Happy Monday! This week, we have six giveaways to feature and many more books to spotlight! Don’t forget to enter to check out all the 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
Confessions of a High School Disaster
by Emma Chastain
Hardcover Giveaway
U.S. Only
Simon Pulse
Released 3/7/2017
In the tradition of Bridget Jones’s Diary, a lovably flawed high school student chronicles her life as she navigates the highs and lows of family, friendship, school, and love in a diary that sparkles with humor and warmth.
I’m Chloe Winter, and my life is kiiiiind of a disaster.
On the plus side, I got the lead in the musical!
On the down side…
1. I’m a kissing virgin (so so so embarrassing).
2. My best friend, Hannah, is driving me insane.
3. I think I’m in love with Mac Brody, the most popular senior guy, whose girlfriend is so beautiful she doesn’t even need eyeliner.
4. My dad won’t stop asking me if I’m okay.
5. Oh, and my mom moved to Mexico to work on her novel. But it’s fine—she’ll be back soon. She said so.
Mom tells me everything is copy. So I’m writing down all the horrible things that happen to me in this diary.
This is the worst year of my life so far, unless maybe it’s the best.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Confessions of a High School Disaster?
The diary format. It creates variety and a brisk pace, perfect for anyone (like me!) whose attention span has been decimated by Twitter.
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Eat the Sky, Drink the Ocean
by Kirsty Murray, Payal Dhar, and Anita Roy
Hardcover Giveaway
U.S. Only
Margaret K. McElderry Books
Released 3/7/2017
Twenty contributors from India and Australia—including Printz Award–winning author Margo Lanagan and New York Times bestsellers Justine Larbalestier and Samhita Arnir—team up to create a groundbreaking collection of feminist stories about the connections we all share.
In this book, Little Red Riding Hood wears a space-suit, girls and boys turn the tables on catcallers, and Top Chef involves time-travelling to secure fresh ingredients.
These are just a few of the stories told in Eat the Sky, Drink the Ocean, a collection of sci-fi and fantasy tales that reimagine what girls—and boys—can be and who they can see themselves as.
Born of a collaboration between award-winning Indian and Australian authors, Eat the Sky, Drink the Ocean is about connections: between men and women, boys and girls, between the past, the present, and the future. Through short stories, graphic novellas, and a play, the reader will discover new worlds where the strengths of women and men are celebrated and honored, and where magical realism is blended with self-confidence.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Eat the Sky, Drink the Ocean?
It’s impossible to name just one favourite thing about ‘Eat the Sky, Drink the Ocean’. I love the exuberance, passion and commitment of all the contributors made the pages of the book ripple with energy. Working on the anthology was a deeply collaborative adventure; a cross-cultural mind-bending party in cyberspace with twenty writers and illustrators all connecting through their deep commitment to exploring ideas about gender. I especially loved the process of working via Skype with my co-editors, Anita Roy and Payal Dhar, matchmaking writers and illustrators across thousands of kilometres of sea and land. Half the contributors were from Australia and half of them from India, though several writers and one of the illustrators were living in the USA when they wrote their contributions. Each work in the anthology is the result of intense cross-cultural collaboration between the writers, artists and editors. I love its global flavour.
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Secrets of a Reluctant Princess
by Casey Griffin
Paperback Giveaway
International
Entangled: Teen
Released 3/7/2017
At Beverly Hills High, you have to be ruthless to survive…
Adrianna Bottom always wanted to be liked. But this wasn’t exactly what she had in mind. Now, she’s in the spotlight…and out of her geeky comfort zone. She’ll do whatever it takes to turn the rumor mill in her favor—even if it means keeping secrets. So far, it’s working.
Wear the right clothes. Say the right things. Be seen with the right people.
Kevin, the adorable sketch artist who shares her love of all things nerd, isn’t exactly the right people. But that doesn’t stop Adrianna from crushing on him. The only way she can spend time with him is in disguise, as Princess Andy, the masked girl he’s been LARPing with. If he found out who she really was, though, he’d hate her.
