Shelf Control is a weekly celebration of the unread books on our shelves created and hosted by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies. Pick a book you own but haven’t read, write a post about it (suggestions: include what it’s about, why you want to read it, and when you got it), and link up! For more info on what Shelf Control is all about, check out Lisa’s introductory post, here.

Deathless Divide
by Justina Ireland

After the fall of Summerland, Jane McKeene hoped her life would get simpler: Get out of town, stay alive, and head west to California to find her mother.

But nothing is easy when you’re a girl trained in putting down the restless dead, and a devastating loss on the road to a protected village called Nicodermus has Jane questioning everything she thought she knew about surviving in 1880’s America.

What’s more, this safe haven is not what it appears – as Jane discovers when she sees familiar faces from Summerland amid this new society. Caught between mysteries and lies, the undead, and her own inner demons, Jane soon finds herself on a dark path of blood and violence that threatens to consume her.

But she won’t be in it alone.

Katherine Deveraux never expected to be allied with Jane McKeene. But after the hell she has endured, she knows friends are hard to come by – and that Jane needs her, too, whether Jane wants to admit it or not.

Watching Jane’s back, however, is more than she bargained for, and when they both reach a breaking point, it’s up to Katherine to keep hope alive – even as she begins to fear that there is no happily-ever-after for girls like her.

Dread Nation was one of the first books I read last year and I really enjoyed it, so I’ve been looking forward to this sequel and my copy arrived yesterday! I had to pay a little extra to get this hardback edition because it looks like only the paperback is going to be available in shops in the UK, which isn’t what I want when I own the hardback of Dread Nation. I know it’s petty, but I like my series to match.

I never thought I liked zombie stories, but over the past year or so they’ve become one of my favourite kinds of horror/sci-fi stories and I especially love zombies in historical fiction. Jane was such a fun heroine to follow, especially as she’s not a particularly reliable narrator, so I can’t wait to see her kick more zombie butt.

Are there any sequels you can’t wait to read this year?

Before

One of Us is Next finally arrived in the library, and I gobbled it up in one day! I really enjoyed One of Us is Lying, so I was looking forward to this sequel following some different main characters. It was so much fun, and the perfect palate cleanser after all the romance I’ve been feasting on this month.

Now

Karen Maitland is an author I’ve never read before, despite owning four of her books. Rather ironically, now that I’m finally reading one of her novels it’s actually another book I borrowed from my library! I’m having so much fun making the most of my library this year and couldn’t resist borrowing A Gathering of Ghosts when I realised it’s about nuns. I’m always drawn to novels featuring nuns and nunneries. Unfortunately someone else has reserved it, so I need to get it read and returned to the library soon! I’m enjoying what I’ve read so far.

Next

The Priory of the Orange Tree has been on my TBR for a whole year, and I’ve technically already started it. I read the first couple of chapters and really liked what I read, so once I’ve finished A Gathering of Ghosts I’ll be returning to it – it’ll probably take me a while to get through, though, because I can’t read it on my commute to and from work unless I want to carry an 800 page hardback around in my bag.

What are you reading right now?