Happy Halloween! Our last Monday of October falls on Halloween which means this week is full of November releases. I personally can’t believe it’s November already! Don’t forget to check out all the other new releases and enter to win below.
Happy Reading,
Shelly, Sam, Jocelyn, Martina, Erin, Susan, Michelle, Laura, Anisaa, and Kristin
YA BOOK GIVEAWAYS THIS WEEK
We Are Still Tornadoes
by Michael Kun and Susan Mullen
Hardcover Giveaway (3 Copies)
St. Martin’s Griffin
Released 11/1/2016
Growing up across the street from each other, Scott and Cath have been best friends their entire lives. Cath would help Scott with his English homework, he would make her mix tapes (it’s the 80’s after all), and any fight they had would be forgotten over TV and cookies. But now they’ve graduated high school and Cath is off to college while Scott is at home pursuing his musical dreams.
During their first year apart, Scott and Cath’s letters help them understand heartache, annoying roommates, family drama and the pressure to figure out what to do with the rest of their lives. And through it all, they realize that the only person they want to turn to is each other. But does that mean they should be more than friends? The only thing that’s clear is that change is an inescapable part of growing up. And the friends who help us navigate it share an unshakable bond.
This funny yet deeply moving book–set to an awesome 80’s soundtrack–captures all the beautiful confusion and emotional intensity we find on the verge of adulthood…and first love.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about We Are Still Tornadoes?
There is much about the book that I really enjoy and am proud of, particularly some of the humor and some of the songs one of the characters writes. And I have to say that I really like the title and how it comes into play. But, honestly, my favorite thing about “Tornadoes” is seeing my co-author’s name on the cover. Susan was a classmate of mine in law school, I always thought she’d make a great writer, and seeing her name on a book after all these years means a lot to me.
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You in Five Acts
by Una LaMarche
Hardcover Giveaway
U.S. Only
Razorbill
Released 11/1/2016
In the high-pressure months leading up to the performance that will determine their futures, a group of friends at a performing arts school look back on when an unexpected event upended everything. The moment that changed their relationships, their friendships, and their lives forever.
At a prestigious New York City performing arts school, five friends connect over one dream of stardom. But for Joy, Diego, Liv, Ethan and Dave, that dream falters under the pressure of second-semester, Senior year. Ambitions shift and change, new emotions rush to the surface, and a sense of urgency pulses between them: Their time together is running out.
Diego hopes to get out of the friend zone. Liv wants to escape, losing herself in fantasies of the new guy. Ethan conspires to turn his muse into his girlfriend. Dave pines for the drama queen. And if Joy doesn’t open her eyes, she could lose the love that’s been in front of her all along.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about You in Five Acts?
Even though it was also the hardest thing about writing You In Five Acts, my favorite thing about the book is that it’s told through five narrators with completely different takes on what’s going on. I find that inhabiting multiple narrators and giving them distinct voices is always so challenging but so rewarding as well. And I loved all of these characters, even—and possibly especially—when they couldn’t see how flawed their perspectives were.
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YA BOOK GIVEAWAYS LAST WEEK: WINNERS
Bionic by Suzanne Weyn: Molly M, Alisha S, Clarisa R, Alicia G, Anne C
Boy Robot by Simon Curtis: Tammy V.
If I Fix You by Abigail Johnson: Kira B.
Illusion by Martina Boone: Jennifer L.
It’s Not Me, It’s You by Stephanie Kate Strohm: Traci T.
Midnight Hour by C.C. Hunter: Rachel M
The Stranger Game by Cylin Busby: Susan T.
Empire Decayed by Daniel Kraus: Jaysa Y.
MORE YOUNG ADULT FICTION IN STORES NEXT WEEK WITH AUTHOR INTERVIEWS
Blood for Blood
by Ryan Graudin
Hardcover
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Released 11/1/2016
The action-packed, thrilling sequel to Ryan Graudin’s Wolf by Wolf.
There would be blood.
Blood for blood.
Blood to pay.
An entire world of it.
For the resistance in 1950s Germany, the war may be over, but the fight has just begun.
Death camp survivor Yael, who has the power to skinshift, is on the run: the world has just seen her shoot and kill Hitler. But the truth of what happened is far more complicated, and its consequences are deadly. Yael and her unlikely comrades dive into enemy territory to try to turn the tide against the New Order, and there is no alternative but to see their mission through to the end, whatever the cost.
But dark secrets reveal dark truths, and one question hangs over them all: how far can you go for the ones you love?
This gripping, thought-provoking sequel to Wolf by Wolf will grab readers by the throat with its cinematic writing, fast-paced action, and relentless twists.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Blood for Blood?
My favorite thing about BLOOD FOR BLOOD is the fact that it’s finished. Truly. When my publisher bought the WOLF BY WOLF duology, the first book was but a fifty page partial and the second book was a three paragraph plot. At the time, I knew the series was ambitious—researching WW2 history well enough to craft an alternate version of events is no small feat. It wasn’t until I finished drafting WOLF BY WOLF that I realized how much harder and intricate the sequel would be. While the first book focuses on a single POV, BLOOD FOR BLOOD needed to show the unfolding of events in a much wider scope. Juggling more points of view, while reimagining a war and all of its political/geographical implications, was a huge challenge. Writing sequels also comes with its own set of stress. As a writer, you always want the second book in a series to live up to the first, and hopefully, exceed it.
To date, BLOOD FOR BLOOD stands as the hardest book I’ve ever had to write. Every novel comes with its unique set of challenges, but this one stretched me more than most. In craft, content, and deadlines. It is done now, and I’m very proud of what I was able to accomplish with it.
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Hellfighters
by Alexander Gordon Smith
Hardcover
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Released 11/1/2016
Thrown into a relentless war against the forces of darkness, fifteen-year-old Marlow Green and his squad of secret soldiers must fight for control of the Devil’s Engines―ancient, infernal machines that can make any wish come true, as long as you are willing to put your life on the line. But after a monstrous betrayal, Marlow, Pan and the other Hellraisers find themselves on the run from an enemy with horrific powers and limitless resources―an enemy that wants them dead at all costs. Failure doesn’t just mean a fate worse than death for Marlow, it means the total annihilation of the world. And when all looks lost and the stakes couldn’t be higher, just how far is he willing to go?
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Hellfighters?
I always wanted to write a story that takes its characters to hell and back—literally—and this is it!! One of the reasons I love horror so much is that it’s really the only genre where anything can happen. It gives you unlimited freedom to drive the story wherever you want, the only limit is your imagination. Hellfighters allowed me to create some of the most terrifying worlds I could think of, the most gruesome monsters, the most twisted action scenes, the most complex and entertaining characters. Nothing beats that freedom, when you’re a writer, and this book was proof that writing horror seriously is the best job in the world.
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Infinity
by Jus Accardo
Paperback
Entangled: Teen
Released 11/1/2016
Jump dimensions. Find the bad guy. Don’t fall in love.
Nobody said being the daughter of an army general was easy. But when her dad sends a teenage subordinate to babysit her while he’s away? That’s taking it a step too far.
Cade, as beautiful as he is deadly, watches Kori with more than just interest. He looks at her like he knows her very soul. And when he saves her from a seemingly random attack, well, that’s when things get weird.
Turns out, Kori’s dad isn’t just an army general—he’s the head of a secret government project that has invented a way to travel between parallel dimensions. Dimensions where there are infinite Koris, infinite Cades…and apparently, on every other Earth, they’re madly in love.
Falling for a soldier is the last thing on Kori’s mind. Especially when she finds herself in a deadly crossfire, and someone from another Earth is hell-bent on revenge…
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Infinity?
I won’t lie. I was absolutely crazy over the premise of the TV show Sliders, so that was a big inspiration. I was also crazy about Fringe, which also deals with alternate realities. I love the idea. SOOO many possibilities!
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Seriously Shifted
by Tina Connolly
Hardcover
Tor Teen
Released 11/1/2016
A sparkling new adventure about teen witch Camellia and her mother, wicked witch Sarmine, introduced to readers in Seriously Wicked.
Teenage witch Cam isn’t crazy about the idea of learning magic. She’d rather be no witch than a bad one. But when a trio of her mother’s wicked witch friends decide to wreak havoc in her high school, Cam has no choice but to try to stop them.
Now Cam’s learning invisibility spells, dodging exploding cars, and pondering the ethics of love potions. All while trying to keep her grades up and go on a first date with her crush. If the witches don’t get him first, that is.
Can’t a good witch ever catch a break?
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Seriously Shifted?
I have really loved working on all the Seriously books. My favorite kind of story is one that mixes drama and comedy. The Seriously books are tilted way towards the comedic side, but they still have serious underpinnings to them, as my heroine Cam struggles with things like how to do good with her witch powers.
Cam is one for making lists, and in SERIOUSLY SHIFTED she starts a “Good Witch Ethics List” that allows her to think through the morality of things like love potions, for example. She deals with the everyday questions we all wrestle with, but in a fantastical setting. For one, she’s trying to be a vegetarian witch, and that determines what ingredients she can and can’t use in spells. But where do you draw the line? And then with love potions, or casting other spells on people—when is it okay to use spells that affect another person? Does your intention matter? What if you’re only trying to help? What if helping causes harm?
I really enjoy watching Cam work through genuinely difficult questions in a setting that’s full of things like flaming newt eyeballs and invisible eels.
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MORE YOUNG ADULT NOVELS NEW IN STORES NEXT WEEK
A Million Worlds with You
by Claudia Gray
Hardcover
HarperTeen
Released 11/1/2016
A million universes. A million dangers. One destiny.
The fate of the multiverse rests in Marguerite Caine’s hands. Marguerite has been at the center of a cross-dimensional feud since she first traveled to another universe using her parents’ invention, the Firebird. Only now has she learned the true plans of the evil Triad Corporation—and that those plans could spell doom for dozens or hundreds of universes, each facing total annihilation.
Paul Markov has always been at Marguerite’s side, but Triad’s last attack has left him a changed man—angry and shadowed by tragedy. He struggles to overcome the damage done to him, but despite Marguerite’s efforts to help, Paul may never be the same again.
So it’s up to Marguerite alone to stop the destruction of the multiverse. Billions of lives are at stake. The risks have never been higher. And Triad has unleashed its ultimate weapon: another dimension’s Marguerite—wicked, psychologically twisted, and always one step ahead.
In the epic conclusion to Claudia Gray’s Firebird trilogy, fate and family will be questioned, loves will be won and lost, and the multiverse will be forever changed. It’s a battle of the Marguerites . . . and only one can win.
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Bad Blood
by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Hardcover
Disney-Hyperion
Released 11/1/2016
When Cassie Hobbes joined the FBI’s Naturals program, she had one goal: uncover the truth about her mother’s murder. But now, everything Cassie thought she knew about what happened that night has been called into question. Her mother is alive, and the people holding her captive are more powerful—and dangerous—than anything the Naturals have faced so far.
As Cassie and the team work to uncover the secrets of a group that has been killing in secret for generations, they find themselves racing a ticking clock.
New victims. New betrayals. New secrets.
When the bodies begin piling up, it soon becomes apparent that this time, the Naturals aren’t just hunting serial killers.
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Forget Me Always
by Sara Wolf
Paperback
Entangled: Teen
Released 11/1/2016
All warfare is deception. Even in high school.
It’s been nineteen days since Isis Blake forgot about him. The boy she can’t quite remember. She’s stuck in the hospital with a turban-size bandage on her head, more Jell-o than a human being should ever face, and a tiny bit of localized amnesia. Her only goal? To get out of this place before she becomes a complete nutjob herself.
But as Isis’s memories start to return, she realizes there’s something important there at the edges of her mind. Something that may mean the difference between life and death. Something about Sophia, Jack’s girlfriend.
Jack Hunter—the “Ice Prince”—remembers everything. Remembers Isis’s purple hair and her smart-ass mouth. Remembers that for a little while, Isis made him feel human. She made him feel. She burned a hole in the ice…and it’s time to freeze back up. Boys like him don’t deserve girls like her. Because Jack is dangerous. And that danger might be the only thing protecting her from something far more threatening.
Her past.
Previously published as Savage Delight, this fully revised and updated edition is full of hilarity, drama, and heartbreak.
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Saving Hamlet
by Molly Booth
Hardcover
Disney-Hyperion
Released 11/1/2016
Emma Allen couldn’t be more excited to start her sophomore year. Not only is she the assistant stage manager for the drama club’s production of Hamlet, but her crush Brandon is directing, and she’s rocking a new haircut that’s sure to get his attention. But soon after school starts, everything goes haywire. Emma’s promoted to stage manager with zero experience, her best friend Lulu stops talking to her, and Josh–the adorable soccer boy who’s cast as the lead–turns out to be a disaster. It’s up to Emma to fix it all, but she has no clue where to start.
One night after rehearsal, Emma stays behind to think through her life’s latest crises and distractedly falls through the stage’s trap door . . . landing in the basement of the Globe Theater.
It’s London, 1601, and with her awesome new pixie cut, everyone thinks Emma’s a boy–even Will Shakespeare himself. With no clue how to get home, Emma gamely plays her role as backstage assistant to the original production of Hamlet, learning a thing or two about the theater, and meeting an incredibly hot actor named Alex who finds Emma as intriguing as she finds him. But once Emma starts traveling back and forth through time, things get really confusing. Which boy is the one for her? In which reality does she belong? Will Lulu ever forgive her? And can she possibly save two disastrous productions of Hamlet before time runs out?
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The Amateurs
by Sarah Shepard
Hardcover
Freeform
Released 11/1/2016
As soon as Seneca Frazier sees the post on the Case Not Closed website about Helena Kelly, she’s hooked. Helena’s high-profile disappearance five years earlier is the one that originally got Seneca addicted to true crime. It’s the reason she’s a member of the site in the first place.
So when Maddy Wright, her best friend from the CNC site, invites Seneca to spend spring break in Connecticut looking into the cold case, she immediately packs her bag. But the moment she steps off the train in trendy, glamorous Dexby, things begin to go wrong. Maddy is nothing like she expected, and Helena’s sister, Aerin Kelly, seems completely hostile and totally uninterested in helping with their murder investigation.
But when Brett, another super user from the site, joins Seneca and Maddy in Dexby, Aerin starts to come around. The police must have missed something, and someone in Dexby definitely has information they’ve been keeping quiet.
As Seneca, Brett, Maddy, and Aerin begin to unravel dark secrets and shocking betrayals about the people closest to them, they seem to be on the murderer’s trail at last. But somewhere nearby the killer is watching . . . ready to do whatever it takes to make sure the truth stays buried.
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The Best Possible Answer
by E. Katherine Kottaras
Hardcover
St. Martin’s Griffin
Released 11/1/2016
A contemporary YA novel about growing up and learning that loving yourself is more important than trying to be perfect.
AP Exams – check
SAT test – check
College Application – check
Date the wrong guy and ruin everything you’ve spent your whole life working for– check
Ultra-high-achiever Viviana Rabinovich-Lowe has always had a plan—and no room to be anything less than perfect. But her quest for perfection comes to a screeching halt when her boyfriend leaks racy pictures of her to the entire school. Making matters worse, her parents are getting divorced and now her perfect family is falling apart. For the first time, Viv feels like a complete and utter failure.
Then she gets a job working at the community pool, where she meets a new group of friends who know nothing about her past. That includes Evan, a gorgeous guy who makes her want to do something she never thought she’d do again: trust. For the first time in her life, Viv realizes she can finally be whoever she wants. But who is that? While she tries to figure it out, she learns something they never covered in her AP courses: that it’s okay to be less than perfect, because it’s our imperfections that make us who we are.
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The Diabolic
by S.J. Kincaid
Hardcover
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Released 11/1/2016
Red Queen meets The Hunger Games in this epic novel about what happens when the galaxy’s most deadly weapon masquerades as a senator’s daughter and a hostage of the galactic court.
A Diabolic is ruthless. A Diabolic is powerful. A Diabolic has a single task: Kill in order to protect the person you’ve been created for.
Nemesis is a Diabolic, a humanoid teenager created to protect a galactic senator’s daughter, Sidonia. The two have grown up side by side, but are in no way sisters. Nemesis is expected to give her life for Sidonia, and she would do so gladly. She would also take as many lives as necessary to keep Sidonia safe.
When the power-mad Emperor learns Sidonia’s father is participating in a rebellion, he summons Sidonia to the Galactic court. She is to serve as a hostage. Now, there is only one way for Nemesis to protect Sidonia. She must become her. Nemesis travels to the court disguised as Sidonia—a killing machine masquerading in a world of corrupt politicians and two-faced senators’ children. It’s a nest of vipers with threats on every side, but Nemesis must keep her true abilities a secret or risk everything.
As the Empire begins to fracture and rebellion looms closer, Nemesis learns there is something more to her than just deadly force. She finds a humanity truer than what she encounters from most humans. Amidst all the danger, action, and intrigue, her humanity just might be the thing that saves her life—and the empire.
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The Sun Is Also a Star
by Nicola Yoon
Hardcover
Delacorte Press
Released 11/1/2016
Natasha: I’m a girl who believes in science and facts. Not fate. Not destiny. Or dreams that will never come true. I’m definitely not the kind of girl who meets a cute boy on a crowded New York City street and falls in love with him. Not when my family is twelve hours away from being deported to Jamaica. Falling in love with him won’t be my story.
Daniel: I’ve always been the good son, the good student, living up to my parents’ high expectations. Never the poet. Or the dreamer. But when I see her, I forget about all that. Something about Natasha makes me think that fate has something much more extraordinary in store—for both of us.
The Universe: Every moment in our lives has brought us to this single moment. A million futures lie before us. Which one will come true?
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