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Shelly, Sam, Jocelyn, Martina, Erin, Susan, Kelly, Laura, Emily, Anisaa, and Lori Ann

YA BOOK GIVEAWAYS THIS WEEK

Hearts & Other Body Parts
by Ira Bloom
Hardcover Giveaway
U.S. Only
Scholastic Press
Released 3/28/2017

A novel of love and monsters.

Sisters Esme, Katy, and Ronnie are smart, talented, and gorgeous, and better yet . . . all three are witches. They have high school wired until the arrival of two new students. The first is Norman, who is almost eight feet tall and appears to be constructed of bolts and mismatched body parts. Despite his intimidating looks, Esme finds herself strangely — almost romantically — drawn to both his oversized brain and oversized heart.

The second new arrival is Zack, an impossibly handsome late transfer from the UK who has the girls at school instantly mesmerized. Soon even sensible Esme has forgotten Norman, and all three sisters are in a flat-out hex war to win Zack. But while the magic is flying, only Norman seems to notice that students who wander off alone with Zack end up with crushed bones and memory loss. Or worse, missing entirely.

Hearts & Other Body Parts is a wickedly addictive novel about love, monsters, and loyalty. And oh yeah, a Japanese corpse-eating demon cat.

Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Hearts & Other Body Parts?

My favorite thing about HEARTS & OTHER BODY PARTS would have to be the characters. They are my brain-children, come crashing out of my head like Athena in full body armor from Zeus’s bifurcated skull. Okay, not quite that messy. There are five POV characters who make up the central storyline, a love pentangle between three witch sisters, a Frankenstein-type monster, and a vampire. Esme, the oldest sister, is the brains, the responsible geek. Katy, the middle sister, is the talent, at witchcraft or at anything artsy. Veronica is the youngest sister, the beauty with tenacity. Norman is the dismorphic giant composed of mismatched body parts, with brains to equal Esme’s and a heart of gold. Zack is the gorgeous, charming vampire who mesmerizes the sisters, fighting the will of his master with the last vestiges of his humanity.

There’s one more character I adore, Kasha the Japanese corpse-eating demon cat. He snuck into the story and took over, somehow; he steals every scene he’s in. Demons will do that. I won’t say anything more about him at this juncture. He’s the disturbing booby prize in the cracker-jack box. Personally, I wouldn’t trust a word that comes out of his mouth. “Well we do lie quite a bit,” Kasha admits. “Like a little white lie. Only huge, and black.”

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Worthy
by Donna Cooner
Hardcover Giveaway
U.S. Only
Point
Released 3/28/2017

Once again, Donna Cooner (Skinny, Can’t Look Away) taps into the zeitgeist to bring us a searing story about online bullying and superficiality.

An addictive new app is all the rage at Linden Wilson’s high school. Worthy ranks couples, determining via votes and user comments if one person is “worthy” of the other. Linden is happily dating Alex Garcia, and can’t imagine the app will affect them. Until Alex is labeled “worthy,” and Linden “unworthy.” Suddenly, everything changes. Linden must struggle under this newfound scrutiny as her relationships — with Alex, with her friends — are put to the ultimate test.

Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Worthy?

I loved creating the friendship between Linden and Nikki. They are both so different, yet their friendship for each other endures judgement and misunderstanding. I also love that Nikki is confident in her size. As someone who has struggled with body image my whole life, I admire those who embrace and celebrate their body type. Creating Nikki’s character provided me the opportunity to experience what my teen years might have been like if I’d been more self-confident. Reimagining my teen years is part of what I love about writing for young adults.

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Blood Rose Rebellion
by Rosalyn Eves
Hardcover Giveaway (3 Copies)
U.S. Only
Knopf Books for Young Readers
Released 3/28/2017

The thrilling first book in a YA fantasy trilogy for fans of Red Queen. In a world where social prestige derives from a trifecta of blood, money, and magic, one girl has the ability to break the spell that holds the social order in place.

Sixteen-year-old Anna Arden is barred from society by a defect of blood. Though her family is part of the Luminate, powerful users of magic, she is Barren, unable to perform the simplest spells. Anna would do anything to belong. But her fate takes another course when, after inadvertently breaking her sister’s debutante spell—an important chance for a highborn young woman to show her prowess with magic—Anna finds herself exiled to her family’s once powerful but now crumbling native Hungary.

Her life might well be over.

In Hungary, Anna discovers that nothing is quite as it seems. Not the people around her, from her aloof cousin Noémi to the fierce and handsome Romani Gábor. Not the society she’s known all her life, for discontent with the Luminate is sweeping the land. And not her lack of magic. Isolated from the only world she cares about, Anna still can’t seem to stop herself from breaking spells.

