Secret War, by Matt Myklusch (fiction) - superhero-in-training with a deadly secret

Job-shadowing true superheroes!
Saving humanity from brutal invading robots!
Finding the robot virus too close to home...

From a bleak orphanage to the technological marvels of the Imagine Nation, Jack has now found true friends, a productive outlet for his power to communicate with machines, and a growing sense of dread regarding the Rustov virus that has crept into his new home city.

You can get all three books in the Jack Blank series now at your local library or independent bookstore.

Be sure to read book one, The Accidental Hero (my no-spoiler review here) before you meet up with the Secreteers in book two, and yes, I'll have a recommendation of The End of Infinity  (book three) on BooksYALove soon!

How can you tell whether an inner voice is friend or foe?
**kmm

Book info: The Secret War (Jack Blank #2) / Matt Myklusch. Aladdin/Simon & Schuster, 2011 hardcover, 2012 paperback. [author's website] [publisher site]

<strong>My Recommendation</strong>:  Jack has found his place in the world at last, a superhero-in-training in the Imagine Nation. But some still think he has connection to the evil Rustov who won’t stop until they’ve conquered all worlds, and something inside Jack whispers that they might be right!

Called into the real world on an emergency with their superhero mentors, Jack and his classmates have their first brush with the Secreteers who keep humanity in the dark about the Imagine Nation. Selective memory wipes erase the superheroes’ involvement in these outside rescues, although Jack is sure he saw the true form of one Secreteer.

Jack’s gift of communicating with any machinery leads him to investigate the rumored Rustov virus that’s targeting the Mecha citizens of his city – another secret to hide from his School of Thought friends, like his growing concern that he really could turn into the most feared enemy of all.

When a rogue Secreteer announces that he’ll sell any and all secrets of the Imagine Nation to the highest bidder, the young superheroes decide to track him down before he can further endanger everyone. But how can you find the best-hidden place in the universe?

Will Jonas Smart buy the secrets and discover that Jack might truly become Revile?
Can Jack disarm the virus before it infects the city with evil?
Can he dismiss the new voice inside him that swears it is Rustov?

This second book in the Jack Blank trilogy follows the astounding developments in Jack’s life told in book one, The Accidental Hero,  and sets the stage for the mighty war at The End of Infinity,  book three.  (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Sisters Red, by Jackson Pearce (fiction) - werewolf-hunting sisters long for love

Remote town or crowded city,
more "missing" young women reported,
time to hunt down the werewolves.

The first in Pearce's Fairytale Retellings, Sisters Red  takes the Little Red Riding Hood tale several steps into the present-day with chilling effectiveness.

The Atlanta-based author keeps her Retellings series firmly rooted in today's South with Sweetly (Hansel and Gretel...and Fenris) and Fathomless (the Little Mermaid...and Fenris). Click the title links to go to my no-spoiler recommendations.

Which cover art do you prefer - the new paperback release with the hatchet or the original hardback and paperback art with the two girls' faces and those red wolfeyes?
**kmm

Book info: Sisters Red (Fairytale Retellings #1) / Jackson Pearce. LB Teen, 2010 hardback, 2011 paperback. [author's website] [publisher site] [book trailer]  

My Recommendation:  Girls are disappearing – time for Rosie and Scarlett to take up their hatchets, don their red cloaks, and hunt down the werewolves again. Perhaps the teen sisters can kill enough of these Fenris before their power becomes too strong…

Closer than twins, Scarlett and Rosie feel like they are one heart divided between two people and that they have a mission to protect people from the Fenris who slaughtered their grandmother, clawed out Scarlett’s right eye, left the March sisters selling off Oma’s things to stay afloat – hunting killer werewolves near and far leaves no time for a regular job. At least Silas is back from California, back to being their nearest neighbor out in the Georgia countryside, even if he didn’t take the traditional woodsman’s path like the rest of his family.

Attacks on young women during the Apple Time Festival reveal that outside clans of Fenris are converging on their area, and the sisters’ scan of the news tells them that Atlanta is getting hit hard. It’s Silas who suggests that they temporarily move to the city to deal with the werewolf outbreak, the three of them hunting together again to keep unwitting victims safe.

Now the trio has a whole new landscape to learn, trying to remain unseen as they stalk the leering men whose skin bursts forth into full fur when their prey has no more way to escape, the two girls donning mysterious red capes to entice the Fenris away from others and into the death trap of their hatchets and knives.

Silas insists that Rosie do something – just one thing – that’s not Fenris-related so she can keep her mind and soul together, so she tries an origami class. In the calm classroom, Rosie wonders if she’ll fight the Fenris forever, if she could have a future with Silas.

What is luring the other Fenris into territory not their own?

Can the three young people stop them?

Is there more to life than fighting away this darkness?

Told in alternating chapters by Rosie and Scarlett, Sisters Red brings an old fairytale into the here and now as the author’s home city is plagued by werewolves.  (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Bruised, by Sarah Skilton (fiction) - trained to defend, frozen when it counts most

She's a black belt.
She's practiced and sparred and competed.
She freezes when true danger strikes.

The journey to black belt in Tae Kwon Do or any martial art is long and rigorous, but under controlled conditions with traditions and rules to follow.

Imogen mentally punishes herself for not springing into action when the gunman attacks - can she fight through survivor's guilt to become a young woman of action and purpose again?

