This week we’re excited to offer some great giveaways. We have Soulprint by Megan Miranda, How (Not) to Fall in Love by Lisa Brown Roberts, Scripted by Maya Rock, plus Nicole Maggi is giving away a critique of the first 3 chapters and synopsis of a YA novel. Scroll down to the Rafflecopter to enter!
~ The Ladies of AYAP
Martina, Lisa, Susan, Jocelyn, Erin, Shelley, and Jan
YA BOOK GIVEAWAYS THIS WEEK
The Forgetting
by Nicole Maggi
Critique Giveaway – 1st 3 chapters and synopsis of a YA novel
International
Sourcebooks Fire
Released 2/3/2015
Georgie’s new heart saved her life…but now she’s losing her mind.
Georgie Kendrick wakes up after a heart transplant, but the organ beating in her chest doesn’t seem to be in tune with the rest of her body. Why does she have a sudden urge for strawberries when she’s been allergic for years? Why can’t she remember last Christmas?
Driven to find her donor, Georgie discovers her heart belonged to a girl her own age who fell out of the foster care system and into a rough life on the streets. Everyone thinks she committed suicide, but Georgie is compelled to find the truth – before she loses herself completely.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about The Forgetting?
This book is so important to me for many reasons, but the main one is that it made me fall back in love with writing. A few months before I started working on it, I’d had my 3-book contract with a major publisher cancelled, and I was heartbroken and devastated. I wasn’t sure I would ever write again. But I had this seed of an idea about a girl who has a heart transplant and starts to remember the life of her donor. Even though the story is dark, I wrote this book in a state of complete joy because it made me so happy to just sit and write, no pressure, just for the joy of it. And while I was writing the book we resold my cancelled books (The Twin Willows Trilogy, Medallion Press). I truly believe that it was because I’d poured my energy into something new instead of staying brokenhearted. It’s fitting that the book is about a heart transplant, because it healed my own heart.
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Soulprint
by Megan Miranda
Signed Hardcover Giveaway
U.S. Only
Bloomsbury USA Childrens
Released 2/3/2015
Seventeen-year-old Alina Chase has spent her entire life imprisoned on a secluded island—not for a crime she committed in this lifetime, but one done by her past self. Her very soul is like a fingerprint, carried from one life to the next—and Alina is sick of being guilty.
Aided by three teens with their own ulterior motives, Alina manages to escape. Although she’s not sure she can trust any of them, she soon finds herself drawn to Cameron, the most enigmatic and alluring of the trio. But when she uncovers clues from her past life, secrets begin to unravel and Alina must figure out whether she’s more than the soul she inherited, or if she’s fated to repeat history.
This stunning “new world” romance from acclaimed author Megan Miranda will leave readers wondering how far they would go to escape the past.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Soulprint?
As much as I absolutely loved writing the action and the character relationships in SOULPRINT, my favorite thing about the book is that it grew from an idea I had been thinking about for over a decade. The premise comes from a question I wondered about when I was studying science in school. I’d been learning about the work on the human genome project, and it got me thinking: What if, one day, we could prove the existence of “the soul” in a scientific way? What would it look like? What would it be? And, most importantly, what would that mean?
Fast forward over ten years later, and that question was still bouncing around in my head. It was the question that gave rise to this entire story, as I got to explore all those what ifs—and wonder not only what that knowledge would mean for each of us, but how that knowledge might, in turn, be used against us.
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How (Not) to Fall in Love
by Lisa Brown Roberts
Signed Paperback Giveaway
U.S. Only
Entangled: Teen
Released 2/3/2015
Seventeen-year-old Darcy Covington never had to worry about money or where her next shopping spree was coming from. Even her dog ate gourmet. Then one day, Darcy’s car is repossessed from the parking lot of her elite private school. As her father’s business hit the skids, Dad didn’t just skip town, he bailed on his family.
