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Debut author Alyxandra Harvey’s Hearts at Stake is the first of a series of books about the Drakes, a charismatic, sexy and morally upright (they don’t feed on humans) family of vampires whose children are born mortal and turn into vampires when they reach the age of 16.  This first installment focuses on 15 year old Solange, the beautiful Drake daughter whose birth has been prophesied to upset the whole vampire world, and her best friend, Lucy, a spunky tough mortal teen who tries hard to help her friend lead a normal life.  When Solange is kidnapped, Lucy joins forces with the Drake brothers (includingRead More →

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Catherine Fisher’s latest fantasy novel, Incarceron, has recently been released in the US by Dial, and this The Times’ Children’s Book of the Year (2007) is worth picking up. Incarceron is a prison unlike anything you’ve ever imagined: its inmates live their whole lives, from birth to death, in an entirely enclosed world with a vast network of cities, underground tunnels, metal forests, and unbound wilderness, all under the ever-present, all-seeing, sentient Eye of Incarceron.  It has been sealed for centuries and only in legend has anyone ever escaped.  Finn, a 17 year old prisoner, has no memories before waking up in a cell 3 years before. EveryRead More →

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16 year old Penny Lane Bloom’s heart has just been crushed: just when she’s ready to give the ultimate gift to the boy she’s loved for years, she catches him with another girl.  Reeling from the hurt and betrayal, Penny Lane runs to the guys she’s loved more than any: John, Paul, George and Ringo.  And she is inspired to stand up for herself, her heart, her dignity, and her woman-power; she forms the Lonely Hearts Club – a club for girls who want to let go of the boy-centric roller coaster ride of high school dating and focus on themselves, their girlfriends, and their own hopes & dreams.  NowRead More →

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18 year old high school senior Logan Witherspoon lives in a tiny Missouri town and at the start of senior year is still nursing his broken heart after being cheated on and dumped by his long time girlfriend.  Then a new girl breezes into his first period biology class: Sage, full of vivacious energy, confidence, tall and striking looking; she chooses Logan’s table and his fate is sealed. As their attraction develops, Logan wrestles with the unfairness of the harsh restrictions Sage’s parents have placed on her: she’s been homeschooled for the past 6 years; she’s not allowed to participate in extra-curriculars; she can’t leave the house except forRead More →

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Texas librarian Dia Reeves’ debut novel, Bleeding Violet, is a whirlwind, crazed, supernatural romantic thrillride, replete with madness, demons, sarcasm, irreverence, violence, sex and teen angst.  My head is still spinning… 16 year old Hanna’s mother abandoned her when she was a baby, leaving her to be raised in Finland by her father. After he dies, Hanna runs away to find and force a reunion with the mother she’s never met.  But Hanna’s life isn’t meant to be easy: she’s plagued by her own demons (manic depression and bipolar disorder) and a tendency towards violence and casual risk-taking; and when she breaks into her mother’sRead More →

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In: Middle Grade Reviews, Mystery & Suspense, Mystery & Suspense (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
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Anna Jarzab’s debut murder mystery, All Unquiet Things, immerses the reader in the elite world of Brighton Day’ School’s student body.  It’s the start of senior year, and no one has been able to put the horrific murder of the beautiful, smart, self-destructive Carly behind them. Carly’s first love, Neily, is still torn apart by grief, anger and pain after losing his beloved Carly twice – first when she cruelly dumped him in front of the whole school the year before her death; and second when he discovered her gunned-down body. She’d called him multiple times the day of her death and he’s tearing himselfRead More →

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In her last book, Solace of the Road, Siobhan Dowd takes the reader on a gut-wrenching journey with Holly, and her alter-ego, Solace, as she finds her way to facing the pain in her troubled past and possibly moving beyond it to live her life. A ward of the state since she was a small child, 14 year old Holly has grown jaded and angry on the streets of London.  She accepts a placement in a quiet middle class home but can’t let her guard down to accept the comfort and love her foster parents try to show her.  The anger and mistrust that hasRead More →

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In this deliciously tempting collection of  stories, Laini Taylor and illustrator Jim Di Bartolo, offer fragrant, forbidden fruit that begs to be tasted, relished and devoured.  The stories in Lips Touch are three tales of supernatural love, each pivoting on a kiss that is no mere kiss, but an action with profound consequences for the kissers’ souls.  In Goblin Fruit, Kizzy is the girl with a fiery spirit and dark, smoldering beauty who is always on the outside, looking in and longing for a normal life.  Her aching need is a perfume that draws Hell’s goblins to crave her soul.  When an unbelievably gorgeous new guyRead More →

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14 year olds Stuck and Pete are best friends who live on the shores of a glacier-lake in New England, surrounded by a dense, dark wood. Every summer their lake gets an influx of summer visitors and their friends from the city come back for another season. But this year is different – the kids are older now, their relationships are changing, and the terror in the woods that’s haunted them in the past has crossed over into their world. As part of their annual summer activities the gang of friends spend most nights around the campfire, telling ever more complicated and scary versions of theRead More →