There’s a wealth of new YA novels releasing this week, from fairy-tale to sci-fi to contemporary and everything in between! We have four amazing books to give away: MARKED, THE RULE OF MIRRORS, ASCENDING THE BONEYARD, and SOME OF THE PARTS. Don’t forget to enter the giveaway below!
Happy reading,
Lindsey, Martina, Jocelyn, Erin, Susan, Sam, Shelly, Sarah, Sandra, Kristin, and Anisaa
YA BOOK GIVEAWAYS THIS WEEK
Marked
by Laura Williams McCaffrey
Signed Hardcover Giveaway (3 Copies)
U.S. Only
Clarion Books
Released 2/16/2016
Sixteen-year-old Lyla lives in a bleak, controlling society where only the brightest and most favored students succeed. When she is caught buying cheats in an underground shadow market, she is tattooed—marked—as a criminal. Then she is offered redemption and she jumps at the chance . . . but it comes at a cost. Doing what is right means betraying the boy she has come to love, and, perhaps, losing even more than she thought possible. Graphic novel–style vignettes revealing the history of this world provide Lyla with guidance and clues to a possible way out of the double bind she finds herself in.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Marked?
I first have to say that Sally Cantirino did an incredible job with the comix portion of this book. She and the book designer Kelly Martin, along with my editor Jennifer Greene, took my scripts, and they worked hard on both the images and the design so the visual storyline could complement the written portions of the novel. I can’t possibly thank them enough. I especially love the story’s end. I took a risk in ending the story the way I did, and I think it turned out beautifully.
I have a difficult time judging my work. I can never read my own stories the way a fresh reader can. I’ll take a stab at answering the question, though. I love the way the story looks in my head, which is all in reds and blacks, blues, sepias, and browns. I love the characters, and I love that they fail each other, the way people often do. I love that they still try to do the right thing, even when that right thing doesn’t seem clear or easy.
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The Rule of Mirrors
by Caragh M. O’Brien
Signed Hardcover Giveaway
Roaring Brook Press
Released 2/16/2016
The entire country was watching when Rosie Sinclair was expelled from Forge, the prestigious arts school that doubles as a reality TV show. But few know how Dean Berg was mining students’ dreams in laboratories deep below the school. And no one, least of all the Dean himself, knows that when Rosie’s dreams were seeded into the mind of another patient, Rosie’s consciousness woke up in that body–a girl far from Forge, a girl with a completely different life from Rosie, a girl who is pregnant.
Told from alternating points of view between Rosie as she makes sense of her new identity and the shattered subconscious that still exists in her old body, this sequel to The Vault of Dreamers will keep readers on the edge of their seats and leave them hungry for more.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about The Rule of Mirrors?
I am so excited about the way this novel finally came together. It follows the perspectives of two girls who once shared the same mind in THE VAULT OF DREAMERS, but now they’ve been separated and they each grow in different ways. My favorite thing about the novel has to be the play between the two perspectives. It made me wonder about what might happen if I ever met a second version of myself.
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Some of the Parts
by Hannah Barnaby
Hardcover Giveaway
U.S. Only
Knopf Books for Young Readers
Released 2/16/2016
Sometimes bad things happen, and we are not the same when they are over.
For months, Tallie McGovern has been coping with the death of her older brother the only way she knows how: by smiling bravely and pretending that she’s okay. She’s managed to fool her friends, her parents, and her teachers so far, yet she can’t even say his name out loud: “N—” is as far as she can go. But when Tallie comes across a letter in the mail, it only takes two words to crack the careful façade she’s built around herself:
ORGAN DONOR.
Two words that had apparently been checked off on her brother’s driver’s license; two words that her parents knew about—and never confided to her. All at once, everything Tallie thought she understood about her brother’s death feels like a lie. And although a part of her knows he’s gone forever, another part of her wonders if finding the letter might be a sign. That if she can just track down the people on the other end of those two words, it might somehow bring him back.
Hannah Barnaby’s deeply moving novel asks questions there are no easy answers to as it follows a family struggling to pick up the pieces, and a girl determined to find the brother she wasn’t ready to let go of.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Some of the Parts?
As a writer, my favorite thing about SOME OF THE PARTS is that it’s *finished.* There is nothing like the feeling of setting a story free into the world after working on it for so long!
As a reader, I love the back-and-forth between the sad stuff and the humor. When we experience something traumatic, as Tallie (the MC) has, it can feel like we’re suspended in sadness surrounded by it. Like being trapped inside a swimming pool filled with Jell-O. But the rest of life finds its way in, eventually, and it was important to me that Tallie still be able to see the oddness and absurdity around her. Surrounded by people trying to fix her–plus a best friend who’s into taxidermy and a boy obsessed with Houdini–Tallie needs her sense of humor!
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Ascending the Boneyard
by C.G. Watson
Hardcover Giveaway
U.S. Only
Simon Pulse
Released 2/16/2016
Donnie Darko meets The Matrix in this mind-bending and captivating mystery about one teen’s surreal experiences after surviving a major trauma.
Everything’s a battle.