Fortunately, Darcy’s uncle owns a thrift shop where she can hide out from the world. There’s also Lucas, the wickedly hot fix-it guy she can’t stop crushing on, even if she’s not sure they’ll ever get out of the friend zone.
But it’s here among the colorful characters of her uncle’s world that Darcy begins to see something more in herself…if she has the courage to follow it.
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Scripted
by Maya Rock
Hardcover Giveaway
U.S. Only
Putnam Juvenile
Released 2/5/2015
Reality TV has a dark future in this thought-provoking thriller.
To the people suffering on the war-torn mainland, Bliss Island seems like an idyllic place. And it is: except for the fact that the island is a set, and the islanders’ lives are a performance. They’re the stars of a hit TV show, Blissful Days—Characters are adored by mainland viewers, yet in constant danger of being cut if their ratings dip too low. And no one really knows what happens to cut Characters.
Nettie Starling knows she’s been given the chance of a lifetime when a producer offers suggestions to help her improve her mediocre ratings—especially when those suggestions involve making a move on the boy she’s been in love with for years. But she’ll soon have to decide how far she’s willing to go to keep the cameras fixed on her. . . especially when she learns what could happen to her if she doesn’t.
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YA BOOK GIVEAWAYS LAST WEEK: WINNERS
Cut Me Free
by J.R. Johansson
Hardcover
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Released 1/27/2015
Winner – Ashley Colby
Seventeen-year-old Charlotte barely escaped from her abusive parents. Her little brother, Sam, wasn’t as lucky. Now she’s trying to begin the new life she always dreamed of for them, but never thought she’d have to experience alone. She’s hired a techie-genius with a knack for forgery to remove the last ties to her old life. But while she can erase her former identity, she can’t rid herself of the memories. And her troubled history won’t let her ignore the little girl she sees one day in the park. The girl with the bruises and burn marks.
That’s when Charlotte begins to receive the messages. Threatening notes left in her apartment–without a trace of entry. And they’re addressed to Piper, her old name. As the messages grow in frequency, she doesn’t just need to uncover who is leaving them; she needs to stop whoever it is before anyone else she loves ends up dead.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Cut Me Free?
My favorite thing about CUT ME FREE has to be the heart of this book. It’s a thriller, but at it’s basis it really is about resiliency of the human spirit and how we are capable of recovering from the most horrifying of circumstances. It’s a very character driven book and Piper is my favorite character I’ve ever written. I’m a fan of strong female characters and she is definitely that.
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Woven
by Michael Jensen and David Powers King
Hardcover
Scholastic Press
Released 1/27/2015
Winner – Sierra Davenport
Two unlikely allies must journey across a kingdom in the hopes of thwarting death itself.
All his life, Nels has wanted to be a knight of the kingdom of Avërand. Tall and strong, and with a knack for helping those in need, the people of his sleepy little village have even taken to calling him the Knight of Cobblestown.
But that was before Nels died, murdered outside his home by a mysterious figure.
Now the young hero has awoken as a ghost, invisible to all around him save one person—his only hope for understanding what happened to him—the kingdom’s heir, Princess Tyra. At first the spoiled royal wants nothing to do with Nels, but as the mystery of his death unravels, the two find themselves linked by a secret, and an enemy who could be hiding behind any face.
Nels and Tyra have no choice but to abscond from the castle, charting a hidden world of tangled magic and forlorn phantoms. They must seek out an ancient needle with the power to mend what has been torn, and they have to move fast. Because soon Nels will disappear forever.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Woven?
WOVEN is a ghost story unlike any other. It has a timeless, symbolic feel to it. There are many great life lessons in WOVEN if you look for them. It’s about reality through the eyes of sewing needles and the threads that go through them. Since there are lots of elements to the art of sewing and weaving, we had plenty of material to work with. Every character has a purpose, even the background characters. There’s so much to love about WOVEN, it’s hard to pin down.
