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YA Master Scott Westerfeld is back  this Fall with Afterworlds, a novel-within-a-novel, tightly intertwining a fully developed realistic YA romance with am equally robust spooky paranormal horror story, exploring the many ways in which our stories and our secrets define every aspect of our lives. 18 year old Darcy Patel’s composed-in-one-month paranormal horror story, Afterworlds, has been picked up by a major publishing house, netting her a $200,000 advance and the chance to put college on hold and move to New York City to be a “real writer”.  Naive, star-struck, and plagued with self-doubt, Darcy is not going to miss the chance at the lifeRead More →

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K.A. Harrington‘s Forget Me is a decent little mystery with a dash of romance thrown in for good measure.  Set in a small New England town, aptly named River’s End, the mystery surrounding a doppelganger for a murdered young man unravels at a measured pace until the very end when the secrets, lies, and motives are exposed in one high-stakes altercation on the top of the town’s waterfall. Three months ago, Morgan’s secretive, moody boyfriend Flynn was killed in an unsolved hit-and-run accident on a dark road outside River’s End’s long shuttered family amusement park.  Morgan is still reeling from the loss of her firstRead More →

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Jake Collier is a cyclist, a fierce competitor and a smart strategist.  He’s also a bit jealous of his talented teammate Juan Carlos from Ecuador.  Caught in the middle is Tessa Taylor, the seventeen-year-old host of KidVison, a television show for young people that runs on Greater Boston Cable News (GBC N).  Although Tessa is known as the “PBS Princess” and Juan Carlos is known as the “altar boy,” Diana Renn’s book Latitude Zero proves that we are all more than a nickname. Set in both Cambridge, Massachusetts (latitude forty two), and Ecuador (latitude zero), where poinsettia trees grow wild and unpruned among the lushRead More →

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Sixteen-year-old Calliope Knowles is a self-described bitch, but that word hardly describes her true self, a traumatized young woman who is a ward of the state of Illinois and a clinically diagnosed graphomaniac.   Graphomania is a compulsion to write; Callie writes “for the same reason most of us breathe” (3).  Although she feels like a carnival side show and hates being a slave to the words in her head, the words motivate her to remember. Ever since her father disappeared, Callie has been compelled to write.  Although the authorities don’t believe she killed her father, they do think she knows something about his disappearance andRead More →

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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 →