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YA BOOK GIVEAWAYS THIS WEEK
Code of Honor
by Alan Gratz
Signed Hardcover Giveaway
U.S. Only
Scholastic Press
Released 8/25/2015
A timely, nonstop action-adventure about the War on Terror–and a family torn apart.
When seventeen-year-old Iranian-American Kamran Smith learns that his brother has been labeled a terrorist, he knows something isn’t right. In a race against time, it is up to Kamran to prove his brother’s innocence, even as the country has turned against him and his family. With the help of a ragtag team of underground intelligence professionals, Kamran must piece together the clues and the codes that will save his brother’s life–and save his country from possibly the largest terrorist attack since 9/11.
Acclaimed author Alan Gratz takes readers on a nonstop action-adventure journey through the emotional, political, and cultural landscape of the War on Terror, while weaving a poignant tale of two brothers.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Code of Honor?
While I’ve always tried to make my books action-packed, CODE OF HONOR is my first straight-up thriller. So I’m excited about that. But I think my favorite thing about CODE OF HONOR is that it features a Persian-American main character. Many moderate Iranians–who self-identify as Persian–fled Iran during the Islamic Revolution in 1979 and settled in America. My protagonist’s mom was born in Iran, fled the revolution, came to America, married an American man of European descent, and had two boys. Kamran Smith, the 17-year-old younger son, has grown up like any regular American kid, watching TV and playing video games and playing American football. Kamran isn’t Muslim, he isn’t Christian–he isn’t anything, religiously speaking. But because he looks like someone from the Middle East, he finds himself the subject of a lot of suspicious glares and overt whispers wherever he goes. And those only get worse when his older brother Darius, an Army Ranger, looks like he’s become a terrorist with al Qaeda.
CODE OF HONOR gave me a chance to examine the challenges and prejudices that hundreds of thousands of Persian- and Arab-American teenagers face every day–something I haven’t see a lot of in young adult fiction! All against the pulse-pounding backdrop of a spy thriller, of course. 🙂
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Thirteen Days of Midnight
by Leo Hunt
Hardcover Giveaway
U.S. Only
Candlewick
Released 8/25/2015
When Luke Manchett’s estranged father dies unexpectedly, he leaves his son a dark inheritance: a collection of eight restless spirits, known as his Host, who want revenge for their long enslavement. Once they figure out that Luke has no clue how to manage them, they become increasingly belligerent, and eventually mutiny. Halloween (the night when ghosts reach the height of their power) is fast approaching, and Luke knows his Host is planning something far more trick than treat. Armed with only his father’s indecipherable notes, a locked copy of The Book of Eight, and help from school outcast Elza Moss, Luke has just thirteen days to uncover the closely guarded secrets of black magic and send his unquiet spirits to their eternal rest—or join their ghostly ranks himself.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Thirteen Days of Midnight?
Maybe this is a dull answer but my favourite thing is the fact that I finished the final draft of a novel and it is being published in multiple countries! As ‘Thirteen Days’ is my first published work, I can honestly say I never expected it to go as far as it has. I can still very vividly remember unpacking the proof copies. It’s so amazing to finally hold a finished book after staring at a word document for nearly half a decade.
Also Ham the dog.
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Another Day
by David Levithan
Hardcover Giveaway
U.S. Only
Knopf Books for Young Readers
Released 8/25/2015
The eagerly anticipated companion to David Levithan’s New York Times bestseller Every Day.
In this enthralling companion to his New York Times bestseller Every Day, David Levithan (co-author of Will Grayson, Will Grayson with John Green) tells Rhiannon’s side of the story as she seeks to discover the truth about love and how it can change you.
Every day is the same for Rhiannon. She has accepted her life, convinced herself that she deserves her distant, temperamental boyfriend, Justin, even established guidelines by which to live: Don’t be too needy. Avoid upsetting him. Never get your hopes up.
Until the morning everything changes. Justin seems to see her, to want to be with her for the first time, and they share a perfect day—a perfect day Justin doesn’t remember the next morning. Confused, depressed, and desperate for another day as great as that one, Rhiannon starts questioning everything. Then, one day, a stranger tells her that the Justin she spent that day with, the one who made her feel like a real person . . . wasn’t Justin at all.
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Diary of a Haunting
by M. Verano
Hardcover Giveaway
U.S. Only
Simon Pulse
Released 8/25/2015
When Paige moves from LA to Idaho with her mom and little brother after her parents’ high-profile divorce, she expects to completely hate her new life, and the small town doesn’t disappoint. Worse yet, the drafty old mansion they’ve rented is infested with flies, spiders, and other pests Paige doesn’t want to think about.
She chalks it up to her rural surroundings, but it’s harder to ignore the strange things happening around the house, from one can of ravioli becoming a dozen, to unreadable words appearing in the walls. Soon Paige’s little brother begins roaming the house at all hours of the night, and there’s something not right about the downstairs neighbor, who knows a lot more than he’s letting on.