The rules have been set. The teams have their players. Game on.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Secrets of a Reluctant Princess?
I loved torturing my main character. Toilet money? A family bathroom business? Being on a reality TV show that documents every embarrassing moment of her life? And a director determined to humiliate her? I had so much fun flushing Adrianna’s life down the toilet and then figuring out how she’d crawl her way back out again to her rightful seat on the throne as the Porcelain Princess.
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The Bone Witch
by Rin Chupeco
U.S. Only
Sourcebooks Fire
Released 3/7/2017
When Tea accidentally resurrects her brother from the dead, she learns she is different from the other witches in her family. Her gift for necromancy means that she’s a bone witch, a title that makes her feared and ostracized by her community. But Tea finds solace and guidance with an older, wiser bone witch, who takes Tea and her brother to another land for training.
In her new home, Tea puts all her energy into becoming an asha — one who can wield elemental magic. But dark forces are approaching quickly, and in the face of danger, Tea will have to overcome her obstacles…and make a powerful choice.
Memoirs of a Geisha meets The Name of the Wind in this brilliant new fantasy series by Rin Chupeco!
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about The Bone Witch?
It is no stranger, at least among my friends, that I am a huge fan of kimono. This is surprising, considering that up until the age of thirteen, I had never willingly put on a dress or skirt, and was more tomboyish than not. My sense of fashion is very moderate, but I can have odd quirks – I don’t usually wear makeup, but I do like me some mascara, even though that perfect winged tip continues to elude me. Nine out of ten days I’d dress like a hobo that’s seen too much, but then wear an elaborate dress I’d need a map to find my way out of on the tenth. Being both has never felt like a contradiction, and it shouldn’t. I think that was what I mainly wanted to show in The Bone Witch – that being feminine and liking pretty things doesn’t exempt you from doing the things expected of a kickass heroine in YA novels. I didn’t want girls to be considered brave and independent to the detriment of their femininity, and it’s always been one of the reasons why I’m not a fan of labelling heroines ‘strong’ characters. I would argue that someone who’s had to fight for the right to be treated as an equal in society (as one character in The Bone Witch does, with encouragement from the protagonist) is just as strong – probably stronger. There’s a lot of ways that strength can be defined, and I want to feature something beyond the “good enough with weapons to beat people up” variety.
There’s also a dual narrative prevalent in The Bone Witch – there’s the present storyline, where a bard recounts his experiences meeting a powerful but exiled bone witch, and then there’s also the past storyline, where the bone witch gives an account of her time growing up in a powerful society of fellow witches, and how this brought about her fall from grace. I’ve always been one to experiment when it comes to writing, and I think my previous book, The Girl from the Well, showcases a lot of that. And one of the recurring themes in The Bone Witch is about our perception of who we used to be as compared to who we are right now. Sometimes who we were in the past is an entirely different person than who we are today, but that doesn’t mean the past you was any better than the present you, or vice versa. It just means you’ve changed, because past you didn’t have to make the decisions that present you did. And I wanted to portray a heroine as someone who was very (but not completely) different from who she was in the past, but also someone who, for good or for bad, is nonetheless owning up to those choices she made that makes her the bone witch she is today.
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The Song Rising
by Samantha Shannon
Hardcover Giveaway
U.S. Only
Bloomsbury USA Childrens
Released 3/7/2017
The hotly anticipated third book in the bestselling Bone Season series – a ground-breaking, dystopian fantasy of extraordinary imagination.
Following a bloody battle against foes on every side, Paige Mahoney has risen to the dangerous position of Underqueen, ruling over London’s criminal population.
But, having turned her back on Jaxon Hall and with vengeful enemies still at large, the task of stabilising the fractured underworld has never seemed so challenging.
Little does Paige know that her reign may be cut short by the introduction of Senshield, a deadly technology that spells doom for the clairvoyant community and the world as they know it…
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about The Song Rising?