As rebellion spreads across the region, Anna’s unique ability becomes the catalyst everyone is seeking. In the company of nobles, revolutionaries, and Romanies, Anna must choose: deny her unique power and cling to the life she’s always wanted, or embrace her ability and change that world forever.

Author Question: What is your favorite thing about BLOOD ROSE REBELLION?

My favorite thing about BLOOD ROSE REBELLION is probably the setting. While I love my characters, I fell in love with Hungary long before I started writing this book, when I lived there for nearly a year and a half. Getting to write this book meant revisiting the history and culture of a place I loved—and the first thing I did to celebrate selling the book was plan a trip back with my husband, a trip that helped me flesh out some of the details of the setting.

(My other favorite thing is probably Mátyás, but don’t tell Anna that.)


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Finding What’s Real
by Emma Harrison
Hardcover Giveaway
U.S. Only
Simon Pulse
Released 3/28/2017

Cecelia Montgomery returns after running away to deal with the downside of her newfound fame—and her mother’s Presidential campaign—in the sequel to Escaping Perfect.

Now that Cecilia Montgomery has been found after two weeks on the run, she’s stuck in the middle of a media firestorm. When Cecilia threatens to leave again, her mom drops the bomb. She plans to run for President. She’s going to announce in a few days. And if she bails again, well, they do still have Jasper in custody on bogus “kidnapping” charges…

Suddenly Cecilia is trapped yet again, forced into a public persona she had no part in creating. But her friends from Sweetbriar still have her back and help smuggle Cecelia back into town. Just when Cecelia thinks she’s finally escaped, her mother arrives and officially announces she is running for President—and she plans to stay in Sweetbriar for the duration of her candidacy.

Meanwhile, Fiona becomes a bit obsessed with the fame she achieves from being Cecilia Montgomery’s best friend, and even Jasper gets caught up in the benefits of dating her. Soon Cecilia starts to wonder if they want to hang out with her, or if they want to benefit from hanging out with her. All she wanted was a small, anonymous life, but now things seem to be spiraling out of control.

Can Cecelia ever find her perfect ending, or will her escape prove to be more of a trap than she ever thought possible?

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YA BOOK GIVEAWAYS LAST WEEK: WINNERS

Nemesis by Brendan Reichs: Amanda M, Erika C, Katelyn H.
Shadow Run by Michael Miller and AdriAnne Strickland: Yasmine S, Denise D.
The Hidden Memory of Objects by Danielle Mages Amato: Jenny M.

MORE YOUNG ADULT FICTION IN STORES NEXT WEEK WITH AUTHOR INTERVIEWS

A Crown of Wishes
by Roshani Chokshi
Hardcover
St. Martin’s Griffin
Released 3/28/2017

Gauri, the princess of Bharata, has been taken as a prisoner of war by her kingdom’s enemies. Faced with a future of exile and scorn, Gauri has nothing left to lose. Hope unexpectedly comes in the form of Vikram, the cunning prince of a neighboring land and her sworn enemy kingdom. Unsatisfied with becoming a mere puppet king, Vikram offers Gauri a chance to win back her kingdom in exchange for her battle prowess. Together, they’ll have to set aside their differences and team up to win the Tournament of Wishes—a competition held in a mythical city where the Lord of Wealth promises a wish to the victor.

Reaching the tournament is just the beginning. Once they arrive, danger takes on new shapes: poisonous courtesans and mischievous story birds, a feast of fears and twisted fairy revels.

Every which way they turn new trials will test their wit and strength. But what Gauri and Vikram will soon discover is that there’s nothing more dangerous than what they most desire.

Author Question: What is one thing you hope readers will get out of A CROWN OF WISHES?

I hope they close the book grinning. And maybe that night, they’ll dream about stories. And maybe the next day, they’ll see a bird dart from a tree and wonder if it came from Kubera’s court.

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Honestly Ben
by Bill Konigsberg
Hardcover
Arthur A. Levine Books
Released 3/28/2017

In the companion to Openly Straight, Ben confronts pressure at school, repression at home, and his passion for two very different people in figuring out what it takes to be Honestly Ben.

Ben Carver is back to normal. He’s working steadily in his classes at the Natick School. He just got elected captain of the baseball team. He’s even won a full scholarship to college, if he can keep up his grades. All that foolishness with Rafe Goldberg the past semester is in the past.

Except . . .