Just published this week, Bruised  follows Imo as she tries to rebuild her life to include Ricky's love and fill the void left by Shelley's departure for dance school and her own absence from Grandmaster Huan's dojang.

How would you react when a situation bursts into violence?
**kmm

Book info: Bruised / Sarah Skilton. Amulet Books, 2013. [author's website] [publisher site]

My Recommendation: As the youngest female to earn a black belt at the dojang, Imogen was sure she could handle any attack. But the gunman at the diner proved her wrong, undid her whole life’s work as a defender of the helpless. How can she get past the blood-drenched scene when her mind has built a wall around the robbery gone wrong?

Tae Kwon Do is what she does, what she is, but she just froze at the diner, didn’t stop the robber before he pistol-whipped the cashier. She can remember hiding under a table, can remember the teen guy crouching under the next table, his new white shoes that became gory red and were taken as evidence, just like her bloodstained jeans. Gretchen called 911 from the bathroom, was smart enough to stay put – but Imogen should have been able to stop the situation before the guy was shot when he wouldn’t surrender.

She just can’t process what went wrong there. Can’t talk to former best friend Shelley who decided to hook up with her big brother at Imogen’s own birthday party, can’t pay attention in school, except during counseling sessions with Ricky, the guy from the diner whose shoes became bloody evidence. Her heart seems to be a lump in her chest now.

Being teased leads to a fight at school, to being asked by Grandmaster Huan not to return to the dojang until she can regain her emotional balance by truly living the ‘child rules’ at the foundation of Tae Kwon Do – respecting her parents (including her dad who let his diabetes put him in a wheelchair) and doing all her homework without being asked.

Who is Imogen without her time revolving around learning and teaching at the dojang?

How can Ricky like her or respect her when she failed to stop a death?

Why can’t she remember what happened between crouching under the table and being blood-soaked in the police car?

A compelling story of expectations versus reality, Imogen’s heart and psyche are so Bruised that moving on with life will take more courage than any Tae Kwon Do belt test she ever tried.

(One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Cats of Tanglewood Forest, by Charles De Lint (fiction) - saved and condemned, quest to make things right again

The forest cats did what they could.
Is it so wrong to wish death away?
Lillian so wants to be a human girl again, but the consequences...

Trying to follow the instructions of Old Mother Possum, meeting up with the Bear People, Lillian only wants to make things right, even if she cannot undo everything that the cats' magic set in motion.

An excerpt posted by Tor here gives you the flavor of Lillian's story in this lyrical tale, much expanded from De Lint's 2003 "Circle of Cats" 44-page novella also featuring illustrations by Vess.
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This most-magical book is being released tomorrow (March 5, 2013), so ask for it at your local library or independent bookstore.

Indeed, is is so wrong to wish death away?
**kmm

Book info: The Cats of Tanglewood Forest / Charles De Lint; illustrated by Charles Vess. Little Brown, 2013.  [author's website]   [publisher site]  [illustrator's website]

My Recommendation: It was the cats who decided to save Lillian. She just wanted to say hello to the fairies, but here she lies, dying of snakebite. Changed by their magic from a dying girl into a live kitten, Lillian can’t comfort her aunt or the neighbors who search the old woods. She must find out how to turn back into herself… and then how to make right the consequences of her choice.

These forest cats know that their magic might anger the Father of All Cats, that great black puma who stalks these ancient woods, who prowls in dark dreams. But they just couldn’t let the girl die, not after she’s been so generous with milk for them and respectful of the Apple Tree Man.

Lillian-kitten sets out to find Old Mother Possum, who might help her turn back into girl-Lillian. Accompanied by T.H. Fox (his mother named him Truthful and Handsome), she makes the long journey, despite his warnings that the part-witch-part-someone may not choose a solution that’s easy or simple.

Oh, turning back one death puts it onto another! Now Lillian has a bigger problem to solve and consults the wise woman at the Kickaha reservation nearby. Aunt Nancy sees only one path and not an easy one, as this problem is so big that Lillian must ask a difficult favor of the fearsome Bear People, no matter what the personal cost.

Does young Lillian have the courage to walk alone into the Bears’ den?

Why do the cats of the forest keep watching her?

Is love enough to turn away death?

Originally a very short picture book, The Cats of Tanglewood Forest brings even more depth to Lillian’s journey as she searches for a way to make things right again in her world, despite the danger to herself. (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Something Red, by Douglas Nicholas (fiction) - white winter journey, red beast of death prowling

If only they can make the coast before winter,
If only they can get through the pass before snowfall,
If only they can escape this winter hell with their lives.

Dangers on all sides as Molly's pieced-together family survives the treacherous pass (thanks to warrior monks!), but must reach the inn and the castle on their own. A deadly dangerous something is magically shielding itself from even  Nemain's fey perception and is waiting...

Fantasy, fear, mythology, a desperate trudge through snow and snow as Something Red,  something evil stalks the travelers.

Can you spy it just there, out of the corner of your eye, as Hob does?
**kmm

Book info: Something Red / Douglas Nicholas. Atria/Emily Bestler Books, 2012. [author interview] [publisher site]

My Recommendation: Just out of sight, danger stalks them along the remote forest roads. Dame Molly, her niece Nemain, mysterious Jack, and the orphan Hob push their ox-drawn wagons fast as they dare, hoping to escape the oncoming snows. But when an attacker is snowed-in with them, their castle safe haven becomes a death house.

