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Tyler is caught between the girl he has and the girl he wants. Since the very first day of freshman year, he’s been completely, head-over-heels in love with beautiful, wounded, and enigmatic Becky.  He yearns for her, creates endless stories about who he believes she is and the perfect romance they’d have if she would just notice him, and goes through his high school days telling himself that it’s enough to be be her only friend.  And since winter break of freshman year, he’s been in a comfortable, all-too-easy, autopilot relationship with Syd.  Syd is smart, mature, and for reasons Tyler can’t explain, into him.Read More →

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That Time I Joined the Circus by J. J. Howard isn’t a typical runaway story but it is one rich in circus sounds and sensations.  The author’s obsession with music is obvious in the lyrical headnotes to each chapter and in the many allusions that occur in the text—making this a book for music lovers and for those who live their lives with their own sound track or play list. Although the circus plays a role in Howard’s text, this is really Xandra Ryan’s story—her disparate identity is obvious in her many names: Lexi, Alex, and even X.  Feeling like Doormat Girl who only getsRead More →

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Duncan Meade is a senior at Irving School, a prestigious, private high school that allows students to live on campus during their rigorous course studies. Not only is Duncan worried about the upcoming “Tragedy Paper” that his senior English teacher, Mr. Simon, has assigned, Duncan has to deal with the tragedy that happened at school last year. When Duncan is assigned the same room that the infamous Tim Macbeth had last year, Duncan knows that his school year will be anything but ordinary. Tim has followed the “tradition” of leaving Duncan a gift in his room. Most students receive “survival kits”, books, or even alcohol. Tim hasRead More →

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Imagine if the living could see and experience the energy left behind by departed human beings.  Similar to television shows like Ghost Whisperer and movies like The Sixth Sense, Kim Harrington’s latest book, The Dead and Buried explores this notion of spectral visitations.  Five-year-old Colby can both see and communicate with the ghost of Kayla Sloane, whose bedroom he now occupies after his family purchased the home at6 Silver Road where Kayla died and may have been murdered. Determined to save her brother from the ghost and its threats of harm, Jade Kelley—a seventeen year old senior at Woodbridge High—promises the spirit she’ll solve the mystery surroundingRead More →

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The always highly anticipated list from Patti Tjomsland “What’s New in Young Adult Literature 2013” is now available!   Phoenix Book Company is excited to be able to share this great list with you. Books are available now and you can download our order form HERE. While you’re on our blog, take a minute and read our reviews of a couple of the books from Patti’s list: Every Day by David Levithan Starters by Lissa Price And don’t forget to add shelf ready processing to your order. Click on the bar code below for more information. Happy Reading!Read More →

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It was, I’m sure, pure coincidence that the two books I recently read had main characters named Jane whose death seemed all but inevitable.  Loosely connected by the thread of “Janes in constant danger”, Helen Keeble’s campy, funny debut  Fang Girl and Graham McNamee’s spooky Beyond took me from the dark nights in a British suburb to the even darker, rainy nights in a small village on Canada’s “rain coast.” Waking up disoriented, in a small dark space, to the sound of a mobile phone ringing, Xanthe “Jane” Greene, realizes very quickly that she is dead. No, actually, she’s not dead, she’s undead. As in vampire undead.Read More →

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I’ll admit, it took me two readings to get into Gina Linko‘s Flutter.  The first time through I just couldn’t connect with the story, the characters, or the premise.  So I took a break from it and after coming back to it recently, find that the second pass yielded a somewhat more interesting story and perhaps a more patient, attentive reader.  Which is fitting, in a way, since 17 year old Emery has spent her entire life revisiting a past or discovering a yet-as-lived future, when she “flutters” away from reality into a seizure-induced alternate state.  While she finds a calmness and peace in herRead More →

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In Tne Opposite of Hallelujah, Anna Jarzab returns to the familiar territory of a mystery enveloping a dysfunctional family.  But instead of teens trying to deal with grief and solve the mystery of their friend’s death (All Unquiet Things), here we have a long-lost sister returning to a family broken by her absence and a haunting secret that threatens to resurface and wreak havoc again. When Caro was 8, her much older sister Hannah, left home.  Too young to understand why and at a loss to explain her sister’s sudden departure to her friends and schoolmates, Caro started telling everyone that Hannah had died.  ThisRead More →

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What would you do if you had a problem so large, so immensely and terrible, you just couldn’t bring yourself to face it? Would you want run away from it or deal with it head on? Kendra is in deep trouble and she is anxiously pinioned, unable to decide whether to fight or fly. She’s been cheating for months and someone has finally caught her. She panics, just as her older brother, Grayson, is returning home from rehabilitation. In her despair, she superimposes her problems onto him, believing she can somehow ameliorate her situation by fixing her brother’s obsessive compulsive behavior. With this in mind,Read More →