Sometimes life gets too real, and Caleb Tosh has taken one hit too many. First, there was the accident that changed everything for Tosh’s younger brother. Now his mom has left. All the pain, the grief and loss, have finally pushed Tosh over the edge.
If only he could have a do-over. Wipe his reality. Start fresh. Maybe he could fix all of his mistakes and everything would be different. Tosh immerses himself in the complex missions from the game he obsessively plays, The Boneyard. The game bleeds into the dark nature of his everyday life, folding reality into surreality until it’s impossible to separate one from the other. Tosh is desperate to Ascend, to reach the next level, to become Worthy.
Readers are brought on a one-of-a-kind, absorbing journey where no one can say what is real and what isn’t—right up until the shocking, yet deeply powerful conclusion.
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YA BOOK GIVEAWAYS LAST WEEK: WINNERS
Blackhearts by Nicole Castroman – Holly B.
MORE YOUNG ADULT FICTION IN STORES NEXT WEEK WITH AUTHOR INTERVIEWS
Take the Fall
by Emily Hainsworth
Hardcover
Balzer + Bray
Released 2/16/2016
WHO KILLED GRETCHEN MEYER?
Fear grips the residents of Hidden Falls the night Sonia Feldman and her best friend, Gretchen Meyer, are attacked in the woods. Sonia was lucky to escape with her life, but Gretchen’s body is discovered at the bottom of a waterfall. Beautiful, popular, and seemingly untouchable, Gretchen can’t be gone. Even as Sonia struggles with guilt and confusion over having survived, the whole town is looking to her for information…could she have seen something that will lead the police to the killer?
At the top of the list of suspects is Gretchen’s ex-boyfriend—and Sonia’s longtime enemy—Marcus Perez. So when Marcus comes to Sonia for help clearing his name, she agrees, hoping to find evidence the police need to prove he’s the killer. But as Gretchen’s many secrets emerge and the suspects add up, Sonia feels less sure of Marcus’s involvement, and more afraid for herself. Could Marcus, the artist, the screwup, the boy she might be falling for have attacked her? Killed her best friend? And if it wasn’t him in the woods that night…who could it have been?
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Take the Fall?
My favorite thing about TAKE THE FALL is the mystery! I’ve always enjoyed a good whodunit and I love trying to guess the killer before the final reveal. It’s fun when I get it right, obviously, but I kind of love being wrong too! It was a great challenge for me, trying to lay all the pieces of the mystery out for my readers, then trying to put it all together again in a satisfying reveal. I hope you enjoy trying to guess who killed Gretchen too.
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MORE YOUNG ADULT NOVELS NEW IN STORES NEXT WEEK
Bluescreen
by Dan Wells
Paperback
Balzer + Bray
Released 2/16/2016
Los Angeles in 2050 is a city of open doors, as long as you have the right connections. That connection is a djinni—a smart device implanted right in a person’s head. In a world where virtually everyone is online twenty-four hours a day, this connection is like oxygen—and a world like that presents plenty of opportunities for someone who knows how to manipulate it.
Marisa Carneseca is one of those people. She might spend her days in Mirador, the small, vibrant LA neighborhood where her family owns a restaurant, but she lives on the net—going to school, playing games, hanging out, or doing things of more questionable legality with her friends Sahara and Anja. And it’s Anja who first gets her hands on Bluescreen—a virtual drug that plugs right into a person’s djinni and delivers a massive, non-chemical, completely safe high. But in this city, when something sounds too good to be true, it usually is, and Mari and her friends soon find themselves in the middle of a conspiracy that is much bigger than they ever suspected.
Dan Wells, author of the New York Times bestselling Partials Sequence, returns with a stunning new vision of the near future—a breathless cyber-thriller where privacy is the world’s most rare resource and nothing, not even the thoughts in our heads, is safe.
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Calamity
by Brandon Sanderson
Hardcover
Delacorte Press
Released 2/16/2016
When Calamity lit up the sky, the Epics were born. David’s fate has been tied to their villainy ever since that historic night. Steelheart killed his father. Firefight stole his heart. And now Regalia has turned his closest ally into a dangerous enemy.
David knew Prof’s secret, and kept it even when Prof struggled to control the effects of his Epic powers. But facing Obliteration in Babilar was too much. Once the Reckoners’ leader, Prof has now embraced his Epic destiny. He’s disappeared into those murky shadows of menace Epics are infamous for the world over, and everyone knows there’s no turning back…
But everyone is wrong. Redemption is possible for Epics—Megan proved it. They’re not lost. Not completely. And David is just about crazy enough to face down the most powerful High Epic of all to get his friend back. Or die trying.
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Rebel, Bully, Geek, Pariah
by Erin Jade Lange
Hardcover
Bloomsbury USA Childrens
Released 2/16/2016
“The Breakfast Club” gets a modern, high-stakes reboot in this story of four very different teens and a night that changes them forever.
The Rebel: Once popular, Andi is now a dreadlocked, tattooed wild child.
The Bully: York torments everyone who crosses his path, especially his younger brother.
The Geek: Tired of being bullied, Boston is obsessed with getting into an Ivy League college.
