Moving right along - BooksYALove's new home base (reflective)

courtesy of Dover Publications - free clipart for teachers

After 325 posts, over 275 books recommended, and a goodly number of blog challenges, the BooksYALove blog is finally moving to its own website - BooksYALove.com - taking all its back-stock of enhanced book reviews, comments, and queries over there, too.

So if this final post on the Blogger iteration of BooksYALove reached you by email or RSS, please come to BooksYALove.com and subscribe there - takes just a moment.  And do change your bookmark to the new address, as I won't be adding any more book recommendations here.

Yes, I still have a large bookcase filled with last year's books which I'll be recommending on BooksYALove.com as the TBR2012 Challenge continues through this year, new books arriving daily that I can't wait to tell you about, and 26 never-seen-before reviews for the April Blogging AtoZ Challenge that will appear on BooksYALove.com every day in April (except Sundays).

The WordCount 2013 Blogathon begins June 1st and will include at least one guest blogger recommending a favorite young adult book, some book haiku, word clouds, and a "favorite five" post. Check back with Michelle in April for free registration; it's a great way to start your blog, enhance your blog-writing skills, and meet bloggers in your field and beyond.  In fact, BooksYALove got its start just in time for the WordCount 2011 Blogathon!

Happy reading continues at BooksYALove.com - c'mon over!
**kmm

TBR2012 Challenge Marches On (reflective) - more 2012 titles recommended, more to go!

Onward!

Another swath of my to-be-reviewed-2012 bookshelf cleared in March, bringing my total to 28 this-year recommendations of last year's books, including my January and February lists.

Just in case you missed a few, try these 2012 titles:

The Dark Unwinding - Sharon Cameron

Exposure  - Kim Askew and Amy Helmes  

Mothership - Martin Leicht and Isla Neal 

The Secret War (Jack Blank #2) - Matt Myklusch 

Sisters Red  - Jackson Pearce 

Tempestuous  - Kim Askew and Amy Helmes

Making pretty good progress on the TBR2012 Challenge at Evie's Bookish blog, but wait till you see the list after the Blogging from A to Z Challenge in April!

(sketch of Stickyman Tired courtesy of OpenClipArtLibrary
http://openclipart.org/detail/86137/stickyman-tired-by-cybergedeon)

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.

Exposure, by Kim Askew & Amy Helmes (fiction) - Predictions, fame, love, death

Competitive pals Duff and Duncan,
Three masks predict doom,
Bloodstain that will not wash away...
in an Alaskan high school instead of medieval Scotland.

Welcome to the second book in Askew and Helmes' Twisted Lit series, definitely as brooding as Shakespeare's "Macbeth" which inspired it, as dark as the long winter nights in Skye's hometown of Anchorage, as dangerous as Beth's desperation to rise above her modest beginnings.

If you know the "Scottish play" well, some twists here will still surprise you; if not, you'll find that the plotline is largely faithful to the original, so you will have a better chance of following all the action in the play when you read it yourself.

How far should ambition take us? How far is too far?
**kmm

Book info: Exposure (Twisted Lit #2) / Kim Askew and Amy Helmes. Merit Press, 2013.  [Kim's website]  [Amy's website]   [publisher site]   [book series trailer]  

My Recommendation: Skye would rather be home in Anchorage, but how could she stay after what Craig did? A boyfriend who killed someone…

The summer that he moved north for his dad’s job, cute sophomore Craig hung out with Skye, but once school started, he was rapidly drawn into the popular clique. Skye would much rather hide out in the art room than listen to Beth and her posse giggle and posture. Just one more year, then she can get out of here…

As photographer for the school paper, Skye at least gets to see Craig through her telephoto lens at hockey games. The team was lucky that he’d turned out to be a great power forward since their star player Duff had suddenly gone to Scotland as an exchange student. Rumor has it that former girlfriend Beth had something to do with that, but now she’s all over Craig.

