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15 year old Pearl lives with her recently divorced mother on her uncle’s sprawling California avocado farm.  Uncle Hoyt routinely hires migrant labor to work in the groves and until the day when Pearl notices beautiful, mysterious, quiet Amiel, she’d never thought twice about the undocumented migrant workers’ plight.  But something about shy Amiel speaks to Pearl: he’s beautiful, of course, but there’s more; he’s mute due to a tragic accident in his past, he seems vulnerable and kind, and he’s very reluctant to open up to her overtures of friendship.  Pearl finds herself drawn repeatedly to the quiet bend in the river after she discovers Amiel’s small campsite where he’s beenRead More →

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18-year-old Alexandra Adornetto’s novel Halo follows three angels as they descend from heaven to a small coastal town to combat the Dark Forces that are rapidly spreading across Earth. There’s the archangel Gabriel, the healer Ivy, and Bethany, the youngest and most human. But when Bethany falls in love with a human boy…well, that is just the beginning of these angels’ escapades. This novel delivers everything you would expect a teenage supernatural romance story to have — there is the kind-hearted supernatural being who falls in love with the honorable human (even though she knows it is forbidden),  the inevitable reveal of the supernatural being’s trueRead More →

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In: On the Edge, Romance (YA), Young Adult Book Reviews
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17 year old Bianca Piper could be your best friend; she could be your sister; she could be you.  She’s smart, loyal, cynical and sarcastic, and, as far as she’s concerned, pretty average looking.  She’s too smart to fall for the charms of Wesley Rush, her school’s gorgeous, wealthy playboy even if he has taken to flirting with her to score points with Bianca’s much prettier friends. When he nicknames her “the DUFF”, her dislike of him crosses over into all out hatred.  But Bianca’s home life is in turmoil right now and eager for an escape, she throws herself at Wesley and an intenselyRead More →

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Within the first few pages of debut author April Lindner’s Jane: A Modern Retelling of Jane Eyre, I closed the book and thought: “it’s been too long since I read a classic romance full of brooding, tortured men, innocent but likeable young women who struggle against adversity and yearn for their own independence, all set in some dark mysterious circumstance or place, full of danger, foreboding, or mystery.  Ah, I miss the Brontes! I’d forgotten how much I loved them!”  With unbridled delight I plowed through Jane in one weekend afternoon. Curious how the classic could be updated with modern characters, situations, and sensibilities, I was pleasantlyRead More →

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  Lingerby Maggie Stiefvater Lingeris the sequel to Stiefvater’s romance, Shiver.  In Linger, Sam and Grace can now be together, but their life is too complicated: Sam’s the guardian of the pack and there’s trouble when wolf Beck changes a guy name Cole.  As it turns out, Cole is famous rock star so it becomes much harder to keep the pack a secret. Later in the story, Grace start to get sick, which leads to a big surprise at the end. I liked this book because it’s a lot like Romeo and Juliet. I think Linger is a good book for people to read because shows that people will do crazy thingsRead More →

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In Robin Benway’s newest book, The Extraordinary Secrets of April, May & June, 3 teen sisters’ lives are reeling: their parents have recently divorced and their dad has moved from LA to Houston; along with their mom, the girls have had to move to a new house in another part of L.A. and start a new school; and they’re on a roller coaster ride of emotion, including pain, guilt, confusion, and normal teen angst.  But things get really complicated when on a seemingly normal day at the start of the school year, Junior April, Sophomore May, and Freshman June suddenly discover they have “powers”: eldestRead More →

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Jill Jekel is devastated by the murder of her father. When the police discover that he had been involved in illegal activities they lose interest in finding his murderer. Jill discovers that her father had been secretly working in his laboratory in the middle of the night and used her college savings account to fund his experiments!  Now with her mother falling apart, Jill tries to find “normal” again. When the mysterious, handsome Tristen Hyde gives Jill attention and support she finds herself curiously drawn to him. And when their chemistry teacher suggests they work together in a competition for a chance to win a 30K scholarshipRead More →

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Summer always meant the beach house at Cousins Beach with Conrad, Jeremiah and Susannah. But now that Susanna’s died, her romance with Conrad has ended, and she’s estranged from Jeremiah, Belly faces an empty, lonely summer unlike any she’s ever had. Conrad disappears from college and Jeremiah calls Belly to help find him. They go right to where they know Conrad must be: the summer house on Cousins Beach. Belly has to face the truth about her short-lived romance with Conrad; the tensions and pent up anger between the brothers; and a future that’s uncertain now that the boys’ mom has died.  Jenny Han’s second book featuringRead More →

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Folly is a beautiful, lyrical, and richly textured story.  The idea behind the novel began by author Marthe Jocelyn imaging  a back-story to what may have been her own great grandmother’s struggle as a poor English country girl, living as a maid in London and becoming pregnant out of wedlock in the late 1800’s.  Fired, homeless, and poor, she’s forced to abandon her baby boy (Marthe’s grandfather) to an orphanage where he’s raised without knowledge of her and then as a teen sent out in the world to make his way. What would this have been like? And so Jocelyn creates Folly. A dual narrative between a fictitiousRead More →