There’s Hannah, the gorgeous girl from the neighboring school, who attracts him and distracts him. There’s his mother, whose quiet unhappiness Ben is noticing for the first time. School is harder, the pressure higher, the scholarship almost slipping away. And there’s Rafe, funny, kind, dating someone else . . . and maybe the real normal that Ben needs.

Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Honestly Ben?

I love Ben. He is a very different protagonist than I’ve written before, and it took me a lot of work to channel his voice, because it is really not that much like my own voice. But I must admit that as hard as it was to do, he is a character I truly love. I love his self-effacing sense of humor, and how he’s a big guy trying to be small, and that he is a repressed guy trying to break out of the jail he’s created for himself. I based Ben on my husband, or I should say on a teen version of my husband, so it is really easy for me to feel a lot of love for Ben. If I never write another book in this world, I’ll really miss him!

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Just Another Girl
by Elizabeth Eulberg
Hardcover
Point
Released 3/28/2017

You resent her. You can’t stand her. You might even hate her.

But you don’t know her at all.

Hope knows there’s only one thing coming between her and her longtime crush: his girlfriend, Parker. She has to sit on the sidelines and watch as the perfect girl gets the perfect boy . . . because that’s how the universe works, even though it’s so completely wrong.

Parker doesn’t feel perfect. She knows if everyone knew the truth about her, they’d never be able to get past it. So she keeps quiet. She focuses on making it through the day with her secret safe . . . even as this becomes harder and harder to do. And Hope isn’t making it any easier. . . .

In Just Another Girl, Elizabeth Eulberg astutely and affectingly shows us how battle lines get drawn between girls — and how difficult it then becomes to see or understand the girl standing on the other side of the divide.

You think you have an enemy. But she’s just another girl.

Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Just Another Girl?

My favorite thing is that it will test what readers think they know about a character. I’ve always like writing (and reading) stories with different points of view. Two people rarely see the same event in the same way. When writing this book, I thought about how often girls are each other’s biggest critics, especially if a guy is involved. So I took the “girlfriend” character in a love triangle, who is often seen as a Mean Girl, and made her just another girl. Problem is, readers are first introduced to the girlfriend (Parker) through Hope’s point of view. Hope is the girl pining after Parker’s boyfriend so of course she HATES Parker. We only see Hope’s side for awhile, and then the reader is introduced to Parker’s point of view and everything flips around. I hope readers enjoy it…and reflect on how maybe that person they hate has something going on in their life that you don’t know about.

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MORE YOUNG ADULT NOVELS NEW IN STORES NEXT WEEK

100 Hours
by Rachel Vincent
Hardcover
Katherine Tegen Books
Released 3/28/2017

A decadent spring break getaway on an exotic beach becomes a terrifying survival story when six Miami teens are kidnapped and ransomed.

Maddie is beyond done with her cousin Genesis’s entitled and shallow entourage. Genesis is so over Miami’s predictable social scene with its velvet ropes, petty power plays, and backstabbing boyfriends.

While Maddie craves family time for spring break, Genesis seeks novelty—like a last-minute getaway to an untouched beach in Colombia. And when Genesis wants something, it happens.

But paradise has its price. Dragged from their tents under the cover of dark, Genesis, Maddie, and their friends are kidnapped and held for ransom deep inside the jungle—with no diva left behind. It all feels so random to everyone except Genesis. She knows they were targeted for a reason. And that reason is her.

Now, as the hours count down, only one thing’s for certain: If the Miami hostages can’t set aside their personal problems, no one will make it out alive.

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Dream Forever
by Kit Alloway
Hardcover
St. Martin’s Griffin
Released 3/28/2017

As the veil to the Dream becomes dangerously thin, Josh must stop it from tearing to save the world, in the conclusion to The Dream Walker Trilogy.

Trying to control her powers as the True Dream Walker is hard enough with Feodor as her instructor. But trying to learn her strengths with a broken heart makes it nearly impossible for Josh. When mysterious tears in the veil separating the Dream from the waking world begin to appear, and with Peregrine still on the run and Haley trapped in Death, Josh finds herself truly in over her head. With the World threatening to crumble around her, Josh must figure out who she really is and what she wants in time to save it, herself, and everyone she loves.

You won’t be disappointed in this exciting conclusion to Kit Alloway’s The Dream Walker Trilogy.

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Just a Girl
by Carrie Mesrobian
Hardcover
HarperCollins
Released 3/28/2017

Taking a hard look at the societal conventions that constrain teenage girls, William C. Morris Award finalist Carrie Mesrobian tells one girl’s story with bracing honesty and refreshing authenticity.

