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First impression suggests that Robin Wasserman‘s Book of Blood and Shadow has a lot of similarities to Jennifer Donnelly’s fantastic Revolution:  a modern American teen girl whose brother has been tragically killed; a family torn apart by their overwhelming grief and inability to deal with the loss; finding solace in the letters (journal) of a seemingly inconsequential teen girl hundreds of years ago; and discovering clues to a long-forgotten mystery.   In The Book of Blood and Shadow, high school senior Nora thought she was signing up for an easy honors extra credit project – working with an eccentric Medieval Studies professor translating old LatinRead More →

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Twice in as many weeks I’ve found myself embroiled in intriguing detective mysteries inspired by Allen Pinkerton, the first Private Eye.  The Case of the Deadly Desperadosis set in the lawless mining town of Virginia City, Nevada Territory, where the presumed nephew of the famous detective, P.K. Pinkerton, uses his wits, cunning, and pokerface to outwit some ruthless villains and set up a detective agency of his own.  P.K.’s hope was to get to Chicago to meet, and perhaps work for, the legendary detective and his famous agency, but when the first book in The Wild West Mysteries series ends, P.K. decides to try his luck and honeRead More →

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22 year old Joel Bloom’s life is at a crossroads – literally.  He can accept the decision of the draft board and go to Vietnam, a war that he opposes, or he can flee to Canada, a fugitive with little hope to return home.  It seems that Joel’s destiny has been to go to war: he grew up in an industrial town in Massachusetts in the years following WWII, dreaming of fighting in the military or maybe winning the World Series for the Brooklyn Dodgers.  But there’s always been something about conflict, war, politics and violence that didn’t make sense to Joel, and no oneRead More →

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“Just about the time I was thinking things weren’t turning out so bad after all, events took a turn for the worse.”  So says Jack Catcher, teen protagonist in Joe R. Landsdale’s latest, All the Earth, Thrown to the Sky.  And this remark captures the flavor of this book, and Jack’s adventures in it, perfectly. Set in the deepest part of the Great Depression, in the dustbowl of Oklahoma, Jack’s parents have just died – his mother from a wasting sickness and his father from grief – and now he’s not sure what to do.  He’s got no food and no money, and the bankRead More →

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Sci-Fi Action author Brian Falkner creates another fast-paced, twisting and turning thrill ride in his latest novel, The Project.  Best friends Tommy and Luke like to pull mostly harmless pranks and enjoy horsing around.  Even though their latest prank lands them in some serious trouble at school, they still volunteer with to help the local university library try to save its rare book collection from the impending threat of a fast moving flood.  While helping out, Luke discovers the only copy in existence of a rare book based on Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings and theories. Because he’s been researching “the most boring book in theRead More →

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Padma Venkatraman’s newest work for middle grade readers, Island’s End, is both a coming of age story and an homage to a way of life that has almost disappeared in our 21st century world.  Set in the Indian Andaman Islands off the coast of Burma, a fictional tribe of aboriginals exists in harmony with the ebb and flow of the jungle and sea of their home.  Uido has lived her life apart from the modern world and is deeply connected to both the natural world of her island and the spiritual world of her tribe’s belief system and so is called upon to train as the spiritual leaderRead More →

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Drew’s a bit of a loner. She has a pet rat, her dead dad’s Book of Lists, an encyclopedic knowledge of cheese from working at her mom’s cheese shop, and a crush on Nick, the surf bum who works behind the counter. It’s the summer before eighth grade and Drew’s days seem like business as usual, until one night after closing time, when she meets a strange boy in the alley named Emmett Crane. Who he is, why he’s there, where the cut on his cheek came from, and his bottomless knowledge of rats are all mysteries Drew will untangle as they are drawn closerRead More →

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August, 1896: 17 year old Willie is a liar and a thief.  She’s fleeing to Indian Territory, using a stolen name and teacher’s certificate, to take a position as English teacher at the Cherokee Female Seminary.  Willie assumes she’ll be teaching backwards Indian children and hopes that the chances of being discovered and sent back to her family farm are slim.  But she’s not prepared for what awaits her in Oklahoma: the Seminary boarding school educates both the daughters of the Cherokee Elite, and the poor tribal girls there on scholarship, many of whom are more educated that Willie is; the Headmistress is stern and extremelyRead More →

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Making its US debut in May 2011, German YA best-seller Ruby Red  is a perfect mix of mystery, supernatural fanasy and romantic adventure.  Gwen is a typical 16 year old girl living with her mom, siblings and her extended family in a posh London neighborhood.  She’s a spunky, skeptical teen who’s managed to live a fairly normal life despite the time-travelling gene that runs in the women of her family (although Gwen isn’t without some supernatural abilities of her own – she can see and converse with ghosts).  This generation’s carrier is her haughty cousin Charlotte, whose been through years of secret training to prepare herRead More →