We’re back with another roundup of new releases. There are some really exciting books coming out this week, plus we have a couple of fantastic giveaways for you! What are you reading this week?
~ The Ladies of AYAP
Martina, Lisa, Alyssa, Katharyn, Erin, and Jan
YA BOOK GIVEAWAYS THIS WEEK
Beauty of the Broken
by Tawni Waters
Hardcover Giveaway
Simon Pulse
Released 9/30/2014
In this lyrical, heartwrenching story about a forbidden first love, a teen seeks the courage to care for another girl despite her small town’s bigotry and her father’s violent threats.
Growing up in conservative small-town New Mexico, fifteen-year-old Mara was never given the choice to be different. Her parents—an abusive, close-minded father and a detached alcoholic mother—raised Mara to be like all the other girls in Barnaby: God-fearing, churchgoing, and straight. Mara wants nothing to do with any of it. She feels most at home with her best friend and older brother, Iggy, but Iggy hasn’t been the same since their father beat him and put him in the hospital with a concussion.
As Mara’s mother feeds her denial with bourbon and Iggy struggles with his own demons, Mara finds an escape with her classmate Xylia. A San Francisco transplant, Xylia is everything Mara dreams of being: free-spirited, open, wild. The closer Mara and Xylia become, the more Mara feels for her—even though their growing relationship is very much forbidden in Barnaby. Just as Mara begins to live a life she’s only imagined, the girls’ secret is threatened with exposure and Mara’s world is thrown into chaos.
Mara knows she can’t live without Xylia, but can she live with an entire town who believes she is an abomination worse than the gravest sin?
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Beauty of the Broken?
I’m deeply in love with the characters, at least the good ones. I resent the bad ones in a wholehearted, obsessive sort of way that may be unhealthy. I hope the characters are as rich and alive for readers as they are for me.
Mara is one of those characters that felt like she “came” to me, rather than like I invented her. I sat down to write one day and did this thing I often do as an exercise, which is to say, “Anyone who wants to talk to me, start talking,” and then write the first words that come into my head. Whether this is an exercise in spirituality, insanity, or the power of suggestion is anyone’s guess. All I know is that it works for me. Words always leap into my head when I prompt myself like this.
That day, I heard, “Momma and Willy Macyntire made Iggy in a barn.” I wrote it down, and more words came. Within a couple of hours, I had this beautiful, broken character and twenty pages that would eventually become the outline for Beauty of the Broken. With this novel, I’ve always felt like the characters were writing the novel, and I was transcribing their story for them. I was as surprised by the events of the book as any reader. I had no idea what was going to happen next.
Early readers of Beauty of the Broken have been furious with me about the death of one of the characters. “You traumatized me,” they say, and I can only say that I traumatized myself too. Every time I read that book, I die a little.
I don’t know. Maybe I just refuse to take responsibility for my actions. I feel this perhaps alarming lack of culpability for the way the book turned out. I think I’ll get a T-shirt that says, “Don’t blame me. I just wrote it.”
Purchase Beauty of the Broken at Amazon
Purchase Beauty of the Broken at IndieBound
View Beauty of the Broken on Goodreads
Love is the Drug
by Alaya Dawn Johnson
Hardcover Giveaway
Arthur A. Levine Books
Released 9/30/2014
From the author of THE SUMMER PRINCE, a novel that’s John Grisham’s THE PELICAN BRIEF meets Michael Crichton’s THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN set at an elite Washington D.C. prep school.
Emily Bird was raised not to ask questions. She has perfect hair, the perfect boyfriend, and a perfect Ivy-League future. But a chance meeting with Roosevelt David, a homeland security agent, at a party for Washington DC’s elite leads to Bird waking up in a hospital, days later, with no memory of the end of the night.
Meanwhile, the world has fallen apart: A deadly flu virus is sweeping the nation, forcing quarantines, curfews, even martial law. And Roosevelt is certain that Bird knows something. Something about the virus–something about her parents’ top secret scientific work–something she shouldn’t know.