This is Hob’s first journey through the Pennines since Irish healer Molly adopted the young teen from the priest in his small north English village. Bandits regularly rob and kill travelers on these mountain byways, despite armed escorts by St. Germaine’s monks, veterans of the Crusades. Molly and burly Jack are on high alert, for something is trailing them on this steep road, hiding among the dense trees, its night-call darkening their souls.

From the monastery-guarded mountain pass to the double-walled palisade of Osbert’s Inn, patrolled by a dozen vicious mastiffs, they hear tales of recent tragedies and join forces with pilgrims to travel together to Sir Jehan’s castle before the road is closed by snow.

The caravan is ambushed as snow falls harder still. Molly and Nemain of the old religion try to interpret the omens appearing in the blizzard’s shadows. Even within the castle stronghold, they will not be safe, it seems, for the relentless evil being stalking them along the road has arrived there, too.

How did the death-bringer pass through prayers and countercharms around the castle?

Can massive warrior Jack protect those he claims now as family?

Why has this dreadful evil chosen them for its prey?

Wooden-wheeled oxcart, the traveler and the knight, mysterious forces consulted by Molly and Nemain, the high-born and the low, all spring forth in the intricate tapestry woven by poet Douglas Nicholas’first novel recounting this inexorable hunt by a hidden enemy. (Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.)

Dangerous Boy, by Mandy Hubbard (fiction) - good girl, daredevil boyfriend, dangerous twin

New guy in the small-town high school.
Handsome, rich, daring.
Falling for everyday girl Harper?
Swept off her feet, toward danger.

Logan wants a fresh start to his life after the difficulties he and his brother had in their hometown. Harper's life after her mom's death had gotten quieter and quieter. Boom! Romance like a whirlwind, eerie vandalism, brother Daemon mocking Harper's affection for Logan.

If you sense a whiff of Robert Louis Stevenson's novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (read it free at Project Gutenberg here), you've found one inspiration for author Mandy Hubbard's fast-moving story of Harper's hope for happiness and the too-real peril she faces.

Grab this one today at your local library or independent bookstore but do watch for strange happenings in your neighborhood, won't you?
**kmm

Book info: Dangerous Boy / Mandy Hubbard. Razorbill, 2012.  [author's website] [publisher site]

My Recommendation: When handsome Logan Townsend moves to her small town, Harper is intrigued. When he asks her out, she’s amazed and delighted. When his twin brother threatens her, she doesn’t know what to think.  But if she merely thinks instead of acting, it might just be too late.

Living in the old Carson mansion with their uncle way out on the river road must be boring for Daemon, who’s doing school online instead of at Enumclaw High with his twin brother. He never comes along with Logan and Harper as they go to a Halloween haunted corn maze with friends or riding four-wheelers. Logan says that Daemon messed up relationships for him at their old school, so it’s better that he doesn’t want to be with their group anyway.

Bloody cow bones showing up in rural mailboxes, red handprints on every car in the school parking lot, stop signs stolen – this new rash of vandalism is getting dangerous.

Harper has never really liked doing dangerous things, but after her mother’s death, her own father is like a ghost, going through the motions at their farm, without enough energy to warn her against trying reckless things that Logan loves to do. That four-wheeler rollover when a wheel fell off was just an accident, right?

Wondering what Daemon did at the twins’ former school to make them leave that town, Harper does some checking on Facebook and the newspaper, but comes up with more questions than answers.

Why isn’t Logan tagged in any pictures with his former classmates?

What did Daemon do that was hushed up so quickly in the media?

Why does his twin want Harper to stay away from the creaking house that he shares with Logan?

Echoes of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde drift through this spooky tale, with a young woman’s safety and sanity depending on her reactions to the dangers she uncovers.  (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Treachery of Beautiful Things, by Ruth Frances Long (fiction) - supernatural music, dark longings

The forest swallowed him.
Jenny watched it, couldn't stop it.
Now it wants her, too.

Hoping for closure, Jenny returns to the woods where her big brother disappeared seven years ago... seven long years of psychotherapy, anxiety medications, and anguish.

Who would think that the beings of fairy tales and legend still lived inside that wood? Shielding themselves from the eyes of city folk, preparing to take back their ancient sites overrun by technology?

Heartbreak and hope, legend and loss, king and queen, monster and lover - dare to enter the Realm and discover for yourself in this mesmerizing debut YA novel by Irish author Ruth Frances Long.
**kmm

Book info: The Treachery of Beautiful Things / Ruth Frances Long. Dial Books, 2012. [author's website]  [book Facebook page] [publisher site] [book trailer]  

My Recommendation: Tom was swallowed up by the woods when she was a young girl, her older brother snatched from her 7 years ago in front of her very eyes. Jenny returns to Burnam Copse for a final good-bye and hears his unmistakable flute music – and is drawn into the ancient Realm, in the midst of her modern British city!

Attacked by fairies, rescued by a leaf-clad man named Jack, going farther and farther into the green mossy wood that’s immensely larger than the small grove she entered, Jenny is bewildered and exhausted and lost. Will her parents think that she’s been kidnapped, too?

She asks again and again about the flute music she heard, learns that the Piper is in thrall to Queen Titania (once called Mab), meets a faun named Puck, and is nearly caught by the Wild Hunt.

