New Release Round-Up: July 7-13, 2014

Young Adult


The Half Life of Molly Pierce
by Katrina Leno

Release date: July 8, 2014
Available as: hardcover, Kindle edition, ebook
Pages: 240
Publisher: HarperTeen
Suggested tags: young adult, mystery, thriller



From Goodreads:

"You take it for granted. Waking up. Going to school, talking to your friends. Watching a show on television or reading a book or going out to lunch.

You take for granted going to sleep at night, getting up the next day, and remembering everything that happened to you before you closed your eyes.

You live and you remember.

Me, I live and I forget.

But now—now I am remembering.

For all of her seventeen years, Molly feels like she’s missed bits and pieces of her life. Now, she’s figuring out why. Now, she’s remembering her own secrets. And in doing so, Molly uncovers the separate life she seems to have led…and the love that she can’t let go.

The Half Life of Molly Pierce is a suspenseful, evocative psychological mystery about uncovering the secrets of our pasts, facing the unknowns of our futures, and accepting our whole selves."

Midnight Thief
by Livia Blackburne

Release date: July 8, 2014
Available as: hardcover, Kindle edition, ebook
Pages: 368
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Suggested tags: young adult, fantasy



First in the Midnight Thief series. From Goodreads:

"Growing up on Forge’s streets has taught Kyra how to stretch a coin. And when that’s not enough, her uncanny ability to scale walls and bypass guards helps her take what she needs.

But when the leader of the Assassins Guild offers Kyra a lucrative job, she hesitates. She knows how to get by on her own, and she’s not sure she wants to play by his rules. But he’s persistent—and darkly attractive—and Kyra can’t quite resist his pull.

Tristam of Brancel is a young Palace knight on a mission. After his best friend is brutally murdered by Demon Riders, a clan of vicious warriors who ride bloodthirsty wildcats, Tristam vows to take them down. But as his investigation deepens, he finds his efforts thwarted by a talented thief, one who sneaks past Palace defenses with uncanny ease.

When a fateful raid throws Kyra and Tristam together, the two enemies realize that their best chance at survival—and vengeance—might be to join forces. And as their loyalties are tested to the breaking point, they learn a startling secret about Kyra’s past that threatens to reshape both their lives."

Other YA new releases for this week:

Middle Grade


All Four Stars
by Tara Dairman

Release date: July 10, 2014
Available as: hardcover, Kindle edition, ebook
Pages: 288
Publisher: Putnam Juvenile
Suggested tags: middle grade, realistic fiction



From Goodreads:

"Meet Gladys Gatsby: New York’s toughest restaurant critic. (Just don’t tell anyone that she’s in sixth grade.)

Gladys Gatsby has been cooking gourmet dishes since the age of seven, only her fast-food-loving parents have no idea! Now she’s eleven, and after a crème brûlée accident (just a small fire), Gladys is cut off from the kitchen (and her allowance). She’s devastated but soon finds just the right opportunity to pay her parents back when she’s mistakenly contacted to write a restaurant review for one of the largest newspapers in the world.

But in order to meet her deadline and keep her dream job, Gladys must cook her way into the heart of her sixth-grade archenemy and sneak into New York City—all while keeping her identity a secret! Easy as pie, right?"

My Zombie Hamster
by Havelock McCreely

Release date: July 8, 2014
Available as: hardcover, Kindle edition, ebook
Pages: 208
Publisher: EgmontUSA
Suggested tags: middle grade, dystopia, zombies



From Goodreads:

"A laugh-out-loud funny middle-grade debut with a scary twist, "My Zombie Hamster" will appeal to readers who like their animal stories mixed with chills. Fans of R.L. Stine's Goosebumps Most Wanted series will grab this one right up.

Matt Hunter and his buddies are looking forward to Christmas--actually, they're looking forward to receiving the latest sword-and-fantasy video game. But Matt's parents have other thoughts--they give him a fluffy little mammal, a hamster called Snuffles, for the holiday. And his grandmother makes it worse by giving him a hamster cage and wheel. But the hamster isn't all that cute--at least not after part of its cheek and belly fall right off--without bothering it a bit! And why is it staring at Matt with black beady eyes and a lean and hungry look?

Say hello to Anti-Snuffles, the zombie hamster! Or better yet, run!

This series combines middle-school readers' passions: humor, animals, and scary stories, into one unbeatable package."

Other Middle Grade new releases for this week:

Friday Freebies: April 4, 2014

It's a paranormal freebie fest! Click on each title to go to the Amazon Kindle edition listing. Be sure to double-check the price before you download!