The only one Bird can trust is Coffee, a quiet, outsider genius who deals drugs to their classmates and is a firm believer in conspiracy theories. And he believes in Bird. But as Bird and Coffee dig deeper into what really happened that night, Bird finds that she might know more than she remembers. And what she knows could unleash the biggest government scandal in US history.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Love is the Drug?
There is a scene around two thirds of the way through the book, where the characters end up sharing a Thanksgiving dinner together. Writing this scene was one of the most cathartic, joyous experiences of my writing life. Often, there can be a disconnect between what I experience as I write a scene and the emotions I’m hoping to evoke from the reader (if only because there’s a lot of technical stuff that goes into evoking emotion, and so I have to be analytical about it). But this scene just pulled my heart out of my chest and made it dance. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday–one I associate with my happiest memories of my family and of growing up in the Washington, DC metro area. So while none of the book is directly based on my experiences, that scene comes closest. It shows how the act of making food together and dancing to old-school R&B (and arguing over lemon in the sweet potato pie) can make you feel closer to the ones you love
Purchase Love is the Drug at Amazon
Purchase Love is the Drug at IndieBound
View Love is the Drug on Goodreads
YA BOOK GIVEAWAYS LAST WEEK: WINNERS
Afterworlds
by Scott Westerfield
Hardcover
Simon Pulse
Released 9/23/2014
Winner – Christine Saitz
Darcy Patel has put college and everything else on hold to publish her teen novel, Afterworlds. Arriving in New York with no apartment or friends she wonders whether she’s made the right decision until she falls in with a crowd of other seasoned and fledgling writers who take her under their wings…
Told in alternating chapters is Darcy’s novel, a suspenseful thriller about Lizzie, a teen who slips into the ‘Afterworld’ to survive a terrorist attack. But the Afterworld is a place between the living and the dead and as Lizzie drifts between our world and that of the Afterworld, she discovers that many unsolved – and terrifying – stories need to be reconciled. And when a new threat resurfaces, Lizzie learns her special gifts may not be enough to protect those she loves and cares about most.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Afterworlds?
Afterworlds is two interleaved books, really. The odd-numbered chapters
tell the story of Darcy Patel, a young writer moving away from home; the
even chapters are the entirety of Darcy’s first novel, which she’s
rewriting throughout that same year. The most exciting part of writing a
dual novel was linking the two narratives, having things spill over from
Darcy’s day-today reality into her fiction. All writers steal from
reality, so what Darcy experiences in her life always bubbles up in her
novel, whether it’s a setting, a realization about true love, or just a
new word.
Collectively, the two books are my really long answer to the question that
all writers dread, “Where do you get your ideas?”
Purchase Afterworlds at Amazon
Purchase Afterworlds at IndieBound
View Afterworlds on Goodreads
In a Handful of Dust
by Mindy McGinnis
Hardcover
Katherine Tegen Books
Released 9/23/2014
Winner – Ashley Colby
The only thing bigger than the world is fear.
Lucy’s life by the pond has always been full. She has water and friends, laughter and the love of her adoptive mother, Lynn, who has made sure that Lucy’s childhood was very different from her own. Yet it seems Lucy’s future is settled already—a house, a man, children, and a water source—and anything beyond their life by the pond is beyond reach.
When disease burns through their community, the once life-saving water of the pond might be the source of what’s killing them now. Rumors of desalinization plants in California have lingered in Lynn’s mind, and the prospect of a “normal” life for Lucy sets the two of them on an epic journey west to face new dangers: hunger, mountains, deserts, betrayal, and the perils of a world so vast that Lucy fears she could be lost forever, only to disappear in a handful of dust.
In this companion to Not a Drop to Drink, Mindy McGinnis thrillingly combines the heart-swelling hope of a journey, the challenges of establishing your own place in the world, and the gripping physical danger of nature in a futuristic frontier.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about In a Handful of Dust?