Skye wishes that everything were as easy as developing film (yes, she’s old school about that). Then she could un-separate her parents, un-commit to going to prom with dorky Lenny, un-hear the eerie predictions coming out of the Native Yu’Pik masks worn by her three best pals for their art project.

She told Craig that the party in the woods would only be a drunkfest, but came along anyway just to make his social-climber girlfriend mad. When flashlight tag in the snow begins, Skye retreats to the jeep, never dreaming that she’d overhear Beth telling him they’d keep it all a secret, never imagining that hockey player Duncan would be found dead beside the half-frozen creek the next day or that the police would still be investigating weeks later.  

Life sort of goes on at school after Duncan’s death, with the crush of college applications, protests against chopping down its 200-year-old courtyard tree, the Running of the Reindeer and other efforts to keep the long Arctic winter at bay. Beth is sure that she and Craig will be Prom King and Queen, despite her increasingly bizarre behavior.

How can Skye go away to college if Mom and Dad really do split up? Money was tight before they separated…

What’s the secret that Beth and Craig are keeping? It seems to be eating away at them…

Are the answers in Skye’s huge collection of senior year photos? Those eerie predictions might be right…

A modern retelling of Shakespeare’s Macbeth under the Northern Lights, this sinister tale uses quotations from “the Scottish play” as its chapter headings in Askew and Helmes’ second book of the Twisted Lit series.  (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Mothership, by Martin Leicht and Isla Neal (fiction) - pregnant teens, space yacht, attacked!

Pregnant at sixteen,
the dad leaves town,
by 2074, some things haven't changed.

But having such a surplus of unused earth-orbiting luxury cruise ships that one can be repurposed into a school for unwed mothers? That definitely puts this book into sci fi category (aliens as high school teachers and vid-ads targeted to your personal nutritional and health needs are just bonus!)
 
You can find Elvie's rather offbeat pregnancy journey at your local library or independent bookstore as it's a 2012 release (still waiting on publication date for book 2).

Anyone you know been abducted by aliens lately?
**kmm

Book info: Mothership (The Ever-Expanding Universe, Book 1) / Martin Leicht and Isla Neal. Simon & Schuster BFYR, 2012. [Martin's info]  [Isla's info]  [video interview]   [publisher site] [book trailer]  

My Recommendation: Elvie wanted to go into space, but as part of the Mars colonization project, not as a pregnant teen in the first-ever low-orbit high school for unwed mothers… Getting attacked by paramilitaries wasn’t part of the plan either, but Elvie still has some brains despite the Bump.

She’s been planning her whole life to travel everywhere, like her mom didn’t get to do, dying when Elvie was born, leaving behind a huge book of maps with notes about future family trips. Her dad has an emergency plan for absolutely any possible (or improbable) event and decides that Hanover School for Expecting Teen Mothers is just the place for her; he obviously didn’t know that Elvie’s nemesis in the Class of 2076 would be part of the school’s first group, too.

And the baby’s daddy? Vanished into thin air as soon as Elvie told him the news. Thankfully, she has best-friend-for-life Ducky as backup; that guy is so dorky about researching pregnancy stuff. Too bad he’s on Earth, and Elvie’s in orbit with snooty cheerleader Britta, who got pregnant a couple of weeks before her. No, Elvie won’t tell her that Cole fathered both babies; she doesn’t have a death wish.

When an unexpected ship docks onto the space cruise liner, Hanover is boarded by paramilitary forces…including Cole, who tells Elvie that her teachers are aliens and that their babies aren’t exactly their own anymore. She decides her baby belongs on Earth when it’s born in a few weeks, so she and the other very-pregnant teens waddle through escape routes and try to sabotage the aliens’ plans along the way.

If the teachers are aliens, what are the paramilitary guys?

Should Elvie believe the handsome hunk who knocked her up and left town?

Will there be any chocolate-pretzel-caramel-prenatal ice cream left in the snack center?