Jenny travels with difficulty to the Palace where she discovers that Tom is the Piper – and that he has no memory of life outside the Realm. Her power to see through illusion makes the teen dangerous to many, coveted by others, and a threat to the power-hungry Queen.

Can Jenny find the key to restoring Tom’s memory in time?

Can she escape from the Realm?

Can she leave behind her feelings for Jack if she goes?

Soon Jenny’s resolve and skill will be tested to the limits as a power shift in the Realm threatens the outside world of mortals – and her actions will decide the fate of both worlds. (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Spookygirl: Paranormal Investigator, by Jill Baguchinsky (fiction) - vengeful ghosts in the locker room, mystery mansion calling

Able to see ghosts? All the time.
Talk to spirits? Piece of cake.
See her own mom's ghost? Not a chance...

Violet's aunt thinks her gift is unclean, her dad wonders if she's talked to the ghost of her mom (but doesn't dare ask), and the ghosts in the area just want to chat.

This debut novel won the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award for Young Adult Fiction in 2011, and Dutton Books' editorial staff brought it out in hardback in 2012. Check it out at your local library or independent bookstore now, and see what the ghosts in Violet's town are gossiping about!

Whose ghost would you like to have a conversation with?
**kmm

Book info: Spookygirl: Paranormal Investigator / Jill Baguchinsky. Dutton Books, 2012. [author's website] [publisher site] 

My Recommendation: Vengeful spirits in the girls’ locker room, boring school uniforms, and strange rumors running ahead of her… Violet would much rather stay in the apartment above Dad’s funeral home with Buster the ghost, but unfortunately high school is still mandatory.

Ghosts always talk to her, just like they talked to her mom. It’s been ten years since Mom died during a paranormal investigation with her dad, but Violet has never seen her ghost. Some online sleuthing leads Violet to another researcher from her parents’ past expeditions, but the now-semi-respectable psychic tries to convince her to stay away from Mom’s last place on earth.

A dead football player is hanging around Palmetto High’s art room, there’s a possible hell-portal in the girls’ shower, and one of the goth kids claims he’s half-vampire. Senior citizen ghosts (Florida is full of them) help Violet stage a memorable Halloween séance in the cemetery to “scare straight” some kids who want to dabble in the dark arts, but even they warn her to stay far away from the creepy deserted estate where her mother died.

It’s up to Violet to use her psychic gifts to clear up all this, so her new not-so-goth friends help her get ready to visit the estate, and maybe hear from Mom one last time (surely she wouldn’t head to the Beyond without saying goodbye?), but things go bad in a heartbeat.

What can they do to placate the angry attacking poltergeist?

Can Violet ever reconnect with her mother’s ghost?

Are the friends going to make it out of there alive?

Spookygirl, scary fun, terrifying investigations!  (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Altered, by Jennifer Rush (fiction) - build-a-soldier: strength tweak here, loyalty serum there

Secret laboratory.
Experimental subjects.
Super-soldiers with no memories...

Anna reads the journal that her mom left, makes the recipes just as she noted, wishes that she could be with Sam more often - but what future could she have with a memory-wiped young man who's confined like a lab rat?

What future is there for Anna anyway? She could never talk to outsiders, in case she accidentally said something about the Lab beneath their farmhouse, the Lab housing four young men that the Branch is secretly training for some sort of mission... the four young men who escape, taking Anna with them!

This 2012 title is a "don't blink" thriller; imagine what will happen to the crew next!
**kmm

Book info: Altered / Jennifer Rush. Little Brown, 2012.  [author's website] [publisher site] [audiobook excerpt]  

My Recommendation:  Anna is content in her secluded home-schooled world of the remote farmhouse with her dad and the underground lab where "the boys" live. Why the Branch wanted four young men with no memories to be part of this research was never discussed, nor were the many scars on those very physically fit bodies.

When she turned 16, Dad asked Anna to assist him with testing Sam, Nick, Trev, and Cas, little knowing that she’s been sneaking downstairs to play chess with Sam every night for months. When a routine lab inspection by the Branch brings along highly armed soldiers to remove the boys, Anna’s calm life shatters as the boys manage to escape – and Dad sends her along with them, insisting that she must stay as far away from the Branch as possible!

Suddenly, they’re on the run, trying to outguess agents of the maybe-government-related Branch and stay ahead of police when desperation forces them to steal a car and food. Every hour away from the lab unlocks more of the boys’ impressive physical skills as they seem to react before danger occurs and fight as a team without speaking.

Somehow, tendrils of memory guide Sam to a remote farmhouse where he might have lived before his memories were wiped out by the Branch. Everything is now a clue that could help them unlock the boys’ secrets and regain their pasts.

When Anna’s long-absent mother arrives at the farmhouse with surprising news, there’s little time for a tender reunion as gunfire from Branch agents zings through the walls and windows. Was this a set-up or an accident?

Fleeing again, Anna, Sam and company keep trying to figure out the meaning of the numbers within their scars and messages hidden in their tattoos. Code? Map coordinates?

Harder and harder to stay ahead of the Branch as the crew darts from hiding place to newly remembered landmark to safe house. Graveyards and memories, dead men and long-dead children… whatever happens, Anna cannot leave Sam!

Why were the four young men in the Branch lab in the first place?

Why were their memories wiped out?

How far will they all go to stay out of the Branch’s grasp forever?

