YA BOOK GIVEAWAYS THIS WEEK
Servants of the Storm
by Delilah S. Dawson
Signed Hardcover Giveaway
Simon Pulse
Released 8/5/2014
A year ago Hurricane Josephine swept through Savannah, Georgia, leaving behind nothing but death and destruction — and taking the life of Dovey’s best friend, Carly. Since that night, Dovey has been in a medicated haze, numb to everything around her.
But recently she’s started to believe she’s seeing things that can’t be real … including Carly at their favorite cafe. Determined to learn the truth, Dovey stops taking her pills. And the world that opens up to her is unlike anything she could have imagined.
As Dovey slips deeper into the shadowy corners of Savannah — where the dark and horrifying secrets lurk — she learns that the storm that destroyed her city and stole her friend was much more than a force of nature. And now the sinister beings truly responsible are out to finish what they started.
Dovey’s running out of time and torn between two paths. Will she trust her childhood friend Baker, who can’t see the threatening darkness but promises to never give up on Dovey and Carly? Or will she plot with the sexy stranger, Isaac, who offers all the answers — for a price? Soon Dovey realizes that the danger closing in has little to do with Carly … and everything to do with Dovey herself.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Servants of the Storm?
I feel like *should* say that I love how fiercely Dovey fights to save her friend Carly, but my answer is far more selfish and indulgent. I’m from the South, and I really love the creepy, abandoned, vine-draped, Southern Gothic languor of Savannah. Writing this book was a paean to the parts of Georgia that I find most beautiful, haunting, and dangerous. I loved my research trips, which included visits to Bonaventure Cemetery and horse-drawn carriage tours with my brother-in-law, the Dread Pirate Robert. We traced Dovey’s path through downtown, and I got to envision what Savannah would look like after a demonic hurricane. So I loved dwelling in that world. And making the creepy parts even creepier.
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Blind
by Rachel DeWoskin
Hardcover Giveaway
Viking Juvenile
Released 8/7/2014
When your life as you know it is taken from you, how do you go on?
Imagine this: You are fourteen, watching the fireworks at a 4th of July party, when a rocket backfires into the crowd and strikes your eyes, leaving you blind. In that instant, your life is changed forever. How do you face a future in which all your expectations must be different? You will never see the face of your newborn sister, never learn to drive. Will you ever have a job or fall in love? This is Emma’s story. The drama is in her manysmall victories as she returns to high school in her home town and struggles to define herself and make sense of her life, determined not to be dismissed as a PBK – Poor Blind Kid. This heartfelt and heart wrenching story takes you on Emma’s journey and leaves you with a new understanding of the challenges to be faced when life deals a devastating blow.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Blind?
What is your favorite thing about BLIND? My favorite thing about Blind is Emma Sasha Silver, the colorful girl at the center of the book. She loses her eyesight in a horrific accident and yet still manages to be a brave and resilient warrior about her teenage life. I began to imagine and write Blind when my two little girls and I read The Black Book of Colors every night for a year. I was both frightened and inspired by that shiny, embossed wonder, a children’s book full of images you can feel rather than see. The more we touched the pages, the more I wondered what it would be like to be able to see and then lose that ability. Would my memories stay visual? Would my senses cross so that I could taste, smell and hear colors? What would language look and feel like, and how would I read, think and make meaning of the world? What if one of my daughters lost her vision? We would read with our fingers and voices, take in books, each other, and everything around us in an utterly changed way. The stakes would be astronomical. What if feeling became our way of seeing?
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Two Girls Staring at the Ceiling
by Lucy Frank
Signed Hardcover Giveaway
Schwartz & Wade
Released 8/5/2014
This novel-in-verse—at once literary and emotionally gripping—follows the unfolding friendship between two very different teenage girls who share a hospital room and an illness.
Chess, the narrator, is sick, but with what exactly, she isn’t sure. And to make matters worse, she must share a hospital room with Shannon, her polar opposite. Where Chess is polite, Shannon is rude. Where Chess tolerates pain silently, Shannon screams bloody murder. Where Chess seems to be getting slowly better, Shannon seems to be getting worse. How these teenagers become friends, helping each other come to terms with their illness, makes for a dramatic and deeply moving read.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Two Girls Staring at the Ceiling?
