YA BOOK GIVEAWAYS THIS WEEK
Unforgotten
by Jessica Brody
Hardcover Giveaway plus Paperback of Unremembered
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Released 2/25/2014
Some memories are better left forgotten…
After a daring escape from the scientists at Diotech who created her, Seraphina believes she is finally safe from the horrors of her past. But new threats await Sera and her boyfriend, Zen, at every turn as Zen falls prey to a mysterious illness and Sera’s extraordinary abilities make it more and more difficult to stay hidden. Meanwhile, Diotech has developed a dangerous new weapon designed to apprehend her. A weapon that even Sera will be powerless to stop. Her only hope of saving Zen’s life and defeating the company that made her is a secret buried deep within her mind. A secret that Diotech will kill to protect. And it won’t stay forgotten for long.
Packed with mystery, suspense, and romance, this riveting second installment of Jessica Brody’s Unremembered trilogy delivers more heart-pounding action as loyalties are tested, love becomes a weapon, and no one’s memories are safe.
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Faking Normal
by Courtney C. Stevens
Signed Hardcover Giveaway
HarperTeen
Released 2/25/2014
An edgy, realistic, and utterly captivating novel from an exciting new voice in teen fiction.
Alexi Littrell hasn’t told anyone what happened to her over the summer. Ashamed and embarrassed, she hides in her closet and compulsively scratches the back of her neck, trying to make the outside hurt more than the inside does.
When Bodee Lennox, the quiet and awkward boy next door, comes to live with the Littrells, Alexi discovers an unlikely friend in “the Kool-Aid Kid,” who has secrets of his own. As they lean on each other for support, Alexi gives him the strength to deal with his past, and Bodee helps her find the courage to finally face the truth.
A searing, poignant book, Faking Normal is the extraordinary debut novel from an exciting new author-Courtney C. Stevens.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Faking Normal?
Hmm. That’s a tough question because Faking Normal hits on so many levels for me. I believe it’s the book I was meant to write, and there’s some triumph in the fact that I ever wrote the first sentence. But my favorite part is the character of Bodee.
He’s very real to me, and I’m thankful for him. I suppose that sounds funny or a little crazy to anyone who isn’t an author. When I was writing Faking Normal, I re-experienced so much personal healing through his character. Characters, while they obviously come from the writer’s brain, don’t often manifest like a personal creation, but rather as their own entity. Bodee waltz into my life, and as he reintroduced himself, I wrote down everything he told me, everything he said that was true about me and others who have experienced pain.
Faking Normal is fiction, but I tried to be true to pain, but also to hope. Bodee is dressed in hope and speaks with healing. And I believe for every pain in the world, there is a Bodee. He will always be the boy who loved Alexi anyway, and that’s a powerful message in my own life.
One of my favorite musicians (Andrew Peterson) has a line in his song Lay Me Down that I come back to all the time. He says,
“And all of the death that ever was,
if you set it next to life
Well, I believe it would barely fill a cup.”
Pain is the common denominator of the human experience. See, the tricky thing about pain is that we all have it, but we rarely share it. What if we did? What if we chose vulnerability over shame? What if we chose honesty over secrets? What if we chose to channel our brave instead of letting fear rule us? That’s what Bodee does. He decides to tell Alexi his story, his pain, and that makes all the difference.
I’d like to be a Bodee.
And if you have pain, I hope you find your Bodee.
(If you’re interested in how Bodee became Bodee, check out The Blue-Haired Boy, a Harper Impulse story that releases 3/4/14.)
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Tremor
by Patrick Carman
Signed Hardcover Giveaway
Katherine Tegen Books
Released 2/25/2014
In the year 2051, some people have a second pulse…
Like all who have “the pulse,” Faith Daniels and Dylan Gilmore have telekinetic powers—they can move objects with their minds. But there are five “second pulses” in the world who have an even greater power: Almost nothing can harm them. They are virtually indestructible.
Both Faith and Dylan have the second pulse. But the other side has second pulses, too, and they’ve been training for a war that has been brewing their entire lives. As Dylan executes a plan to infiltrate enemy grounds, he’ll have to face his only weakness, and a family secret that will threaten his very existence.
Together, Faith and Dylan are the only hope this world has left, but they must go their separate ways in order to accomplish their plan. Will their love survive?
With richly developed characters and heart-pounding action scenes, the second book in Patrick Carman’s Pulse trilogy continues the electrifying dystopian story of love and revenge.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Tremor?
