Thursday, April 01, 2010

New in April

Finnikin of the Rock
By Melina Marchetta

Now on the cusp of manhood, Finnikin, who was a child when the royal family of Lumatere was brutally murdered and replaced by an imposter, reluctantly joins forces with an enigmatic young novice and fellow-exile, who claims that her dark dreams will lead them to a surviving royal child and a way to regain the throne of Lumatere.




A Spy in the House
By Y. S. Lee

Rescued from the gallows in 1850s London, young orphan and thief Mary Quinn is offered a place at Miss Scrimshaw's Academy for Girls where she is trained to be part of an all-female investigative unit called The Agency and, at age seventeen, she infiltrates a rich merchant's home in hopes of tracing his missing cargo ships.




Possessed
By Kate Cann

Sixteen-year-old Rayne escapes London, her mother, and boyfriend for a job in the country at Morton's Keep, where she is drawn to a mysterious clique and its leader, St. John, but puzzles over whether the growing evil she senses is from the manor house or her new friends.





Vintage Veronica
By Erica S. Perl

Taking a dream job in a vintage clothing store where she hopes to immerse herself in great fashion finds, lonely plus-sized teen Veronica is unexpectedly befriended by two salesgirls and urged to spy on an awkward stock boy who unexpectedly captures her heart.





Heist Society
By Ally Carter

A group of teenagers uses their combined talents to re-steal several priceless paintings and save fifteen-year-old Kat Bishop's father, himself an international art thief, from a vengeful collector.






The Carbon Diaries 2017
By Saci Lloyd

In 2017, two years after England introduces carbon dioxide rationing to combat climatic change, eighteen-year-old Laura chronicles her first year at a London university as natural disasters and political upheaval disrupt her studies.





Poisoned Honey: A Story of Mary Magdalene
By Beatrice Gormley

Relates events from the life of a girl who would grow up to be a close follower of Jesus Christ, interspersed with stories of the Apostle Matthew. Includes author's note distinguishing what Scripture says of Mary Magdalene from later traditions.





All Unquiet Things
By Anna Jarzab

After the death of his ex-girlfriend Carly, northern California high school student Neily joins forces with Carly's cousin Audrey to try to solve her murder.






The Mark
By Jen Nadol

While in Kansas living with an aunt she never knew existed and taking a course in philosophy, sixteen-year-old Cass struggles to learn what, if anything, she should do with her ability to see people marked to die within a day's time.

Monday, March 01, 2010

New in March

8th Grade Superzero
By Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich

After half-heartedly joining his church youth group's project at a homeless shelter near his Brooklyn middle school, eighth-grade "loser" Reggie McKnight is inspired to run for school office on a platform of making a real difference in the community.



Struts and Frets
By Jon Skovron

Sammy wants to be a musician, as was his grandfather, but while the band he is in is self-destructing, Sammy is too distracted by his grandfather's decline and confused feelings about his best friend to fix it--and his mother stays too busy to help.

Darklight
By Lesley Livingston

After a dangerous encounter in Central Park, actress Kelley Winslow, who has only recently learned that she is a Faerie, journeys to the Otherworld and begins to untangle the strands of a magical conspiracy with far-reaching consequences.

Flightsend
By Linda Newbery

When Charlie's depressed mother decides to start over, they move to a ramshackle cottage in the country, where Charlie struggles to make friends and develop her artistic skills while her mother tries to launch a business.

The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin
By Josh Berk

Feeling like an outcast in his new high school because of his hearing impairment and large-framed body, Will Halpin befriends a fellow misfit who may have solved the mystery behind the suspicious death of a star quarterback.

Just Another Girl
By Melody Carlson

Sixteen-year-old Aster, caught between a self-absorbed older sister and a mentally-disabled younger one, yearns for a normal life and, with her first boyfriend's encouragement and trust in God, she begins to make things better.

After Ever After
By Jordan Sonnenblick

Although Jeff and Tad, encouraged by a new friend, Lindsey, make a deal to help one another overcome aftereffects of their cancer treatments in preparation for eighth-grade graduation, Jeff still craves advice from his older brother Stephen, who is studying drums in Africa.

Eli the Good
By Silas House

In the summer of 1976, ten-year-old Eli Book's excitement over Bicentennial celebrations is tempered by his father's flashbacks to the Vietnam War and other family problems, as well as concern about his tough but troubled best friend, Edie.

Broadway Lights
By Jen Calonita

Hollywood teen starlet Katilin Burke moves to New York for the summer to appear in a Broadway show, all the while worrying about her boyfriend back in Los Angeles, her handsome new co-star, and the offstage drama going on around her.

