#115 The Song of the Quarkbeast by Jasper Fforde

The second book in the YA series has Jennifer dealing with a magical contest with imagic over the control of magic in the kingdom. And of course the deck is stacked against Kazam with shady deals with the king. You do find out more about the workings of magic and about trolls and quarkbeasts as well. And the nice thing about this one is you really don't need to know anything about the previous book to read this one at all.

#116 Cinderella, Vol. 2: Fables are Forever by Chris Roberson , Shawn McManus

The second of this spin off series that covers the adventures of Cinderella as she works undercover for Bigby and later the Beast. Most of this spans several years and covers missions where she keeps crossing paths with Dorothy Gale since she is a mercenary.  A nice diversion from the main Fables story line and not necessary to read at the same time.

#119 Dancing on the Head of a Pin by Thomas E. Sniegoski

I had gotten about halfway through this book several months ago and then forgot to pull it out of my travel bag to finish. Once I started packing for my next trip I saw the news that NBC picked this to shoot a pilot and now I want to read all of them. This book is several months after the first one and Remy is still grieving for his wife. He gets a case looking for some missing weapons and it turns out that the weapons are very special. Of course the fallen angels want them and so do the Nomads. The end goal again in this book seems to be trying to prevent events from reigniting the war between God and Lucifer and it doesn't look good by the end of the book.  Looks like I will need to pick up the pace reading them.

#120 Black Heart by Christina Henry

The book starts immediately after the previous one. The Retrievers are breaking in to take her back to the Agency for her rule breaking and Nathaniel is able to open a portal and send her to safety. Of course it turns out to be a place that she has never been to and of course Lucifer isn't well liked.  While she is there she finds Puck hiding among the elves and also figures out how to kill all the monsters that Titania is somehow breeding there. She also gets help from another brother of Lucifer that she hadn't met before.  By the end of the story Maddy finds out more about herself and that once again she has been a pawn all along and vows to end that happening to her. Will that happen or will we see more books where she is doing nothing more than reacting to events instead of trying to make things work for her.

Digital copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley

#121 Darkness Splintered by Keri Arthur

The sixth book finds Risa in a funk after losing the second key, having Azriel save her life but preventing her from ever seeing her mother again in the afterlife and killing her mother's killer. She is regretting her decision to send Azriel away as both her father and Hunter have ramped up the pressure on her to get the missing keys and turn them over to one of them. Her father threatens to kill her roommate's girlfriend while Hunter sends out an assassin to kill someone close to her. Finally Risa gives in to the pressures and tells her Uncle what is going on. The plus was there was no side mission in this book but a new subplot about taking down Hunter gets added to the storyline.  Not sure how everything is going to end since the series is almost done and I really can't see who will get the keys since so many people want them and they all have excellent pressures on her.

Digital copy provided by the publisher through Netgalley