My favorite thing about TWO GIRLS STARING AT THE CEILING is the way the book ends. I know: the two girls are in the hospital, so they either live, and go home, or one dies, or they both die. But coming up with a last chapter, and a last page that felt right made me very happy.
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YA BOOK GIVEAWAYS LAST WEEK: WINNERS
The Bridge from Me to You
by Lisa Schroeder
Hardcover
Point
Released 7/29/2014
Winner – Anne VanLoon
Lauren has a secret. Colby has a problem. But when they find each other, everything falls into place.
Lauren is the new girl in town with a dark secret. Colby is the football hero with a dream of something more. In alternating chapters, they come together, fall apart, and build something stronger than either of them thought possible–something to truly believe in.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about The Bridge from Me to You?
I love books that alternate points of view. My novel, CHASING BROOKLYN, alternates between Nico and Brooklyn and the response to that book and the alternating POVs has been really positive. With this new YA, Lauren and Colby tell the story. Lauren’s part is in verse while Colby’s is in regular chapters. Lauren has had a rough time of it, and has ended up in this small town, living with her aunt and uncle and three cousins. The verse for her part of the story allowed me to really get inside her head and express all of the emotions she’s having about her life. And then there’s Colby. He’s one of the star football players but he has dreams beyond the field, and he feels alone in those dreams. Basically, it’s a story of a girl who is haunted by her past and a boy who is haunted by his future, and they are stuck in this small town and at times, neither of them feel like they belong there, for very different reasons. So I love how the dual points of view tell the story in a unique way.
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MORE YOUNG ADULT FICTION IN STORES NEXT WEEK WITH AUTHOR INTERVIEWS
Forget Me
by K.A. Harrington
Hardcover
Putnam Juvenile
Released 8/7/2014
An edge-of-your seat psychological thriller with a romantic twist
On the three-month anniversary of her boyfriend Flynn’s death, Morgan uploads her only photo of him to FriendShare to get some closure—but she’s shocked when the facial recognition software suggests she tag him as “Evan Murphy.” She’s never heard of Evan, but a quick search tells her that he lives in a nearby town and looks exactly like Flynn. Only this boy is very much alive.
Digging through layers of secrets and lies, Morgan is left questioning everything she thought she knew about her boyfriend, her town, and even her parents’ involvement in this massive web of lies.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Forget Me?
I love so much about FORGET ME. The setting (a dying town with lots of abandoned places) was so fun to write. And the twists and turns come fast. But my favorite thing about FORGET ME is the relationship between the main character and her best friend. I’ve always enjoyed writing romance and there is a romance in FORGET ME, but my favorite relationship in the book is between two friends, Morgan and Toni. Those girls stole my heart.
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Fragile Destiny
by Suzanne Lazear
Paperback
Flux
Released 8/8/2014
Noli and her true love V fear the worst if the Staff of Eris—a potent Otherworld relic—falls into the wrong hands. Broken into pieces and hidden in the mortal realm long ago, the staff bestows vast powers on whoever possesses it. Ciarán, the dark king, is trying to rebuild the staff, intending to use it to install a new queen.
In a desperate effort to keep the Otherworld from falling into darkness, Noli and V plot the daring theft of a jewel Ciarán needs to complete the staff. But Ciarán is not so easily defeated. Through his devious machinations, he has set a plan in motion for a final showdown that will decide who rules the Otherworld once and for all.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Fragile Destiny?
There’s so much to love in FRAGILE DESTINY, most of which are spoilers. It was a lot of fun weaving together bits from the other books—solving mysteries from book one, resolving things in interesting ways, putting in some major surprises. Also, there’s a lot more kissing in this book than in book 2. But there are still explosions and a lot of cake.
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Magnolia
by Kristi Cook
Hardcover
Simon Pulse
Released 8/5/2014
In Magnolia Branch, Mississippi, the Cafferty and Marsden families are southern royalty. Neighbors since the Civil War, the families have shared vacations, holidays, backyard barbecues, and the overwhelming desire to unite their two clans by marriage. So when a baby boy and girl were born to the families at the same time, the perfect opportunity seemed to have finally arrived.