The best part of writing DUST was revisiting this world ten years later. Lynn is an adult now, Lucy has become a teen. I got the chance to play with who they had become, how they had grown and changed, and what their relationship is like a decade after their lives in NOT A DROP TO DRINK.
Purchase In a Handful of Dust at Amazon
Purchase In a Handful of Dust at IndieBound
View In a Handful of Dust on Goodreads
Skink – No Surrender
by Carl Hiaasen
Hardcover
Knopf Books for Young Readers
Released 9/23/2014
Winners – Sierra Davenport, Alicia Ezell, Emily Miller, Markella Whetzel, Erin Koch
Readers are always thrilled to see a new book from the master of snarky satire, but they will be doubly excited for this book as Carl introduces young readers to Skink—an ex-governor of Florida gone feral, and one of the most iconic characters in Hiaasen’s adult novels.
Purchase Skink – No Surrender at Amazon
Purchase Skink – No Surrender at IndieBound
View Skink – No Surrender on Goodreads
* * * *
Survival Colony 9
by David Bellin
Hardcover
Margaret K. McElderry Books
Released 9/23/2014
Winner – Heather Carpenter
In a future world of dust and ruin, fourteen-year-old Querry Genn struggles to recover the lost memory that might save the human race.
Querry is a member of Survival Colony Nine, one of the small, roving groups of people who outlived the wars and environmental catastrophes that destroyed the old world. The commander of Survival Colony Nine is his father, Laman Genn, who runs the camp with an iron will. He has to–because heat, dust, and starvation aren’t the only threats in this ruined world.
There are also the Skaldi.
Monsters with the ability to infect and mimic human hosts, the Skaldi appeared on the planet shortly after the wars of destruction. No one knows where they came from or what they are. But if they’re not stopped, it might mean the end of humanity.
Six months ago, Querry had an encounter with the Skaldi–and now he can’t remember anything that happened before then. If he can recall his past, he might be able to find the key to defeat the Skaldi.
If he can’t, he’s their next victim.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Survival Colony 9?
I love the fact that two stories unfold simultaneously in my novel: the big, world-changing story of humanity’s battles against the Skaldi, and the small, intimate story of a teen coming to terms with his past and discovering his place in an extended family. Both of these stories are equally important to the book, and I believe they work together to enrich the reader’s experience: the Skaldi may be demonic, but Querry’s personal demons are just as hard to conquer.
Quick disclaimer before this next paragraph: I am NOT comparing myself to J. R. R. Tolkien! However, The Lord of the Rings was incredibly important to my development as a reader and writer, and one of the things I loved about LOTR when I first read it at age thirteen was how the epic story of the War of the Ring and the small-scale story of Frodo and Sam’s quest so perfectly complemented each other. I’m certain Tolkien’s trilogy influenced my decision to tell a story with a similar, dual focus.
Purchase Survival Colony 9 at Amazon
Purchase Survival Colony 9 at IndieBound
View Survival Colony 9 on Goodreads
Tabula Rasa
by Kristen Lippert-Martin
Hardcover
EgmontUSA
Released 9/23/2014
Winner – Candice Conner
The Bourne Identity meets Divergent in this action-packed debut thriller with a Katniss-esque heroine fighting to regain her memories and stay alive, set against a dystopian hospital background.
Sarah starts a crazy battle for her life within the walls of her hospital-turned-prison when a procedure to eliminate her memory goes awry and she starts to remember snatches of her past. Was she an urban terrorist or vigilante? Has the procedure been her salvation or her destruction?
The answers lie trapped within her mind. To access them, she’ll need the help of the teen computer hacker who’s trying to bring the hospital down for his own reasons, and a pill that’s blocked by an army of mercenary soldiers poised to eliminate her for good. If only she knew why . . .