Second books in a series can be challenging to write, but I have to say, writing TREMOR (the second PULSE book) was a blast. Everything was so tee’d up at the end of the first book! All the main character were pumped up and ready to fight, so I could put them directly into the serious action. From the word go, TREMOR is a fast paced section of the overall story, and I love writing those books – my fingers can’t fly across the keyboard fast enough. Two other things I loved about this book: being able to reveal some big things I’d been hiding, and moving the key characters forward in their emotional journey. If you read the first book, TREMOR pays off on a lot of scores.
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The Well’s End
by Seth Fishman
Personalized Hardcover Giveaway
U.S. and Canada
Putnam Juvenile
Released 2/25/2014
A deadly virus and an impossible discovery unite in one enthralling can’t-miss read…
Sixteen-year-old Mia Kish has always been afraid of the dark. After all, she’s baby Mia, the one who fell down a well. That was years ago, though the darkness still haunts her. But when her classmates and teachers at ritzy Westbrook Academy start dying of old age from a bizarre and frightening virus that ages its victims years in a matter of hours, Mia becomes haunted by a lot more than the dark. Their deaths are gruesome and Mia worries she and her friends may be next. In order to survive, Mia and her small crew must break quarantine and outrun armed soldiers in hazmat suits who shoot first and ask questions later.
And there’s only one place to go—the Cave, aka Fenton Electronics. Mia knows it’s somehow connected and hopes her dad, Director of Fenton Electronics, who has always been strangely secretive about his work, has the answers she needs, and more importantly a cure to save everyone before the whole town succumbs to the mysterious virus. Unfortunately, it’s not answers Mia discovers, but something far more treacherous and impossible than even the virus itself.
A high-stakes, fast-paced adventure with imagination and heart.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about The Well’s End?
My favorite thing about TWE is that I wanted to create a world that felt grounded and exciting, but then to slowly take the reader into a brand new world, one they might not normally travel to. I think it’s a risk but one, as an agent, that I haven’t really seen much of before and that’s the goal: to try to do something totally different in a way that will appeal to lots of readers. I guess we’ll see if it works! I also like elite prep schools and things that go wrong. Who doesn’t?
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Year of Mistaken Discoveries
by Eileen Cook
Hardcover Giveaway
Simon Pulse
Released 2/25/2014
Friendship is a bond stronger than secrets in this novel from the author of The Almost Truth and Unraveling Isobel.
As first graders, Avery and Nora bonded over a special trait they shared—they were both adopted.
Years later, Avery is smart, popular, and on the cheerleading squad, while Nora spends her time on the fringes of school society, wearing black, reading esoteric poetry, and listening to obscure music. They never interact…until the night Nora approaches Avery at a party, saying it’s urgent. She tells Avery that she thought she found her birth mom—but it turned out to be a cruel lie. Avery feels for Nora, but returns to her friends at the party.
Then Avery learns that Nora overdosed on pills. Left to cope with Nora’s loss and questioning her own actions, Avery decides to honor her friend by launching a search for her own birth mother. Aided by Brody, a friend of Nora’s who is also looking for a way to respect Nora’s legacy, Avery embarks on an emotional quest. But what she’s really seeking might go far deeper than just genetics…
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Year of Mistaken Discoveries?
How does someone choose one favorite thing from a book? The inspiration for this book came when I was looking at how friendships reflect who we are, and how when we change this puts pressure on those relationships. The main character, Avery, has grown apart from her childhood best friend, Nora. Even though she doesn’t really hang out with Nora anymore, she still feels as if they’re friends. Nora is a part of her growing up. When Nora kills herself, Avery has to decide how to honor that friendship and what the loss of Nora means to her. It sends her off on a quest to find her own birth mom and a chance to decide who she wants to be.
I am fascinated in that period in your life when you let go of being who your family and friends want you to be and start deciding what it is you want from your life. This book has some more serious moments as compared to my others, but I love the characters and the journey they take. And in case anyone is worried- there are still lots of laugh out loud moments.
However, if I had to pick one favorite thing, it hasn’t happened yet. It’s the moment when I open my email and see a note from a reader saying that she loved the book. I wouldn’t trade that moment for anything.
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Boy on the Edge
by Fridrik Erlings
Hardcover Giveaway
Candlewick
Released 2/25/2014
Can a boy on the edge find his way back? From award-winning Icelandic author Fridrik Erlings comes a novel as cruel as it is tender.
