Celaena Sardothien was Aldaran’s premiere assassin, but even the best can be betrayed. Condemned to the salt mines of Endovier, Celaena will take any deal to escape a sure death sentence. The best deal on offer is to fight to become King’s Champion for a ruthless and corrupt king and be freed after four years of service.

Assuming a secret identity, Celaena travels to Rifthold to compete in a brutal contest between thieves, poisoners, soldiers and murderers.  As the competitors work through the tests of their various skills, the group is dwindling faster than foreseen as members are brutally murdered between the tests.

As Celaena trains to regain her lethal skills, she develops friendships with Chael, her chief guard, Damion the Crown Prince and Nehemia a foreign princess and regains her zest for living which makes her even more determined to win the contest. Her quest to become Champion becomes even more urgent when Elena, neither living nor dead, and the first Queen of Aldaran tasks Celaena to become the King’s Champion and to fight a mysterious evil that is loose in the castle. As the final duel draws near, will the Assassin prevail or will she be undone by deceit?

Don’t be afraid to fall in love with this world and its characters since Throne of Glass is an eight book series which can be read in a combination of e-books from the LIBBY app and Overdrive, and print books from the Augusta-Richmond County Library. For more information, contact your local branch library or visit our webpage at arcpls.org to start your journey.

The Clockwork Scarab by Collen Gleason takes us into a world that is Holmes’s London and more.  London’s gone steampunk with a vengeance and familiar streets can be four stories high with familiar buildings anchored into place with enormous balloons

But the Holmes of this novel is Mina Holmes, Sherlock’s niece, determined to prove herself a worthy descendent of the great detective. She has honed her powers of observation to a state worthy of her great relative. Her counterpart is no Watson. Evaline Stoker, sister of Bram, the writer of Dracula, has inherited all the considerable vampire fighting abilities of her family. Neither of these ladies should be taken lightly.

Induced to serve England as agents of Alexandra, the Princess of Wales, two confirmed individualists must learn to work together as a team to solve the murders of several society daughters.  What links them together besides a clockwork Egyptian scarab by the bodies.

Mina and Evaline take on the puzzle even with significant challenges. Their lack of trust in the other combined with all the restrictions and expectations visited upon upper-class Victorian young ladies give them barriers with which male sleuths never have to contend.

Adventuring where men cannot, the duo learn of the cult of Sekhmet and the connection between the victims and the secret society. Is this just a group of Egyptology aficionados or does the society serve a deadlier purpose? Aided by a Scotland Yard detective, a pickpocket, and a time-traveler, Mina and Evaline search for answers before another young lady turns up dead. Are the girls up to the challenge?  You can find this, the first in the series, and the second installment through the Augusta-Richmond County Public Library System via the Libby app

Imagine, if you will, meeting the “other” girlfriend at your boyfriend’s memorial service. Obviously, Lena and Aubrey are shocked about the other’s existence and morbidly obsessed with two questions.  What was the other girl’s relationship with Charlie like? What made Charlie kill himself in such a spectacular way?

Lena wants answers. Aubrey wants a notebook that Charlie has taken from her, one that could reveal her deepest secret. Initially hostile, their relationship develops from frenemies to allies, as they trace Charlie’s footsteps from Paris, to London, to Mumbai and then Bangkok. Talking over their relationship to Charlie, Lena and Aubrey reveal different Charlies.  One Charlie drinks; the other Charlie shuns alcohol.  One Charlie hates olives; the other counts them a favorite food. One Charlie is into vinyl records; the other is a techie nerd, even a bit of a hacker. The girls continue to track the clues into the seedy and dangerous sides of exotic locales, feeling they are tracking a third Charlie, one with secrets they can’t even imagine.

As the girls come closer to their answers, they develop a terrifying theory.  Could their whole journey be a set up? Could Charlie still be alive? If you want to read with your heart in your mouth and you love disorienting endings, Charlie Presumed Dead is a perfect read. Check this out with the Augusta Richmond County Libraries’ LIBBY app. Call your branch library for more information.

Until the arrival of his cousin Blake. Rod’s not too keen about sharing his room for three months, but he figures he can stand it. After all, they could turn out to be best buds. And Blake will only be around for three months. Yeah, Rod can hack it.

Except, it turns out Rod can’t handle it. About fifteen minutes into the visit, it’s off to a bad start. Blake treats Rod like the hired help.  Rod sets boundaries that Blake ignores. Blake takes over Rod’s bed and Rod gets the air mattress. Blake is rude to Rod and charming to everyone else. Two-faced is a pretty good description of good ole’ cousin Blake.

All these little petty territorial items could possibly be ironed out until Blake throws rat guts into his own face and frames Rod for the deed. In two weeks, Blake has undone everything that Rod holds dear–Rod’s relationship with his girlfriend Audrey goes bust, his reputation at school is shot, and most importantly, his own band, Fanged Grapefruit, has given him the shove.

What else can Blake do to wreak Rod’s life? Can Rod find a way to retaliate that will wring the apology from Blake that Rod craves? Can the cousins find anyway to connect that won’t leave them lunging at each other’s throats?

Told from a first person viewpoint with a lot of asides, the book is pretty funny. And if you like slapstick comedy, this book has many cringeworthy moments that will leave you wincing with sympathy as Rod’s live unravels. This ebook is available for free with your library card through the new LIBBY app. Call your local Augusta-Richmond County library branch if you have any questions about setting up an account or downloading materials.

