WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Sam at Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

What I Recently Finished Reading:

Four best friends, one music festival, and a cooler filled with human organs: this summer is about to get gory. ​​​

Jennifer’s Body fans will clamor for this new sapphic horror standalone from New York Times bestselling author Kayla Cottingham.

Three years ago, the melting of arctic permafrost released a pathogen of unknown origin into the atmosphere, causing a small percentage of people to undergo a transformation that became known as the Hollowing. Those impacted slowly became intolerant to normal food and were only able to gain sustenance by consuming the flesh of other human beings. Those who went without flesh quickly became feral, turning on their friends and family. However, scientists were able to create a synthetic version of human meat that would satisfy the hunger of those impacted by the Hollowing. As a result, humanity slowly began to return to normal, albeit with lasting fear and distrust for the people they’d pejoratively dubbed ghouls.

Zoey, Celeste, Valeria, and Jasmine are all ghouls living in Southern California. As a last hurrah before their graduation they decided to attend a musical festival in the desert. They have a cooler filled with hard seltzers and SynFlesh and are ready to party.

But on the first night of the festival Val goes feral, and ends up killing and eating a boy. As other festival guests start disappearing around them the girls soon discover someone is drugging ghouls and making them feral. And if they can’t figure out how to stop it, and soon, no one at the festival is safe.

What I am currently reading:

The ARC: the world’s last chance for survival, but this underground fallout shelter is the last place you want to be.

At the tender age of two Elle Winters lost everything, when the day of impact transformed Earth’s surface into an icy, desolate wasteland. Fifteen years later, all she has ever known are the cold, artificial confines of underground fallout shelter, the ARC. Under the Council’s rule, ruthless officials roam the hallways and community comes first. Everyone lives in fear of failing their annual testing and those that do are deemed tainted—taken away without any warning or a word of goodbye.

No one has been taken in over six months and the remaining citizens of the ARC have slowly begun to forget the danger. Elle remains wary, but even she is beginning to wonder if it’s finally safe to succumb to her feelings towards her closest friend, Sebastian.

But, no one is ever truly safe in the ARC. Elle is about to experience her own personal apocalypse and with nothing left to lose, she will finally attempt to uncover the truth about the tainted.

Will she find what she’s looking for or are some secrets better left buried deep underground?

What books I think I’ll read next:

Unfortunately, her small bit of solace is shattered when a group of vampires walk into her work and turn her world upside down. He knows he shouldn’t get involved with the prickly woman as her mysterious past, and the countless vampires hunting her only spell trouble, but he finds it impossible to stay away. However, it doesn’t take him long to realize the vampires pursuing her are only a small part of a growing evil. ***The Fire and Ice series is a spinoff of The Kindred Series, but you do not have to read The Kindred Series to enjoy this one. The maturity level of this series will grow with each book and is recommended for readers 17+***

Confirmed bachelor Austin Montgomery is ready to settle down. The eldest of eight Montgomerys, he’s the big, bearded and broody one, yet one look at the new owner of the boutique across the street, he knows exactly what he wants. Her.

Finding a man is the last thing on Sierra Elder’s mind. Wanting to cover up scars that run deeper than her flesh, she finds in Austin a man that truly gets to her—in more ways than one.

Although wary, they embark on a slow, tempestuous burn of a relationship. When blasts from both their pasts intrude on their present, however, it will take more than a promise of what could be to keep them together.

One secret. A decade of silence.

Seven-year-old Anna loves the constant commotion of her big family. Most of all, Anna adores her ten-year-old sister Liz. They build forts, climb trees, and stick together, no matter what. One moment the two girls are dangling from their backyard swing set; the next, everything changes…

Anna will never be the same.

After 10 years of heartache and grief, seventeen-year-old Anna’s life is becoming increasingly difficult. She would like nothing more than to forget her past, but memories of her childhood are burned into her soul. Can she hide the unspeakable truth from years ago? Find out now in Julie Oleszek’s debut novel, The Fifth Floor.