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MORE YOUNG ADULT FICTION IN STORES NEXT WEEK WITH AUTHOR INTERVIEWS
Bet Your Life
by Jane Casey
Hardcover
St. Martin’s Griffin
Released 2/3/2015
Jess Tennant has now been living in a tiny town on the English seaside for three months, and is just beginning to relax and think of it as home after the traumatic events of last summer. But in the small hours of Halloween night, a teenage boy is left for dead by the side of the road. Seb Dawson has a serious head injury and may not survive. Jess might not have liked Seb much, but surely he didn’t deserve this. The police don’t seem to be taking the attack very seriously, but Jess can’t just let it go, and she takes matters into her own hands.
As she investigates, Jess discovers that Seb was involved in some very dangerous games. A secret predator around girls, he would do whatever it took to abuse them, from lying and blackmail to spiking drinks. Could a group of vengeful victims be behind his attack? Or is there someone else with a grudge against Seb, who will stop at nothing to silence him? Jane Casey returns with another edge-of-your-seat mystery in Bet Your Life.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Bet Your Life?
My favorite thing about BET YOUR LIFE is the way the plot works itself out. When I write a crime novel I like to take a handful of things that don’t seem related and gradually weave them together. Everything in BET YOUR LIFE – every fight, every kiss, every spat between friends, every rumor and every secret – has some bearing on the eventual reason why a boy was attacked and left for dead in the street. It’s romantic and funny and chilling and scary which is pretty much everything I like to read myself.
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MORE YOUNG ADULT NOVELS NEW IN STORES NEXT WEEK
Beastkeeper
by Cat Hellisen
Hardcover
Henry Holt and Co.
Released 2/3/2015
Sarah has always been on the move. Her mother hates the cold, so every few months her parents pack their bags and drag her off after the sun. She’s grown up lonely and longing for magic. She doesn’t know that it’s magic her parents are running from.
When Sarah’s mother walks out on their family, all the strange old magic they have tried to hide from comes rising into their mundane world. Her father begins to change into something wild and beastly, but before his transformation is complete, he takes Sarah to her grandparents—people she has never met, didn’t even know were still alive.
Deep in the forest, in a crumbling ruin of a castle, Sarah begins to untangle the layers of curses affecting her family bloodlines, until she discovers that the curse has carried over to her, too. The day she falls in love for the first time, Sarah will transform into a beast . . . unless she can figure out a way to break the curse forever.
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Dearest
by Alethea Kontis
Hardcover
HMH Books for Young Readers
Released 2/3/2015
In her third book about the delightful Woodcutter sisters, Alethea Kontis masterfully weaves “The Wild Swans,” “The Goose Girl,” and a few other fine-feathered fairy tales into a magical, romantic companion novel to Enchanted and Hero.
Readers met the Woodcutter sisters (named after the days of the week) in Enchanted and Hero. In this delightful third book, Alethea Kontis weaves together some fine-feathered fairy tales to focus on Friday Woodcutter, the kind and loving seamstress. When Friday stumbles upon seven sleeping brothers in her sister Sunday’s palace, she takes one look at Tristan and knows he’s her future. But the brothers are cursed to be swans by day. Can Friday’s unique magic somehow break the spell?
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I’ll Meet You There
by Heather Demetrios
Hardcover
Henry Holt and Co.
Released 2/3/2015
If seventeen-year-old Skylar Evans were a typical Creek View girl, her future would involve a double-wide trailer, a baby on her hip, and the graveyard shift at Taco Bell. But after graduation, the only thing standing between straightedge Skylar and art school are three minimum-wage months of summer. Skylar can taste the freedom—that is, until her mother loses her job and everything starts coming apart. Torn between her dreams and the people she loves, Skylar realizes everything she’s ever worked for is on the line.