Henry has a clubfoot and he is the target of relentless bullying. One day, in a violent fit of anger, Henry lashes out at the only family he has — his mother. Sent to live with other troubled boys at the Home of Lesser Brethren, an isolated farm perched in the craggy lava fields along the unforgiving Icelandic coast, Henry finds a precarious contentment among the cows. But it is the people, including the manic preacher who runs the home, who fuel Henry’s frustration and sometimes rage as he yearns for a life and a home. Author Fridrik Erlings offers a young adult novel that explores cruelty and desperation, tenderness and remorse, but most importantly, kindness and friendship.
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Never Ending
by Martyn Bedford
ARC Giveaway
Wendy Lamb Books
Released 3/11/2014
Shiv’s best mate, her brother Declan, is dead. It’s been all over the news. Consumed by grief and guilt, she agrees to become an inpatient at the Korsakoff Clinic. There she meets Mikey. Caron. The others. They share a similar torment. And there, subjected to the clinic’s unconventional therapy, they must face what they can’t bear to see.
Shiv is flooded with flashbacks, nightmares, haunting visions of Declan on their last, fateful family vacation in Greece. And with memories of Nikos, the beautiful young man on the tour boat. It started there, with him, beside the glittering sea . . . the beginning of the end.
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YA BOOK GIVEAWAYS LAST WEEK: WINNERS
Ignite Me
by Tahereh Mafi
Hardcover
HarperCollins
Released 2/4/2014
Winner – Nora Geer
The heart-stopping conclusion to the New York Times bestselling Shatter Me series, which Ransom Riggs, bestselling author of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, called “a thrilling, high-stakes saga of self-discovery and forbidden love”
Juliette now knows she may be the only one who can stop the Reestablishment. But to take them down, she’ll need the help of the one person she never thought she could trust: Warner. And as they work together, Juliette will discover that everything she thought she knew-about Warner, her abilities, and even Adam-was wrong.
In Shatter Me, Tahereh Mafi created a captivating and original story that combined the best of dystopian and paranormal and was praised by Publishers Weekly as “a gripping read from an author who’s not afraid to take risks.” The sequel, Unravel Me, blew readers away with heart-racing twists and turns, and New York Times bestselling author Kami Garcia said it was “dangerous, sexy, romantic, and intense.” Now this final book brings the series to a shocking and climactic end.
Praise for the Shatter Me series:
“Dangerous, sexy, romantic, and intense. I dare you to stop reading.”-Kami Garcia, #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of the Beautiful Creatures series
“Tahereh Mafi’s bold, inventive prose crackles with raw emotion. A thrilling, high-stakes saga of self-discovery and forbidden love, the Shatter Me series is a must-read for fans of dystopian young adult literature-or any literature!”-Ransom Riggs, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
“Addictive, intense, and oozing with romance. I’m envious. I couldn’t put it down.”-Lauren Kate, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Fallen series
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Run to You: Third Charm
by Clara Kensie
eBook
Harlequin Teen
Released 2/15/2014
Winner – Perla Munoz
Part Three in the riveting romantic thriller about a family on the run from a deadly past and a first love that will transcend secrets, lies and danger…
Betrayed, heartbroken, and determined to save her family, Tessa Carson refuses to give in to Tristan Walker’s pleas for forgiveness. But her own awakening psychic gift won’t let her rest until she uncovers the truth about her family and her past. And Tristan is the only one who can help her sift through the secrets to find the truth hidden in all the lies…
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MORE YOUNG ADULT FICTION IN STORES NEXT WEEK WITH AUTHOR INTERVIEWS
Better Off Friends
by Elizabeth Eulberg
Hardcover
Point
Released 2/25/2014
WHEN HARRY MET SALLY . . . for teens, from romantic comedy star Elizabeth Eulberg.
For Macallan and Levi, it was friends at first sight. Everyone says guys and girls can’t be just friends, but these two are. They hang out after school, share tons of inside jokes, their families are super close, and Levi even starts dating one of Macallan’s friends. They are platonic and happy that way.
Eventually they realize they’re best friends — which wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t keep getting in each other’s way. Guys won’t ask Macallan out because they think she’s with Levi, and Levi spends too much time joking around with Macallan, and maybe not enough time with his date. They can’t help but wonder . . . are they more than friends or are they better off without making it even more complicated?