Probably the atmosphere, which was inspired by the smoke and upheaval of the Industrial Revolution. THE SONG RISING is also set in the depths of a brutal winter, so the characters are fighting the elements as well as their enemies. It was great fun to write.
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Ultimatum
by K.M. Walton
Hardcover Giveaway
U.S. Only
Sourcebooks Fire
Released 3/7/2017
A gripping, emotional story of two brothers who must decide what’s more important: family or their differences.
Oscar is misunderstood. Ever since his mother died, he’s been disrespected and bullied by his family, and he seeks refuge in his art. Vance is a popular athlete and wishes his brother would just loosen up and be cool. It was hard enough to deal with their mother’s death without Oscar getting all emotional. Vance just wants to throw himself into partying, to live.
But when their father’s alcoholism sends him into liver failure, the two boys must come face-to-face with their demons-and each other-if they are going to survive an uncertain future.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Ultimatum?
I’d have to say my favorite thing is how I played with the timeline of the story. Oscar’s chapters are told in first person, present tense, and they are packed with immediate and urgent tension. Older brother Vance’s chapters start out three years prior, in first person, past tense, so the reader can see how the family fell apart. Vance’s chapters move forward in time, ultimately coming to present tense, and the brothers’ timelines converge. Showing earlier scenes from the other brother’s POV was thrilling as a storyteller – I did a similar thing with my debut novel, CRACKED, which alternated between two sixteen-year-old boys’ POVs (one the bully, one the victim), and I loved it back then, too!
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YA BOOK GIVEAWAYS LAST WEEK: WINNERS
Avenged by Lynn Carthage: Kathryn L.
The Beast Is an Animal by Peternelle van Arsdale: Nicole O.
MORE YOUNG ADULT FICTION IN STORES NEXT WEEK WITH AUTHOR INTERVIEWS
You’re Welcome, Universe
by Whitney Gardner
Hardcover
Knopf Books for Young Readers
Released 3/7/2017
A vibrant, edgy, fresh new YA voice for fans of More Happy Than Not and Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, packed with interior graffiti.
When Julia finds a slur about her best friend scrawled across the back of the Kingston School for the Deaf, she covers it up with a beautiful (albeit illegal) graffiti mural.
Her supposed best friend snitches, the principal expels her, and her two mothers set Julia up with a one-way ticket to a “mainstream” school in the suburbs, where she’s treated like an outcast as the only deaf student. The last thing she has left is her art, and not even Banksy himself could convince her to give that up.
Out in the ’burbs, Julia paints anywhere she can, eager to claim some turf of her own. But Julia soon learns that she might not be the only vandal in town. Someone is adding to her tags, making them better, showing off—and showing Julia up in the process. She expected her art might get painted over by cops. But she never imagined getting dragged into a full-blown graffiti war.
Told with wit and grit by debut author Whitney Gardner, who also provides gorgeous interior illustrations of Julia’s graffiti tags, You’re Welcome, Universe introduces audiences to a one-of-a-kind protagonist who is unabashedly herself no matter what life throws in her way.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about You’re Welcome, Universe?
I think the illustrations make a book about a girl who would rather communicate with pictures than with words really special.
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MORE YOUNG ADULT NOVELS NEW IN STORES NEXT WEEK
Alone
by Scott Sigler
Hardcover
Del Rey
Released 3/7/2017
In the final installment of an exhilarating sci-fi adventure trilogy in the vein of The Hunger Games, Divergent, and Red Rising, Scott Sigler’s unforgettable heroine, Em Savage, must come to grips once and for all with the perilous mysteries of her own existence.
“We thought this place was our destiny—not our doom.”
Pawns in a millennia-old struggle, the young people known only as the Birthday Children were genetically engineered to survive on the planet Omeyocan—but they were never meant to live there. They were made to be “overwritten,” their minds wiped and replaced by the consciousness of the monsters who created them.
Em changed all of that.
