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YA BOOK GIVEAWAYS THIS WEEK
#Scandal
by Sarah Ockler
Hardcover Giveaway
Simon Pulse
Released 6/17/2014
Lucy’s learned some important lessons from tabloid darling Jayla Heart’s all-too-public blunders: Avoid the spotlight, don’t feed the Internet trolls, and keep your secrets secret. The policy has served Lucy well all through high school, so when her best friend Ellie gets sick before prom and begs her to step in as Cole’s date, she accepts with a smile, silencing about ten different reservations. Like the one where she’d rather stay home shredding online zombies. And the one where she hates playing dress-up. And especially the one where she’s been secretly in love with Cole since the dawn of time.
When Cole surprises her at the after party with a kiss under the stars, it’s everything Lucy has ever dreamed of… and the biggest BFF deal-breaker ever. Despite Cole’s lingering sweetness, Lucy knows they’ll have to ’fess up to Ellie. But before they get the chance, Lucy’s own Facebook profile mysteriously explodes with compromising pics of her and Cole, along with tons of other students’ party indiscretions. Tagged. Liked. And furiously viral.
By Monday morning, Lucy’s been branded a slut, a backstabber, and a narc, mired in a tabloid-worthy scandal just weeks before graduation.
Lucy’s been battling undead masses online long enough to know there’s only one way to survive a disaster of this magnitude: Stand up and fight. Game plan? Uncover and expose the Facebook hacker, win back her best friend’s trust, and graduate with a clean slate.
There’s just one snag—Cole. Turns out Lucy’s not the only one who’s been harboring unrequited love…
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Blazed
by Jason Myers
Hardcover Giveaway
Simon Pulse
Released 6/17/2014
Jamie uncovers life-changing secrets from his past when he’s sent to live with a father he’s never met in this gritty novel from the author of Exit Here. and Run the Game.
Jamie is invincible when he is high. His anger, his isolation, his mom’s manic mood swings—nothing can shatter his glass castle. But one brutal night upends everything, leaving his mom broken and Jamie betrayed.
Sent to live with a father he’s never met, Jamie is determined to hate the man he blames for his mother’s ruin. And he blocks out the pain with drugs, fierce music, and sweet, sweet Dominique. Except the more time Jamie spends at his dad’s, the more his mother’s scathing stories start to unravel. Who is he supposed to believe? And how much will he have to sacrifice to uncover the truth?
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Summer of Yesterday
by Gaby Triana
Hardcover Giveaway
Simon Pulse
Released 6/17/2014
Back to the Future meets Fast Times at Ridgemont High when Haley’s summer vacation takes a turn for the retro in this totally rad romantic fantasy.
Summer officially sucks. Thanks to a stupid seizure she had a few months earlier, Haley’s stuck going on vacation with her dad and his new family to Disney’s Fort Wilderness instead of enjoying the last session of summer camp back home with her friends. Fort Wilderness holds lots of childhood memories for her father, but surely nothing for Haley. But then a new seizure triggers something she’s never before experienced—time travel—and she ends up in River Country, the campground’s long-abandoned water park, during its heyday.
The year? 1982.
And there—with its amusing fashion, “oldies” music, and primitive technology—she runs into familiar faces: teenage Dad and Mom before they’d even met. Somehow, Haley must find her way back to the twenty-first century before her present-day parents anguish over her disappearance, a difficult feat now that she’s met Jason, one of the park’s summer residents and employees, who takes the strangely dressed stowaway under his wing.
Seizures aside, Haley’s used to controlling her life, and she has no idea how to deal with this dilemma. How can she be falling for a boy whose future she can’t share?
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YA BOOK GIVEAWAYS LAST WEEK: WINNERS
On The Road To Find Out
by Rachel Toor
Hardcover
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Released 6/10/2014
WINNER: Rabiah Rowther
A funny, uplifting debut about running, romance—and dealing with college rejection and other hurdles
On New Year’s Day, Alice Davis goes for a run. Her first ever. It’s painful and embarrassing, but so was getting denied by the only college she cares about. Alice knows she has to stop sitting around and complaining to her best friend, Jenni, and her pet rat, Walter, about what a loser she is. But what doesn’t know is that by taking those first steps out the door, she is setting off down a road filled with new challenges—including vicious side stitches, chafing in unmentionable places, and race-paced first love—and strengthening herself to endure when the going suddenly gets tougher than she ever imagined.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about On The Road To Find Out?