“We were the nightmares of nightmares…”

On the surface, Ricki Conklin is just an average bloke, a brilliant tattooist with his own shop.
Below the surface, he’s a vigilante revenge-seeker, atoning for a past he fears will never set him free.

Jaime is his everything, his foul-mouthed Dollface.
Covered in ink from collarbone to feet, she’s a wild child after his heart.
Set adrift, losing faith in herself and humanity, she’s broken down not by abuse, but by neglect. For years, she exists only so she can finally come home.

A series of shocking and particularly gruesome murders leads Detective Inspector Sean Connor and his team into a labyrinthine investigation, in which all roads lead towards a thirty-year-old unsolved murder.

The victims, all unconnected to each other, are dispatched using a unique poison, previously associated with the notorious Borgia family. As the murders begin to multiply at an alarming rate, Connor finds clues hard to come by, and every lead takes him down yet another blind alley. The killer seems to be one step ahead of the police at every turn.

Together with his assistant, Sergeant Lucy Clay, they must piece together the shreds of evidence that will lead them to the mysterious Chocolate Woman, and in turn to the brain behind the horrific murders that soon come to be known as the Purple Death.

There are lots of stories about the children of gods. But what about those cursed by the gods, and their descendants…

El, a seventeen-year-old has inherited an ancient and deadly power. She loses control of it, causing a horrific accident, and becomes the prey of a secret organisation, known as the Order.

Forced from her family and home, she hides in plain sight amidst the crowds of London, and is thrust into a world she never knew existed; one full of arete: beings with extraordinary powers like hers.

Arete are beings that can trace their lineage and powers from ancient Greece. They do not claim their inheritance comes from the gods, rather legend says they are descended from cursed beings, such as Medusa.

At the heart of their world is the kerykeion, the symbol that protects them from the humans and the humans from them. El is trapped between two factions, one that has built an empire around the kerykeion and another that is determined to bring it down.

As she is drawn deeper into the conflict, the only way to find the truth is to take matters into her own hands, and the line between friend and foe becomes dangerously blurred.

Descendants is the first book in the Young Adult, Urban Fantasy trilogy: The Arete Series.

Achilles, “the best of all the Greeks,” son of the cruel sea goddess Thetis and the legendary king Peleus, is strong, swift, and beautiful, irresistible to all who meet him. Patroclus is an awkward young prince, exiled from his homeland after an act of shocking violence. Brought together by chance, they forge an inseparable bond, despite risking the gods’ wrath.

They are trained by the centaur Chiron in the arts of war and medicine, but when word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, all the heroes of Greece are called upon to lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, and torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows. Little do they know that the cruel Fates will test them both as never before and demand a terrible sacrifice.

Oxford, England, September 2023. A world not quite our own…

Fifteen-year-old Tim Alto has one thing on his mind, and one thing only. Not to make a complete fool of himself in front of his crush at the end of summer party (which isn’t easy when your overly tight jeans are making you walk like a penguin). But, in a city where androids are part of everyday life, anything can happen. A stolen wallet ruins Tim’s evening, and things go from bad to worse when the perpetrator shows up at school the next day.

Tim suddenly finds himself thrust onto a path filled with assault, grief, tests of friendship and unexpected romance.

A path that will lead Tim to question what it really means to be human.

Debra Sennefelder whips up cookies and crime in a delicious new cozy series, perfect for fans of Joanne Fluke and Peg Cochran.

Wingate, Connecticut, is famed as one of the top ten shopping destinations in the state, and home to Mallory Monroe’s beloved Cookie Shop—a place where patrons are greeted with the heavenly aroma of freshly baked cookies that are as beautifully decorated as they are insanely delicious.