The Pariah: Choosing to be invisible has always worked for Sam . . . until tonight.
When Andi, York, Boston, and Sam find themselves hiding in the woods after a party gets busted by the cops, they hop into the nearest car they see and take off—the first decision of many in a night that will change their lives forever. By the light of day, these four would never be caught dead together, but when their getaway takes a dangerously unpredictable turn, sticking together could be the only way to survive.
With cinematic storytelling and compelling emotional depth, critically acclaimed author Erin Jade Lange takes readers on literary thrill ride.
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Riders
by Veronica Rossi
Hardcover
Tor Teen
Released 2/16/2016
For eighteen-year-old Gideon Blake, nothing but death can keep him from achieving his goal of becoming a U.S. Army Ranger. As it turns out, it does.
Recovering from the accident that most definitely killed him, Gideon finds himself with strange new powers and a bizarre cuff he can’t remove. His death has brought to life his real destiny. He has become War, one of the legendary four horsemen of the apocalypse.
Over the coming weeks, he and the other horsemen–Conquest, Famine, and Death–are brought together by a beautiful but frustratingly secretive girl to help save humanity from an ancient evil on the emergence.
They fail.
Now–bound, bloodied, and drugged–Gideon is interrogated by the authorities about his role in a battle that has become an international incident. If he stands any chance of saving his friends and the girl he’s fallen for–not to mention all of humankind–he needs to convince the skeptical government officials the world is in imminent danger.
But will anyone believe him?
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The Girl from Everywhere
by Heidi Heilig
Hardcover
Greenwillow Books
Released 2/16/2016
Heidi Heilig’s debut teen fantasy sweeps from modern-day New York City to nineteenth-century Hawaii to places of myth and legend. Sixteen-year-old Nix has sailed across the globe and through centuries aboard her time-traveling father’s ship. But when he gambles with her very existence, it all may be about to end. The Girl from Everywhere, the first of two books, will dazzle readers of Sabaa Tahir, Rae Carson, and Rachel Hartman.
Nix’s life began in Honolulu in 1868. Since then she has traveled to mythic Scandinavia, a land from the tales of One Thousand and One Nights, modern-day New York City, and many more places both real and imagined. As long as he has a map, Nix’s father can sail his ship, The Temptation, to any place, any time. But now he’s uncovered the one map he’s always sought—1868 Honolulu, before Nix’s mother died in childbirth. Nix’s life—her entire existence—is at stake. No one knows what will happen if her father changes the past. It could erase Nix’s future, her dreams, her adventures . . . her connection with the charming Persian thief, Kash, who’s been part of their crew for two years. If Nix helps her father reunite with the love of his life, it will cost her her own.
In The Girl from Everywhere, Heidi Heilig blends fantasy, history, and a modern sensibility with witty, fast-paced dialogue, breathless adventure, and enchanting romance.
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The Shadow Queen
by C.J. Redwine
Hardcover
Balzer + Bray
Released 2/16/2016
Lorelai Diederich, crown princess and fugitive at large, has one mission: kill the wicked queen who took both the Ravenspire throne and the life of her father. To do that, Lorelai needs to use the one weapon she and Queen Irina have in common—magic. She’ll have to be stronger, faster, and more powerful than Irina, the most dangerous sorceress Ravenspire has ever seen.
In the neighboring kingdom of Eldr, when Prince Kol’s father and older brother are killed by an invading army of magic-wielding ogres, the second-born prince is suddenly given the responsibility of saving his kingdom. To do that, Kol needs magic—and the only way to get it is to make a deal with the queen of Ravenspire, promise to become her personal huntsman…and bring her Lorelai’s heart.
But Lorelai is nothing like Kol expected—beautiful, fierce, and unstoppable—and despite dark magic, Lorelai is drawn in by the passionate and troubled king. Fighting to stay one step ahead of the dragon huntsman—who she likes far more than she should—Lorelai does everything in her power to ruin the wicked queen. But Irina isn’t going down without a fight, and her final move may cost the princess the one thing she still has left to lose.
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The Word for Yes
by Claire Needell
Hardcover
HarperTeen
Released 2/16/2016
After their parents’ divorce, Jan, Erika, and Melanie have to get used to the new world order: a father who’s moved to another continent and a mother who throws herself into moving on. Jan, off at her first semester of college, has plenty to worry about, including an outspoken roommate who’s kind of “out there” and an increasingly depressed and troubled long-distance boyfriend. Her younger sisters, left at home in New York City, and dealing with all the pressures of life in high school, aren’t exactly close. Erika is serious and feels awkward and uncomfortable in crowds, though her beauty tends to attract attention. Melanie is socially savvy and just wants to go out—to concerts, to parties, wherever—with her friends. The gap between all three girls widens as each day passes.
Then, at a party full of blurred lines and blurred memories, everything changes. Starting that night, where there should be words, there is only angry, scared silence.
And in the aftermath, Jan, Erika, and Melanie will have to work hard to reconnect and help one another heal.
At once touching and raw, Claire Needell’s first novel is an honest look at the love and conflicts among sisters and friends, and how these relationships can hold us together—and tear us apart.
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