My favorite thing about On the Road to Find Out might be that my editor and I refer to it as OTRTFO. If you say all those initials out loud and fast, it kind of sounds like a melody. But my other favorite thing is that one of my funniest, smartest, sweetest characters (IMHO) is the size of a hot dog bun. I thought I was going to write a novel about running for all the people who love to run and for the many more who hate it and think they can’t do it. (They’re wrong, wrong, wrong, do you hear me? Wrong!) I ended up writing about college admissions, first love, and—keep an open mind here, people—why rats make the world’s best pets. If you read this book and you don’t love Walter the rat as much as Alice and I do, well, I’ve failed as an author. But if you have loved a rat, please write and tell me that. Rat lovers unite!
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The Strange Maid
by Tessa Gratton
Hardcover
Random House Books for Young Readers
Released 6/10/2014
WINNER: Tammy George
Fans of Neil Gaiman, Holly Black, and Maggie Stiefvater will embrace the richly drawn, Norse-influenced alternate world of the United States of Asgard, where cell phones, rock bands, and evangelical preachers coexist with dragon slaying, rune casting, and sword training in schools. Where the president runs the country alongside a council of Valkyries, gods walk the red carpet with Hollywood starlets, and the U.S. military has a special battalion dedicated to eradicating Rocky Mountain trolls.
Signy Valborn was seven years old when she climbed the New World Tree and met Odin Alfather, who declared that if she could solve a single riddle, he would make her one of his Valkyrie. For ten years Signy has trained in the arts of war, politics, and leadership, never dreaming that a Greater Mountain Troll might hold the answer to the riddle, but that’s exactly what Ned the Spiritless promises her. A mysterious troll hunter who talks in riddles and ancient poetry, Ned is a hard man to trust. Unfortunately, Signy is running out of time. Accompanied by an outcast berserker named Soren Bearstar, she and Ned take off across the ice sheets of Canadia to hunt the mother of trolls and claim Signy’s destiny.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about The Strange Maid?
THAT I FINISHED WRITING IT. Haha, just kidding. Sort of. My real favorite thing is that I was able to write a story about an angry, unlikable girl who turns herself into a passionate hero because of her anger and un-likeability. In a moment of grief and fury, Signy dedicates herself to Odin Alfather the god of war, madness, and poetry, and to truly follow him, she has to embrace all those things, and discover how they relate to each other and to her own heart. She has to learn to use herself as a weapon, and fight passionately for what she thinks is right. It was HARD to write, but taught me a lot about myself as a writer and also what I, too, want to be like to other people. I’ve never been so angry at a character, or loved one so much.
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MORE YOUNG ADULT FICTION IN STORES NEXT WEEK WITH AUTHOR INTERVIEWS
Dark Metropolis
by Jaclyn Dolamore
Hardcover
Disney-Hyperion
Released 6/17/2014
Cabaret meets Cassandra Clare-a haunting magical thriller set in a riveting 1930s-esque world.
Sixteen-year-old Thea Holder’s mother is cursed with a spell that’s driving her mad, and whenever they touch, Thea is chilled by the magic, too. With no one else to contribute, Thea must make a living for both of them in a sinister city, where danger lurks and greed rules.
Thea spends her nights waitressing at the decadent Telephone Club attending to the glitzy clientele. But when her best friend, Nan, vanishes, Thea is compelled to find her. She meets Freddy, a young, magnetic patron at the club, and he agrees to help her uncover the city’s secrets-even while he hides secrets of his own.
Together, they find a whole new side of the city. Unrest is brewing behind closed doors as whispers of a gruesome magic spread. And if they’re not careful, the heartless masterminds behind the growing disappearances will be after them, too.
Perfect for fans of Cassandra Clare, this is a chilling thriller with a touch of magic where the dead don’t always seem to stay that way.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Dark Metropolis?
Probably the creepy parts! My previous three books were lighter in tone and it was really fun to write some scenes where I even unsettled myself. If they made a movie of this book, I’d be closing my eyes for some of it..
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I Am The Mission
by Allen Zadoff
Hardcover
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Released 6/17/2014
He was the perfect assassin. No name. No past. No remorse. Perfect, that is, until he began to ask questions and challenge his orders. Now The Program is worried that their valuable soldier has become a liability.
And so Boy Nobody is given a new mission. A test of sorts. A chance to prove his loyalty.