She unified her people and led a revolt against their creators. Em and her friends escaped an ancient ghost ship and fled to Omeyocan. They thought they would find an uninhabited paradise. Instead, they found the ruins of a massive city long since swallowed by the jungle. And they weren’t alone. The Birthday Children fought for survival against the elements, jungle wildlife, the “Grownups” who created them . . . and, as evil corrupted their numbers, even against themselves.
With these opponents finally defeated, Em and her people realized that more threats were coming, traveling from across the universe to lay claim to their planet. The Birthday Children have prepared as best they can against this alien armada. Now, as the first ships reach orbit around Omeyocan, the final battle for the planet begins.
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Goodbye Days
by Jeff Zentner
Hardcover
Crown Books for Young Readers
Released 3/7/2017
Can a text message destroy your life?
Carver Briggs never thought a simple text would cause a fatal crash, killing his three best friends, Mars, Eli, and Blake. Now Carver can’t stop blaming himself for the accident and even worse, there could be a criminal investigation into the deaths.
Then Blake’s grandmother asks Carver to remember her grandson with a ‘goodbye day’ together. Carver has his misgivings, but he starts to help the families of his lost friends grieve with their own memorial days, along with Eli’s bereaved girlfriend Jesmyn. But not everyone is willing to forgive. Carver’s own despair and guilt threatens to pull him under into panic and anxiety as he faces punishment for his terrible mistake. Can the goodbye days really help?
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Proof of Lies
by Diana Rodriguez Wallach
Paperback
Entangled: Teen
Released 3/7/2017
Some secrets are best kept hidden…
Anastasia Phoenix has always been the odd girl out, whether moving from city to international city with her scientist parents or being the black belt who speaks four languages.
And most definitely as the orphan whose sister is missing, presumed dead.
She’s the only one who believes Keira is still alive, and when new evidence surfaces, Anastasia sets out to follow the trail—and lands in the middle of a massive conspiracy. Now she isn’t sure who she can trust. At her side is Marcus, the bad boy with a sexy accent who’s as secretive as she is. He may have followed her to Rome to help, but something about him seems too good to be true.
Nothing is as it appears, and when everything she’s ever known is revealed to be a lie, Anastasia has to believe in one impossibility.
She will find her sister.
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The Great Pursuit
by Wendy Higgins
Hardcover
HarperTeen
Released 3/7/2017
In The Great Pursuit, the dramatic sequel to the New York Times bestselling The Great Hunt, Wendy Higgins delivers another thrilling fantasy filled with dangerous enemies, political intrigue, searing romance, and a princess who is willing to do everything to protect her kingdom.
One hunt has ended, but the pursuit for love and justice continues.
The kingdom of Lochlanach has traded the great beast that once terrorized the realm of Eurona for something far more dangerous: the ire of powerful Lashed woman Rosaria Rocato. Rosaria demands that Eurona overturn the laws prohibiting magic, or an innocent will be killed each day.
Despite the king’s resistance, Princess Aerity believes they must make peace with the Lashed, and though she’s accepted a betrothal to the man who took down the beast, she cannot help thinking about Paxton, the Lashed man who stole her heart and disappeared.
Aerity soon discovers that Paxton has joined Rosaria’s army in the war against her family. Though her feelings for him are still strong, her duty to her kingdom and her family is stronger—especially when her parents are kidnapped and she has to step up to the throne and once again put aside what’s best for her in order to do what’s best for her people. Paxton and Princess Aerity must fight to see what is more powerful: their love or the impending war between the magical Lashed and the non-magic humans.
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The Other F-Word
by Natasha Friend
Hardcover
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Released 3/7/2017
A fresh, humorous, and timely YA novel about two teens conceived via in vitro fertilization who go in search for answers about their donor.
Milo has two great moms, but he’s never known what it’s like to have a dad. When Milo’s doctor suggests asking his biological father to undergo genetic testing to shed some light on Milo’s extreme allergies, he realizes this is a golden opportunity to find the man he’s always wondered about.