Jemma Cafferty and Ryder Marsden have no intention of giving in to their parents’ wishes. They’re only seventeen, for goodness’ sake, not to mention that one little problem: They hate each other! Jemma can’t stand Ryder’s nauseating golden-boy persona, and Ryder would like nothing better than to pretend stubborn Jemma doesn’t exist.
But when a violent storm ravages Magnolia Branch, it unearths Jemma’s and Ryder’s true feelings for each other as the two discover that the line between love and hate may be thin enough to risk crossing over.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Magnolia?
My favorite thing about MAGNOLIA is the setting. I’ve been wanting to set a book in Mississippi–the state in which I attended college–for a long time. There’s just something so…I don’t know…atmospheric and romantic, almost a kind of timelessness, about small-town Mississippi, and I really wanted to capture that. The moonlight and magnolia, so to speak. And girls and boys like Jemma and Ryder? Well, that’s how they grow ’em in Mississippi. It isn’t at all uncommon for a girl to be a straight-A student, a cheerleader, know how to shoot *and* sew, spend hours each week doing volunteer work, and win beauty pageants in her spare time. In fact, it’s safe to say that Mississippi girls remind me a lot of the polite, “accomplished” young ladies from Jane Austen novels. And for many Mississippi boys, it’s football, good manners, and a lazy southern drawl.
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Of Metal and Wishes
by Sarah Fine
Hardcover
Margaret K. McElderry Books
Released 8/5/2014
There are whispers of a ghost in the slaughterhouse where sixteen-year-old Wen assists her father in his medical clinic—a ghost who grants wishes to those who need them most. When one of the Noor, men hired as cheap factory labor, humiliates Wen, she makes an impulsive wish of her own, and the Ghost grants it. Brutally.
Guilt-ridden, Wen befriends the Noor, including their outspoken leader, a young man named Melik. At the same time, she is lured by the mystery of the Ghost and learns he has been watching her … for a very long time.
As deadly accidents fuel tensions within the factory, Wen must confront her growing feelings for Melik, who is enraged at the sadistic factory bosses and the prejudice faced by his people at the hand of Wen’s, and her need to appease the Ghost, who is determined to protect her against any threat—real or imagined. She must decide whom she can trust, because as her heart is torn, the factory is exploding around her … and she might go down with it.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Of Metal and Wishes?
My favorite thing about Of Metal and Wishes is the Ghost, but I can’t really talk about him in detail without spoiling the book! The title of the book describes him perfectly, though. He was once a boy who worked in the factory, a victim of the unsafe working conditions and brutal machines on the killing floor of the slaughterhouse. The workers in the factory have built him an altar, where they leave gifts for him along with prayers and wishes, some of which he grants. Wen, the heroine of the story, doesn’t believe in the superstitions about the Ghost–until he grants one of her wishes in a pretty terrible way. Writing about him and how he is able to do all the things he does in the story was extremely fun, and I wish I could talk more about it here, but it would give too much away. However, I do plan to give readers a peek into his mind sometime in the next year, so stay tuned …
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The Girl from the Well
by Rin Chupeco
Hardcover
Sourcebooks Fire
Released 8/5/2014
You may think me biased, being murdered myself. But my state of being has nothing to do with the curiosity toward my own species, if we can be called such. We do not go gentle, as your poet encourages, into that good night.
A dead girl walks the streets.
She hunts murderers. Child killers, much like the man who threw her body down a well three hundred years ago.
And when a strange boy bearing stranger tattoos moves into the neighborhood so, she discovers, does something else. And soon both will be drawn into the world of eerie doll rituals and dark Shinto exorcisms that will take them from American suburbia to the remote valleys and shrines of Aomori, Japan.
Because the boy has a terrifying secret – one that would just kill to get out.
The Girl from the Well is A YA Horror novel pitched as “Dexter” meets “The Grudge”, based on a well-loved Japanese ghost story.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about The Girl from the Well?
I am a feminist.
I understand that nowadays there’s a lot of negative connotations that come with that term, but I mean this in the original definition that it was intended: I believe that men and women are equal, that patriarchy frequently demeans both genders (women according to how the patriarchy treats them, and men according to how patriarchy expects them to treat women) and that we need the understanding and cooperation of both sides to make this a reality.
That said, real life is a sad, angry thing.