In this first book in the Ever-Expanding Universe series, Elvie’s life changes drastically in a short time; the rest of Earth’s population is in for a big surprise as well!  (Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher)

Tempestuous, by Kim Askew and Amy Helmes (fiction) - blizzard, robbery, clique wars, corndogs

Popular crowd versus geek teens,
Trapped together by a blizzard
With bad cellphone reception... and a robber!

It's Gossip Girl  and MacGyver woven into Shakespeare's play The Tempest as authors Kim Askew and Amy Helmes throw the Bard's heroine Miranda Prospero into a winter-whipped shopping mall with Ariel as her corndog-cooking sidekick.

Check your local library or independent bookstore for this first book in the Twisted Lit series from new publisher Merit Press.

Kind of crazy, lots of fun! What other Shakespeare remixes do you know of?
**kmm

Book info: Tempestuous (Twisted Lit #1) / Kim Askew and Amy Helmes. Merit Press, 2012. [Kim's website]  [Amy's website]   [publisher site]   [book trailer]  

My Recommendation: Trudging through the snow toward the mall, Miranda again laments the unfairness of her life. Forced to work at a corndog stand in the mall to pay back the finks who turned her tutoring-matchmaking service into a cheating scam, Daddy taking away her platinum charge cards, wearing this hideous uniform with the revolving-wienie hat… at least other teens working in the mall turn to her for advice in sticky situations.

Thank goodness perky co-worker Ariel also pulled this Saturday night shift at Hot Dog Kebob, so Miranda can throw her a surprise birthday party for her after closing. The petite home-schooled 17-year-old deserves the ice cream cake that Grady the security cop will pick up later. Maybe moody Caleb from the game store and gangly Chad from the sports store will come by, but no one has seen their pal Mike from collectibles tonight.

The news is forecasting blizzard conditions overnight so the food court supervisor leaves early; in fact, most customers are heading out, but the closing employees must stay to lock up. Too bad Miranda’s ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend didn’t go when they could – the mall doors are now completely blocked by snow! No one is getting home from here tonight and the mall cop has just discovered a burglary!

Suddenly shoppers and workers try to find the best places to stay for the night, praying that the power stays on and that the robber stays away. Miranda accidentally gets handcuffed to Caleb, someone stalls the elevator with a panicked teen inside, and boredom threatens to become chaos if something exciting doesn’t happen soon. Finding another teen knocked out cold by the robber wasn’t in the plan!

How long are the rival factions of teens going to be trapped in the mall?

Will Caleb’s impromptu concert keep things from getting crazy?

Can Grady trap the robber before someone else gets hurt?

How can Miranda get out of these handcuffs and get to the bathroom?

A modern retelling of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, this first book in the Twisted Lit series has more wild and crazy twists than Miranda ever dreamed of, with quotes from the play as chapter headings to add to the fun. (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Also Known As, by Robin Benway (fiction)

Diagram of safe's location in apartment? Check.
Plan for entry into said apartment? Check.
Keeping emotional distance from unwitting accomplice? Uh-oh.

Imagine being a 17-year-old lifelong spy! A natural-born safecracker, helping her secret agent parents keep the world safe from evil, Maggie discovers that falling in love on her first solo case could put their whole organization in danger.

Head for your local library or independent bookstore today to jump right into the action with Maggie, wild-child Roux, and handsome Jesse against the bad guys.

Any spycraft skills in your educational future?
**kmm

Book info: Also Known As / Robin Benway. Walker Books, 2013.  [author's website] [publisher site]

My Recommendation: Maggie is bored by the usual assignments, but having to go to high school for the first time? This could be the teenage spy’s toughest job yet!

She and her parents work undercover for the Collective, stopping human trafficking and stifling illegal weapons sales through their unique talents for language decoding, computer hacking, and safe-cracking – Maggie’s special gift. A dozen passports with a dozen names and too many moves during her lifetime to count… at least Angelo, the world’s best forger and friend, is always by the family’s side, discreetly, of course.

When they received the call to keep a New York City magazine publisher from running a story about the Collective (with names, aliases, and lots of photos), it falls to the 17-year-old to get the goods through his teenage son Jesse at the posh private high school. And she has to wear a uniform?!

