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In Timothy Mason’s first novel, The Last Synapsid, we visit Faith, Colorado. It’s a quiet town, but this spring, a mysterious creature is lurking on the mountain.  What is it, and what does it want? Only Rob and his best friend, Phoebe, are brave enough to investigate.  What they find is the Last Synapsid—a squat, drooly creature that looks like a dinosaur crossed with a wienerdog—that claims to need Rob and Phoebe’s help. Having wandered into a time snag from his own era, 30 million years before the dinosaurs, “Sid” is chasing a violent carnivore called a gorgonopsid. The Gorgon refuses to return to his properRead More →

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In the first of a new sci-fi action series by prolific author James Patterson we meet Daniel X.  His secret abilities — like being able to manipulate objects and animals with his mind or to recreate himself in any shape he chooses — have helped him survive. But Daniel doesn’t have a normal life. He is the protector of the earth, the Alien Hunter, with a mission beyond what anyone could imagine.  From the day that his parents were brutally murdered in front of his very eyes, Daniel has used his unique gifts to assume their quest to hunt down the worst aliens hiding out onRead More →

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In the first of 6 projected books, The Comet’s Curse, opens with a quirky narrator telling the story of a “message in a bottle.”  The tail of the comet Bhaktul flew through the Earth’s atmosphere, leaving deadly particles in its wake. Suddenly, mankind is confronted with a virus that devastates the adult population. Only those under the age of eighteen seem to be immune. Desperate to save humanity, a renowned scientist proposes a bold plan: to create a ship that will carry a crew of 251 teenagers to a home in a distant solar system. Two years later, the Galahad and its crew—none over the age of sixteen—isRead More →

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Mystery and magic abound in P.W. Catanese’s latest offering, Happenstance Found (The Books of Umber).  A boy awakens in a dark tunnel under a ruined city and realizes that he has no memory and no idea who he is or where he came from. A voice in the darkness hints at his future, and then he is found by 3 adventurers: Lord Umber, Sophie and Oates, and together they escape from the worm in the tunnels and the erupting volcano that buried the city long ago. Once they’ve escaped they return to Umber’s home and there Hap learns how amazing the adventurer Umber really is. Read More →

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This book would make a great serial TV show – the best of Lost, Peter Pan, and other fantasy-adventure stories – find a breath-taking and fast-paced home in Nadia Aguiar’s debut novel, The Lost Island of Tamarind.  One exciting episode after the next, each and every chapater ending with a cliff-hanger or surprise, keep the reader turning page after page. Maya lives at sea with her family – parents who are marine biologists, her annoying brother Simon, and their baby sister Penny.  In a terrible storm, their parents are washed overboard and the children find themselves drifting into a cove of the mysterious and magicalRead More →

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Jack Heath’s debut novel, The Lab, is non-stop action.  Secret Agent Six of Hearts is a sixteen year old super human who works for The Deck, a vigilante agency that strives to uphold The Code in a corrupt world run by the mysterious company ChaoSonic.  Six uses his super human skill, intellect, and training to succeed in mission after mission, never having to kill an enemy and always escaping precarious danger with stunts, tricks and skill that no one else can match. The name of the game of this book is action – the plot is thin, the dialogue is sparse, and the character developmentRead More →

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Any readers who enjoyed the first two books will certainly want to pick up The Indigo King and follow the continuing adventures of John, Jack, Charles and others.  Like the previous books, Owens has brought in true historical events and philosophies related to the main characters and intertwined them with the plot. The Indigo King contains a separate adventure, but with lots of references to the first two.  Therefore, even though it can be read by itself, it is less confusing and more fulfilling to read the first two books in the series before reading the third.  The storyline is exciting, once it gets started. Read More →

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In Maze of Bones, The 39 Clues Book One, Amy and Dan Cahill are orphans whose world falls apart with the death of their beloved (and wealthy) grandmother, Grace. At the funeral, the lawyer calls together a select few of her many relatives into the mansion’s Great Hall and offers them each a choice: take a one-million-dollar inheritance and leave, or, instead of money, be given the first of 39 clues that “might lead you to the most important treasure in the world and make you powerful beyond belief . . . or it might kill you.” Amy and Dan take a clue, although they are mystified and confusedRead More →

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“Awesome!!  When is the second book coming out?”  That is what I thought while reading and after finishing The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.    In this age of reality TV, with backstabbing, lying, cheating and humiliation, the idea of the Hunger Games is all too appealing.  Just the description of the Hunger Games will probably interest any student.   From the beginning of the story, Katniss lets us into her life and introduces us to the “future” of North America.  We know her thoughts, struggles and find out how she has survived while many others haven’t.  We meet her community and their way of life.  AfterRead More →