So, a visit to Kitabain brought me these beauties. Let’s look at them all:

I am slowly collecting my way through the Discworld novels. Sadly, I still have a ways to go. Anyway, planning to get back to this series as soon as I find the second book.

This hardcover edition is beautiful and contains many of the short stories written by Poe. The cover shows an orangutan from a murder mystery. A good addition to my collection, won’t you say so?

Part of the Ender’s Quintet and the very book that I needed to read next in this series. Can’t wait to get started.

Read my review of the Speaker for the Dead book here.

The unassuming cover opens into a most amazing book. You will find Victor Frankenstein’s experiments that led to the creation of his monster spawn. The book has illustrations, photographs, and log entries that give it an authenticity.

For my ongoing love affair with all things Frankenstein, you might wanna check out Project Frankenstein.

I think this is a good haul. How about you?

I know this was the obvious choice for the Black cat square of the bingo card but I had never read it before. Come to think of it, I am not sure I ever read Edgar Allen Poe (*gasp*). Well let me tell you, as an animal lover I read this with my mouth hanging open. It is shocking and heartbreaking and disgusting but ultimately satisfying! 

 Another bingo block done!

"...and a cat. This latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree."

Haunted by a crushing fear of death, a young Victorian woman discovers the secret of eternal youth—she must surrender her life to attain it, and steal heartbeats to keep it.

In 1860 Surrey, a young woman has only one occupation: to marry. Senza Fyne is beautiful, intelligent, and lacks neither wealth nor connections. Finding a husband shouldn’t be difficult, not when she has her entire life before her. But it’s not life that preoccupies her thoughts. It’s death—and that shadowy spectre haunts her every step. So does Mr. Knell. Heart-thumpingly attractive, obviously eligible—he’d be her perfect match if only he wasn’t so macabre. All his talk about death, all that teasing about knowing how to avoid it…

When her mother arranges a courtship with another man, Senza is desperate for escape from a dull prescripted destiny. Impulsively, she takes Knell up on his offer. He casts a spell that frees her from the cruelty of time and the threat of death—but at a steep price. In order to maintain eternal youth, she must feed on the heartbeats of others.

It’s a little bit Jane Austen, a little bit Edgar Allen Poe, and a whole lot of stealing heartbeats in order to stay young and beautiful forever. From the posh London season to the back alleys of Whitechapel, across the Channel, across the Pond, across the seas of Time… How far will Senza Fyne go to avoid Death?