“This is a snap-the-whip story, dark and fast. The sparks of humor in the voice won me over. Bottom line: I think the cocktail of suspense and believable smart-assery adds up to an addictive dose of reader appeal.” –Blythe Woolston, author of the William C. Morris Award winner The Freak Observer
Releases simultaneously in electronic book format (ISBN: 9781606845196).
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Tabula Rasa?
My favorite thing about Tabula Rasa is Sarah!
As things get worse and worse and worse for her — not only does she take a physical beating, but an emotional one too — she manages to find a way to rise to the occasion each time. Sometimes by being clever, sometimes by being vulnerable, and sometimes she does it even when she doesn’t know what to do. She just grits her teeth and gets on with it. The girl’s a fighter in the best possible way.
Purchase Tabula Rasa at Amazon
Purchase Tabula Rasa at IndieBound
View Tabula Rasa on Goodreads
Unmade
by Sarah Rees Brennan
Hardcover
Random House Books for Young Readers
Released 9/23/2014
Winner – Sara Bowers
A modern, magical twist on the Gothic romance and girl detective genres, the Lynburn Legacy books will appeal to fans of both Beautiful Creatures and the Mortal Instruments series.
Powerful love comes with a price. Who will be the sacrifice?
Kami has lost the boy she loves, is tied to a boy she does not, and faces an enemy more powerful than ever before. With Jared missing for months and presumed dead, Kami must rely on her new magical link with Ash for the strength to face the evil spreading through her town.
Rob Lynburn is now the master of Sorry-in-the-Vale, and he demands a death. Kami will use every tool at her disposal to stop him. Together with Rusty, Angela, and Holly, she uncovers a secret that might be the key to saving the town. But with knowledge comes responsibility—and a painful choice. A choice that will risk not only Kami’s life, but also the lives of those she loves most.
As coauthor with Cassandra Clare of the bestselling Bane Chronicles, Sarah Rees Brennan has mastered the art of the page-turner. This final book in the Lynburn Legacy is a wild, entertaining ride from beginning to shocking end.
Purchase Unmade at Amazon
Purchase Unmade at IndieBound
View Unmade on Goodreads
MORE YOUNG ADULT FICTION IN STORES NEXT WEEK WITH AUTHOR INTERVIEWS
Unmarked
by Kami Garcia
Hardcover
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Released 9/30/2014
The heart-pounding sequel to the instant New York Times bestseller, Unbreakable, by New York Times bestselling Beautiful Creatures co-author Kami Garcia.
“A rare sequel that surpasses the original.”–Ransom Riggs, New York Times bestselling author of Hollow City
He is here . . . and he could be anyone
.
Kennedy Waters lives in a world where vengeance spirits kill, ghosts keep secrets, and a demon walks among us-a demon she accidentally set free.
Now Kennedy and the other Legion members-Alara, Priest, Lukas, and Jared-have to hunt him down. As they learn more about the history of the Legion and the Illuminati, Kennedy realizes that the greatest mystery of all does not belong to any secret order, but to her own family. With the clock ticking and the life of someone she loves hanging in the balance, Kennedy has to ask the question she fears most: what is it about her past that has left her Unmarked?
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Unmarked?
The Legion Series is a mix of different topics I love to write about—a group of very different teens who have to come together to fight the ultimate evil, secret societies, the paranormal, superstitions, and hot identical twin brothers. In Unbreakable, I introduced the world, the characters, and the dynamics between them. Unmarked allowed me to play with them, and push them to their limits. Unmarked revisits some of the elements readers loved most from the first novel—Priest’s gadgets and Alara’s sass—and answers questions about Kennedy’s past. Of course, it also raises new ones about the future of the Legion—and the world. It takes everything to the next level, including the romance.