Things only get creepier when she learns about the sinister cult that conducted experimental rituals in the house almost a hundred years earlier.
The more Paige investigates, and the deeper she digs, the clearer it all becomes: whatever is in the house, whatever is causing all the strange occurrences, has no intention of backing down without a fight.
Found in the aftermath, Diary of a Haunting collects the journal entries, letters, and photographs Paige left behind.
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Stranded
by Melinda Braun
Hardcover Giveaway
U.S. Only
Simon Pulse
Released 8/25/2015
In the tradition of 127 Hours and The Edge, a fascinating and suspenseful novel about a group of teens battling for their lives against the most violent villain in history—Mother Nature.
It’s human instinct to survive…but Mother Nature has other plans.
Plagued with guilt after surviving the car accident that took her sister’s life, Emma ventures into the rugged and mysterious wilderness of the Boundary Waters in search of some much needed peace. But when a freak windstorm kills her guide, Emma and a handful of other campers are forced to fend for themselves. Lost, hungry, and exhausted, the small group must rely on their survival instincts as they travel through the forest towards Lake Superior.
But the Boundary Waters is vast and unpredictable, and as the days drag on, it becomes clear that the group is no match for what Mother Nature has in store—and time is running out.
As they continue to battle the elements, Emma realizes that nature isn’t her only threat: there’s one camper who will do whatever it takes to make it out of the Boundary Waters alive. Even if he’s the only one…
With ripped-from-the-headlines drama, this stirring story of heroism and survival will have you at the edge of your seat until the very last page.
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Until Friday Night
by Abbi Glines
Hardcover Giveaway
U.S. Only
Simon Pulse
Released 8/25/2015
To everyone who knows him, West Ashby has always been that guy: the cocky, popular, way-too-handsome-for-his-own-good football god who led Lawton High to the state championships. But while West may be Big Man on Campus on the outside, on the inside he’s battling the grief that comes with watching his father slowly die of cancer.
Two years ago, Maggie Carleton’s life fell apart when her father murdered her mother. And after she told the police what happened, she stopped speaking and hasn’t spoken since. Even the move to Lawton, Alabama, couldn’t draw Maggie back out. So she stayed quiet, keeping her sorrow and her fractured heart hidden away.
As West’s pain becomes too much to handle, he knows he needs to talk to someone about his father—so in the dark shadows of a post-game party, he opens up to the one girl who he knows won’t tell anyone else.
West expected that talking about his dad would bring some relief, or at least a flood of emotions he couldn’t control. But he never expected the quiet new girl to reply, to reveal a pain even deeper than his own—or for them to form a connection so strong that he couldn’t ever let her go…
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YA BOOK GIVEAWAYS LAST WEEK: WINNERS
Court of Fives by Kate Elliott – Randi M.
Shackled by Tom Leveen – Alice W.
MORE YOUNG ADULT FICTION IN STORES NEXT WEEK WITH AUTHOR INTERVIEWS
Hide and Seek
by Jane Casey
Hardcover
St. Martin’s Griffin; First Edition edition
Released 8/25/2015
Jess Tennant’s classmate is kidnapped right before the Christmas holiday in this third novel in Jane Casey’s brilliant young adult mystery series.
It’s Christmas in Port Sentinel, the tiny English town where Jess Tennant has been living for more than a year now. She wasn’t sure how she felt about moving away from London when her mom dragged her to Port Sentinel right before the beginning of high school, but even Jess has to admit the town has completely outdone itself for the holidays. There’s a Christmas market complete with mini ice-rink, and fairy lights decorate the bare trees all over town.
For one of Jess’s classmates, though, the Christmas season is anything but magical. She’s been kidnapped and is being held in a dilapidated cottage near a deserted beach. And Jess might be the only one who can figure out where she is in time to rescue her.
Hide and Seek is another delightfully clever young adult mystery from beloved author Jane Casey.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Hide and Seek?
There’s nothing I like better than surprising my readers and there’s a big surprise near the end of HIDE AND SEEK that I’ve been planning from the first day I thought about this series, years ago. It’s really satisfying to turn everything upside down, like shaking a kaleidoscope and watching a new pattern settle into place.
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Mechanica
by Betsy Cornwell
Hardcover
Clarion Books
Released 8/25/2015
Nicolette’s awful stepsisters call her “Mechanica” to demean her, but the nickname fits: she learned to be an inventor at her mother’s knee. Her mom is gone now, though, and the Steps have turned her into a servant in her own home.
But on her sixteenth birthday, Nicolette discovers a secret workshop in the cellar and begins to dare to imagine a new life for herself. Could the mysterious books and tools hidden there—and the mechanical menagerie, led by a tiny metal horse named Jules—be the key to escaping her dreary existence? With a technological exposition and royal ball on the horizon, the timing might just be perfect for Nicolette to earn her freedom at last.