Anathema
by K.A. Tucker

Available as: paperback, Kindle edition
Pages: 284 (Kindle edition)
Publisher: Papoti Books
Publication date: May 27, 2011
Suggested tags: young adult, paranormal, vampires



First in the Causal Enchantment series. From Amazon:

"Evangeline has spent her teenage years in obscurity. Her foster parents have the emotional aptitude of robots and her classmates barely acknowledge her existence. About to turn eighteen and feeling like a social pariah, she is desperate to connect with someone. Anyone.

When Evangeline meets Sophie after literally stumbling upon her café, she believes she’s found that connection. Willing to do anything to keep it, she accepts a job as Sofie’s assistant and drops everything to fly to Manhattan, where she is thrust into a luxurious world of Prada, diamonds, and limitless cash.

With such generosity and kindness, it’s easy for Evangeline to dismiss certain oddities . . . like Sofie’s erratic and sometimes violent behavior, and the monstrous guard dogs. She’s even willing to dismiss her vivid dreams of mob-style murders, beautiful homeless people living in caves, and white-eyed demons that haunt her each night as figments of her imagination—especially when one of those figments is the gorgeous Caden. When she wakes up with bite marks on her neck, the fairy tale quickly turns into a nightmare. She slowly unravels the mystery surrounding Sofie and friends, and the reality of the bites and the “dreams.” What she discovers is far more mysterious and terrible than anything she could have imagined.

In a world where everyone has motive to lie for personal gain, Evangeline must decide which deception is least likely to get her killed."

Psyched
by Juli Caldwell

Available as: paperback, Kindle edition
Pages: 225 (Kindle edition)
Publisher: Firefly Publishing
Publication date: May 30, 2013
Suggested tags: young adult, paranormal, ghosts



From Amazon:

"Aisi Turay has it all under control.

At least, she thinks she does. Forget that the most popular girl in school hates her guts and will stop at nothing to embarrass her. Forget that her little brother is tormented by the ghosts and demons she sees all the time. Forget that her mom is a con artist who pretends to be psychic to make some cash. Forget that her dad is hiding a secret than can destroy everything she knows about herself. Nope, she's got this one...until that one awful day when she nearly loses it all.

With ghost-hunting hottie Vance, a guy who stumbled into her life at the worst possible moment, Aisi must search for the messages hidden in visions and memories to protect her family. Maybe, just maybe, they can reclaim what she thought was lost forever."

WANTED: Dead or Undead
by Angela Scott

Available as: paperback, Kindle edition
Pages: 210 (Kindle edition)
Publisher: Evolved Publishing LLC
Publication date: March 18, 2012
Suggested tags: young adult, paranormal, zombies



First in The Zombie West series. From Amazon:

"Trace Monroe doesn't believe in luck. He never has. But when a fiery-headed cowgirl saunters through the saloon doors, wielding shotguns and a know-how for killing the living dead, he believes he just may be the luckiest man alive.

Trace wants to join Red's posse, but she prefers to work alone--less messy that way. In order to become her traveling companion, Trace has to agree to her terms: no names, no questions, and if he gets bit, he can't beg for mercy when she severs his brain stem.

He agrees, knowing only that Red is the sharpest shooter he's ever encountered. The fact she's stunning hasn't escaped his attention either.

What he doesn't know, is that Red has a very good reason to be on top of her game. She not only has the answer for how they can all outlive the plague taking over the wild, wild west, she IS the answer."

Waterborn
by Kimberly James

Available as: paperback, Kindle edition
Pages: 374 (Kindle edition)
Publisher: Createspace
Publication date: August 29, 2013
Suggested tags: young adult, paranormal, mermaids



From Amazon:

"Charms fade... "You don't have to choose. You can be both. The girl with the charm, the girl without. They both suit you."

Caris Harper lives a charmed life. Literally.

When her dad offers to take her to the Emerald coast of Florida for summer vacation, Caris jumps at the chance. The chance to get answers to questions she's always been too afraid to ask. The chance to be normal. Isn't that what her dreams have been telling her, that here in the place of her birth she can be normal? But from the first moment the wind caresses her face and the sun touches her skin, the charm begins to fade, revealing a girl Caris never knew existed, one that is anything but normal. The long-buried Song that awakens is only the beginning of a transformation that will challenge her ideas about loyalty and family.

Noah Jacobs is a waterbreather--a species of human fully adaptable to life in the water. Like his older brother Jamie, Noah wants to prove they can use their abilities and be heroes in service to their country. When a simple mission goes wrong and Jamie goes missing, Noah exiles himself to the Deep in a desperate search. MIA is a classification Noah is not ready to accept. But instinct can't be ignored. Not when he hears her Song. Caris is not what he expects and Noah is determined to get her out of his head. Instead he finds himself acting as her mentor and the more time they spend together, the more Noah realizes he just wants Caris.