Purchase Unmarked at Amazon
Purchase Unmarked at IndieBound
View Unmarked on Goodreads
MORE YOUNG ADULT NOVELS NEW IN STORES NEXT WEEK
Belzhar
by Meg Wolitzer
Hardcover
Dutton Juvenile
Released 9/30/2014
If life were fair, Jam Gallahue would still be at home in New Jersey with her sweet British boyfriend, Reeve Maxfield. She’d be watching old comedy sketches with him. She’d be kissing him in the library stacks.
She certainly wouldn’t be at The Wooden Barn, a therapeutic boarding school in rural Vermont, living with a weird roommate, and signed up for an exclusive, mysterious class called Special Topics in English.
But life isn’t fair, and Reeve Maxfield is dead.
Until a journal-writing assignment leads Jam to Belzhar, where the untainted past is restored, and Jam can feel Reeve’s arms around her once again. But there are hidden truths on Jam’s path to reclaim her loss.
From New York Times bestselling author Meg Wolitzer comes a breathtaking and surprising story about first love, deep sorrow, and the power of acceptance.
Purchase Belzhar at Amazon
Purchase Belzhar at IndieBound
View Belzhar on Goodreads
Complete Nothing
by Kieran Scott
Hardcover
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Released 9/30/2014
True’s matchmaking skills are the stuff of legend! The second novel in Kieran Scott’s delightful teen romance series that TeenVogue.com called “the next Twilight.”
True is not exactly loving New Jersey. Banished from Mount Olympus and tasked with helping couples find love without using her powers, the goddess-formerly-known-as-Cupid is having a tough time. Especially now that True’s immortal love, Orion, has also appeared at her New Jersey high school—but with no memory of their relationship.
To distract herself from seeing Orion flirt with another girl, True focuses her efforts on making a match: Peter and Claudia. Peter is the star quarterback and the most popular guy in school. But he’s insecure about his future, so he preemptively dumps Claudia, his girlfriend. (If she won’t want to be with him later, why stay together now?) Claudia doesn’t take the breakup too well, and she’s ready to show the quarterback of their rival school just how ready she is to get over it.
But True sees something in these two seniors. She believes they should be together—but can she help them find their way back to each other (and get herself closer to home)? Or have things already spun too far out of control?
Purchase Complete Nothing at Amazon
Purchase Complete Nothing at IndieBound
View Complete Nothing on Goodreads
Dead Zone
by Robinson Wells
Paperback
HarperTeen
Released 9/30/2014
Homeland meets Marie Lu’s Legend in the explosive sequel to Blackout, which #1 New York Times bestselling author Ally Condie called “a thrilling combination of Wells’s trademark twists and terror. Fantastic!”
America is at war—and five teens are caught in the crossfire.
It began with a virus. Then a series of attacks erupted across the nation. Now the true invasion has begun, and a handful of teenagers with impossible powers are America’s only defense.
Robison Wells blew readers away with his first novel, Variant, which Publishers Weekly called “a chilling and masterful debut” in a starred review. In Dead Zone, he delivers his most nail-bitingly tense read yet—and an electrifying conclusion to a two-book series that’s perfect for fans of The Maze Runner and I Am Number Four.
Praise for Blackout
“Wells knows how to snare readers’ attention and hold them spellbound.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“In a world where terrorism is an increasing threat, this fast-paced book brings it home.”—Kirkus Reviews
“This eerie look at an all-too-possible future is tense and gripping.”—Michael Grant, New York Times bestselling author of the Gone series
Purchase Dead Zone at Amazon
Purchase Dead Zone at IndieBound
View Dead Zone on Goodreads
Fire Fall
by Bethany Frenette
Hardcover
Disney-Hyperion
Released 9/30/2014
In the exciting conclusion to the Dark Star trilogy, Audrey Whitticomb is faced with a tough decision: save her people from the demons known as Harrowers, or save her best friend from certain death?
Audrey Whitticomb wants to be a Guardian like her superhero mom, Morning Star, and her superhot boyfriend, Leon. But at seventeen, Audrey still hasn’t been called–unlike reluctant Tink, who’d rather not deal with all those scaly-skinned, red-eyed demons.