By her senior year of high school, Rianne has exhausted all the fun there is to have in small town Wereford, Minnesota. Volleyball season is winding down, the parties all feel tired, and now that she’s in a serious relationship with reformed player Luke Pinsky, her wild streak has ended. Not that she ever did anything more than the guys her age did…but she knows what everyone thinks of her.

Including her parents. Divorced but now inexplicably living together again, Rianne wonders why they’re so quick to point out every bad choice she’s making when they can’t even act like adults. With an uncomfortable home life and her once-solid group of friends now dissolving, the reasons for sticking around after high school are few. So why is Rianne in lockstep when it comes to figuring out her future?

That’s not the only question Rianne can’t answer. Lately she’s been wondering why, when she has a perfect-on-paper boyfriend, she wants anything but. Or how it is that Sergei, a broken-English-speaking Russian, understands her better than anyone who’s known her all her life? And why has Rianne gotten stuck with an “easy girl” reputation for doing the same exact things guys do without any judgment? Carrie Mesrobian, acclaimed author of Sex & Violence and Cut Both Ways, sets fire to the unfair stereotypes and contradictions that persist even in the twenty-first century.

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Night Witches
by Kathryn Lasky
Hardcover
Scholastic Press
Released 3/28/2017

From bestselling and award-winning author Kathryn Lasky comes an explosive adventure following the teen girl fighter pilots who took on Hitler’s army . . . and won.

Fifteen-year-old Valya knows what it feels like to fly. She’s a pilot who’s always felt more at home soaring through the sky than down on earth. But since the Germans surrounded Stalingrad, Valya’s been forced to stay on the ground and watch her city crumble.

When her mother is killed during the siege, Valya is left with one burning desire: to join up with her older sister, a member of the famous and feared Night Witches — a brigade of young female pilots.

Using all her wits, Valya manages to get past the German blockade and find the Night Witches’ base . . . and that’s when the REAL danger starts. The women have been assigned a critical mission. If they succeed, they’ll inflict serious damage on the Nazis. If they fail, they’ll face death . . . or even worse horrors.

Historical fiction master Lasky sheds light on the war’s unsung heroes — daredevil girls who took to the skies to fight for their country — in an action-packed thrill ride that’ll leave you electrified and breathless.

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Overturned
by Lamar Giles
Hardcover
Scholastic Press
Released 3/28/2017

Nikki Tate is infamous, even by Las Vegas standards. Her dad is sitting on death row, convicted of killing his best friend in a gambling dispute turned ugly. And for five years, he’s maintained his innocence. But Nikki wants no part of that. She’s been working on Operation Escape Vegas: playing in illegal card games so she can save up enough money to get out come graduation day.

Then her dad’s murder conviction is overturned. The new evidence seems to come out of nowhere and Nikki’s life becomes a mess when he’s released from prison. Because the dad who comes home is not the dad she remembers. And he’s desperately obsessed with finding out who framed him—and why.

As her dad digs into the seedy underbelly of Vegas, the past threatens everything and Nikki is drawn into his deadly hunt for the truth. But in the city of sin, some sinners will do anything to keep their secrets, and Nikki soon finds herself playing for the biggest gamble ever—her life.

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Radio Silence
by Alice Oseman
Hardcover
HarperTeen
Released 3/28/2017

From critically acclaimed author Alice Oseman comes a smartly crafted contemporary YA novel, perfect for readers who love Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl. This is an utterly captivating and authentic new teen novel from the author of Solitaire, which VOYA said “could put her among the great young adult fiction authors.”

Frances Janvier spends most of her time studying.

Everyone knows Aled Last as that quiet boy who gets straight As.

You probably think that they are going to fall in love or something. Since he is a boy and she is a girl.

They don’t. They make a podcast.

In a world determined to shut them up, knock them down, and set them on a cookie cutter life path, Frances and Aled struggle to find their voices over the course of one life-changing year. Will they have the courage to show everyone who they really are? Or will they be met with radio silence?

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The Body Market
by Donna Freitas
Hardcover
HarperTeen
Released 3/28/2017

Skylar Cruz has been betrayed by everyone she trusted. Perhaps worst of all, she and her friends have failed to stop her sister, and now the Body Market is open for business.

Skylar is through being a pawn in everyone else’s game. She may be the only one who can stop what her family started. And she must do it before everyone in the App World runs out of time.

In the tradition of M. T. Anderson’s Feed and Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies, The Body Market is the next thrilling installment in this gripping and timely sci-fi series for teens.

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