Teaser Tuesday: Poison Eaters and Dark Magic

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Today I'm teasing you with two books. City of Dark Magic is an eARC I am currently reading and will be published by Penguin on November 27. The Poison Eaters is a short story collection by Holly Black, illustrated by her husband Theo Black.

This conversation takes place in the castle complex in Prague, between our protagonist Sarah and her new boss. They are discussing the history of the Lebkowicz family Sarah will be working for.

"What was Prince Max doing before he got his family stuff back?" Miles looked around as if the room might be bugged and leaned in close. "Officially, he was in banking. Really, he was the drummer in some sort of rock band in Los Angeles," whispered Miles. "But no one knows that and I didn't tell you."
[City of Dark Magic eARC, position 615 of 4563]

I don't know more about the Prince yet but I'm curious...
I'm loving the Prague scenery in this one. So many places I've been!

Matilda imagined Lydia and Julian dancing at the endless Eternal Ball. She pictured them on the streets she'd seen in pictures uploaded to Facebook and Flickr, trying to trade a bowl full of blood for their own deaths.
[The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, page 15]

I love this story. I already knew it from another anthology and re-reading just made me remember how awesome it was and long all the more for the full-length novel that will be coming... sometime... next year I think?
Holly Black's writing is just so gripping and courageous. I read her novel Tithe about 7 or so years ago, when I was 16, and it will stick with me forever. I got it at the library and read it twice before returning it. Since then I've read it about twice more.

Aaaanyhow, what do you guys think of my teasers? And what did you choose to tease the rest of us with this Tuesday? Link me up in the comments :)

Stacking the Shelves

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews to showcase what books we got, traded or bought to clutter those ever-expanding bookshelves.

Bought but not yet read:

Born at Midnight, by C. C. Hunter
Demonglass, by Rachel Hawkins
The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern
A Beautiful Evil, by Kelly Keaton

I'm really late in buying The Night Circus, but I'm excited to finally read it! I've had A Beautiful Evil on the pile for a couple weeks but somehow haven't picked it up yet... I think I'll have to re-read the second half of Darkness Becomes Her first to get into the that world again. Same goes for Demonglass. I'm also curious for Born at Midnight because I'm a sucker for books set in boarding schools.

Books I won:

The Immortal Rules, by Julie Kagawa

The Poison Eaters and Other Stories, by Holly Black

Witch Eyes, by Scott Tracey

Blood Bound, by Rachel Vincent

Hunger, by Jackie Morse Kessler

Yup, I was lucky enough to win the Participation Post giveaway in Fiktshun 's Soul Screamers Reading Challenge :D I just got them in the mail today and now I'm really in a pinch for what to read first... ironically, the one book that I asked for and that didn't arrive yet is Before I Wake, the new Soul Screamers novel whose book birthday is today of all days...

In case you missed the SSRC, Rachel is also hosting a BIW mini-challenge on her blog! You can sign up for that here.

Finally, my current read:

I'm more than halfway in and probably gonna finish today. It's hilarious XD I love it! It's got some of my favorite comparisons and turns of the phrase ever. Not to mention the many death related puns ^^ I love funny morbid.


Have you read any of these books? What's new on your shelves?