These privileged teens have known one another forever, so being the new kid means being an outsider - almost as much an outsider as Roux, who alienated the whole school last year with her bad behavior. Of course, it’s Roux who takes Maggie under her wing, convinces her to ditch school once in a while, and manages to get them into Jesse’s penthouse during a party.

When the thumbdrive that Maggie liberates from Mr. Oliver’s home office safe doesn’t contain the article notes after all, she has to get closer to Jesse to figure out where the volatile materials could be.

She didn’t count on falling for Jesse himself, or Jesse falling for her, or Roux spilling the beans about their first date, or possibly being pulled off the case and losing them both forever!

How long can she keep Jesse in the dark about why she met him?

Can she find the article documents before it’s too late?

Will her first kiss be her only kiss?

Racing through the streets of Manhattan, avoiding the evil eye in the school halls, trying to imagine how her life will be when this assignment ends – Maggie finds action and adventure and a little romance in this debut novel. (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Fellowship For Alien Detection, by Kevin Emerson (fiction) - strange memories, time rewind,

Voices in his head.
Time losses that catch her eye.
It really is aliens this time!

It's easy to identify with Dodger's sense of never fitting in or with Haley's alternating affection and annoyance with her family, but entire towns experiencing 16 minutes of missing time? People vanished from each place? Radio transmissions from a town not shown on any map?

Somehow, this is not the summer vacation that Dodger or Haley envisioned... and the extraterrestrials are trying to make them disappearance statistics, too!

Published in late February 2013, Kevin Emerson's The Fellowship for Alien Detection  is a bit more light-hearted than his Atlanteans series (see my review of The Lost Code  here), but the perils for Dodger and Haley are very real.

Any "missing time experiences" in your life?
 **kmm

Book info: Fellowship for Alien Detection / Kevin Emerson. Walden Pond Press, 2013.  [author's website] [publisher site]

My Recommendation:  Awarded money for a short summer trip to investigate their theories of aliens on Earth, two young teens find more adventure than they anticipated and more danger than they could have imagined during their search for missing people and a vanished town.

Haley follows obscure news online that might lead to a reporting breakthrough; that’s how she uncovered “missing time episodes” experienced by people in several towns and knows each place has missing persons now. She’s going to interview folks in those missing-time towns - if she can just get Dad to stick to the travel plan instead of trying to see every oddball attraction on their route west from Connecticut.

The radio station that unpredictably plays in Dodger’s head is from Juliette, Arizona (which is not on any maps) and from a different day and year than now. He’s always felt different, unsettled – and it’s gotten worse as the radio broadcasts started this year. His dad looks at him like Dodger is a disappointment – the trip from Seattle to Roswell, New Mexico is going to be mighty long if Dad has as little to say to him as usual.

Debit cards from the Foundation in hand, the two families depart from opposite coasts on their fellowship journeys. But soon Haley’s investigations are noticed by United Consolidated Amalgamations which owns old mines near every missing-time town, and Dodger becomes a transmitting loudspeaker for the Juliette radio station during the gathering at Bend.

The two fellowship winners aren’t the only folks who have made the connection between UCA mines and missing-time or who have heard KJPR from Juliette, but they’re the only ones who are tracking down the clues step by step – the falling star dream in missing-time towns, the significance of the 16-minute time loss, the radio transmissions from one April day years ago. And the extraterrestrials are tracking down them and their families!

If Juliette is a real place, why isn’t it on the map?

Why does that same day play over and over on KJPR?

Can Dodger and Haley join forces before it’s too late?

This summer before starting high school may be the start of something big…or the end of Earth as we know it!  (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Dark Unwinding, by Sharon Cameron (fiction) - invention, espionage, affection

Clever clockwork devices,
A hidden town,
A special man with a child's heart,
A spy and traitor plotting destruction...

Is it any wonder that Mr. Babcock used Uncle Tully's money to rescue working families from the poorhouses and create a unique village to fill all the estate's needs? Or that agents from enemy countries would try to steal Uncle Tully's work to use against England? Or that Katharine might finally find love?