When a startling truth threatens their newly formed trust, Noah straddles the line between love and obsession while Caris struggles to find a balance between the girl she thought she was and the young woman she wants to be."

Review: Twice Shy by Patrick Freivald

Twice Shy
by Patrick Freivald

Available as: hardcover, paperback, ebook
Pages: 240
Publisher: JournalStone
Release date: October 26, 2012
Suggested tags: young adult, paranormal, zombies



From Goodreads:

"High School Sucks. It’s worse when you’re dead.

Ohneka Falls is a small, Western New York town where everyone knows everyone and nothing of note happens. Ani Romero is a sixteen-year-old girl who wants to play sports, hang out, and kiss Mike, her middle-school crush. A childhood carrier of the zombie virus, she died at fourteen but didn’t become a mindless, brain-eating monster. Her controlling mother forces her to join the emo crowd to hide her condition behind a wall of black clothes and makeup, and her friends abandon her.

When creeper Dylan learns her secret, he falls into obsession, with Ani and with death. She bites him in self-defense. Persecuted by the jocks and ignored by Mike, Ani struggles through the motions of life hoping her other’s research unveils a cure, or Dylan dooms them all to a hungry, walking death.

As her emo facade crumbles in the face of jealousy and obsession, Ani knows that the worst thing she can do is be true to herself."

{ I received an ebook ARC for free through Early Reviewers on LibraryThing. }


Twice Shy was darker and heavier than I expected, making for a pretty creepy and intense read. It explores some serious topics: bullying, stalking, overdosing, self-mutilation, and ethics in science and research, just to name a few. The main characters are real and well-developed, especially Ani.

Ani, dead at fourteen but still living, hides in plain sight among regular high schoolers with an emo disguise. She plays the part of dark and broody, but inside she dreams of wearing pink and writing songs and going roller skating. She resists what she has become as much as she can, going so far as to carry a razor blade with her to cut her own wrists as a distraction when she starts feeling a certain sort of hunger.

Dylan's obsession with Ani is truly disturbing. When he appeared in scenes, I got the same sense of dread I feel when I'm reading a horror novel. After Ani bites him, her fate pretty much rests in his hands: he could kill her, obviously, but if his infection is traced back to her, she'll be incinerated by the authorities. And of course Ani's mother wants to take matters into her own hands and solve the problem of Dylan herself.

Ani's relationships with her mother and her friends are fascinating and tragic. Her mother is overprotective, as any mother in her situation might be, but the true reasons for her actions are revealed piece by piece as the story unfolds. Fey alternates from being Ani's best friend to her worst enemy, changing back and forth suddenly and frequently. (SPOILER - highlight to read: I almost cried when she destroyed Ani's art portfolio. Completely unforgivable.) Mike, who used to be a close friend, now won't even look at her sometimes. He spends most of his time with his girlfriend Devin, who is a total mean girl and tortures Ani mercilessly. Ani is hopelessly in love with Mike, even after he proves himself unworthy time after time. I wanted to shake that crush out of Ani real bad.

The ending... well, I'm completely torn. (SPOILER - highlight to read: Part of me thought it was necessary. If Ani's emotions were strong enough, it was bound to happen, right? If she and Mike were really in love, she was bound to lose control and bite him, right? It was a dark, twisted ending, but then again it was a dark, twisted book. So that part of me was ok with it. ... But the other part of me was like, SERIOUSLY?? After all that, after all of Ani's struggles to overcome her hunger and find a cure and get better... SHE EATS HIM?!?)

I devour YA paranormal books, but I've actually never read any zombie books. I know, right? I don't know why - zombies just never topped my list of favorite paranormal types. But lately I've been making a conscious effort to broaden my horizons a little in all genres. Twice Shy was my first zombie book, but it won't be my last. I've been bitten by the zombie bug and I need more books like the walking dead need more brains. (Bad puns totally intended.)

Overall rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Tuesday Teasers: September 25, 2012

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Each Tuesday, you grab the book you're reading, open to a random page, and share 2 teaser sentences from anywhere on the page.
NO SPOILERS - make sure the sentences you pick don't give too much away!

Twice Shy by Patrick Freivald The more Ani deflected their questions, the more they pressed, until she shrieked at the top of her lungs. In the stunned silence she murmured, "I said I don't want to talk about it." {ARC ebook, 81%}

Twice Shy
by Patrick Freivald

Available as: hardcover, paperback, ebook
Pages: 240
Publisher: JournalStone
Release date: October 26, 2012
Suggested tags: young adult, paranormal, zombies


From Goodreads:

"High School Sucks. It’s worse when you’re dead.