The truth: Audrey can no longer fight her fate. She has a different role to play.
The Beneath is waking. Demons are rising. Friends are falling. And the future is waiting. Will Audrey stop the Harrowing in time to save the Kin? Or will she save her best friend, Gideon, from certain death? Can Audrey find the power and the courage to act before it’s too late?
Purchase Fire Fall at Amazon
Purchase Fire Fall at IndieBound
View Fire Fall on Goodreads
Schizo
by Nic Sheff
Hardcover
Philomel
Released 9/30/2014
The fascinating, shocking, and ultimately quite hopeful story of one teen’s downward spiral into mental illness by the bestselling author of Tweak.
Miles is the ultimate unreliable narrator—a teen recovering from a schizophrenic breakdown who believes he is getting better . . . when in reality he is growing worse.
Driven to the point of obsession to find his missing younger brother, Teddy, and wrapped up in a romance that may or may not be the real thing, Miles is forever chasing shadows. As Miles feels his world closing around him, he struggles to keep it open, but what you think you know about his world is actually a blur of gray, and the sharp focus of reality proves startling.
Written by the New York Times bestselling author of Tweak, Schizo is the fascinating, and ultimately quite hopeful, story of one teen’s downward spiral into mental illness as he chases the clues to a missing brother. Perfect for fans of Thirteen Reasons Why, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and It’s Kind of a Funny Story.
Purchase Schizo at Amazon
Purchase Schizo at IndieBound
View Schizo on Goodreads
The Only Thing to Fear
by Caroline Tung Richmond
Hardcover
Scholastic Press
Released 9/30/2014
In a stunning reimagining of history, debut author Caroline Tung Richmond weaves an incredible story of secrets and honor in a world where Hitler won World War II.
It’s been nearly 80 years since the Allies lost WWII in a crushing defeat against Hitler’s genetically engineered super soldiers. America has been carved up by the victors, and 16-year-old Zara lives a life of oppression in the Eastern America Territories. Under the iron rule of the Nazis, the government strives to maintain a master race, controlling everything from jobs to genetics. Despite her mixed heritage and hopeless social standing, Zara dreams of the free America she’s only read about in banned books. A revolution is growing, and a rogue rebel group is plotting a deadly coup. Zara might hold the key to taking down the Führer for good, but it also might be the very thing that destroys her. Because what she has to offer the rebels is something she’s spent her entire life hiding, under threat of immediate execution by the Nazis.
In this action-packed, heart-stopping novel of a terrifying reality that could have been, Zara must decide just how far she’ll go for freedom.
Purchase The Only Thing to Fear at Amazon
Purchase The Only Thing to Fear at IndieBound
View The Only Thing to Fear on Goodreads
Winterspell
by Claire Legrand
Hardcover
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Released 9/30/2014
The clock chimes midnight, a curse breaks, and a girl meets a prince . . . but what follows is not all sweetness and sugarplums.
New York City, 1899. Clara Stole, the mayor’s ever-proper daughter, leads a double life. Since her mother’s murder, she has secretly trained in self-defense with the mysterious Drosselmeyer.
Then, on Christmas Eve, disaster strikes.
Her home is destroyed, her father abducted–by beings distinctly not human. To find him, Clara journeys to the war-ravaged land of Cane. Her only companion is the dethroned prince Nicholas, bound by a wicked curse. If they’re to survive, Clara has no choice but to trust him, but his haunted eyes burn with secrets–and a need she can’t define. With the dangerous, seductive faery queen Anise hunting them, Clara soon realizes she won’t leave Cane unscathed–if she leaves at all.
Inspired by The Nutcracker, Winterspell is a dark, timeless fairy tale about love and war, longing and loneliness, and a girl who must learn to live without fear.
Purchase Winterspell at Amazon
Purchase Winterspell at IndieBound
View Winterspell on Goodreads
