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Adriana Mather’s How to Hang a Witch is about a girl who moves to Salem, Massachusetts from New York City with her stepmother and dad. One of their reasons for moving was because they wanted to make sure that her dad continued to get the care that he needed in order to stay healthy until he wakes up from his coma. When Samantha Mather moves to Salem, she realized because she is a descendant of Cotton Mather that her transition to Salem would not be that easy. After some research about her ancestors and the ancestors of the citizens she recognized some events that correlatedRead More →

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With a recent surplus of fantasy novels for young adult readers, it’s rare for one to be completely unique. Catherine Egan’s Julia Vanishes manages to stand on its own, both delightful and surprising, while building a one-of-a-kind, magical world. The story focuses on Julia, currently serving as a housemaid for the wealthy Mrs. Och’s household. Julia serves tea and cleans sheets, but in actuality, she’s really a spy. After her mother was killed in a government raid against witches, Julia and her brother were taken in by Esme, the leading lady of crime. From Esme’s troop of criminals, Julia’s perfected the arts of thieving andRead More →

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Set in Ireland, Moira Fowley-Doyle’s debut young adult novel bumps up against the difficult topic of abuse: sexual, self-imposed, child, and partner.  But The Accident Season stops short of really tackling the topic—perhaps to reflect the reality of trying to protect a terrible secret or to tread with sensitivity, given the YA audience.  Regardless of its somewhat nebulous approach, The Accident Season provides a rich opportunity for wrestling with a difficult topic and for examining life from some of its shadowy angles.  It invites conversations about abusive behaviors—its perpetrators, victims, by-standers, enablers, and allies. Known since childhood for having a big imagination, Cara Morris isRead More →

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Around the world, youth celebrate a rite of passage into adulthood, a time when they leave behind the behaviors and beliefs from childhood, unlock their potential, and enter the world as fledgling adults.  When and how this transition occurs depends on where adolescents live and in what cultures they grow up. Paige McKenzie, with Alyssa Sheinmel, writes the story of one such transition in The Haunting of Sunshine Girl.   This first book in a paranormal series based on the YouTube sensation asks the question: What if, when you turned sixteen, everything you thought you knew about the world shifted?  A week past her 16th birthday, SunshineRead More →

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“i became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity” — EDGAR ALLAN POE I love origin stories.  How did the times in which a person lived, the circumstance of their life, their internal demons, weaknesses, and strengths, all collide into make him (or her) into whatever it was he/she became?  The darker, the more enigmatic, the better; and so I was delighted by Jessica Verday’s foray into the youth of a man whose torment we know all too well. It’s a dark and stormy night in Philadelphia in 1826, when Annabel Lee disembarks from a steamer ship that has brought her from Siam to live withRead More →

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Michael Grant excels at taking a reader to the edge (or sometimes beyond) of what frightens you, I mean deeply frightens you, displaying the slippery slope down into the dark recesses, the murky depths that blur the lines between right, wrong, and no-win situations, and of course the madness that’s ready to consume you when looking into the face of your nightmares is too much. With his techno-thriller series BZRK winding down, Grant turns his attention inward to explore the choices and their consequences that we make in our daily lives. Choices that impact others and could be (should be?) judged as good or evil.Read More →

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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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I pretty much hate it when I am reading a series and the author reintroduces characters and themes passed the first book. I have great appreciation for an author who has confidence in her/his readers’ intelligence.  That being said; some series must be read in order, this book being a prime example. Cole Gibsen‘s Shinobi is the third book of Gibsen’s Katana series.  As engaging as this book may be, it does not stand alone. As the characters are reincarnated samurai, this book alternates between the past and present.  There were many poignant, important memories from which I was left out. In fact, it wasn’t untilRead More →

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I tend to love Civil War Era novels. This may be because the absolute horror of the time tends to lend itself really well to dramatic tension.  The conflicts present in Jane Nickerson‘s The Mirk and Midnight Hour most certainly could have made for a lot of high tension drama, but, unfortunately, they fell short. Ms. Nickerson introduces a wide range of themes throughout the novel; communicating with wildlife, the Civil War, slave society, voodoo, xenophobia, blended families, love, and treachery.  A strong development of any of these would have made for a really interesting story, but none were ever completely explored. Violet is living duringRead More →