But things aren’t going so smoothly for Mallory. Her two employees are a disaster in the kitchen, she catches her boyfriend with another woman, and she’s seen having a fierce argument with food blogger Beatrice Wright, who accuses Mallory of stealing her cookie recipe. Then Beatrice turns up dead in her kitchen, flour outlining her body and a bloodied marble rolling pin nearby. Mallory immediately becomes suspect number one, her sales plummet, and she desperately tries to clear her name—but that’s not the only murder the killer is baking up.

Debra Sennefelder has cooked up a perfect recipe—endearing characters, a picture-perfect evocation of small-town life, and a quaint sweets shop. And just when things get a little too comfy, there’s always a murder or two for good measure.

Who is Ariadne Hui?

• Laser-focused lawyer diligently climbing the corporate ladder
• The “perfect” daughter living out her father’s dream
• Shocking love interest of South Korea’s hottest star

Ariadne Hui thrives on routine. So what if everything in her life is planned down to the minute: That’s the way she likes it. If she’s going to make partner in Toronto’s most prestigious law firm, she needs to stay focused at all times.

But when she comes home after yet another soul-sucking day to find an unfamiliar, gorgeous man camped out in her living room, focus is the last thing on her mind. Especially when her roommate explains this is Choi Jihoon, her cousin freshly arrived from Seoul to mend a broken heart. He just needs a few weeks to rest and heal; Ari will barely even know he’s there. (Yeah, right.)

Jihoon is kindness and chaos personified, and it isn’t long before she’s falling, hard. But when one wrong step leads to a world-shaking truth, Ari finds herself thrust onto the world stage: not as the competent, steely lawyer she’s fought so hard to become, but as the mystery woman on the arm of a man the entire world claims to know. Now with her heart, her future, and her sense of self on the line, Ari will have to cut through all the pretty lies to find the truth of her relationship…and discover the Ariadne Hui she’s finally ready to be.

From author of The Passage comes a standalone novel about a group of survivors on a hidden island utopia–where the truth isn’t what it seems.

Founded by the mysterious genius known as the Designer, the archipelago of Prospera lies hidden from the horrors of a deteriorating outside world. In this island paradise, Prospera’s lucky citizens enjoy long, fulfilling lives until the monitors embedded in their forearms, meant to measure their physical health and psychological well-being, fall below 10 percent. Then they retire themselves, embarking on a ferry ride to the island known as the Nursery, where their failing bodies are renewed, their memories are wiped clean, and they are readied to restart life afresh.

Proctor Bennett, of the Department of Social Contracts, has a satisfying career as a ferryman, gently shepherding people through the retirement process–and, when necessary, enforcing it. But all is not well with Proctor. For one thing, he’s been dreaming–which is supposed to be impossible in Prospera. For another, his monitor percentage has begun to drop alarmingly fast. And then comes the day he is summoned to retire his own father, who gives him a disturbing and cryptic message before being wrestled onto the ferry.

Meanwhile, something is stirring. The Support Staff, ordinary men and women who provide the labor to keep Prospera running, have begun to question their place in the social order. Unrest is building, and there are rumors spreading of a resistance group–known as “Arrivalists”–who may be fomenting revolution.

Soon Proctor finds himself questioning everything he once believed, entangled with a much bigger cause than he realized–and on a desperate mission to uncover the truth.

New York City, 2001. Soila is an American college graduate working as an investment banker, who was raised by a tiger mother in Kenya. Along the way to maturity, she finds herself in deep turmoil when she falls in love with an African American man whose values defy all of her own. In the end, she must choose between losing her stubborn mother and the only family she’s ever known, – turning her back on her culture and possibly never returning to live in her homeland – or losing the greatest love of her life.

A modern love story and a gut-wrenching mother-daughter tale about the complex bonds of family, faith and culture, Lucky Girl is also an unflinching reflection on race in America from an African perspective. It’s the coming-of-age of a young woman who experiences devastating loss and grief and, through it all, gains self-knowledge. In the end, she faces a difficult choice: can she break free from her mother’s grasp and discover what authentic living really is?