Nineteen-year-old Josh Mitchell had a different ticket out of Creek View: the Marines. But after his leg is blown off in Afghanistan, he returns home, a shell of the cocksure boy he used to be. What brings Skylar and Josh together is working at the Paradise—a quirky motel off California’s dusty Highway 99. Despite their differences, their shared isolation turns into an unexpected friendship and soon, something deeper.
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Invaded
by Melissa Landers
Hardcover
Disney-Hyperion
Released 2/3/2015
The romantic sequel to Alienated takes long-distance relationships to a new level as Cara and Aelyx long for each other from opposite ends of the universe…until a threat to both their worlds reunites them.
Cara always knew life on planet L’eihr would be an adjustment. With Aelyx, her L’eihr boyfriend, back on Earth, working to mend the broken alliance between their two planets, Cara is left to fend for herself at a new school, surrounded by hostile alien clones. Even the weird dorm pet hates her.
Things look up when Cara is appointed as human representative to a panel preparing for a human colony on L’eihr. A society melding their two cultures is a place where Cara and Aelyx could one day make a life together. But with L’eihr leaders balking at granting even the most basic freedoms, Cara begins to wonder if she could ever be happy on this planet, even with Aelyx by her side.
Meanwhile, on Earth, Aelyx, finds himself thrown into a full-scale PR campaign to improve human-L’eihr relations. Humans don’t know that their very survival depends on this alliance: only Aelyx’s people have the technology to fix the deadly contamination in the global water supply that human governments are hiding. Yet despite their upper hand, the leaders of his world suddenly seem desperate to get humans on their side, and hardly bat an eye at extremists’ multiple attempts on Aelyx’s life.
The Way clearly needs humans’ help . . . but with what? And what will they ask for in return?
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Love Is in the Air
by A. Desitny and Alex R. Kahler
Paperback
Simon Pulse
Released 2/3/2015
First crush, first love, first kiss—in this addition to the sweet and clean Flirt series, Jennifer’s fear of falling isn’t just about falling off the trapeze!
Fifteen-year-old Jennifer Hayes has always wanted to perform on the flying trapeze. To soar above the audience, to sparkle under the spotlights…nothing could be better. And when the very performers she idolizes announce they are going to be holding a week-long camp near her home town, her dreams are finally in reach.
When she arrives for her first day and gets a good look at the people attending, Jennifer realizes she is way out of her league. She’s never done ballet, gymnastics, or any kind of high-balance performance art before. Just as she thinks things can’t get any worse, Jennifer realizes she has a gigantic fear of heights. Not only is she scared of falling flat on her face, but after one glimpse of Branden—the best trapeze student at the camp—Jennifer’s worried that she’s falling for him…and she’s falling hard!
But she’s not the only one crushing on beautiful Branden. Soon Jennifer understands that she’s competing for both the trapeze and for Branden’s attention. Now, if she could only get over her fear of heights—and her fear of a broken heart.
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Love, Lucy
by April Lindner
Hardcover
Poppy
Released 2/3/2015
While backpacking through Florence, Italy, during the summer before she heads off to college, Lucy Sommersworth finds herself falling in love with the culture, the architecture, the food…and Jesse Palladino, a handsome street musician. After a whirlwind romance, Lucy returns home, determined to move on from her “vacation flirtation.” But just because summer is over doesn’t mean Lucy and Jesse are over, too.
In this coming-of-age romance, April Lindner perfectly captures the highs and lows of a summer love that might just be meant to last beyond the season.
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Paper or Plastic
by Vivi Barnes
Paperback
Entangled: Teen
Released 2/3/2015
Welcome to SmartMart, where crime pays minimum wage…
Busted. Alexis Dubois just got caught shoplifting a cheap tube of lipstick at the local SmartMart. She doesn’t know what’s worse—disappointing her overbearing beauty-pageant-obsessed mother for the zillionth time…or her punishment. Because Lex is forced to spend her summer working at the store, where the only things stranger than the staff are the customers.