The author promises us a sequel in fall 2013, so visit Stranwyne Keep yourself soon - and watch out for Aunt Alice's sharp tongue!
 **kmm

Book info: The Dark Unwinding / Sharon Cameron. Scholastic Press, 2012.  [author's website] [publisher site]

My Recommendation: It seems that Uncle is squandering away the family fortune, so it falls to Katharine to quietly visit the old man and gather enough evidence to have him declared insane. As “the poor relative”, the young lady has no choice but to make the long carriage journey to Stranwyne Keep, and a mysteriously strange place she finds it indeed.

A drowsy housekeeper, a mute young boy, a belligerent apprentice named Lane – that’s the entire staff for this huge English manor house? Mrs. Jeffries recognizes Katharine as Mr. Simon’s orphan daughter and avers that cousin Robert’s scheming mother must have sent her here to uproot Mr. Tully.

Where is all the money going if Uncle doesn’t throw lavish parties or buy fine horses? In his workshop across the moors, childlike genius Uncle Tully creates precise inventions in miniature with Lane’s assistance and keeps an unvarying personal timetable. Automatons, clockwork creations, part science, part magic, all Uncle Tully.

The family solicitor enlightens Katharine about how this estate is run – and how an entire village supports Uncle Tully’s projects as the estate supports its hundreds of workers rescued from London’s poorhouses! No wonder there is less money in the accounts than before… yet Mr. Babcock assures her that these projects will rebuild the fortune soon.

Katharine becomes convinced that some of her uncle’s entertaining inventions are very practical (others quite dangerous and alarming) as her fondness for this very special person grows, so she decides to support him in defiance of her aunt’s wishes, endangering her own chances of a safer financial future.

But all is not well in this idyllic setting, as strange noises taunt Katharine in the manor, Lane warns her about upsetting her uncle, a visiting student of mechanics begins to court her, people disappear from one location and reappear far away, and the villagers turn against her in defense of their dear Mr. Tully.

Who can she trust now - Lane? Mr. Babcock? Her maid and friend from the village?

What’s causing those eerie noises and her new nightmares?

Is someone really planning to steal inventions from Uncle Tully’s workshop?

A mystery and a Victorian family drama rolled into one, this Dark Unwinding twists and turns as Uncle Tully’s inventions tick-tock along, and a villain seeks to use them for nefarious purposes. (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.
.
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.

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.

Down the Mysterly River, by Bill Willingham (fiction) - talking animals, deadly swords - quest, villains, friendship, memory

An unfamiliar forest.
Talking animals.
A swordsman attacking to kill.
Not your average Boy Scout camping trip...

Max "the Wolf" has constantly improved his woodcraft skills as a Boy Scout and is a detective at heart, so he and his new companions watch for clues as they travel together in search of answers - and try to stay ahead of the vicious Blue Cutters.

For his first novel for younger readers, Willingham taps the illustrating skills of his Fables  graphic novel series collaborator Mark Buckingham for the masterful sketches of each character, from Banderbrock the badger, Walden the black bear, and McTavish the Monster (or perhaps a cat) to their evil pursuers with swords.

Find this mystery/quest/friendship tale today in hardcover or paperback at your local library or independent bookstore. For a jump into the Fables universe, try  Willingham's Peter & Max  novel which I reviewed here.

I do wonder what the animals in our lives would say to us if we could understand them talking...
**kmm

Book info: Down the Mysterly River / Bill Willingham; art by Mark Buckingham. Starscape, hardcover 2011, paperback 2012. [author's website] [publisher site] [audio interview]  

My Recommendation: Max is lost in an unfamiliar forest, being chased by swordsmen who’d rather kill than talk, meeting up with talking animals – this has never happened to the top-notch Boy Scout before!

Using his woodcraft skills and powers of deduction (the young teen is a detective at heart), Max “the Wolf” decides to head downstream to find a town (and perhaps his memory). Along the way, he encounters Banderbrock the badger, who likewise is perplexed about being in this unknown forest, but remembers many tales of his daring and brave ancestors.