From romantic comedy superstar Elizabeth Eulberg comes a fresh, fun examination of a question for the ages: Can guys and girls ever really be just friends? Or are they always one fight away from not speaking again — and one kiss away from true love?
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Better Off Friends?
It’s hard for my to pick my one favorite thing about Better Off Friends. I like that it takes place over five years so you get to see Levi and Macallan’s relationship grow. I also always enjoy books told in multiple points of view so you know what each character is thinking. That wasreally critical in this book since at times both Levi and Macallan weren’t very straightforward with the other person.
But if I HAD to pick, my absolute favorite thing about the book is the little “interstitials” between each chapter when the two simply banter back and forth. It really shows their personality and relationship with each other. Plus, it was my favorite parts to write. When I first started writing, I didn’t think I would get away with it since it’s a little unusual, but I’m thrilled to hear that people who have read the book have enjoyed it.
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Fire & Flood
by Victoria Scott
Hardcover
Scholastic Press
Released 2/25/2014
A modern day thrill ride, where a teen girl and her animal companion must participate in a breathtaking race to save her brother’s life—and her own.
Tella Holloway is losing it. Her brother is sick, and when a dozen doctors can’t determine what’s wrong, her parents decide to move to Montana for the fresh air. She’s lost her friends, her parents are driving her crazy, her brother is dying—and she’s helpless to change anything.
Until she receives mysterious instructions on how to become a Contender in the Brimstone Bleed. It’s an epic race across jungle, desert, ocean, and mountain that could win her the prize she desperately desires: the Cure for her brother’s illness. But all the Contenders are after the Cure for people they love, and there’s no guarantee that Tella (or any of them) will survive the race.
The jungle is terrifying, the clock is ticking, and Tella knows she can’t trust the allies she makes. And one big question emerges: Why have so many fallen sick in the first place?
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Fire & Flood?
Hands down, the Pandoras. I’m a huge animal lover, and I knew I wanted to feature them in this book. Pandoras are companions to the Contenders running the race, and their goal is to help their Contender win. Getting to pick X-Men like capabilities for each Pandora was more challenging than I’d initially thought, but always, always fun!
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Lych Way
by Ari Berk
Hardcover
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Released 2/25/2014
If Love and Death die, what is left?
Silas Umber has returned from Arvale, his family’s ancestral home, having disturbed the tormented spirits of his ancient line. Frantic to retrieve the shade of his beloved Beatrice, he turns his back on the spectral chaos he has left behind, unaware that the malevolence he unleashed has followed him back to Lichport.
As his family and friends suffer and fall at the hands of the vengeful Huntsman from Arvale’s sunken mansions, Silas must reach deep into his complicated bloodline to summon powers and wisdom beyond those required of a simple Lichport Undertaker. But the dark and painful secrets of his birth threaten to overwhelm him, and if he can’t lay the ghosts of his own past to rest, if he refuses to make the required sacrifice, Silas may lose everything and everyone he has grown to love and worked to protect.
With the stunning conclusion to the Undertaken trilogy, Ari Berk returns to the series that Publishers Weekly calls “thought-provoking gothic fantasy,” School Library Journal praises as “reminiscent of the classic gothic works of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Shirley Jackson,” and VOYA applauds as “a captivating world that seduces with each page turn.”
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Lych Way?
My favorite thing is that this book pulls no punches. It delves deeply into the ways Life, Love, and Death are inextricably linked to each other.
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MORE YOUNG ADULT NOVELS NEW IN STORES NEXT WEEK
Burn Bright
by Bethany Frenette
Hardcover
Disney-Hyperion
Released 2/25/2014
Audrey Whitticomb saved her entire city.
Well, kind of. The superhero Morning Star (who just happens to be Audrey’s mom) might have played a small part, and her sidekick, Leon—Audrey’s sort-of boyfriend, who is gorgeous… and frustrating—maybe helped, too.
But after two peaceful months, there is a vicious new threat in Minneapolis. Her name is Susannah, and she’s a Harrower, a demon hell-bent on destroying people like Morning Star, Leon, and Audrey—the Kin. Like others before her, she seeks the Remnant, a Kin girl who has the power to unleash the inhabitants of the Beneath. But to what end?
Audrey already has a ton on her plate: dealing with her best friend Tink’s boy drama, helping her other best friend Gideon figure out his nightmares, and exploring the highs and lows of “dating” Leon. But when she develops a powerful new ability, Audrey seizes on the chance to fight, despite her mother’s protests and Leon’s pleas.