Monday, February 01, 2010

New in February

Ice
By Sarah Beth Durst

A modern-day retelling of "East o' the Sun, West o' the Moon" in which eighteen-year-old Cassie learns that her grandmother's fairy tale is true when a Polar Bear King comes to claim her for his bride and she must decide whether to go with him and save her long-lost mother, or continue helping her father with his research.

Banquet for Hungry Ghosts: A Collection of Deliciously Frightening Tales
By Ying Chang Compestine


Presents an eight-course banquet of ghost stories centering around Chinese cooking and culture. Each story is followed by a recipe and historical notes.


The Dark Divine
By Bree Despain


Grace Divine, almost seventeen, learns a dark secret when her childhood friend--practically a brother--returns, upsetting her pastor-father and the rest of her family, around the time strange things are happening in and near their small Minnesota town.



The Long Way Home
By Andrew Klavan

As eighteen-year-old Charlie West continues to elude the law and the group of terrorists looking for him, he tries to remember what happened a year ago and find out who has framed him so he can clear his name.



The Indigo Notebook
By Laura Resau

Fifteen-year-old Zeeta comes to terms with her flighty mother and their itinerant life when, soon after moving to Ecuador, she helps an American teenager find his birth father in a nearby village.



Blood Ninja
By Nick Lake


After his father is murdered and a ninja saves his life, Taro discovers the connection between ninjas and vampires and finds himself being dragged into a bitter conflict between the rival lords ruling Japan.


Hazel
By Julie Hearn


Thirteen-year-old Hazel leaves her comfortable, if somewhat unconventional, London home in 1913 after her father has a breakdown, and goes to live in the Caribbean on her grandparents' sugar plantation where she discovers some shocking family secrets.


The Magician of Hoad
By Margaret Mahy



Heriot Tarbas, a twelve-year-old farm boy who possesses mysterious powers, is chosen by the King of Hoad to be the court's royal magician.



Running on the Cracks
By Julia Donaldson


After her parents are killed in an accident, English teenager Leonora Watts-Chan runs away to Glasgow, Scotland, to find her Chinese grandparents.



A Brief History of Montmaray
By Michelle Cooper



On her sixteenth birthday in 1936, Sophia begins a diary of life in a fictional island country off the coast of Spain, where she is among the last descendants of an impoverished royal family trying to hold their nation together on the eve of the second World War.

Monday, January 04, 2010

New in January

The Hunchback Assignments
By Arthur Slade

In Victorian London, fourteen-year-old Modo, a shape-changing hunchback, becomes a secret agent for the Permanent Association, which strives to protect the world from the evil machinations of the Clockwork Guild.

Candor
By Pam Bachorz

For a fee, "model teen" Oscar Banks has been secretly--and selectively-- sabotaging the subliminal messages that program the behavior of the residents of Candor, Florida, until his attraction to a rebellious new girl threatens to expose his subterfuge.

The Everafter
By Amy Huntley

After her death, seventeen-year-old Maddy finds a way to revisit moments in her life by using objects that she lost while she was alive, and by so doing she tries to figure out the complicated emotions, events, and meaning of her existence.

Devil's Kiss
By Sarwat Chadda

Fifteen-year-old Billi SanGreal has grown up knowing that being a member of the Knights Templar puts her in danger, but if she is to save London from catastrophe she must make sacrifices greater than she imagined.

Salt
By Maurice Gee

Hari, one of the enslaved people from Blood Burrow, and Pearl, a member of the ruling families known as Company, forge an unusual alliance and become reluctant traveling companions, as they undertake a desperate pilgrimage to save the world from a terror beyond their greatest imaginings.

How to Say Goodbye in Robot
By Natalie Standiford

After moving to Baltimore and enrolling in a private school, high school senior Beatrice befriends a quiet loner with a troubled family history.

One of the Survivors
By Susan Shaw

When his classmates die in a school fire, fourteen-year-old Joey is haunted by their deaths and struggles to survive amidst suspicion and anger from the town.

Hold Still
By Nina LaCour

As she reads the journal left by her best friend, who committed suicide, Caitlin struggles with powerful feelings of loss, sadness, and guilt, but friends and a first love help her to cope with her negative emotions.

DupliKate
By Cherry Cheva

When she wakes up one morning to find her double in her room, seventeen-year-old Kate, already at wit's end with college applications, finals, and extracurricular activities, decides to put her to work.