Jennifer Rush’s debut novel races along faster than Anna’s feelings for Sam, diving into a dark past that could lead to an even darker future. (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Safekeeping, by Karen Hesse (fiction) - on the run, will home still be there?

The president assassinated!
Martial law declared.
No travel without permits.

She got her plane ticket home as soon as she could, leaving the sweet children at the Haitian orphanage where she volunteered. But there was no way for Radley to know that her parents would not be at the airport waiting for her and that everything she knew as safe would be gone.

Listen to the first chapter of Safekeeping  here, then grab the book at your local library or independent bookstore so you can consider each of each black-and-white photograph as you worry through Celia, Radley, and Jerry Lee's desperate journey away from despair and danger.

What would you do to survive if you were in Radley's mud-soaked shoes?
**kmm

Book info: Safekeeping / Karen Hesse. Feiwel and Friends (Macmillan), 2012. [author's blog]  [author video interview]  [publisher site]

My Recommendation: When the president is assassinated, Radley rushes home from volunteering at a Haitian orphanage, but everything is going wrong. Her parents should be waiting for her at the airport, but they’re not. No one answers the phone at home, her credit cards no longer work, her cellphone is dead, and US marshals are everywhere.

New curfews and travel restrictions mean that the teen must walk for days to cover the hour’s drive home, avoiding checkpoints and scavenging food where she can find it. Arriving at her empty house, Radley passes dark stains on the pavement and hides in a secret attic room as police pound on the door in the morning, over and over.

No electricity, no food left, only mom’s photos escaped the looting. She can’t stay here, she’s got to get away – from the marshals, from the uncertainty about her parents’ whereabouts, from the totalitarian state that New Hampshire has become.

So she heads north to Canada, traveling by night, avoiding other people and their potential dangers, staying clear of the small towns swarming with soldiers, until a big dog comes to her and begs that she follow him. Radley finds Celia ill and feverish, nurses her until the trio can continue plodding north through the rainy woods.

A small, safe place – that’s all they need – somewhere away from the soldiers and curfews and guns.

Can Radley, Celia, and Jerry Lee actually make it to Canada?

Where are their parents, their neighbors, their friends?

Will they ever be able to go home, or will martial law grip the US forever?

Karen Hesse’s own black-and-white photographs of the places where the girls and dog travel fill this book with darkness and light, as the cadence of her words measures the steps and steps and steps that Radley takes on this long journey.  (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Hysteria, by Megan Miranda (fiction) - murder, memory, missing pieces

Thudding heartbeats in the night,
bruises appearing each morning,
the rumors, the gossip, the lies...

Welcome to the tradition-filled halls of Monroe Prep, Dad's alma mater, where Mallory's reputation precedes her - the knife, Brian's blood on her kitchen floor, the self-defense verdict.

Are her nightmares just reaction to the trauma or something more sinister? Surely Reid believes that Brian's mom's car was parked outside the school gates, that someone keeps entering her room, that she's not seeing things - they've known each other since they were kids because their dads were high school roommates up here.

The crazy things happening now at Monroe cannot just be Mallory's imagination... can they?

Read chapter one of Hysteria free here, then rush to your local library or independent bookstore to get it tomorrow on its publication day.

Megan Miranda crafts another chilling story teetering between paranormal and murderous; her debut novel Fracture  (my review) just came out in paperback - don't miss either mysterious book!
**kmm

Book info: Hysteria / Megan Miranda. Bloomsbury/Walker Books for Young Readers, 2013. [author's website] [publisher site] [book trailer]

My Recommendation:  The blood, the knife, the holes in her memory – Mallory knows she should be glad for the “self-defense” ruling, but the pulsating hum in her brain won’t stop. Neither will the nightmares or Brian’s mom stalking her, asking where her dead son is.

Maybe boarding school in the New Hampshire woods will be far enough from her seaside house where Brian died in a pool of his own bright-red blood. Dad pulled strings to get her admitted to his alma mater at the last minute; he couldn’t stop the rumors about Mallory from getting there first.

Being a new student at Monroe Prep is worse than being at a regular high school since the snooty rich kids have known each other forever. Well, Reid is nice to her, probably because their dads were roommates here and their families got together often over the years. Last time she saw him was his dad’s funeral, not a good memory on lots of levels.

Despite her sleeping pills, Mallory still has nightmares, hears the booming echoes of Brian’s heart, wakes up with a handprint-shaped bruise on her shoulder that she couldn’t have done to herself, window unlocked when she knows she locked it. No cellphone service in these mountains, so she can never get through to her best friend Colleen at home, the only person who understands what she’s enduring.

A green car glimpsed through the fog - is Brian's mother stalking her again?

A red handprint on her door, vandalism in her dorm room, menacing whispers – is her presence threatening someone at Monroe?

A hidden ruin in the woods, tribute to a lost student – is she supposed to be next?

Once again Megan Miranda crafts a chilling story of the hazy boundary between death and life in this psychological thriller with traces of the paranormal. (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Every Other Day, by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (fiction) - hunt the supernatural, survive high school

High school kid, demon hunter,
High school kid, werewolf killer,
Repeat, repeat, repeat...

Kali has enough trouble spending alternating days as a supernatural clean-up gal, but when someone may have injected the cheerleaders at her high school with bloodsucking parasites...

A classmate marked for supernatural harvest, answers producing even more questions, high-level conspiracy - how did Kali wind up in all this? How much does she have in common with the Hindu goddess Kali, slayer of demons?
 