What I love about The Girl from the Well is that when you peel back the ghost story you’ll find that it is in many ways a feminist book. Okiku started out life as someone powerless – an unimportant maidservant who would have lived the rest of her life in relative obscurity, like many other servants before her. But it takes one act of cruelty to turn her not only into a survivor (albeit of the incorporeal persuasion), but as someone who comes into her own power and into her own worth.
In the same vein, my other protagonist, Tark, is also a victim who’d been horribly treated by the women (I’m being a little ambiguous here, so I don’t give too much away) in his life, and if he’d grown up a misogynist some might have understood why. But Tark is a little too smart to go that easy route, and I have always wanted to write about characters who go beyond what’s expected of them.
In many ways it’s also wish fulfillment on my end. If people had the ability to come back after they died to forever torment their killers I would imagine the concept of world peace would be less of a dream, and I imagine the world itself would be – not necessarily a better place, but a place where equality and fairness would be easier to achieve. It’s a very liberating thing to write about, about a girl who takes the worst thing anyone could ever have done to her, and turn it into her greatest strength.
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MORE YOUNG ADULT NOVELS NEW IN STORES NEXT WEEK
Deadly Little Sins
by Kara Taylor
Paperback
St. Martin’s Griffin
Released 8/5/2014
In Kara Taylor’s Deadly Little Sins, Anne Dowling investigates a mysterious disappearance in this fast-paced, twisty conclusion to the Prep School Confidential series.
It’s August and Anne is back in New York City for the summer, but she can’t escape the memories of the terrible things that happened at the Wheatley School last spring— and the possibility of being expelled looming over her. When an unexpected— and suspicious— turn of events gets Anne sent back to Wheatley, she’s determined to figure out what happened to her favorite teacher and only adult ally at the school: Ms. Cross.
After a shocking, gruesome murder with connections to the Wheatley School occurs, Anne is convinced there’s more to Ms. Cross’s sudden disappearance, and that her favorite teacher is in danger. But after an ugly breakup with Brent and a new, inexplicable distance between her and Anthony, Anne isn’t sure who she can trust. And even worse, someone at Wheatley knows the truth about what happened to Ms. Cross— someone who will stop at nothing to keep Anne from learning the truth in this engrossing, unputdownable read.
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I Love I Hate I Miss My Sister
by Amelie Sarn
Hardcover
Delacorte Press
Released 8/5/2014
For readers of The Tyrant’s Daughter, Out of Nowhere, and I Am Malala, this poignant story about two Muslim sisters is about love, loss, religion, forgiveness, women’s rights, and freedom.
Eighteen-year-old Sohane loves no one more than her beautiful, carefree younger sister, Djelila. And she hates no one as much. The two have always shared everything. But now, Djelila is embracing her life as a secular teen, and Sohane is becoming more religious.
Every choice has a price.
When Sohane starts wearing a head scarf, her school insists that she remove it or she’ll be expelled. Meanwhile, Djelila is repeatedly harassed by neighborhood bullies for not following Muslim customs. Sohane can’t help thinking that Djelila deserves what she gets. She never could have imagined just how far things would go.
I love I hate I miss my sister.
In the year following Djelila’s tragic death, Sohane struggles with her feelings of loss and guilt, revealing a complex relationship between two sisters, each girl’s path to self-discovery, and the consequences they face for being true to themselves.
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Just Call My Name
by Holly Goldberg Sloan
Hardcover
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Released 8/5/2014
The happily-ever-after of Holly Goldberg Sloan’s acclaimed debut, I’ll Be There, is turned on its head in this riveting, emotional sequel about friends, enemies, and how those roles can shift in a matter of moments.
Emily Bell has it all. She’s in love with a boy named Sam Border, and his little brother has become part of her family. This summer is destined to be the best time of their lives–until a charismatic new girl in town sets her sights on Sam. Now Emily finds herself questioning the loyalty of the person she thought she could trust most.
But the biggest threat to her happiness is someone she never saw coming. Sam’s criminally insane father, whom everyone thought they’d finally left behind, is planning a jailbreak. And he knows exactly where to find Emily and his sons when he escapes…and takes his revenge.
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Mortal Danger
by Ann Aguirre
Hardcover
Feiwel & Friends
Released 8/5/2014
Revenge is a dish best served cold.