Now Lex is stuck in the bizarro world of big-box retail. Coupon cutters, jerk customers, and learning exactly what a “Code B” really is (ew). And for added awkwardness, her new supervisor is the totally cute—and adorably geeky—Noah Grayson. Trying to balance her out-of-control mother, her pitching position on the softball team, and her secret crush on the school geek makes for one crazy summer. But ultimately, could the worst job in the world be the best thing that ever happened to her?
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Shadow of the War Machine
by Kristin Bailey
Hardcover
Simon Pulse
Released 2/3/2015
Meg has come a long way from her days as a lowly housemaid, driven to learn the truth behind her parents’ murder. She’s since discovered that they were part of the Secret Order of Modern Amusementists — an underground society of inventors. Determined to reclaim her heritage, she joined the Amusementists as an apprentice, but that hasn’t brought her closer to the person responsible for the loss of her family: the man in the clockwork mask.
Now he is coming for her. But Meg is tired of being hunted and she intends to become the hunter. With help from Will, the boy who holds her heart, Meg embarks on an adventure that takes them far from the cold London winter and into the heart of France.
But the City of Light is filled with dark shadows. There’s a plot afoot that could turn the tides of a terrible war, and cost the lives of millions — that is, if it doesn’t take the lives of everyone Meg holds dear, including her own.
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Shutter
by Courtney Alameda
Hardcover
Feiwel & Friends
Released 2/3/2015
Micheline Helsing is a tetrachromat—a girl who sees the auras of the undead in a prismatic spectrum. As one of the last descendants of the Van Helsing lineage, she has trained since childhood to destroy monsters both corporeal and spiritual: the corporeal undead go down by the bullet, the spiritual undead by the lens. With an analog SLR camera as her best weapon, Micheline exorcises ghosts by capturing their spiritual energy on film. She’s aided by her crew: Oliver, a techno-whiz and the boy who developed her camera’s technology; Jude, who can predict death; and Ryder, the boy Micheline has known and loved forever.
When a routine ghost hunt goes awry, Micheline and the boys are infected with a curse known as a soulchain. As the ghostly chains spread through their bodies, Micheline learns that if she doesn’t exorcise her entity in seven days or less, she and her friends will die. Now pursued as a renegade agent by her monster-hunting father, Leonard Helsing, she must track and destroy an entity more powerful than anything she’s faced before . . . or die trying.
Lock, stock, and lens, she’s in for one hell of a week.
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Something True
by Kieran Scott
Hardcover
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Released 2/3/2015
Will the love of her life distract True from reuniting with…the love of her life? Find out in the third book in Kieran Scott’s delightful series that blends ancient mythology with contemporary romance.
True Olympia is in the home stretch. After being banished to Earth without her powers as punishment for falling in love with a mortal, True was tasked with matching three couples before she could return home. Now, with two couples fully in love, she is ready for her time in New Jersey to come to an end.
But as easy as it should be to match one more couple, things are complicated by her immortal love Orion (who also appeared on Earth, just without the memory of their love). He’s dating another girl, but can’t seem to avoid spending time with True. Something about her finally seems familiar to him. But if True wants to get back with Orion for real, she needs to focus. Just one more couple, one more couple…
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This Side of Home
by Renée Watson
Hardcover
Bloomsbury USA Childrens
Released 2/3/2015
Identical twins Nikki and Maya have been on the same page for everything—friends, school, boys and starting off their adult lives at a historically African-American college. But as their neighborhood goes from rough-and-tumble to up-and-coming, suddenly filled with pretty coffee shops and boutiques, Nikki is thrilled while Maya feels like their home is slipping away. Suddenly, the sisters who had always shared everything must confront their dissenting feelings on the importance of their ethnic and cultural identities and, in the process, learn to separate themselves from the long shadow of their identity as twins.
In her inspired YA debut, Renée Watson explores the experience of young African-American women navigating the traditions and expectations of their culture.
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