Dodging the Blue Cutter swordsmen who pursue all trespassers in this forest, Max and Banderbrock join forces with the black bear Walden, formerly sheriff in a quiet settlement in another forest, and McTavish the Monster, who looks very much like a battle-scarred tomcat to Max. All can understand one another perfectly, but their memories of time before this forest have unexplainable gaps.

Chased down the Mysterly River (as Walden named it) by the Blue Cutters and their hunting hounds, the friends try to find Prince Aspen (who is said to know many secrets) or anyone else who could help them escape to safety.

For the Blue Cutters remove everything unique about new arrivals in this forest – and what could be more unique than speech in animals or a Boy Scout with no troop nearby…

Why did the boy, badger, bear, and cat all arrive here at the same time?

Can the quartet avoid the Blue Cutters’ vicious blades?

What will they discover at the end of the Mysterly River?

An epic tale with an unexpected twist from Fables graphic novel writer, Bill Willingham, who undoubtedly enjoyed adventurous stories around the campfire as a Scout. (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.

Return to Me, by Justina Chen (fiction) - moving away, moving on...or not

Hooray for going away to college at last!
Umm, family moving there, too?
One part breaks, everything shatters...

Reb is trying to figure out whether she and Jackson can make things work for now, not forever. But this is not just another long-distance teen romance; it's a novel with real heart and soul (and a few visions along the way).

How have long-distance, long-term relationships worked out in your life?
**kmm

Book info: Return to Me / Justina Chen. Little Brown, 2013. [author's blog] [publisher site]

My Recommendation: Rebecca is so ready to go far away to college. When her dad moves the whole family to her new college town across the country for his new job, then immediately abandons Mom, she’s shocked. If she can’t trust rock-steady Dad, who can she trust?

She’d already decided that she must break up with Jackson before the family leaves Seattle, convinced that a long-distance relationship won’t work out. Her best friends agree with her, but she just can’t do it.

When Reb gets an overwhelming sense of something about-to-happen, she learned long ago to keep it to herself. She will be able to use her innate sense of whether a space works or not as she studies architecture, following in the footsteps of her dad’s business-minded family.

In the too-large McMansion in suburban New Jersey, far from their cozy island home and Reb’s custom-built treehouse, she watches her mom crumble as Dad makes the separation permanent and sees her 10-year-old brother retreat ever further into himself. After Reb calls Grandpa for advice, he invites them to his Hawai’i home to restore themselves.

Perched in a tropical treehouse, Reb worries about Jackson, about whether she really wants to do commercial architecture, about whether she really wants to go to college at the end of summer.

What’s this prophecy that women of her family can never stay with the men they love?

How can she balance family expectations about her career with what she truly wants to do?

How hard must she shake her phone so that Jackson will start communicating again?

Separation and reunion, perception and reality – Justina Chen once again brings readers a story with the right ending in a complex real world. (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Etiquette & Espionage, by Gail Carriger (fiction) - curtsies, hankies, and poisoning lessons

Curiosity? Improper in a young lady of good family.
Interested in things mechanical? How uncouth.
A potential assassin? Just right for Mademoiselle Geraldine's school!!

Steampunk plus young lady spies-in-training - smashing!
I do so want a steam-powered mechanimal dachshund like Bumbersnoot, even if I would have to break his coal into tiny nibbles.

Read excerpts at io9 and at Tor to be properly introduced to Sophronia and her interesting world, browse politely inside the first pages of  the Finishing School series: Book the First at the publisher's site, then proceed in a stately manner to acquire Etiquette & Espionage  at your local library or independent bookstore - posthaste, as it was just published last week!

And do watch for flywaymen and other air pirates along the carriage roads...
**kmm

Book info: Etiquette & Espionage (Finishing School, Book the First) / Gail Carriger. Little Brown, 2013. [author's website] [publisher site] [book trailer]  

My Recommendation: She’d much rather disassemble the robot butler than learn etiquette, but well-brought-up young ladies in 1851 British society must have impeccable manners. How else to distinguish persons of quality from vampires, werewolves, and other beings of lower social class?

