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When Thomas wakes up in a dark lift, headed upwards to who knows where, all he can remember is his first name. He has no idea where he came from, who he is, or how he got where he is. When the door above him opens, he discovers he’s “welcomed” by other teen boys, in a large expanse, called The Glade, surrounded by tall stone walls.  The Gladers also have no memories of their lives before – they only know they’ve been virtual prisoners in the maze for about 2 years.  They know that every morning, the large stone doors open and runners head out into the mazeRead More →

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Shiver is the perfect title for Maggie Stiefvater’s romance due out from Scholastic in August 2009.  In the literal sense, of course, because it’s the cold that forces Sam into wolf form and pulls him away from his one true love, Grace. But in the figurative sense as well because both Sam & Grace, and readers, will shiver throughout this book with delight, anticipation, yearning, fear and delicious sexual tension.   Grace is a 17 year old girl who yearns for something other than her middle class existence – escape; passion; an uninhibited life – something embodied in the wolves she watches every winter in the woods behindRead More →

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Chris Woodingcontinues his exploration of deep, dark, scary otherworlds in his latest book for young adults, Malice, due from Scholastic in October 2009. Like all good urban legends, it’s the thrill of the unknown that draws kids in: gather some odds & ends, chant a phrase 6 times, and then wait to see if Tall Jake comes for you.  And then there’s a creepy, hard-to-find comic called Malice that details erratically horrifying snipets of kids trapped in a dangerous underworld, most of whom meet gruesome ends. When one of their friends goes missing and then appears to die in the pages of Malice, Seth andRead More →

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“I will have to travel from district to district, to stand before cheering crowds who secretly loathe me, to look into the faces of the families who children I have killed…” By page four of Catching Fire I am swept away with emotion.   When I left the heroine of The Hunger Games, Katniss, I thought I could easily hold it together until she returned in its sequel.  How wrong I was.  When I was able to read an advanced copy, I found myself pinned to the couch, taking only time to eat one meal…forcing myself to stop at 1am with 40 pages to go.  Why? Read More →

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In screenwriter Greg Taylor’s first novel, Killer Pizza, 14 year old Toby just landed a great job for a guy who dreams of being a celebrity chef – in the kitchen of a cool new franchise, Killer Pizza.  Along with his teen co-workers, Strobe and Annabel, Toby soon discovers the pizza shop is actually a front for a nationwide network of monster hunters – wait?! Monster Hunters? Yep, monsters!  They quickly accept the reality that fearsome monsters exist in their midst, and undergo weeks of combat, technical, and weapons training in order to discover and defeat them. The main ingredient in this recipe is action, action, and more action.  It’s like aRead More →

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Action, adventure and an engaging story set deep in the heart of Chinese culture – oh, and it’s all set on Mars in the year 2515. Welcome to the latest book by Chris Roberson, Iron Jaw and Hummingbird. In this engaging book, Roberson continues his development of  The Celestial Empire, where China rose to world dominance in the fifteenth century on Earth and eventually colonized Mars, or Fire Star.  It’s intriguing to imagine and develop alternate world histories (and futures) as Roberson does with his Celestial Empire stories (which remind me of the excellent book by Kim Stanley Robinson, The Years of Rice and Salt) and toRead More →

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Avery’s got a secret and he doesn’t know how to live with it. Why is this happening to him? How can he control it? What can he do with it? Can he be the only one to have it? It, in Sarah Cross’ smart, quick, and fun first novel, Dull Boy, is superpowers.  In Avery’s case, super strength and the ability to fly.  He prowls around his town trying to find people to help (he’s got a complex about putting his gift to good use); tries to stay under the radar so he doesn’t end up in a test lab; and attempts to figure outRead More →

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Darkwood, the first novel by M.E.Breen, is a fairy tale adventure where the young orphan heroine, Annie, must unravel the mysteries of her past and her future while running both from and headlong into a dark, menacing danger. Annie’s grim life in a world hemmed by a frightening forest is about to change forever when her uncle sells her to a scary man who will take her to “The Drop.” Afraid of the certain death that awaits her, Annie and her trusty feline companions, Prue and Izzy, escape into the dark wood.  The wood is the most fear place of all because it is prowledRead More →

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In the Deep Freeze of Bartholomew Freezeby Alex Williams, the town of Pinrut has been covered in blizzard conditions for at least 20 years: no sunshine, no warmth, no happiness.  Residents scrape out a meager existence in the frozen turnip fields of their overlord, the selfish, wealthy bully, Bartholomew Tullock. Everyone except for the Breeze family, however.  Rufus and his sister Madeline, together with their parents Elizabeth and Philip, believe that the sun will one day return and they just have to hold out hope that their fan-inventing family tradition will survive until the summer sun returns.  They are, however, the focus of Tullock’s wrath and jealousy, and just when their situation becomes most dire, a strange visitor and hisRead More →