Ohneka Falls is a small, Western New York town where everyone knows everyone and nothing of note happens. Ani Romero is a sixteen-year-old girl who wants to play sports, hang out, and kiss Mike, her middle-school crush. A childhood carrier of the zombie virus, she died at fourteen but didn’t become a mindless, brain-eating monster. Her controlling mother forces her to join the emo crowd to hide her condition behind a wall of black clothes and makeup, and her friends abandon her.

When creeper Dylan learns her secret, he falls into obsession, with Ani and with death. She bites him in self-defense. Persecuted by the jocks and ignored by Mike, Ani struggles through the motions of life hoping her other’s research unveils a cure, or Dylan dooms them all to a hungry, walking death.

As her emo facade crumbles in the face of jealousy and obsession, Ani knows that the worst thing she can do is be true to herself."

New Release Round-Up: September 24-30, 2012

Young Adult


Alice in Zombieland
by Gena Showalter

Release date: September 25, 2012
Available as: hardcover, Kindle edition, ebook
Pages: 404
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Suggested tags: young adult, paranormal, zombies



First in the White Rabbit Chronicles. From Goodreads:

"She won’t rest until she’s sent every walking corpse back to its grave. Forever.

Had anyone told Alice Bell that her entire life would change course between one heartbeat and the next, she would have laughed. From blissful to tragic, innocent to ruined? Please. But that’s all it took. One heartbeat. A blink, a breath, a second, and everything she knew and loved was gone.

Her father was right. The monsters are real….

To avenge her family, Ali must learn to fight the undead. To survive, she must learn to trust the baddest of the bad boys, Cole Holland. But Cole has secrets of his own, and if Ali isn’t careful, those secrets might just prove to be more dangerous than the zombies..."

The Other Normals
by Ned Vizzini

Release date: September 25, 2012
Available as: hardcover, Kindle edition, ebook
Pages: 400
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Suggested tags: young adult, fantasy



From Goodreads:

"Given the chance, fifteen-year-old Peregrine “Perry” Eckert would dedicate every waking moment to Creatures & Caverns, an epic role-playing game rich with magical creatures, spell casting, and deadly weapons. The world of C&C is where he feels most comfortable in his own skin, so when his parents ship him off to summer camp Perry is sure he’s in for the worst summer of his life.

Everything changes, however, when Perry gets to camp and stumbles into the World of the Other Normals. Perry’s new otherworldly friends need his help to save their princess and prevent mass violence. As they embark on their quest together, Perry realizes that his nerdy childhood has uniquely prepared him to be a great warrior in this world, and maybe even a hero.

Bestselling author Ned Vizzini delivers a compulsively readable and wildly original story about the winding and often hilarious path to manhood."

Other YA new releases for this week:

Middle Grade


Professor Gargoyle
by Charles Gilman

Release date: September 25, 2012
Available as: hardcover, Kindle edition, ebook
Pages: 160
Publisher: Quirk Books
Suggested tags: middle grade, paranormal



First in the Tales from Lovecraft Middle School series. From Goodreads:

"Strange things are happening at Lovecraft Middle School. Rats are leaping from lockers. Students are disappearing. The school library is a labyrinth of secret corridors. And the science teacher is acting very peculiar – in fact, he just might be a monster-in-disguise. Twelve-year-old Robert Arthur knew that seventh grade was going to be weird, but this is ridiculous!

Professor Gargoyle (Volume I in the Tales from Lovecraft Middle School series) is full of bizarre beasts, strange mysteries, and nonstop adventure. It's perfect for readers ages 10 and up. Best of all, the cover features a state-of-the-art “morphing” photo portrait – so you can personally witness the professor transforming into a monster. You won't believe your eyes!"

Sophia's War: A Tale of the Revolution
by Avi

Release date: September 25, 2012
Available as: hardcover, Kindle edition, ebook
Pages: 320
Publisher: Beach Lane Books
Suggested tags: middle grade, historical fiction



From Goodreads:

"Lives hang in the balance in this gripping Revolutionary War adventure from a beloved Newbery medalist.

In 1776, young Sophia Calderwood witnesses the execution of Nathan Hale in New York City, which is newly occupied by the British army. Sophia is horrified by the event and resolves to do all she can to help the American cause. Recruited as a spy, she becomes a maid in the home of General Clinton, the supreme commander of the British forces in America. Through her work she becomes aware that someone in the American army might be switching sides, and she uncovers a plot that will grievously damage the Americans if it succeeds. But the identity of the would-be traitor is so shocking that no one believes her, and so Sophia decides to stop the treacherous plot herself, at great personal peril: She’s young, she’s a girl, and she’s running out of time. And if she fails, she’s facing an execution of her own.

Master storyteller Avi shows exactly how personal politics can be in this riveting novel that is rich in historical detail and rife with action."

Other Middle Grade new releases for this week: