~ The Ladies of AYAP
Martina, Katharyn, Alyssa, Erin, Becca, and Jan
YA BOOK GIVEAWAYS THIS WEEK
Very Bad Things
by Susan McBride
Signed Hardcover Giveaway (3 Copies)
Delacorte Press
Released 10/14/2014
Katie never thought she’d be the girl with the popular boyfriend. She also never thought he would cheat on her-but the proof is in the photo that people at their boarding school can’t stop talking about. Mark swears he doesn’t remember anything. But Rose, the girl in the photo, is missing, and Mark is in big trouble. Because it looks like Rose isn’t just gone…she’s dead.
Maybe Mark was stupid, but that doesn’t mean he’s a killer.
Katie needs to find out what really happened, and her digging turns up more than she bargained for, not just about Mark but about someone she loves like a sister: Tessa, her best friend. At Whitney Prep, it’s easy to keep secrets…especially the cold-blooded kind.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Very Bad Things?
At its core, Very Bad Things is a thriller with a lot of twists and turns, but it’s also a story about friendship, love, and trust. We’ve all had experiences where we’ve believed in someone and thought we knew that person so well only to find out that much of what we felt to be true was a pack of lies. In VBT, as Katie tries to unravel the mystery of Rose’s disappearance, she begins to realize that even the people she thinks she knows best and loves the most might not be who she thinks they are. So it’s the characters in Very Bad Things that I love best. They are complicated. They have lived through experiences—some good and some very bad—that have made them who they are. And they’re not always predictable.
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Hero Complex
by Margaux Froley
Signed Hardcover Giveaway
Soho Teen
Released 10/14/2014
Less than a month has passed since Devon Mackintosh uncovered the truth about the apparent suicide of Keaton’s golden boy and her unrequited love, Hutch. But that doesn’t mean the danger is over. Her own life has been threatened. Solving Hutch’s case only unearthed more questions: what lies beneath the Keaton land that could be so valuable as to tear the Hutchins family apart?
Hutch’s grandfather, Reed Hutchins, knows the answer. But Reed is dying of cancer, and this dark family secret might die with him. Faced with no other option, Devon swipes Reed’s diary and plunges into his life as an 18-year-old science prodigy in the immediate aftermath of Pearl Harbor. Through his adolescent eyes—and his role in biological weapons research, still classified to this day—Devon fights to piece together the final clues to what haunts the Keaton hillsides, the truth Reed’s enemies are still willing to kill for.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Hero Complex?
The thing that surprised me about HERO COMPLEX was the historical backstory I got to play with. I knew I wanted to dig into the origins of the Keaton School and the infamous Mr. Keaton, but I ended up getting really immersed in American life during WWII, particularly in California, which led me down a research vortex of the Japanese Internment camps and the forced internment of Japanese American citizens after Pearl Harbor. Our own President ordered the forced internment of any citizen with Japanese roots. People had to give up their houses, their businesses, their pets, their belongings, and some even their lives in a very thuggish attempt at American safety during WWII.
It seems like a very unthinkable act that could never happen today, but this happened in our recent history. I wanted to bring some of that to light and I really enjoyed weaving real history in with my imaginary Keaton School.
Also, on a totally separate note, I loved getting Devon and her friends off the Keaton campus and having them run around and play in Berkeley and San Francisco. Opening up their world a little bit was a fun way to try to keep everyone fresh.
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Mortal Gods
by Kendare Blake
Signed Hardcover Giveaway
U.S. Only
Tor Teen
Released 10/14/2014
Ares, God of War, is leading the other dying gods into battle. Which is just fine with Athena. She’s ready to wage a war of her own, and she’s never liked him anyway. If Athena is lucky, the winning gods will have their immortality restored. If not, at least she’ll have killed the bloody lot of them, and she and Hermes can die in peace.
Cassandra Weaver is a weapon of fate. The girl who kills gods. But all she wants is for the god she loved and lost to return to life. If she can’t have that, then the other gods will burn, starting with his murderer, Aphrodite.
The alliance between Cassandra and Athena is fragile. Cassandra suspects Athena lacks the will to truly kill her own family. And Athena fears that Cassandra’s hate will get them ALL killed.
The war takes them across the globe, searching for lost gods, old enemies, and Achilles, the greatest warrior the world has ever seen. As the struggle escalates, Athena and Cassandra must find a way to work together. Because if they can’t, fates far worse than death await.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Mortal Gods?
My favorite thing about MORTAL GODS is probably the trip to the underworld. I loved writing the scene where they cross over, and of course the three-headed dog!
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They All Fall Down
by Roxanne St. Claire
Signed Hardcover Giveaway
Delacorte Press
Released 10/14/2014
Pretty Little Liars meets Final Destination in this YA psychological thriller that will have readers’ hearts racing right till the very end!
Every year, the lives of ten girls at Vienna High are transformed.
All because of the list.
Kenzie Summerall can’t imagine how she’s been voted onto a list of the hottest girls in school, but when she lands at number five, her average life becomes dazzling. Doors open to the best parties, new friends surround her, the cutest jock in school is after her.
This is the power of the list. If you’re on it, your life changes.
If you’re on it this year? Your life ends.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about They All Fall Down?
I’d never written anything quite like this book, so the story felt wildly fresh and unique to me. Not only had I never written a “thriller” before, I hadn’t read any teen thrillers. I actually had a hard time finding any on the market at the time I started writing. So, this was uncharted territory for me and I hope that translates into a book with plenty of twists and turns that surprise the reader as much as they surprised me.
The other aspect I loved was a chance to incorporate the “dead language” of Latin — which is not dead at all! Through the assistance of my daughter and her Latin teacher, I was able to weave threads and clues using a language we really don’t know much about — yet is the basis for so many of our words. What I initially thought would be an interesting character trait for the protagonist turned into a critical plot point for the whole book. I always love when that happens.
I guess there’s one more thing I loved about the book — it is the first book I’ve written in my whole career where a romance isn’t front and center to the character’s story arc. There is a “love interest” in THEY ALL FALL DOWN but I would never classify this book as a romance. For me, it was liberating and great fun to write without worrying about over-developing that aspect of the story.
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Damaged
by Amy Reed
Hardcover Giveaway
Simon Pulse
Released 10/14/2014
Two teens must come to terms with their friend’s death—and her afterlife—in this gritty and realistic novel from the author of Beautiful, Clean, Crazy, and Over You.
When Kinsey’s best friend Camille dies in a car accident while she was behind the wheel, she shuts down completely, deciding that numbness is far better than mourning. She wants to be left alone during the last few weeks of high school, but Camille’s mysterious boyfriend Hunter, who was also in the car that night, has a different idea.
Despite all of Kinsey’s efforts, she can’t shake Camille, who begins haunting her in dreams. Sleep deprived and on the verge of losing it, she agrees to run away with Hunter to San Francisco. As the pair tries to escape both the ghost of Camille and their own deep fears, Kinsey questions how real her perception of her friendship with Camille was, and whether her former friend’s ghost is actually now haunting her. Hunter, meanwhile, falls into a spiral of alcoholism, anger, and self-loathing.
Ultimately, Kinsey and Hunter must come to terms with what they’ve lost and accept that they can’t outrun pain.
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YA BOOK GIVEAWAYS LAST WEEK: WINNERS
Bleed Like Me
by C. Desir
Hardcover
Simon Pulse
Released 10/7/2014
Winner – Sierra Davenport
From the author of Fault Line comes an edgy and heartbreaking novel about two self-destructive teens in a Sid and Nancy-like romance full of passion, chaos, and dyed hair.
Seventeen-year-old Amelia Gannon (just “Gannon” to her friends) is invisible to almost everyone in her life. To her parents, to her teachers-even her best friend, who is more interested in bumming cigarettes than bonding. Some days the only way Gannon knows she is real is by carving bloody lines into the flesh of her stomach.
Then she meets Michael Brooks, and for the first time, she feels like she is being seen to the core of her being. Obnoxious, controlling, damaged, and addictive, he inserts himself into her life until all her scars are exposed. Each moment together is a passionate, painful relief.
But as the relationship deepens, Gannon starts to feel as if she’s standing at the foot of a dam about to burst. She’s given up everything and everyone in her life for him, but somehow nothing is enough for Brooks-until he poses the ultimate test.
Bleed Like Me is a piercing, intimate portrayal of the danger of a love so obsessive it becomes its own biggest threat.
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Lailah
by Nikki Kelly
Hardcover
Feiwel & Friends
Released 10/7/2014
Winner – Kira Budge
Over one million Wattpad readers have made Lailah a sensation!
The girl knows she’s different. She doesn’t age. She has no family. She has visions of a past life, but no clear clues as to what she is, or where she comes from. But there is a face in her dreams – a light that breaks through the darkness. She knows his name is Gabriel.
On her way home from work, the girl encounters an injured stranger whose name is Jonah. Soon, she will understand that Jonah belongs to a generation of Vampires that serve even darker forces. Jonah and the few like him, are fighting with help from an unlikely Allie – a rogue Angel, named Gabriel.
In the crossfire between good and evil, love and hate, and life and death, the girl learns her name: Lailah. But when the lines between black and white begin to blur, where in the spectrum will she find her place? And with whom?
Gabriel and Jonah both want to protect her. But Lailah will have to fight her own battle to find out who she truly is.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Lailah?
I think the element that I like most about the story is the twist-factor! The story is full of twists, and there is a big one right at the end, which, so far, has surprised a lot of readers, and I love hearing their reactions to it! And of course, there is Lailah herself… I can’t really answer this question without mentioning the Main Character! I really enjoyed writing Lailah, because she is the embodiment of a walking contradiction, which stems from her undiscovered nature. She is a character that is full of inner conflict, and when she gets thrust into ‘the chaos’ she finds herself at the epicentre of a lot of external conflict too, so all round she was really interesting to explore and to write.
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This is How it Ends
by Jen Nadol
Hardcover
Simon Pulse
Released 10/7/2014
Winner – Sarah Skylark
If you could see the future, would you want to? After the disturbing visions Riley and his friends see turn out to be more than hallucinations, fate takes a dangerous twist in this dark and suspenseful page-turner.
Riley and his friends are gearing up for their senior year by spending one last night hanging out in the woods, drinking a few beers, and playing Truth or Dare. But what starts out as a good time turns sinister when they find a mysterious pair of binoculars. Those who dare to look through them see strange visions, which they brush off as hallucinations. Why else would Riley see himself in bed with his best friend’s girlfriend—a girl he’s had a secret crush on for years?
In the weeks that follow, the visions begin to come true…including a gruesome murder. One of Riley’s closest friends is now the prime suspect. But who is the murderer? Have Riley and his friends really seen the future through those mysterious binoculars? And what if they are powerless to change the course of events?
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about This is How it Ends?
The characters. Both the process of writing them and how they turned out.
Just like the characters in the novel, I had a close-knit group of male and female friends in high school. The ones in the book aren’t modeled on my friends, but the dynamics of the friendships are, in many ways. I thought a lot about how people come together – how we came together – and what makes certain people click. How friends act in a group versus one-on-one, who they trust and why and to what extent.
THIS IS HOW IT ENDS is told through Riley’s eyes, but it felt like an ensemble cast to me; so much that, at one point, I considered writing the book in alternating viewpoints so each character could have a turn on center stage. I scrapped that pretty quickly and, instead, focused on understanding each character all the way around versus just in relation the protagonist. This probably sounds obvious, but it was a new exercise for me because my two prior books were SO centered on the MC.
I used character development worksheets from Ingrid Sundberg’s awesome blog and elsewhere online to refine and deepen the characters during the book’s (MANY) revisions.
It meant more changes to the plot when I understood the players better and knew they’d never do this or say that, but the end result felt much more authentic to me.
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Zom-B Family
by Darren Shan
Hardcover
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Released 10/7/2014
Winner – Sharon Berge
After being betrayed and captured by the most heinous survivors of the human race, B Smith lands back in the clutches of a fiend B had hoped to never see again, someone who is intent on making B suffer in the most tortuous ways. Discovering the fate of loved ones from B’s past adds to the agony and calls into question just how much B is willing to sacrifice in the name of justice.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Zom-B Family?
My favorite thing about Zom-B Family (the ninth book in the series) is that we get to see the despicable Dan-Dan in action! Dan-Dan is a character I introduced a bit earlier in the series, and he’s one of the most shudder-inducing villains I’ve ever conceived. On the plus side, he has a wicked sense of humour and a penchant for dressing up, which renders him quite charming – on the negative side, he’s absolutely ruthless, and loves nothing more than torturing and killing children. In Zom-B Family he cuts loose on one unfortunate victim, and it’s the start of a journey into an absolute nightmare. I like to think that I regularly push the boundaries of where YA fiction can go, and in this book I do a bit more pushing than normal. But for those who are worried that I am leading my readers too far down the path of darkness, fear not – there is light at the end of the tunnel. Or is it just the mouth of an even darker tunnel coming up?!?
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MORE YOUNG ADULT FICTION IN STORES NEXT WEEK WITH AUTHOR INTERVIEWS
BZRK Apocalypse
by Michael Grant
Hardcover
EgmontUSA
Released 10/14/2014
The Matrix meets Inner Space in this third book in the BZRK trilogy from New York Times best-selling author Michael Grant.
The staggering conclusion to the BZRK trilogy, from the author of GONE. The members of BZRK are preparing for their final stand, in the world’s capitals and in the nano. Expect the unexpected in this novel packed with the author’s trademark jaw-dropping action, violence, and pace.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about BZRK Apocalypse?
The whole denouement pivots on an aspect of nanotechnology that I had not thought of until I reached the third book. It was a very cool insight to me, realizing that nanobots could be used to inflict astounding destruction in a whole new way. Obviously I’m trying to avoid spoilers here. The best thing for me in terms of the whole series is that I can say with some confidence that no one has read anything quite like BZRK before, certainly not in Young Adult. BZRK is not another. . . fill in the blanks. BZRK is BZRK. BZRK: Apocalypse is me carrying the series’ premise to its extreme.
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Even in Paradise
by Chelsey Philpot
Hardcover
HarperCollins
Released 10/14/2014
When Julia Buchanan enrolls at St. Anne’s at the beginning of junior year, Charlotte Ryder already knows all about the former senator’s daughter. Most people do… or think they do.
Charlotte certainly never expects she’ll be Julia’s friend. But almost immediately, she is drawn into the larger than-life-new girl’s world—a world of midnight rendezvous, dazzling parties, palatial vacation homes, and fizzy champagne cocktails. And then Charlotte meets, and begins falling for, Julia’s handsome older brother, Sebastian.
But behind her self-assured smiles and toasts to the future, Charlotte soon realizes that Julia is still suffering from a tragedy. A tragedy that the Buchanan family has kept hidden … until now.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Even in Paradise?
What’s my favorite thing about Even in Paradise? That it’s a real book…kidding…but kind of not.
Truthfully, I am so grateful that I had a story to tell and that that story is now a beautifully designed book that readers can read—that readers want to read.
It has been so rewarding and fascinating to learn what individuals take away from Even in Paradise—what motifs and themes one person might latch onto versus another. For example, YA author Leila Sales found the story to be about “tragedy and destructiveness of wealth,” while author Elizabeth LaBan latched on to “that startling concept that one mistake can change the course of your life forever.”
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Oh Yeah, Audrey!
by Tucker Shaw
Hardcover
Amulet Books
Released 10/14/2014
It’s 5:00 a.m. on Fifth Avenue, and 16-year-old Gemma Beasley is standing in front of Tiffany & Co. wearing the perfect black dress with her coffee in hand—just like Holly Golightly. As the cofounder of a successful Tumblr blog—Oh Yeah Audrey!—devoted to all things Audrey Hepburn, Gemma has traveled to New York in order to meet up with her fellow bloggers for the first time. She has meticulously planned out a 24-hour adventure in homage to Breakfast at Tiffany’s; however, her plans are derailed when a glamorous boy sweeps in and offers her the New York experience she’s always dreamed of. Gemma soon learns who her true friends are and that, sometimes, no matter where you go, you just end up finding yourself.Filled with hip and sparkling prose, Oh Yeah, Audrey! is as much a story of friendship as it is a love letter to New York, Audrey Hepburn, and the character she made famous: Holly Golightly.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Oh Yeah, Audrey!?
I had to think about this question for a bit before settling on an answer. At first I thought, well, obviously my favorite thing is Gemma Beasley, my main character and, during the process of writing her story, my alter ego. She’s outgoing, stylish, thoughtful, energetic, kind – all qualities I admire and would like to have more of.
Then I thought well, hmm. Maybe my favorite thing about this story is Audrey Hepburn. Of course, she’s not in the book, not really, but her sense of style, of acting, of living, of being, permeates every corner and idea in the book. What kind of person remains such a huge and lasting presence even so many years after “Breakfast at Tiffanys” and her other films? Who attains and retains her status as a powerful international role model even twenty-one years after her death? Who do millions of people want to grow up to emulate? It has to be Audrey Hepburn.
But the truth is, after thoroughly excavating my brain, I know that my favorite thing about “Oh Yeah, Audrey!” is New York City, where I spent the most important fifteen years of my life and which remains, even though I don’t live there now, my center of gravity. I love it because there are thousands – millions – of Gemma Beasleys (or Tucker Shaws or insert-your-name-heres) in New York on any given day, searching the city and its landmarks, accepting its dares, falling into its traps, discovering its hidden passageways, looking for a better understanding of who they are. They know, like Gemma knew, like so many know: There’s no other city in the world that holds the secret.
Holly Golightly, Audrey Hepburn’s character in “Breakfast at Tiffanys,” delivers a line near the end of the film that, more than any other moment in the movie, sounds as if it’s coming straight from the actress, not the character: “Oh, I love New York.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K1AssnvQFY) It’s an acknowledgement that Holly’s story couldn’t have happened anywhere else. And neither could Gemma’s.
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Snow Like Ashes
by Sara Raasch
Hardcover
Balzer + Bray
Released 10/14/2014
A heartbroken girl. A fierce warrior. A hero in the making.
Sixteen years ago the Kingdom of Winter was conquered and its citizens enslaved, leaving them without magic or a monarch. Now, the Winterians’ only hope for freedom is the eight survivors who managed to escape, and who have been waiting for the opportunity to steal back Winter’s magic and rebuild the kingdom ever since.
Orphaned as an infant during Winter’s defeat, Meira has lived her whole life as a refugee, raised by the Winterians’ general, Sir. Training to be a warrior—and desperately in love with her best friend, and future king, Mather — she would do anything to help her kingdom rise to power again.
So when scouts discover the location of the ancient locket that can restore Winter’s magic, Meira decides to go after it herself. Finally, she’s scaling towers, fighting enemy soldiers, and serving her kingdom just as she’s always dreamed she would. But the mission doesn’t go as planned, and Meira soon finds herself thrust into a world of evil magic and dangerous politics – and ultimately comes to realize that her destiny is not, never has been, her own.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Snow Like Ashes?
Meira, my main character. No matter how much the book has changed over the years, she’s stayed the same — spunky and feisty and stubborn and loyal and everything I want to be. She created me as much as I created her — through discovering her and her world, through having her to rely on during the rough patches of growing up. I’m so excited to introduce her to the readers!
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The Accidental Highwayman
by Ben Tripp
Hardcover
Tor Teen; First Edition edition
Released 10/14/2014
The Accidental Highwayman is the first swashbuckling adventure for young adults by talented author and illustrator, Ben Tripp. This thrilling tale of dark magic and true love is the perfect story for fans of William Goldman’s The Princess Bride.
In eighteenth-century England, young Christopher “Kit” Bristol is the unwitting servant of notorious highwayman Whistling Jack. One dark night, Kit finds his master bleeding from a mortal wound, dons the man’s riding cloak to seek help, and changes the course of his life forever. Mistaken for Whistling Jack and on the run from redcoats, Kit is catapulted into a world of magic and wonders he thought the stuff of fairy tales.
Bound by magical law, Kit takes up his master’s quest to rescue a rebellious fairy princess from an arranged marriage to King George III of England. But his task is not an easy one, for Kit must contend with the feisty Princess Morgana, goblin attacks, and a magical map that portends his destiny: as a hanged man upon the gallows….
Fans of classic fairy-tale fantasies such as Stardust by Neil Gaiman and will find much to love in this irresistible YA debut by Ben Tripp, the son of one of America’s most beloved illustrators, Wallace Tripp (Amelia Bedelia). Following in his father’s footsteps, Ben has woven illustrations throughout the story.
“Delightful and charming. A swashbuckling adventure in the vein of Robert Louis Stevenson.” —#1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about The Accidental Highwayman?
That’s a tough question, because I crammed the book with my favorite things. I love magic, history, true love, animals, and swashbucking in general. How often do you get a chance to throw a baboon into a Baroque setting? Or fly a horse off the roof of Hampton Court Palace? But I must say my favorite thing in The Accidental Highwayman is the language. Old forgotten words, 18th century phrasing, dialects, made-up terms, ridiculous insults. We think in words; the world is made of them, in a sense. So there is no greater delight for me than an opportunity to take our language up in the air and see how beautifully it flies.
I know this is precious book-pitching space, but can I just point out that ‘swashbuckling’ probably comes to us from the 1500s? It combines the onomatopoetic word ‘swash’ (to swish or strike) with ‘buckler’, which is a small shield. The original meaning was to bluster and act warlike, as by thumping your shield. I don’t think it’s actually in the book, come to think of it. But ‘tatterdemalion’ is. You’ll have to read the book to find out what that one means.
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The Cure for Dreaming
by Cat Winters
Hardcover
Amulet Books
Released 10/14/2014
Olivia Mead is a headstrong, independent girl—a suffragist—in an age that prefers its girls to be docile. It’s 1900 in Oregon, and Olivia’s father, concerned that she’s headed for trouble, convinces a stage mesmerist to try to hypnotize the rebellion out of her. But the hypnotist, an intriguing young man named Henri Reverie, gives her a terrible gift instead: she’s able to see people’s true natures, manifesting as visions of darkness and goodness, while also unable to speak her true thoughts out loud. These supernatural challenges only make Olivia more determined to speak her mind, and so she’s drawn into a dangerous relationship with the hypnotist and his mysterious motives, all while secretly fighting for the rights of women. Winters breathes new life into history once again with an atmospheric, vividly real story, including archival photos and art from the period throughout.
Praise for The Cure for Dreaming
“A smattering of period photos adds authenticity to this gripping, atmospheric story of mind control and self-determination.”
—Kirkus Reviews
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about The Cure for Dreaming?
My favorite thing about The Cure for Dreaming was getting a chance to write about the women’s suffrage movement in the United States, as seen through the eyes of a seventeen-year-old girl. Most of my life, I didn’t know all that much about the sacrifices people made in order for my gender to obtain the right to vote. As a child, like most U.S. kids, I learned a little bit about Susan B. Anthony and her fight for women’s suffrage, and I remembered the mom in Mary Poppins marching around with her “Votes for Women” sash. But I didn’t really discover how much physical pain, humiliation, and even jail time suffragists endured until I saw the HBO movie Iron-Jawed Angels. The film inspired me to research the real-life women portrayed in the movie—Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, Ida Wells-Barnett, and many others. As a historical novelist, I felt compelled to tackle the subject of women’s fight for the right to vote, to make even more people aware of this often-overlooked part of our history.
Some scenes in The Cure for Dreaming might make people boiling mad. I tend to take aspects of history that make me furious and turn them into my own special blend of paranormal historical fiction. When I feel passionate about a subject, I know in my gut it’s a story that needs to be told. It’s all right if parts of my novel upset you. They upset me, too, but I hope readers will read through to the end and see how my characters rise up and become stronger versions of themselves. The topic of women’s rights is still fiercely debated to this day, and I hope The Cure for Dreaming contributes to the conversation.
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MORE YOUNG ADULT NOVELS NEW IN STORES NEXT WEEK
Clariel
by Garth Nix
Unknown Binding
HarperCollins
Released 10/14/2014
Sixteen-year-old Clariel is not adjusting well to her new life in the city of Belisaere, the capital of the Old Kingdom. She misses roaming freely within the forests of Estwael, and she feels trapped within the stone city walls. And in Belisaere she is forced to follow the plans, plots and demands of everyone, from her parents to her maid, to the sinister Guildmaster Kilip. Clariel can see her freedom slipping away. It seems too that the city itself is descending into chaos, as the ancient rules binding Abhorsen, King and Clayr appear to be disintegrating.
With the discovery of a dangerous Free Magic creature loose in the city, Clariel is given the chance both to prove her worth and make her escape. But events spin rapidly out of control. Clariel finds herself more trapped than ever, until help comes from an unlikely source. But the help comes at a terrible cost. Clariel must question the motivations and secret hearts of everyone around her – and it is herself she must question most of all.
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Glory O’Brien’s History of the Future
by A.S. King
Hardcover
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Released 10/14/2014
In this masterpiece about freedom, feminism, and destiny, Printz Honor author A.S. King tells the epic story of a girl coping with devastating loss at long last–a girl who has no idea that the future needs her, and that the present needs her even more.
Graduating from high school is a time of limitless possibilities–but not for Glory, who has no plan for what’s next. Her mother committed suicide when Glory was only four years old, and she’s never stopped wondering if she will eventually go the same way…until a transformative night when she begins to experience an astonishing new power to see a person’s infinite past and future. From ancient ancestors to many generations forward, Glory is bombarded with visions–and what she sees ahead of her is terrifying: A tyrannical new leader raises an army. Women’s rights disappear. A violent second civil war breaks out. And young girls vanish daily, sold off or interned in camps. Glory makes it her mission to record everything she sees, hoping her notes will somehow make a difference. She may not see a future for herself, but she’ll do anything to make sure this one doesn’t come to pass.
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Playing for the Commandant
by Suzy Zail
Hardcover
Candlewick
Released 10/14/2014
A young Jewish pianist at Auschwitz, desperate to save her family, is chosen to play at the camp commandant’s house. How could she know she would fall in love with the wrong boy?
These are Hanna’s father’s parting words to her and her sister when their family is separated at the gates of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Her father’s words — and a black C-sharp piano key hidden away in the folds of her dress — are all that she has left to remind her of life before. Before, Hanna was going to be a famous concert pianist. She was going to wear her yellow dress to a dance. And she was going to dance with a boy. But then the Nazis came. Now it is up to Hanna to do all she can to keep her mother and sister alive, even if that means playing piano for the commandant and his guests. Staying alive isn’t supposed to include falling in love with the commandant’s son. But Karl Jager is beautiful, and his aloofness belies a secret. And war makes you do dangerous things.
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Redeemed
by P. C. Cast and Kristin Cast
Hardcover
St. Martin’s Griffin
Released 10/14/2014
In the final electrifying novel in the HoN series, Neferet has finally made herself known to mortals. A Dark Goddess is loose on Tulsa and the world. No single vampyre is strong enough to vanquish her – unless that creature has the power to summon the elements as well as the ability to wield Old Magick. Only Zoey Redbird is heir to such power…but because of the consequences of using Old Magick, she is unable to help. Find out who will win and who will lose in this epic battle of Light versus Darkness.
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Stitching Snow
by R. C. Lewis
Hardcover
Disney-Hyperion
Released 10/14/2014
Princess Snow is missing.
Her home planet is filled with violence and corruption at the hands of King Matthias and his wife as they attempt to punish her captors. The king will stop at nothing to get his beloved daughter back-but that’s assuming she wants to return at all.
Essie has grown used to being cold. Temperatures on the planet Thanda are always sub-zero, and she fills her days with coding and repairs for the seven loyal drones that run the local mines.
When a mysterious young man named Dane crash-lands near her home, Essie agrees to help the pilot repair his ship. But soon she realizes that Dane’s arrival was far from accidental, and she’s pulled into the heart of a war she’s risked everything to avoid.
In her enthralling debut, R.C. Lewis weaves the tale of a princess on the run from painful secrets . . . and a poisonous queen. With the galaxy’s future-and her own-in jeopardy, Essie must choose who to trust in a fiery fight for survival.
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Sublime
by Christina Lauren
Hardcover
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Released 10/14/2014
True love may mean certain death in a ghostly affair of risk and passion from New York Times bestselling duo Christina Lauren, authors of Beautiful Bastard. Tahereh Mafi, New York Times bestselling author of Shatter Me calls Sublime “a beautiful, haunting read”.
When Lucy walks out of a frozen forest, wearing only a silk dress and sandals, she isn’t sure how she got there. But when she sees Colin, she knows for sure that she’s here for him.
Colin has never been captivated by a girl the way he is by Lucy. With each passing day their lives intertwine, and even as Lucy begins to remember more of her life—and her death—neither of them is willing to give up what they have, no matter how impossible it is. And when Colin finds a way to physically be with Lucy, taking himself to the brink of death where his reality and Lucy’s overlap, the joy of being together for those brief stolen moments drowns out everything in the outside world. But some lines weren’t meant to be crossed…
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The Doubt Factory
by Paolo Bacigalupi
Hardcover
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Released 10/14/2014
In this page-turning contemporary thriller, National Book Award Finalist and New York Times bestselling author Paolo Bacigalupi explores the timely issue of how public information is distorted for monetary gain, and how those who exploit it must be stopped.
Everything Alix knows about her life is a lie. At least that’s what a mysterious young man who’s stalking her keeps saying. But then she begins investigating the disturbing claims he makes against her father. Could her dad really be at the helm of a firm that distorts the truth and covers up wrongdoing by hugely profitable corporations that have allowed innocent victims to die? Is it possible that her father is the bad guy, and that the undeniably alluring criminal who calls himself Moses–and his radical band of teen activists–is right? Alix has to make a choice, and time is running out, but can she truly risk everything and blow the whistle on the man who loves her and raised her?
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The Terminals
by Royce Scott Buckingham
Hardcover
Thomas Dunne Books
Released 10/14/2014
The riveting story of a covert team of young, terminally ill teens who spend their last year alive running dangerous missions as super-spies for an organization that may not be all it seems.
When 19 year-old Cam Cody is diagnosed with a terminal illness, he expects to spend the rest of his shortened life in an adjustable bed. Then one night, a mysterious man offers Cam one chance to join a covert unit of young “terminals.” They are like him, only they spend the last year of their lives executing exciting and dangerous missions to make the world a better place.
With nothing to lose, Cam is in.
A helicopter flies Cam to a secret tropical location, where he’s tossed out with a parachute and an instruction manual. After a rough landing, he meets his nine teammates. The other terminals don’t seem sick; Zara is beautiful, Donnie is an amazing athlete, and Calliope sings like a bird. He soon learns that they’re enhanced with an experimental super steroid TS-8, which suppresses their illnesses’ symptoms and heightens their physical and mental abilities. It’s also fatal if taken for more than a year.
Cam joins this extreme spy team, and they begin pulling dangerous operations in multiple countries. As his teammates fall around him, he starts to receive cryptic messages from a haggard survivor of last year’s class hiding in the forest. She reveals that the program isn’t what it seems, leading Cam to question whether any of them are really sick at all.
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UnDivided
by Neal Shusterman
Hardcover
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Released 10/14/2014
Teens control the fate of America in the fourth and final book in the New York Times bestselling Unwind dystology by Neal Shusterman.
Proactive Citizenry, the company that created Cam from the parts of unwound teens, has a plan: to mass produce rewound teens like Cam for military purposes. And below the surface of that horror lies another shocking level of intrigue: Proactive Citizenry has been suppressing technology that could make unwinding completely unnecessary. As Conner, Risa, and Lev uncover these startling secrets, enraged teens begin to march on Washington to demand justice and a better future.
But more trouble is brewing. Starkey’s group of storked teens is growing more powerful and militant with each new recruit. And if they have their way, they’ll burn the harvest camps to the ground and put every adult in them before a firing squad—which could destroy any chance America has for a peaceful future.
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