What's Next: The Unbound Deadly Stormlord

What's next is a meme hosted by Iceybooks (who you should go check out immediately!) that gives blog readers a chance to pick what book I'll be reading next.  While this is a weekly meme I only do it at the end of the month.  This month's options are (drum roll please)...

Something Strange and Deadly (Something Strange and Deadly, #1) by Susan Dennard

Philadelphia 1876. The Dead are rising. A zombie delivers a letter to Eleanor Fitt. Whoever controls the Dead Army has her brother. She avoids her mother's choice of husband for the lab of Spirit Hunters, including the maddeningly stubborn yet handsome Daniel. The situation threatens her reputation, and the lives of everyone in the city.

The Unbound (The Archived, #2) by Victoria Schwabb

Imagine a place where the dead rest on shelves like books. Each body has a story to tell, a life seen in pictures that only Librarians can read. The dead are called Histories, and the vast realm in which they rest is the Archive.
Last summer, Mackenzie Bishop, a Keeper tasked with stopping violent Histories from escaping the Archive, almost lost her life to one. Now, as she starts her junior year at Hyde School, she's struggling to get her life back. But moving on isn't easy -- not when her dreams are haunted by what happened. She knows the past is past, knows it cannot hurt her, but it feels so real, and when her nightmares begin to creep into her waking hours, she starts to wonder if she's really safe. 
Meanwhile, people are vanishing without a trace, and the only thing they seem to have in common is Mackenzie. She's sure the Archive knows more than they are letting on, but before she can prove it, she becomes the prime suspect. And unless Mac can track down the real culprit, she'll lose everything, not only her role as Keeper, but her memories, and even her life. Can Mackenzie untangle the mystery before she herself unravels?
With stunning prose and a captivating mixture of action, romance, and horror, The Unbound delves into a richly imagined world where no choice is easy and love and loss feel like two sides of the same coin.

The Last Stormlord (Watergivers, #1) by Glenda Larke

Shale is the lowest of the low-an outcast from a poor village in the heart of the desert. In the desert water is life, and currency, and Shale has none. But he has a secret. It's the one thing that keeps him alive and may save all the cities of the Quartern in the days to come. If it doesn't get him killed first...
Terelle is a slave fleeing a life as a courtesan. She finds shelter in the home of an elderly painter but as she learns the strange and powerful secrets of his art she fears she may have traded a life of servitude for something far more perilous...
The Stormlord is dying in his tower and there is no one, by accident or design, to take his place. He brings the rain from the distant seas to his people. Without a Stormlord, the cities of the Quartern will wither and die.
Their civilization is at the brink of disaster. If Shale and Terelle can find a way to save themselves, they may just save them all. Water is life and the wells are running dry...

Book Review: The Archived (The Archived, #1)

Author| Victoria Schwab
Edition| Hardcover American
Genre| YA Horror/Paranormal
Rating| 4.5 stars

This is perfect for fans of The Devouring by Simon Holt or The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater.  It's got an eerie tone and an original premise that I adored.  It's one part ghost story, one part murder mystery, and one part magic.

Mac is a Keeper, which means she hunts down Histories in the Narrows.  A History is the essence, or literal history, of a dead person.  The Narrows are a place between the Outer (our world) and the Archive (where sleeping Histories are normally kept, it's like a giant library).  Keeping up?  After moving to a new house (actually, a really awesome hotel/apartment complex) to escape a family tragedy, she finds herself busy with a massive amount of Histories and a mystery that stretches back to the original inhabitants of her building.

The premise sounds really cool (I don't particularly do it justice) and the cover is freaking awesome, so I had high expectations.  It met them.  It didn't really surpass them though, so that, in addition to a slower pacing around the middle, kept it from being five stars.

The characters are great, I feel like I know them pretty well.  Wesley, in particular, has become a new favorite among characters.  I was hoping more would be done with the other residents, but leaving them out didn't hurt the book in any way.  Additionally, some of Wesley's back-story would have been nice, but again, without it the book is perfectly fine.

As for the story itself, that was written very well.  The mystery had me, as a reader, on my guard, pointing fingers at everyone.  When the reveal happens it's not completely unexpected, but it's also a sigh of relief to finally take your nails from your mouth.  I was very literally biting mine in anticipation.

This promises a decent series, but as far as I know, only one other book has been published and a third one is tentatively expected at some point in the future.