In Ann Aguirre’s Mortal Danger, Edie Kramer has a score to settle with the beautiful people at Blackbriar Academy. Their cruelty drove her to the brink of despair, and four months ago, she couldn’t imagine being strong enough to face her senior year. But thanks to a Faustian compact with the enigmatic Kian, she has the power to make the bullies pay. She’s not supposed to think about Kian once the deal is done, but devastating pain burns behind his unearthly beauty, and he’s impossible to forget.
In one short summer, her entire life changes and she sweeps through Blackbriar, prepped to take the beautiful people down from the inside. A whisper here, a look there, and suddenly . . . bad things are happening. It’s a head rush, seeing her tormentors get what they deserve, but things that seem too good to be true usually are, and soon, the pranks and payback turns from delicious to deadly. Edie is alone in a world teeming with secrets and fiends lurking in the shadows. In this murky morass of devil’s bargains, she isn’t sure who—or what—she can trust. Not even her own mind.
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Opposition
by Jennifer L Armentrout
Paperback
Entangled: Teen
Released 8/5/2014
Katy knows the world changed the night the Luxen came.
She can’t believe Daemon welcomed his race or stood by as his kind threatened to obliterate every last human and hybrid on Earth. But the lines between good and bad have blurred, and love has become an emotion that could destroy her—could destroy them all.
Daemon will do anything to save those he loves, even if it means betrayal.
They must team with an unlikely enemy if there is any chance of surviving the invasion. But when it quickly becomes impossible to tell friend from foe, and the world is crumbling around them, they may lose everything— even what they cherish most—to ensure the survival of their friends…and mankind.
War has come to Earth. And no matter the outcome, the future will never be the same for those left standing.
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The Islands at the End of the World
by Austin Aslan
Hardcover
Wendy Lamb Books
Released 8/5/2014
In this fast-paced survival story set in Hawaii, electronics fail worldwide, the islands become completely isolated, and a strange starscape fills the sky. Leilani and her father embark on a nightmare odyssey from Oahu to their home on the Big Island. Leilani’s epilepsy holds a clue to the disaster, if only they can survive as the islands revert to earlier ways.
A powerful story enriched by fascinating elements of Hawaiian ecology, culture, and warfare, this captivating and dramatic debut from Austin Aslan is the first of two novels. The author has a master’s degree in tropical conservation biology from the University of Hawaii at Hilo.
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The Merciless
by Danielle Vega
Hardcover
Razorbill
Released 8/7/2014
Forgive us, Father, for we have sinned
Brooklyn Stevens sits in a pool of her own blood, tied up and gagged. No one outside of these dank basement walls knows she’s here. No one can hear her scream.
Sofia Flores knows she shouldn’t have gotten involved. When she befriended Riley, Grace, and Alexis on her first day at school, she admired them, with their perfect hair and their good-girl ways. They said they wanted to save Brooklyn. They wanted to help her. Sofia didn’t realize they believed Brooklyn was possessed.
Now, Riley and the girls are performing an exorcism on Brooklyn—but their idea of an exorcism is closer to torture than salvation. All Sofia wants is to get out of this house. But there is no way out. Sofia can’t go against the other girls . . . unless she wants to be next. . . .
In this chilling debut, Danielle Vega delivers blood-curdling suspense and terror on every page. By the shockingly twisted end, readers will be faced with the most haunting question of all: Is there evil in all of us?
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Wordless
by AdriAnne Strickland
Paperback
Flux
Released 8/8/2014
“The Gods made their Words into flesh, giving privileged individuals the powers of creation…”
In Eden City, a member of the illiterate wordless class would never dream of meeting the all-powerful Words … much less of running away with one. So when a gorgeous girl literally falls into his lap during a routine trash run, seventeen-year-old Tavin Barnes isn’t sure if it’s the luckiest or worst day of his life. That girl is Khaya, the Word of Life, who can heal a wound or command an ivy bush to devour a city block with ease. And yet she needs Tavin’s help.
By aiding Khaya’s escape from the seemingly idyllic confines of Eden City, Tavin unwittingly throws himself into the heart of a conflict that is threatening to tear the world apart. Eden City’s elite will stop at nothing to protect the shocking secret Khaya hides, and they enlist the other Words, each with their own frightening powers, to bring her back.
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