Find Every Other Day  now in hardback at your local library or visit your independent bookstore for its January 22nd paperback release; both covers are the same haunting hourglass dripping blood...

How far should you go to protect your friends while risking your very life?
**kmm

Book info: Every Other Day / Jennifer Lynn Barnes. Egmont USA, hardcover 2011, paperback 2013. [author's website] [publisher site] [fan-created book trailer][author interview]

My Recommendation: If that ouroboros on Bethany’s back is not a tattoo, then the cheerleader will be dead today, just when Kali is merely human, instead of a supernatural hunter like she will be tomorrow. Flip-flopping capabilities every 24 hours is more than annoying now – it’s liable to be deadly.

Good thing that her supernatural phase includes rapid healing powers, as the werewolves and hellhounds who battle against her during extermination runs always seemed to slash and bite Kali viciously. And who wants to show up at high school the next morning looking like that?

When Dad decided that she needed to go to public school for ‘social interaction’ Kali was sure it was just because his new boss at the university labs was sending his daughter there. Now, with a chupacabra stalking the cheerleading squad, maybe her presence at Heritage High can keep her classmates safe.

Luring the spirit from Bethany’s ouroboros into her own blood was the fastest way for Kali to save her life on this human-phase day. But now Kali has to survive many more hours with an aware parasite coursing through her veins and whispering in her brain before she turns supernatural hunter again.

How will she get the parasite out of her body to kill it?

Why does Bethany think that the cheerleaders were purposely injected with the parasite?

What’s in the lab under Bethany’s house?

If the zombies don’t get the teens, maybe Kali will get some answers – and live long enough to get into her hunter phase and strike back.  (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Cheers to authors from Down Under! (fiction) - Australia Day

Australia Day is tomorrow, so let's look at some great BooksYALove by authors from Down Under.

Cristy Burne writes adventurous tales about Miku who encounters many creatures from Japanese folklore, like Takeshita Demons (my review) who followed her family to London and  The Filth-Licker (review here) that her classmates meet up with at camp.

Not sure if Sherryl Clark herself has heard the dead, but her character Sasha in Dying to Tell Me  (my review) certainly can! Visions of blood and death in sleepy little Manna Creek at the edge of the Outback...

A being condemned to inhabit another body as camouflage, over and over; she calls herself Mercy  (my review) in the first book of the series by Rebecca Lim. Book 2, Exile, is in my overflowing to-be-read pile and promises a few more clues about who Mercy might be and why she's existing this way.

Only males may become Dragoneye lords, but one young woman knows she has the power to mind-link with dragons in Alison Goodman's Eon  (my review) and must save her world in Eona  (my review), both now available in paperback.

Susanne Gervay interviewed many teen burn patients as she wrote Butterflies (my review), which follows Katherine through surgery, school worries, and her choices for the future.

She expected snow, festivals and historic shrines, but there was no way to predict that Hannah's Winter (my review) in Japan would include ancient evil spirits and a donut-throwing ghost! Kierin Meehan packs plenty of mystery and historical tidbits into this intriguing story.

Elly has such bad luck! I Lost My Mobile at the Mall, she cries to her parents, who tell her that she's not getting another cell phone from them. Wendy Harmer ably turns her comic touch to this too-common young adult crisis (my review).

The Reformed Vampire Support Group  by Catherine Jinks got to the bestseller list, but I snuck it onto BooksYALove anyway. Be sure you meet this Sydney self-help group that finally has to venture out of its decades-old comfort zone to help someone else (my review).

Mary Arrigan follows a family from Ireland's Potato Famine to the goldfields of Australia in historical fiction of a time period that we usually don't see. Surely the dream of Etsy's Gold  (my review) can come true if they work hard enough?

A gentle story of love, loss, and friendship starts and ends in the mural-painted rooms of The Visconti House  in a quiet Australian country town - my review of Elsbeth Edgar's debut novel here.

Stolen: a Letter to my Captor, by Lucy Christopher, might be the scariest book on this list, as it tells of a carefully plotted kidnapping that lands Gemma far, far in the Outback in terrible danger (my review).

Check out these stellar books from Aussie authors today at your local library or independent bookstore!

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These are among the 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com. All review copies and cover images courtesy of their respective publishers.

Butterfly Clues, by Kate Ellison (fiction) - obsession, loss, mystery

If the arrangement is precise,
life will fall into place.
If the collection is balanced,
personalities will align again.
If manipulating objects could only heal people...

Lo isn't hoarding; she's trying to make sense of hurtful events that seem so random. Even if it puts her in danger, investigating in a bad part of town, compelled to steal things to add to the display of possible answers...to find a killer, to discover why her brother left, to find herself.

It's No Name-Calling Week, highlighting ways we can prevent bullying behavior, put-downs, and harassment, like Lo experienced with the acid-burned photos stuck on her school locker.

Just out in paperback (look for the blue cover with red butterfly), you'll also find The Butterfly Clues  in hardback at your local library or independent bookstore.

How much can we rearrange things and people?
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Book info: The Butterfly Clues / Kate Ellison. Egmont USA, hardback 2012, paperback 2013. [author's website] [publisher site] [book trailer]

My Recommendation:  Lo is guided to each object she takes, compelled to arrange them just-so, trying desperately to be unnoticed at school like she is at home, since her brother disappeared. She ignores those who call her Penelope, like Mom ignores the outside world now.