This eBook is available for free with your library card through the Libby app.

Flavia de Luce is feeling put upon. She’s been banished from her beloved English home, Buckshaw, and her private chemistry laboratory, sent to the wilds of Toronto, Canada, and the confines of Miss Bodycote’s Academy, the boarding school attended by her late mother. Flavia is a “legacy” student trying to fill the legacy of her mother, but no one is upfront about just what this is.

The pre-teen detective is handed an intriguing puzzle on her first night at her new school. A body has fallen out of the chimney in her room wrapped in a Union Jack flag and blackened beyond recognition, and Flavia is immediately intrigued. The identity of the body is a mystery to be solved and Flavia vows to uncover the corpse’s identity. The three most obvious corpse candidates are one of the three missing students who’ve vanished and never been found.

Not only might there be a murderer at large, the school holds many secrets. Our detective finds herself part of a secret society which is training students to be spies or assassins, which one is left to Flavia and the reader to decide. Hampered by the lack of her loyal sidekicks and a chemistry lab to call her own. Flavia is unable to ask the direct questions which could solve the mystery and is forced to rely on deception and her own wits to reach the end of the labyrinth of clues and conjectures to the surprising solution of the identity of the unidentifiable body.

Find As Chimney Sweepers Come To Dust on Libby, the Augusta Richmond County Library’s new ebook and audiobook platform. For more information or help in getting registered,  call your local library branch or the HQ Information desk at 706-821-2615

This eBook is available for free with your library card through RBdigital: arcplsga.rbdigital.com

In Marlene Perez’s Dead is the New Black, Daisy is used to being on the outside looking in.  She is the only normal person in her psychically gifted family, and she doesn’t hang with any particular group at school. But she is curious. As Daisy investigates with her best friend Ryan, her maybe yes, maybe no boyfriend, she learns secrets about her town and finds out there is a psionic vampire on the loose who feeds on the souls of its victims. And it apparently has a taste for cheerleaders.

As Daisy morphs from bystander to popular girl, she also deals with changes in her family dynamic and the ups and downs of first love all the while sleuthing for the most likely suspext for the mysterious events.

If you fall in love with these characters and want the story to continue. Dead is the New Black is the first in the series. So, check this out in hard copy and pick it up through curbside service or download with your RBdigital account.

This eBook is available for free with your library card through RBdigital: arcplsga.rbdigital.com

For someone who lives in small town Gatlin South Carolina, Ethan Wate has a lot on his mind: his mom’s death, his dad’s stay in a mental health hospital, and his relationship with his girlfriend, Lena. Their relationship is complicated. He is a mortal. She is a Caster, and a powerful one, who must choose whether she will be Light or Dark.

Ethan is determined to save Lena from the Dark and bring back the sweet girl he fell in love with. On his quest to save Lena, he starts uncovering secrets about the town and the people he has known all his life.  Can he accept the truth about his mother? Can he accept the truth about himself and his place in “The Order of All Things?” Can he do all this before Lena’s 17^th moon and her fateful choice?

Those are a lot of questions, and you have to read to find the answers in a book with satisfying characters and suspenseful pacing.  Try out Beautiful Darkness and the rest of the Beautiful Creatures series today in Augusta Richmond County Libraries RBdigital account. Set up your free ebook account with your library card today and read away!

This eBook is available for free with your library card through RBdigital: arcplsga.rbdigital.com

On a quest to find her little brother Ethan, Meghan gets more than she bargained for–the truth about her best friend Robbie, a mysterious talking cat, and lastly, the knowledge that she is the daughter of the king of the fairies, King Oberon. Thrust into a world, where she doesn’t know the rules, Meghan has to learn on the run, with help from Grimalkin, Robbie, and, the Winter prince Ash.

As they get closer to Ethan, the trio find out about the Iron King and an unknown race of fairies. These fey can stand the touch of metal, and they can use this advantage to destroy the other fairy kingdoms. To rescue her brother and save the fairy kingdoms, Meghan has to make her way through the iron kingdom and defeat its ruler King Machina in a fight to the death. Will Meghan succeed, or will she be trapped in the Iron Kingdom forever?

The first in a seven book series, this fast paced trip to another world will leave you wanting more adventures in fairyland. Check it out through your RBdigital account today.

This book is available in e-book and audio-book format for free with your library card through RBDigital and to patrons with print disabilities in Braille and Audio Reading Downloads (BARD) through the website or mobile app for download. Also, you can view the webtoon based on this novel on Webtoons website or the mobile app.

The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh is a fantastic re-imagining of the Arabian Nights tale. Shahrzad has lost her best friend to the hands of the caliph. Her heart is filled with a vengeance as she takes on the dangerous task of volunteering to be the bride of a monster who has his brides killed at dawn. As Shahrzad prepares to make the caliph answer for her friends’ death, she must stay alive long enough to rid him of his life as she spins tales of wonder and adventure every night that stretch into another dawn and another day of life. As she continues, she finds that the caliph, or rather Khalid, has more to him than the monster he is known to be. She discovers that there is so much more to the deaths of the brides as well. How will Shahrzad uncover the mysteries and save her home from even more impending danger? Find out more by reading The Wrath and the Dawn today.