On My Wishlist December 4th

On My Wishlist is a weekly event held by Book Chick City.

Bewitching Season (Leland Sisters)-Marissa Doyle
Publisher: Square Fish
Publication Date: 2009 (Paperback)

Twins Persephone and Penelope are of two minds about their coming-out season. Pen is excited about the social whirl. Persephone would rather be home studying magic with their beloved governess, Ally. But when Ally disappears somewhere in Kensington Palace, the girls must harness their magical skills amidst the swirl of balls and presentations to find her. This wonderfully crafted debut novel braids several very different story lines into an utterly satisfying whole. The mystery of Ally’s whereabouts mingles with a plot to control the throne of the soon-to-be Queen Victoria. Persephone’s strong attraction to her handsome neighbor, Lochinver, provides a romantic element that makes for twists and turns, some of which are obvious ploys, but fun nonetheless. All of this is spread with a patina of magic, which somehow never overwhelms, leaving the story in the world of reality rather than in the realm of fantasy. In the midst of all this plotting, characters might have been lost, but Doyle takes as much care with characters (even minor ones) as with story details. This delightful mélange of genres makes for a great alternative to the depressing overload of chick lit.

I discovered this book while looking at my mother's wish list for ideas of what to buy her for Christmas. I'm lucky to have a mother who has pretty similar reading taste, so I'm always able to find good reads from her! This particular book sounds interesting for two main reasons: magical main characters and the time period. I hope either my mother or I get this one for Christmas!

Patient Zero: A Joe Ledger Novel-Jonathan Maberry
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Publication Date: March, 2009

When you have to kill the same terrorist twice in one week there's either something wrong with your world or something wrong with your skills... and there's nothing wrong with Joe Ledger's skills.  And that's both a good, and a bad thing.  It's good because he's a Baltimore detective that has just been secretly recruited by the government to lead a new taskforce created to deal with the problems that Homeland Security can't handle. This rapid response group is called the Department of Military Sciences or the DMS for short. It's bad because his first mission is to help stop a group of terrorists from releasing a dreadful bio-weapon that can turn ordinary people into zombies. The fate of the world hangs in the balance....

Jonathan Maberry's Rot & Ruin was one of my top books of 2010, so I'm excited to read more of his work.

Falling in Love with English Boys-Melissa Jensen
Publisher: Speak
Publication Date: December 23, 2010

Sixteen-year-old Catherine Vernon has been stranded in London for the summer: no friends, no ex-boyfriend Adam the Scum (good riddance!), and absolutely nothing to do but blog about her misery to her friends back home. Desperate for something, anything to do in London while her mother's off researching boring historical things, Cat starts reading the 1815 diary of Katherine Percival her mom gives her and finds the similarities between their lives to be oddly close. But where Katherine has the whirls of the society, the parties and the gossip over who is engaged to who, Cat's only got some really excellent English chocolate. Then she meets William Percival the uber-hot descendant of Katherine and things start looking up . . .

This one sounds really cute, with a premise sort of similar to Jennifer Donnelly's Revolution, but with a lighter tone. I don't read enough contemporary YA, and I'm hoping to change that in 2011!

What's on your wish list this week?