She taps significant patterns to keep her safe as she roams neighborhoods to stay out of the too-quiet house. A bang, shattering glass, a bullet in the brick wall nearby – Lo checks the news online later to discover that a young woman was killed at that moment, in that place, jewelry stolen.

At the flea market, a butterfly figurine calls to her to be taken (but-ter-fly, 3 perfect syllables). Lo recognizes it from the news article, stolen from the dead girl Sapphire, she just knows it. Seller says it was in a dumpster, but who’d stick around a murder scene to steal costume jewelry and knick-knacks, then dump them? Something is off-balance here, and Lo can’t stand for anything to be unbalanced, so she starts to investigate.

Visiting the gentlemen’s club where Sapphire worked, talking to homeless people, Lo can’t stop looking for things that will unmask the killer. Meeting Flynt the artist is an unexpected bonus, a joy, but can he be trusted not to tell what Lo is doing in this bad part of Cleveland on her own?

When the phone rings at home, telling her to mind her own business, Lo is a little worried. When acid-scorched photos appear on her school locker, telling her to back off, she gets anxious. When she sees Flynt’s tattoo and remembers a clue in Sapphire’s house, she gets frantic.

Will the killer come to her home?

Will Flynt deny the connection that Lo has discovered?

Will she be able to keep her counting compulsions under control long enough to convince the police to do something?

(One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Moonglass, by Jessi Kirby (fiction) - seaside mystery, running to forget

A  moonglass pendant,
Some childhood memories,
Innumerable questions -
All that Anna has left of her mother.

Tumbled roughly in sand and waves for countless months and years, seaglass goes from sharp shards to a smooth and frosted beauty. Anna's mom always called it "moonglass" as she found the best pieces while walking the beach during a full moon.

Losing her mother as a toddler, staying away from the seaside town where Mom grew up, returning at last with her father - maybe the tossing and tumbling of her life will finally stop for Anna, maybe she'll find out why her mom died, maybe she'll finally stop running away from memories and find herself.

This is the paperback cover to look for at the independent bookstore; your local library may have the darker blue hardback edition.

What do you search for when you walk along the beach?
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Book info: Moonglass / Jessi Kirby. Simon & Schuster, hardcover 2011, paperback 2012. [author's website] [publisher site]

My Recommendation: Mom just walked away from her, walked away from her toddler daughter waiting on the beach, walked into the waves and never came back out.

When Dad’s job takes them back to the beachside town where her parents met and fell in love, Anna thinks that the years following her mother’s death might not keep unhappy secrets buried deep enough, so she keeps her distance from Dad, from people at her new high school, from the shore lifeguards.

Running helps Anna meditate away (well, ignore) her problems and worries, so she tries out for the cross-country team, cheered on by her new sorta-ditzy friend Ashley who truly does think that retail therapy and meditation can fix anything. Having to move in the middle of high school stinks… but being able to hear the waves every night, the same ocean that her mom listened to growing up, that counts as a small plus.

Dad has strictly warned Anna away from the beach lifeguards who work for him at the state park – after all, he was a lifeguard with quite a reputation here at this same park as a teen, where he met her mom, where they lived as newlyweds.

But Tyler isn’t the crazy lifeguard, like Dad was, and he helps Anna explore some of the old cottages left vacant when the seashore became a state park. Maybe some clues about Mom can be found in the neighbors’ left-behind bits and pieces…

Why won’t Dad tell her more about Mom and their past?

Can Anna reconcile what she thought she knew about her mother with what people in her mom’s hometown are remembering?

Why would Mom just walk away, under the moonlight, into the sea?

  (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My 12 unmissable YA books for 2012 - a very subjective list!

So many great books waiting for you at your local library or independent bookstore! How do you choose just an armful from the hundreds of titles there?

Well, for 12-12-12, I couldn't resist recapping 12 of my favorite reads from the past year on BooksYALove.

Click on each title to read my recommendation on a new page/tab, then select some for your holiday and/or birthday wishlist - you'll be so glad you did!
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Post-apocalyptic page-turners:  
Ashfall - 16-year-old Alex sets off alone through the ash and dangers to find his family after a catalysmic volcanic eruption.

Followed by Ashen Winter  as civilized behavior begins to crumble - stunning, scary adventures that really could happen, beneath those cold and cloudy skies.

Incidents of ignored history as historical fiction:  
Does God truly hear the prayers of both The Wicked and the Just  in 13th century Wales, as English overlords mistreat local folks to the brink of revolt?

Jump Into the Sky  with the black paratroopers of the 555th Battalion, as seen through the eyes of 13-year-old Levi, whose father is away from home too long as commander of 'Triple Nickels' during World War II.



Graphic novels from fave folks:
Dave Roman (Astronaut Academy) teamed up with John Green (the artist one) to create TeenBoat!  Imagine "the angst of being a teen, the thrill of being a boat!" - yes, it's that funny.

In a more serious vein, Doug TenNapel examines friendship, family, loyalty, and greed in his most recent graphic novel involving a not-so-simple gift of Cardboard.

Music changes everything:
The song which instantly connects Emily and Sam promises that I'll Be There,  but will his crazy father endanger everyone, including winsome little brother Riddle?

Music and hope can heal hearts, according to Ollie's preacher father With a Name Like Love,  but this rural town is determined to condemn a mother without trial, until Ollie decides to prove her innocence.

