprising as it is dangerous. Soon, Team Avatar realizes they may be facing a threat more dire than they could have possibly imagined!