Tumbling out of the dumbwaiter covered with pudding was perhaps not the best way to meet the finishing school headmistress. However, Miss Geraldine accepted Sophronia to the Academy because of the 14-year-old’s curiosity and resourcefulness, despite her dreadfully subpar curtsy.

Surviving an attack by flywaymen on their carriage journey, Sophronia is somewhat startled to find that the Academy floats above the moors, that the Miss Geraldine who visited her mother is not the Miss Geraldine who heads up the exclusive school, and that dashing Captain Niall is a werewolf (with impeccable manners, it must be noted).

Aboard the triple dirigibles of the Academy, she meets the real Miss Geraldine (who seems quite unaware of the deadly classes being taught on board), teachers of non-quite-human persuasion (but excellent taste in fashion), and the sooties below decks who stoke the mighty furnaces powering this most unusual finishing school.

Classes for dance and the deadly uses of hatpins, the sudden appearance a darling mechanimal dachshund (which needs wee bits of coal to keep going) bearing threats from villains about handing over a prototype, and odd preparations for an outing at their allied school for boys keep Sophronia and the other young ladies quite busy - but not so busy that they can’t do a little sleuthing of their own.

Why does Miss Geraldine not know that her school is training spies and assassins?

What is the device whose prototype is coveted by so many?

Will Sophronia learn to curtsy properly in the few months before her sister’s debutante ball?

Book the First of the Finishing School series brings together steampunk and high manners with great success, inviting readers along on the astounding journey of clever Sophronia, her new friends, and her new enemies.

(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.

A Girl Named Digit, by Annabel Monaghan (fiction) - FBI takes teen math genius undercover

A brain for numbers that never, ever stops.
A hunger to have a normal senior year.
A set of digits on television that shouldn't be there...

And now Farrah goes from understated jeans to completely undercover as the FBI realizes that her OCD about numbers and patterns is their best bet for catching an ecoterrorist whose been sending others out to do his dirty work for years.

Grab Digit's first adventure now in hardcover or eBook at your local library or independent bookstore (it won't be out in paperback with the much-better cover until late May 2013) then hang on for Digit's first year at college when Double Digit  is published in January 2014!

Which of life's codes would you be most anxious to crack?
**kmm

Book info: A Girl Named Digit / Annabel Monaghan. Houghton Mifflin, 2012. [author's website] [publisher site] [fan-created book trailer]  

My Recommendation: To get away from the kids who nicknamed her “Digit” for her math abilities, Farrah transfers to another high school for her senior year. But it’ll take the FBI to keep her safe from the terrorist group that she accidentally exposes. Faking her own kidnapping wasn’t quite the way she’d planned to stay unnoticed at her new school…

Farrah wishes that she didn’t see patterns in everything and has had to learn extreme coping strategies to blunt her obsessive-compulsive tendencies when real life is uneven and disorganized. Her math professor dad says she can put her “gift” to work later in life and urges her to enjoy being a teen for now. Wish it were that easy…

Numbers pop up on television when they shouldn’t be there, but the station says she’s imagining them. Her genius skills crack the code, pointing to a terror attack at JFK Airport, but her report to the FBI is ignored…until it happens.

Now a ruthless band of ecoterrorists is gunning for Digit, so she has to fake being kidnapped and go undercover to help the FBI break the rest of the code to prevent more attacks and catch the terrorists. Nice to really be appreciated for her skills, even nicer to be undercover with cute young FBI agent John as they race to interpret more clues.

But somehow, the bad guys find one of the safe houses, John and Digit have to go into deep cover without contacting anyone, and the stakes in this math puzzle get deadly in a hurry.

How fast can they unravel the last parts of this puzzle?

What will the ecoterrorists’ next move be?

Will Digit’s “kidnapping” have an unhappy ending?

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