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15 year old Laila’s father is dead.  Numb with grief, shocked by the unexpected loss, and drowning in pain, her life is unrecognizable.  But that’s only the start: she finds herself exiled, with her mother and younger brother, in a non-descript apartment outside Washington, D.C., having fled her country after her father’s assassination.  Not only has she lost her beloved father, Laila has also lost the only life she ever knew: that of the daughter of a king. Her country has fallen into a civil war, as a long-standing resistance now openly challenges her uncle, who has taken over her father’s place as leader.  TheRead More →

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I was talking with a fellow avid reader the other day and our conversation got around to narrators.  Specifically, the implicit trust that exists between the reader and the narrator: we take at face value that the tale being told is “the truth” and that the narrator is our confidante, our guide, “us” as it were.  It’s rare, in fact, that we as readers don’t align ourselves completely with the point of view, biases, and experiences of our narrator; and on that rare occasion when the narrator betrays our trust, we’re shocked, outraged, and left feeling betrayed.  My friend affirmed this – she dislikes anRead More →

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Forbidden romance – as old as the hills, right?  As timeless as the human condition indeed.  And in Ann Brashares‘ forthcoming The Here and the Now, reimagined in a mesmerizing, thrilling way. 17 year old Prenna James’ life is controlled by a strict set of rules, a community whose leaders know all about her movements and activities, and a deeply unsettling fear of exposure.  While she and the other community members partake in average, everyday American life in their Upstate New York town, they are nonetheless separate and secretive, limiting the ways in which they interact with “the natives.”  At first one assumes Prenna isRead More →

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Then: 14 year old Becca’s father, her hero, was convicted of embezzlement in one of the most high-publicized, scandalous trials of the decade.  The depth and breadth of his crimes, from raiding people’s online profiles, to blackmail, to pyramid schemes, and his unrepentant gall in the face of his guilt, made Becca’s father into a monster that everyone loved to hate.  Reviled in their home town of Atlanta, Becca and her mom have fled north, hiding the details of their past, changing their names, and doing their best to leave behind their shame and notoriety. Now:  Becca, a senior in high school, has created asRead More →

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More questions than answers. At the end of the book, that’s what I’m left with.  Who are SYLO? What is The Ruby?  What are those strange flying ships? Why is Pemberwick Island under quarantine? Who are all the people suddenly on the island?  What do Tucker’s parents know that they aren’t telling him?  What happened on the mainland?  Is there anyone Tucker can trust? Every single time you think you’ve figured something out, another mystery appears, confounding, frustrating, and driving you on in the vain hope that you can have at least one answer before the end.  But it is not to be.  Both theRead More →

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Early on in James Dashner‘s newest The Eye of the Minds, I jotted down: “Matrix“;  then a little later, “The Maze Runner,” and finally “The Truman Show.”  Dashner combines these and more pop culture influences in an imaginative, if not a wholly original, way to create a world within a world full of shadows, illusions, and shifting realities. VirtNet is an all-immersive virtual reality game.  After physically connecting to the interface, a player climbs into a “coffin,” the gateway into the VirtNet that induces a sleeplike state that keeps the player in suspended animation while inside the game.  Everything about Virtnet is programmed to beRead More →

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How do you become a man when you don’t have a man in your life?  What does it mean if your father left you and your mom?  Or worse, was never in your life to begin with?  In Dead Ends, the second book by Arizona author Erin Jade Lange,  the question of fathers and the legacies they leave to their children unites unlikely friends on a journey of discovery, healing, and transformation. In his high school, there are the “haves” and the “have-nots”, and Dane Washington is a “have not”.  What Dane does have, however, is a fierce temper and the power to back itRead More →

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A tale of star crossed lovers of a different sort unfolds in Page Morgan’s The Beautiful and The Cursed. The story takes place in 1890’s Paris, France, a time where royals ruled the world. Lady Charlotte moves her daughters, Lady Ingrid and Lady Gabriella, from an English mansion to a French abbey she plans to remodel into an art gallery. Her son, Lord Fairfax, was sent to France two months earlier to scout out the location. The move could not have come at a better time for Lady Ingrid. Her reputation in London had taken a nosedive when she accidentally set her friend’s home onRead More →

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Untold Damage by Robert K. Lewis is the classic tale of a fallen cop who is looking to regain control of his life. Mark Mallen used to be an undercover cop in the San Francisco Bay area attempting to uncover a drug lord who has been smuggling heroin into the city. He has been undercover for a little over a year and has not gone up in rank as much as he hoped. With a wife and new born child waiting for him to come home, he knows he needs to speed up the process. He decides that the best way to really get intoRead More →