Top Ten Tuesday: Gift Card Wishlist

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. 

This week's topic is books that we would buy immediately if we had a fully loaded gift card at our disposal. This one was so easy. The hard part was keeping ourselves from adding 20 more books!

Sapphyre has always known she has some innate magical ability, but being an orphan growing up on the streets, she is both unaware of where it comes from or how to control it. For the last two winters she has served ale and food in the Dragon’s Flagon and until this evening it has been rather uneventful. The stranger with the yellow eyes has accumulated a large stack of coin at the dice game and has attracted much attention. Sapphyre notices that with each winning roll, what looks like a tattoo of a cat’s eye lights up on the man’s neck. Glancing around the table, she is shocked to see that no one else can see it.

Sapphyre learns the stranger’s name and, the following day, listens to his tale. Ashcon explains that he is a runestar and a defender of the light and the stars and has runes, not tattoos, all over his body, that enable him certain powers. The runes can only be seen when he activates them, and then only by extremely powerful practitioners of magic. Ashcon asks Sapphyre to join him and his companion Skken in a search for a man named Sorenthor who will be able to determine why she can see his runes and from where her magic hails. 

 

Lusielle's bleak but orderly life as a remedy mixer is shattered when she is sentenced to die for a crime she didn't commit. She's on the pyre, about to be burned, when a stranger breaks through the crowd and rescues her from the flames.

Brennus, Lord of Laonia is the last of his line. He is caught in the grip of a mysterious curse that has murdered his kin, doomed his people and embittered his life. To defeat the curse, he must hunt a birthmark and kill the woman who bears it in the foulest of ways. Lusielle bears such a mark.

Stalked by intrigue and confounded by the forbidden passion flaring between them, predator and prey must come together to defeat not only the vile curse, but also the curse giver who has already conjured their demise.

 

Fifteen-year-old Michelle saves the world on a daily basis…with her trusty video game controller, of course! Naturally, she jumps at the chance to play an experimental virtual reality game. 

The beautiful fantasy world of Starrs? Check. The power to mold matter? Check. No reset button? Wait, she didn’t sign up for this! 

Turns out Starrs is really real, and to make matters worse, Michelle’s interference awakens the Cycle of the Six Moons, a series of devastating trials that will devour the universe. 

Fighting the apocalypse was way easier when danger stayed on the other side of the screen, but Michelle finds a secret weapon in her new-found powers. She uses them to rescue the crown prince of a powerful magic kingdom from their sworn enemies, a technologically-advanced cult that strives to eradicate magical blood. 

Michelle starts to fall for Prince Jayse, the only one who believes Michelle to be a savior rather than a curse. But not even video games could prepare her for what the cult has in store for them…

 

In the year 2052, it's not love but hate that unites the world. 

Humanity is unified against the Inborns, an extraterrestrial species with godlike intelligence and abilities whose arrival on earth caused an environmental and biological crisis. 

Enslaved and despised even by her own Inbornkind, 18-year-old Snofrid Yagami reawakens to the world after having her memories stolen and is certain of only one thing: she will do anything to ensure her freedom. But her resolution is soon tested when the son of a high-ranking human official is murdered and her home city becomes the center of the interspecies war, one that might see the Inborns purged. Desperate to find a way out of the city for herself and her family, Snofrid risks making a deal with the manipulative Inborn Commander, Hadrian, and his brutal cadre of soldiers. Her task is simple: take part in a historic hunt that will bring wealth and fame to all who survive. Unfortunately, Snofrid’s role is one in which survival is rarely seen—the bait.

 

Her vengeance. His vision.

Ari lost everything she once loved when the Five Guilds’ resistance fell to the Dragon King. Now, she uses her unparalleled gift for clockwork machinery in tandem with notoriously unscrupulous morals to contribute to a thriving underground organ market. There isn’t a place on Loom that is secure from the engineer turned thief, and her magical talents are sold to the highest bidder as long as the job defies their Dragon oppressors.

Cvareh would do anything to see his sister usurp the Dragon King and sit on the throne. His family’s house has endured the shame of being the lowest rung in the Dragons’ society for far too long. The Alchemist Guild, down on Loom, may just hold the key to putting his kin in power, if Cvareh can get to them before the Dragon King’s assassins.

When Ari stumbles upon a wounded Cvareh, she sees an opportunity to slaughter an enemy and make a profit off his corpse. But the Dragon sees an opportunity to navigate Loom with the best person to get him where he wants to go.