Gorgeous prose and themes of social justice and family shine in this richly imagined Cinderella retelling about an indomitable inventor who finds her prince . . . but realizes she doesn’t want a fairy tale happy ending after all.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Mechanica?
I was working on a collection of short fairy tale retellings in 2009 when a couple of friends told me about steampunk. I fell in love with the creativity and general aesthetic, and I immediately realized that a steampunk Cinderella story would be a perfect fit. There’s already an important clock in the story, of course (the heroine has to know when midnight comes!) but even more so, the story itself runs like a well-oiled machine. Its structure is so perfect that Kurt Vonnegut even used it to chart the root plot of all stories! But the idea that so many fairy tales drive toward the same narrow, prescriptive goal of marrying a prince really bothered me, and I knew that an inventor, steampunk Cinderella would be able to break down and reassemble her story to suit her own desires.
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MORE YOUNG ADULT NOVELS NEW IN STORES NEXT WEEK
A Little in Love
by Susan E. Fletcher
Hardcover
Chicken House
Released 8/25/2015
Inspired by Victor Hugo’s classic Les Miserables, A Little in Love beautifully conveys the heartbreaking story of street girl Eponine.
Paris, 1832
A girl lies alone in the darkness, clutching a letter to her heart.
Eponine remembers being a child: her swing and the peach tree, and the baby brother she loved. But mostly she remembers being miserable. Taught to lie and cheat, and to hate the one girl, Cosette, who might have been her friend.
Now, at sixteen, the two girls meet again, and Eponine has one more chance. But what is the price of friendship–the love of a boy?
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Dead Upon a Time
by Elizabeth Paulson
Hardcover
Scholastic Press
Released 8/25/2015
It’s a fairy-tale nightmare . . .
One girl is kept in a room where every day the only food she’s given is a poisoned apple. Another is kept in a room covered in needles — and if she pricks her finger, she’ll die. Then there are the brother and sister kept in a cell that keeps getting hotter and hotter. . .
A sinister kidnapper is on the loose in Kate’s world. She’s not involved until one day she heads to her grandmother’s house in the woods — and finds her grandmother has also been taken. Already an outcast, Kate can’t get any help from the villagers who hate her. Only Jack, another outsider, will listen to what’s happened.
Then a princess is taken, and suddenly the king is paying attention — even though the girl’s stepmother would rather he didn’t. It’s up to Kate and Jack to track down the victims before an ever after arrives that’s far from happy.
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Keepers of the Labyrinth
by Erin E. Moulton
Hardcover
Philomel Books
Released 8/25/2015
Courage is tested, myths come to life, and long-held secrets are revealed.
Lilith Bennette runs at midnight. She scales walls in the dark and climbs without a harness. She hopes that if she follows exactly in the steps of her strong air force pilot mother, she’ll somehow figure out the mystery of her mother’s death—and the reason why her necklace of Greek symbols has been missing ever since.
So when Lil is invited to Crete for a Future Leaders International conference, the same conference her mom attended years ago, she jumps at the chance to find some answers. But things in Melios Manor are not what they seem. Lil finds herself ensnared in an adventure of mythological proportions that leads her and her friends through the very labyrinth in which the real Minotaur was imprisoned. And they’re not in there alone. What secrets does the labyrinth hold, and will they help Lil find the truth about her mother?
This book is perfect for older fans of Percy Jackson and the Olympians and the Heroes of Olympus–and anyone who wants to find out the true story behind the magic of the Greek gods.
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Lair of Dreams
by Libba Bray
Hardcover
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Released 8/25/2015
After a supernatural showdown with a serial killer, Evie O’Neill has outed herself as a Diviner. Now that the world knows of her ability to “read” objects, and therefore, read the past, she has become a media darling, earning the title, “America’s Sweetheart Seer.” But not everyone is so accepting of the Diviners’ abilities…
Meanwhile, mysterious deaths have been turning up in the city, victims of an unknown sleeping sickness. Can the Diviners descend into the dreamworld and catch a killer?
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The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall
by Katie Alender
Hardcover
Point
Released 8/25/2015
IN THIS ASYLUM, YOUR MIND PLAYS TRICK ON YOU ALL THE TIME …
Delia’s new house isn’t just a house. Long ago, it was the Piven Institute for the Care and Correction of Troubled Females — an insane asylum nicknamed “Hysteria Hall.” However, many of the inmates were not insane, just defiant and strong willed. Kind of like Delia herself.
But the house still wants to keep “troubled” girls locked away. So, in the most horrifying way, Delia becomes trapped. And that’s when she learns that the house is also haunted.
Ghost girls wander the hallways in their old-fashioned nightgowns. A handsome ghost boy named Theo roams the grounds. Delia learns that all the spirits are unsettled and full of dark secrets. The house, too, harbors shocking truths within its walls — truths that only Delia can uncover, and that may set her free.
And she’ll need to act quickly — before the house’s power overtakes everything she loves.
Katie Alender brings heart-pounding suspense, gorgeous writing, and a feminist twist to this tale of memories and madness.
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