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

New in December

Dani Noir
By Nova Ren Suma

Imaginative thirteen-year-old Dani feels trapped in her small mountain town with only film noir at the local art theater and her depressed mother for company, but while trying to solve a real mystery she learns much about herself and life.

Wish You Were Dead
By Todd Strasser
Madison, a senior at a suburban New York high school, tries to uncover who is responsible for the disappearance of her friends, popular students mentioned in the posts of an anonymous blogger, while she, herself, is being stalked online and in-person.

The Entomological Tales of Augustus T. Percival
By Dene Low

When guests begin to disappear at Petronella Arbuthnot's sixteenth birthday party, and strange ransom notes are found, it is up to her bug-eating guardian, Uncle Augustus, to figure out who is behind such dastardly deeds.

This Family Is Driving Me Crazy
Edited by M. Jerry Weiss and Helen S. Weiss

A collection of ten amusing tales from an ensemble of talented authors, including Mel Glenn and Dian Curtis Regan, about an array of wacky families and their wild ways.

Once a Witch
By Carolyn MacCullough

Born into a family of witches, seventeen-year-old Tamsin is raised believing that she alone lacks a magical "Talent," but when her beautiful and powerful sister is taken by an age-old rival of the family in an attempt to change the balance of power, Tamsin discovers her true destiny.

ArchEnemy
By Frank Beddor

Virtuous Queen Alyss, who has lost the power of imagination, and her murderous Aunt Redd battle for control of Wonderland.

Second Skin
By Jessica Wollman

Despite the consequences, sophomore Samantha Klein pursues her dream of becoming popular at Woodlawn High School.

The Book of the Maidservant
By Rebecca Barnhouse

In 1413, a young maidservant accompanies her deeply religious mistress, Dame Margery Kempe, on a pilgrimage to Rome. Includes author's note on Kempe, writer of "The Book of Margery Kempe," considered by some to be the first autobiography in the English language.

I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to Be Your Class President
By Josh Lieb

In Omaha, Nebraska, twelve-year-old Oliver Watson has everyone convinced that he is extremely stupid and lazy, but he is actually a very wealthy, evil genius, and when he decides to run for seventh-grade class president, nothing will stand in his way.

Hate List
By Jennifer Brown

Sixteen-year-old Valerie, whose boyfriend Nick committed a school shooting at the end of their junior year, struggles to cope with integrating herself back into high school life, unsure herself whether she was a hero or a villain.

Monday, November 02, 2009

New in November

The Monstrumologist
By Rick Yancey

In 1888, twelve-year-old Will Henry chronicles his apprenticeship with Dr. Warthrop, a scientist who hunts and studies real-life monsters as they discover and attempt to destroy a pod of Anthropophagi.

The Demon King
By Cinda Williams Chima

Relates the intertwining fates of former street gang leader Han Alister and headstrong Princess Raisa, as Han takes possession of an amulet that once belonged to an evil wizard and Raisa uncovers a conspiracy in the Grey Wolf Court.

The Betraying Season
By Marissa Doyle

In 1838, Penelope Leland goes to Ireland to study magic and prove to herself that she is as good a witch as her twin sister Persy, but when Niall Keating begins to pay her court, she cannot help being distracted.

The Compound
By S. A. Bodeen

After his parents, two sisters, and he have spent six years in a vast underground compound built by his wealthy father to protect them from a nuclear holocaust, fifteen-year-old Eli, whose twin brother and grandmother were left behind, discovers that his father has perpetrated a monstrous hoax on them all.

Doomraga's Revenge
By T. A. Barron

The dragon Basil, now grown mighty in strength, size, and courage, addresses and seeks the cause of a new series of crises that threaten the stability of Avalon, while his friend Merlin is distracted by problems with his son, Krystallus.

Rapture of the Deep
By L. A. Meyer

In 1806, star-crossed lovers Jacky Faber and Jaimy Fletcher are kidnapped by British Naval Intelligence and forced to embark on yet another daring mission--this time to search for sunken Spanish gold off the Florida coast.

Viola in Reel Life
By Adriana Trigiani

When fourteen-year-old Viola is sent from her beloved Brooklyn to boarding school in Indiana for ninth grade, she overcomes her initial reservations as she makes friends with her roommates, goes on a real date, and uses the unsettling ghost she keeps seeing as the subject of a short film--her first.

Riot
By Walter Dean Myers

In 1863, fifteen-year-old Claire, the daughter of an Irish mother and a black father, faces ugly truths and great danger when Irish immigrants, enraged by the Civil War and a federal draft, lash out against blacks and wealthy "swells" of New York City.