His objective: Take out Eugene Moore, the owner of an extremist military training camp for teenagers. It sounds like a simple task, but a previous operative couldn’t do it. He lost the mission and is presumed dead. Now Boy Nobody is confident he can finish the job. Quickly.
But when things go awry, Boy Nobody finds himself lost in a mission where nothing is as it seems: not The Program, his allegiances, nor the truth.
The riveting second book in Allen Zadoff’s Boy Nobody series delivers heart-pounding action and a shocking new twist that makes Boy Nobody question everything he has believed.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about I Am The Mission?
Reading thrillers has always been a secret pleasure for me, so the fact that I’m writing a thriller series is kind of a dream come true. And delivering the second book of The Unknown Assassin series is especially exciting because I’ve never written a series before. I AM THE MISSION is bigger and badder than the first book. It’s a combination of action, thrills, romance, and danger. We go deeper into the mind of the teen assassin who is the anti-hero of the series, and we learn more about his relationship to The Program, the ultra-secret organization that controls him.
The Unknown Assassin series is combination of a fast-paced action thriller and coming-of-age story. So it’s important to me that the hero is challenged in new ways—by his missions, the emotions he’s feeling, his relationships with women, and ultimately by his parents, who in this case happen to be his commanders in The Program. I AM THE MISSION explore the theme of loyalty versus self-determination. What happens when you begin to doubt your mission and lose faith in the people you’ve trusted to guide you in the world?
If you read the first book, I AM THE WEAPON (formerly Boy Nobody), then you know the assassin is searching for his real father, unsure whether he is alive or dead. That search continues in I AM THE MISSION, as the assassin gets tantalizingly close to uncovering the secret.
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17 First Kisses
by Rachael Allen
Signed Paperback Giveaway
HarperTeen
Released 6/17/2014
No matter how many boys Claire kisses, she can’t seem to find a decent boyfriend. Someone who wouldn’t rather date her gorgeous best friend, Megan. Someone who won’t freak out when he learns about the tragedy her family still hasn’t recovered from. Someone whose kisses can carry her away from her backwoods town for one fleeting moment.
Until Claire meets Luke.
But Megan is falling for Luke, too, and if there’s one thing Claire knows for sure, it’s that Megan’s pretty much irresistible.
With true love and best friendship on the line, Claire suddenly has everything to lose. And what she learns—about her crush, her friends, and most of all herself—makes the choices even harder.
In her moving debut, Rachael Allen brilliantly captures the complexities of friendship, the struggles of self-discovery, and the difficulties of trying to find love in high school. Fans of Sarah Ockler, Susane Colasanti, and Stephanie Perkins will fall head over heels for this addictive, heartfelt, and often hilarious modern love story.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about 17 First Kisses?
The female friendships. I love reading contemporary books with an emphasis on female relationships, whether it’s mother-daughter, sisters, or BFFs. My MC, Claire, and her best friend, Megan, are fiercely supportive and protective of each other even though there’s a competitiveness between them, particularly with guys. These girls are flawed characters, and neither of them is a model friend, but I love that about them.
Girls need to know that if a friendship has a strong core, you can get in a fight or make a mistake, and it doesn’t mean the friendship is over. You can change and grow together instead of apart. Claire and Megan have the kind of friendship that’s worth figuring things out about themselves and each other. Instead of hating each other, they work to fix things. And if part of that reconciliation takes the form of stealing your ex-boyfriend’s clothes while he’s skinny dipping, well, so be it 🙂
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MORE YOUNG ADULT NOVELS NEW IN STORES NEXT WEEK
Fan Art
by Sarah Tregay
Hardcover
Katherine Tegen Books
Released 6/17/2014
When the picture tells the story…
Senior year is almost over, and Jamie Peterson has a big problem. Not college—that’s all set. Not prom—he’ll find a date somehow. No, it’s the worst problem of all: he’s fallen for his best friend.
As much as Jamie tries to keep it under wraps, everyone seems to know where his affections lie, and the giggling girls in art class are determined to help Jamie get together with Mason. But Jamie isn’t sure if that’s what he wants—because as much as Jamie would like to come clean to Mason, what if the truth ruins everything? What if there are no more road trips, taco dinners, or movie nights? Does he dare risk a childhood friendship for romance?
This book is about what happens when a picture reveals what we can’t say, when art is truer than life, and how falling in love is easy, except when it’s not. Fan Art explores the joys and pains of friendship, of pressing boundaries, and how facing our worst fears can sometimes lead us to what we want most.
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