Friends see the true you:  That voice in Ever's head - always mocking she'll never get Skinny  through bariatric surgery - almost drowns out the concern and care of her best friend.    

 
Why did Dad volunteer as a doctor in Malawi, so far from Clare's friends and the things that keep her late mother's memory alive? Can her new classmates help her learn to Laugh With the Moon  and be whole again?

Not your normal paranormal:
Vampires rule the world, and if they discover Gene's true human heritage, then he will become the object of The Hunt  for his savory heper blood.

Perhaps Ismae truly was fathered by the Dark Lord himself, rumors whisper at the convent where young women train as assassins, using the Grave Mercy of Death to keep Brittany free of the greedy French.

Review copies and cover images courtesy of their respective publishers.

Skinny, by Donna Cooner (fiction) - fat girl seeks true self, true friends

Three hundred pounds and gaining.
Can't fit in the desks at school.
Can't find her place in her new blended family.
Can't filter out the mocking voice in her head...

Ever feels so alone in her Texas high school, but she's one of thousands of obese teens in the US today.

To save her health, she must lose lots of weight in a carefully controlled way. Bariatric surgery is a "last resort" for weight loss, but studies show its effectiveness for older teens, with lots of monitoring and family support.

To save her sanity, she must overcome the inner voice that derides everything she tries to accomplish, must sing out over Skinny's constant snide remarks, must recognize her true friends.

Grab this compelling book at your local library or independent bookstore today.
How much would you risk to find yourself again?
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Book info: Skinny / Donna Cooner. Point, 2012.  [author's website] [publisher site] [book trailer]
 

My Recommendation: Among the size-zero cheerleaders and wannabe goths at Huntsville High, Ever stands out. As a 302-pound freshman girl, she really stands out. And Skinny, the voice in her head, reminds her constantly of how fat and unlovable she is, even when Ever decides on weight-loss surgery to save her health.

Of course, before her mom died, Ever was just normal, with friends and hopes and dreams and songs. But as she insulates herself against sorrow with public fasts and immense private feasts, she becomes even more isolated from her dad, sister, stepmom, and stepsister. The embarrassment at school never seems to end, and Skinny heaps on abusive words that no one else can hear.

Thank goodness her best buddy Rat sticks with her, especially during bariatric surgery in May to reduce her stomach capacity. Now, she can eat only a tablespoon at a time or her new stomach will send her to the bathroom in rebellion. By August, she’s lost 76 pounds, and the snooty girls who used to mock her decide she’s an ideal back-to-school makeover project. Yet Skinny keeps trying to undermine her success, saying that her dreams of singing in the school musical or dating cute Jackson are impossible.

Can Ever truly get herself to a healthy weight, to a healthy relationship with herself and her family? Will she wind up being just the “chunky girl” at school after all this? Can she sing loudly enough to drown out Skinny's voice?

As Ever and Rat track her mood, weight loss, and theme song for each week following her surgery, readers will root for the teen to create a soundtrack for her new life that can overcome Skinny’s lies. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

12.21, by Dustin Thomason (fiction) - Mayan codex, deadly epidemic, end of the world?

Disease and rioting...
Airplane crashes...
Attacks on immigrants...
Just another day in L.A. or is it the end of the world?

The mysterious codex smuggled to Chel from rural Guatemala might verify the doomsday interpretations of the Mayan "Long Calendar" or just the last days of a single Mayan town... but how to be sure?

As December 21st approaches, look into the great museum exhibits clarifying Mayan timekeeping and the Long Calendar; are researchers even using the correct conversion factor to match Mayan and modern dates?  Be sure to check out the excellent interactive tutorial on reading Mayan glyphs on the book's website, too.

You'll find this medical thriller/apocalyptic tale at your local library or independent bookstore now. Probably better to read it sooner than later, right?
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Book info: 12.21 / Dustin Thomason. Dial Books, 2012.  [book website]   [author's Facebook page] [publisher site] [book trailer]  

My Recommendation: Gabe Stanton leaves his disease research lab to check on a mystery patient at a Los Angeles hospital. Chel Manu wonders if the astounding Mayan codex brought to her by a smuggler might not be a forgery. And an airplane falls from the sky, as a rampaging epidemic begins sweeping through L.A. 

This cluster of symptoms described by the hospital matches an extremely rare incurable prion disease, one so infectious that hazmat suits are required just to enter the patient’s room. Perhaps with the help of the right translator they can get some information from the young man to track down the disease’s origin...before he dies of acute insomnia and panic. 

So Chel is asked to translate, pulled away from her volunteer time with Guatemalan refugees, away from her research on ancient Mayan writings, away from the black market antiquities dealer who brought her a never-seen codex from a forgotten city, away from those who think that the 12.21.12 end of the Mayan ‘Long Calendar’ marks the end of the world. 

With few clues and the disease spreading rapidly, Stanton tries to pinpoint how the infection is spread, as Chel surreptitiously translates the new-found codex. Both sets of information point back to a hidden ancient city in the homeland of Chel’s mother, thousands of miles away. 

As the government quarantines LA to stop the epidemic, Stanton and Chel must find a way to get to Guatemala before it’s too late. Is there any possible cure for this disease? How much of the codex’s unusual tale is true? Will the countdown to the end of the Long Calendar become the countdown to the end of civilization? (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.