[issybird]

Titles with one or two nominations:

*Gray House by Mariam Petrosyan [a7sharp9]
Amazon US $4.99 | Amazon AU $6.94 | Amazon UK £3.98 | Amazon CA $6.94

Spoiler:

Bound to wheelchairs and dependent on prosthetic limbs, the physically disabled students living in the House are overlooked by the Outsides. Not that it matters to anyone living in the House, a hulking old structure that its residents know is alive. From the corridors and crawl spaces to the classrooms and dorms, the House is full of tribes, tinctures, scared teachers, and laws—all seen and understood through a prismatic array of teenagers’ eyes.

But student deaths and mounting pressure from the Outsides put the time-defying order of the House in danger. As the tribe leaders struggle to maintain power, they defer to the awesome power of the House, attempting to make it through days and nights that pass in ways that clocks and watches cannot record.

736 pages

*The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov [Ralph Sir Edward]

**A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay [Catlady, orlok]
Amazon U.S. $11.49 | Amazon CA $5.99 | Amazon AU $5.14 | Amazon UK £4.74 | Kobo US $11.49 | Kobo CA $9.99 | Kobo AU $8.13 | Kobo UK £4.79 | Overdrive Scribd Hoopla RB Digital

Spoiler:

WINNER OF THE 2015 BRAM STOKER AWARD FOR SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN A NOVEL

A chilling thriller that brilliantly blends psychological suspense and supernatural horror, reminiscent of Stephen King's The Shining, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, and William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist.

The lives of the Barretts, a normal suburban New England family, are torn apart when fourteen-year-old Marjorie begins to display signs of acute schizophrenia.

To her parents’ despair, the doctors are unable to stop Marjorie’s descent into madness. As their stable home devolves into a house of horrors, they reluctantly turn to a local Catholic priest for help. Father Wanderly suggests an exorcism; he believes the vulnerable teenager is the victim of demonic possession. He also contacts a production company that is eager to document the Barretts’ plight. With John, Marjorie’s father, out of work for more than a year and the medical bills looming, the family agrees to be filmed, and soon find themselves the unwitting stars of The Possession, a hit reality television show. When events in the Barrett household explode in tragedy, the show and the shocking incidents it captures become the stuff of urban legend.

Fifteen years later, a bestselling writer interviews Marjorie’s younger sister, Merry. As she recalls those long ago events that took place when she was just eight years old, long-buried secrets and painful memories that clash with what was broadcast on television begin to surface—and a mind-bending tale of psychological horror is unleashed, raising vexing questions about memory and reality, science and religion, and the very nature of evil.

320 pages

*Marina by Carlos Ruiz Zafón [Catlady]
Amazon U.S. $9.99 | Amazon CA $12.99 | Amazon AU $15.28 | Amazon UK, £3.99 | Kobo U.S. $9.99 | Kobo CA $12.99 | Kobo AU $25.51 | Kobo UK, £3.99 | Overdrive, Axis360, Scribd, Hoopla, RB Digital

Spoiler:

"We all have a secret buried under lock and key in the attic of our soul. This is mine."

When Fifteen-year-old Oscar Drai suddenly vanishes from his boarding school in Barcelona, no one knows his whereabouts for seven days and seven nights.

His story begins when he meets the strange Marina while he's exploring an old quarter of the city. She leads Oscar to a cemetery, where they watch a macabre ritual that occurs on the last Sunday of each month. At exactly ten o'clock in the morning, a woman shrouded in a black velvet cloak descends from her carriage to place a single rose on an unmarked grave.

When Oscar and Marina decide to follow her, they begin a journey that transports them to a forgotten postwar Barcelona--a world of aristocrats and actresses, inventors and tycoons--an reveals a dark secret that lies waiting in the mysterious labyrinth beneath the city streets.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon's haunting Marina has long been a cult classic in Spain and is now an international bestseller.

234 pages

**Speaker for the Dead (Ender's Saga #2) by Orson Scott Card [darryl, Dngrsone]
Amazon AU: $12.99, Amazon US: $ 8.99, Amazon UK: £ 5.99, Amazon CA: $ 5.99

Spoiler:

It is a very different book from Ender's Game and has many themes worthy of discussion. It is not hard science fiction, but uses the setting to examine many issues. Humanity, ashamed at having wiped out the first alien species it encountered (in Ender's Game) now has to deal with a second. Is this an opportunity for redemption? Or for a repeat? Have any lessons been learned? When the aliens kill the main "Xenologer" sent to study them how will humanity react? Or is history condemned to repeat itself? A very thought provoking book which ranks high amongst my favourites.

In the aftermath of his terrible war, Ender Wiggin disappeared, and a powerful voice arose: The Speaker for the Dead, who told the true story of the Bugger War.

Now, long years later, a second alien race has been discovered, but again the aliens' ways are strange and frightening...again, humans die. And it is only the Speaker for the Dead, who is also Ender Wiggin the Xenocide, who has the courage to confront the mystery...and the truth.

Speaker for the Dead, the second novel in Orson Scott Card's Ender Quintet, is the winner of the 1986 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the 1987 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

382 pages