As Audrey gets closer to figuring out Susannah’s motives and tracking down the Remnant, she’ll uncover more than she bargained for. The terrible truth is staring Audrey in the face. But knowing the truth and accepting it are very different things.
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Grandmaster
by David Klass and Perri Klass
Hardcover
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Released 2/25/2014
Freshman Daniel Pratzer gets a chance to prove himself when the chess team invites him and his father to a weekend-long parent-child tournament. Daniel, thinking that his father is a novice, can’t understand why his teammates want so badly for them to participate. Then he finds out the truth: as a teen, his father was one of the most promising young players in America, but the pressures of the game pushed him too far, and he had to give up chess to save his own life and sanity. Now, thirty years later, Mr. Pratzer returns to the game to face down an old competitor and the same dark demons that lurk in the corners of a mind stretched by the demands of the game. Daniel was looking for acceptance—but the secrets he uncovers about his father will force him to make some surprising moves himself, in Grandmaster by David Klass.
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The Hit
by Melvin Burgess
Hardcover
Chicken House
Released 2/25/2014
Live the ultimate high. Pay the ultimate price. The shocking return to YA by the author of SMACK.
A new drug is on the street. Everyone’s buzzing about it. Take the hit. Live the most intense week of your life. Then die. It’s the ultimate high at the ultimate price. Adam thinks it over. He’s poor, and doesn’t see that changing. Lizzie, his girlfriend, can’t make up her mind about sleeping with him, so he can’t get laid. His brother Jess is missing. And Manchester is in chaos, controlled by drug dealers and besieged by a group of homegrown terrorists who call themselves the Zealots. Wouldn’t one amazing week be better than this endless, penniless misery? After Adam downs one of the Death pills, he’s about to find out.
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Threatened
by Eliot Schrefer
Hardcover
Scholastic Press
Released 2/25/2014
Into the jungle. Into the wild. Into harm’s way.
When he was a boy, Luc’s mother would warn him about the “mock men” living in the trees by their home — chimpanzees whose cries would fill the night.
Luc is older now, his mother gone. He lives in a house of mistreated orphans, barely getting by. Then a man calling himself Prof comes to town with a mysterious mission. When Luc tries to rob him, the man isn’t mad. Instead, he offers Luc a job.
Together, Luc and Prof head into the rough, dangerous jungle in order to study the elusive chimpanzees. There, Luc finally finds a new family — and must act when that family comes under attack.
As he did in his acclaimed novel Endangered, a finalist for the National Book Award, Eliot Schrefer takes us somewhere fiction rarely goes, introducing us to characters we rarely get to meet. The unforgettable result is the story of a boy fleeing his present, a man fleeing his past, and a trio of chimpanzees who are struggling not to flee at all.
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Tsarina
by J. Nelle Patrick
Hardcover
Razorbill
Released 2/27/2014
Natalya knows a secret.
A magical Faberge egg glows within the walls of Russia’s Winter Palace.
It holds a power rooted in the land and stolen from the mystics.
A power that promises a life of love for her and Alexei Romanov.
Power, that, in the right hands, can save her way of life.
But it’s in the wrong hands.
An epic romance with glittering magical elements, TSARINA is swirling with beautiful prose, stark Russian contrasts, and lavish visuals perfect for fans of Libba Bray’s A Great and Terrible Beauty.
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White Hot Kiss
by Jennifer L Armentrout
Paperback
Harlequin Teen
Released 2/25/2014
One kiss could be the last
Seventeen-year-old Layla just wants to be normal. But with a kiss that kills anything with a soul, she’s anything but normal. Half demon, half gargoyle, Layla has abilities no one else possesses.
Raised among the Wardens—a race of gargoyles tasked with hunting demons and keeping humanity safe—Layla tries to fit in, but that means hiding her own dark side from those she loves the most. Especially Zayne, the swoon-worthy, incredibly gorgeous and completely off-limits Warden she’s crushed on since forever.
Then she meets Roth—a tattooed, sinfully hot demon who claims to know all her secrets. Layla knows she should stay away, but she’s not sure she wants to—especially when that whole no-kissing thing isn’t an issue, considering Roth has no soul.
But when Layla discovers she’s the reason for the violent demon uprising, trusting Roth could not only ruin her chances with Zayne…it could brand her a traitor to her family. Worse yet, it could become a one-way ticket to the end of the world.
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