Hollis’s mom Leigh hasn’t been the same since her other mom, Pam, passed away seven years ago. But suddenly, Leigh seems happy—giddy, even—by the thought of reconnecting with Hollis’s half-brother Milo. Hollis and Milo were conceived using the same sperm donor. They met once, years ago, before Pam died.
Now Milo has reached out to Hollis to help him find their donor. Along the way, they locate three other donor siblings, and they discover the true meaning of the other F-word: family.
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The Stone House
by Patrick Ness
Hardcover
HarperTeen
Released 3/7/2017
One of three thrilling companion novels, set in the universe of the new Doctor Who spin-off show, Class, created by New York Times bestselling novelist Patrick Ness, author of The Rest of Us Just Live Here and the Carnegie Medal-winning A Monster Calls.
Don’t go near the house, whatever you do. It wants the lonely, the lost, the vulnerable. It wants you.
Tanya keeps having bad dreams about the old stone house around the corner from Coal Hill School—and a girl trapped there, screaming and terrified. When Tanya and her friends go to investigate the strange house covered in cobwebs, they stumble onto their own worst nightmares come to life. Their individual horrors are led by a ghost without a face. A ghost that Tanya’s friend Ram himself described on an urban legend site. A ghost he had invented. . . .
In spite of the danger, Tanya is determined to free the mysterious girl in the house. But they are running out of time—the house is scheduled for demolition. With the help of their teacher Miss Quill, Tanya and three other kids prepare to fight their nightmares, and whatever other monsters they hear scuttling around in the walls. But how can they fight against monsters that are supposed to exist only in their dreams?
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Traitor to the Throne
by Alwyn Hamilton
Hardcover
Viking Books for Young Readers
Released 3/7/2017
The sizzling, un-put-downable sequel to the bestselling Rebel of the Sands!
Mere months ago, gunslinger Amani al’Hiza fled her dead-end hometown on the back of a mythical horse with the mysterious foreigner Jin, seeking only her own freedom. Now she’s fighting to liberate the entire desert nation of Miraji from a bloodthirsty sultan who slew his own father to capture the throne.
When Amani finds herself thrust into the epicenter of the regime—the Sultan’s palace—she’s determined to bring the tyrant down. Desperate to uncover the Sultan’s secrets by spying on his court, she tries to forget that Jin disappeared just as she was getting closest to him, and that she’s a prisoner of the enemy. But the longer she remains, the more she questions whether the Sultan is really the villain she’s been told he is, and who’s the real traitor to her sun-bleached, magic-filled homeland.
Forget everything you thought you knew about Miraji, about the rebellion, about djinni and Jin and the Blue-Eyed Bandit. In Traitor to the Throne, the only certainty is that everything will change.
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Wonderful Feels Like This
by Sara Lövestam
Hardcover
Flatiron Books
Released 3/7/2017
The Elegance of the Hedgehog meets The Perks of Being a Wallflower in this novel celebrating being a little bit odd, finding your people, and the power of music across generations.
For Steffi, going to school every day is an exercise in survival. She’s never fit in with any of the other groups at school, and she’s viciously teased by the other girls in her class. The only way she can escape is through her music—especially jazz music.
When Steffi hears her favorite jazz song playing through an open window of a retirement home on her walk home from school, she decides to go in and introduce herself.
The old man playing her favorite song is Alvar. When Alvar was a teenager in World War II-era Sweden, he dreamt of being in a real jazz band. Then and now, Alvar’s escape is music—especially jazz music.
Through their unconventional but powerful friendship, Steffi realizes that she won’t always be lonely in her small town. She can go to the music school in Stockholm. She can be a real musician. And she can be a jitterbug, just like Alvar.
But how can Steffi convince her parents to let her go to Stockholm to audition? And how is it that Steffi’s school, the retirement home, her music, and even her worst bully are somehow connected to Alvar and his story? Because as it turns out, everything is, in the end, linked . . .
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