He offers her the one thing Ari can’t refuse: A wish of her greatest desire, if she brings him to the Alchemists of Loom. 

 The truck should have flattened Libbi into a pancake, but a mysterious boy named Aaron saved her life. The problem? Aaron’s the local Grim Reaper. The bigger problem? He saved her so he could ask her to take over his job. Now, Libbi has just days to choose between dying like she was supposed to or living a lonely life as Death Incarnate. The choice only gets harder when she learns Aaron’s reasons for wanting out of the whole morbid business. Basically, his job is beyond terrible.

Still, when Aaron looks at her, there’s something more in his eyes. Something sinister, dark and secret. Something he’s hiding. Libbi will be damned if she’ll die without figuring it out. And she’ll be damned if she takes over as Reaper and lets him go. 

Hailey is an average twenty-year-old college student, living an average life. Or so she thought. When a past she never knew existed is brought to light, the reality she thought she knew is shattered and Hailey is left alone to pick up the pieces. Who could know this world holds such evil? Who is this strange, obscure boy that seems to know more than he is saying? 

And what can one girl do when a fight to stay alive becomes a fight to avenge and protect the ones she loves?

 

A spine-tingling debut about the ultimate game of cat-and-mouse in reverse as a teen struggles to retain hope—and her sanity—while on the run from a cunning and determined killer.

Ruth Carver has always competed like her life depends on it. Ambitious. Tough. Maybe even mean. It’s no wonder people call her Ruthless.

When she wakes up with a concussion in the bed of a moving pickup truck, she realizes she has been entered into a contest she can’t afford to lose.

At a remote, rotting cabin deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Ruth’s blindfold comes off and she comes face-to-face with her captor. A man who believes his mission is to punish bad girls like Ruth. A man who has done this six times before.

The other girls were never heard from again, but Ruth won’t go down easy. She escapes into the wilderness, but her hunter is close at her heels. That’s when the real battle begins. That’s when Ruth must decides just how far she’ll go in order to survive.

Back home, they called her Ruthless. They had no idea just how right they were.

 

When 15-year-old twins Malcolm and Valentine Gilbert moved to a new town, they never imagined that the old house across the street could bring them so much trouble. A secret machine has reawakened inside, with the power to pierce time itself.

Meanwhile, lightning storms are breaking out all over town. They’re getting worse every week, and seem to enjoy striking kids who just want to pass science class and mind their own business. When Malcolm and Valentine discover a connection between the house and the storms, their situation goes from mysterious to crazy stupid dangerous. Someone is controlling the great machine, and their purpose is nearly complete.

In a race against time, the twins must uncover the chilling plan, the mastermind behind it, and the force that’s driving the deadly storms. They’ll hunt a powerful enemy that threatens their town’s existence, and the only clues are written in the sky.

 

Sadie Smith was absolutely certain of three things: (1) ghosts were indisputably real; (2) she and her three friends were some of the best (though not the most successful) ghost hunters in Oregon; (3) her teammate Jefferson Parrish was always the scariest thing in the room. In a face-off between supernatural beings and Jefferson's Tim Burton-esque vibe there really was no contest. 

But ghosts—unsurprisingly—can’t help pay the rent. So when Sadie and her friends are offered an undisclosed sum of money from an anonymous client to find a link between four historical haunted locations, it’s an easy sell. 

During their cross-country investigation, Sadie finds herself forgetting about Jefferson’s macabre tendencies and falling for his sweetness, even if his idea of a love letter reads more like a note from a serial killer. And she can’t stop thinking about his annoyingly irresistible deep green eyes. 

As Sadie’s feelings get more tangled up with Jefferson, their group puts together the final pieces of a 100 year old mystery—one that will change Sadie’s life forever. 

 

Amra Thetys lives by two simple rules: take care of business, and never let it get personal.  Thieves don't last long in Lucernis. When a fellow rogue is butchered on the streets in a deal gone bad, Amra turns her back on burglary and goes after something more precious than treasure: revenge. Revenge, however, might be hard to come by. A nightmare assortment of enemies—including an immortal assassin and a mad sorcerer—believe Amra is in possession of The Blade That Whispers Hate, the legendary, powerful artifact her friend was murdered for. And Amra's enemies will do anything to take it. Trouble is, Amra hasn't a clue where the Blade actually is. She needs to find it, and soon, or she'll be joining her colleague in a cold grave, rather than avenging his death.