Our Free October workshop will feature guest mentor Maureen Lipinski , author of Cleopatra Ascending and Shadow’s Edge. We will take the first five entries submitted at noon on October 5th.
Read the rules and get your pages ready!
YA BOOK GIVEAWAYS THIS WEEK
The Extra
by Kathryn Lasky
Signed Hardcover Giveaway
Candlewick
Released 10/8/2013
Is the chance to serve as an extra for Hitler’s favorite filmmaker a chance at life — or a detour on the path to inevitable extermination?
One ordinary afternoon, fifeen-year-old Lilo and her family are suddenly picked up by Hitler’s police and imprisoned as part of the “Gypsy plague.” Just when it seems certain that they will be headed to a labor camp, Lilo is chosen by filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl to work as a film extra. Life on the film set is a bizarre alternate reality. The surroundings are glamorous, but Lilo and the other extras are barely fed, closely guarded, and kept in a locked barn when not on the movie set. And the beautiful, charming Riefenstahl is always present, answering the slightest provocation with malice, flaunting the power to assign prisoners to life or death. Lilo takes matters into her own hands, effecting an escape and running for her life. In this chilling but ultimately uplifting novel, Kathryn Lasky imagines the lives of the Gypsies who worked as extras for the real Nazi filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, giving readers a story of survival unlike any other.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about The Extra?
This is a question that normally I might have a difficult time answering. I guess I would reflect on certain scenes that I had fun writing or perhaps some great comeback a character had to a remark another character had made. But with THE EXTRA it is different. My favorite thing is that this is a story that really fell between the cracks of history. There has been so much written about the holocaust and I think many people know that gypsies and homosexuals were targeted by the Nazis as well as Jews. But very few people know the story of the gypsies who were taken out of internment camps to become ‘film slaves’ for Leni Reifenstahl in her first directorial effort of a dramatic film Tiefland. The main character in my book is Lilo Friwald who is a composite of two real girls who were film slaves. One had worked as a stunt double for Leni in the horseback riding scenes and the other was an extra. Leni had the power to have people released from concentration camps as well as to arrange to have them sent there. Many of the gypsies that Leni chose to be films slaves tried to bargain with her. It rarely worked. I had always said that I would never want to write a book with Hitler as the main character for I felt he was so evil that a writer might become vulnerable to making a caricature out of him. But Leni Reifenstahl was a different story. I was fascinated by her beauty juxtaposed against the ultimate evil face of Hitler with that little toothbrush mustache of his, and I began to realize through my research that sometimes the face of evil can be very beautiful—like a flip side.
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Season of the Witch
by Mariah Fredericks
Signed Hardcover Giveaway
Schwartz & Wade
Released 10/8/2013
Like Fredericks’s The Girl in the Park, here is a page-turner that perfectly captures the world of New York City private schools, as it explores the notion of power among teenage girls. Queen Bee Chloe is going to make Toni suffer for the whatever that transpired between Toni and Chloe’s boyfriend, Oliver, over the summer. From day one of eleventh grade, she has Toni branded as a super slut, and it isn’t long before things get so ugly that Toni fears for her safety. What’s a scared, powerless, and fed-up teenager to do? Guided by Cassandra—a girl with some serious problems of her own—Toni decides to stop playing the victim and take control. Cassandra has been experimenting with witchcraft, and together they cast a spell on Chloe that may actually cause her death. Could Toni have really made such an awful thing happen?
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Season of the Witch?
My favorite thing about Season of the Witch was the chance to be nasty. To write characters who have hateful feelings—and revel in them. My natural bent as a writer is to create characters who are somewhat self-conscious. They edit themselves a lot. “DId I say the right thing?” “Will that person hate me?” But I realized that in a story about witchcraft, the characters have to embrace the “dark side.” You can’t cast spells if you’re not really feeling it. Their language is strong and bold because their feelings are. Cassandra, in particular, makes no apologies for who she hates, who she loves, and what she feels the people in each group deserve. She is a very smart, very angry, very vengeful young woman. I really love her and I hope readers do, too.
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Coaltown Jesus
by Ron Koertge
Hardcover Giveaway
Candlewick
Released 10/8/2013
When Jesus shows up in Walker’s life, healing triumphs over heartbreak in Koertge’s finest and funniest novel yet.
Walker shouldn’t have been so surprised to find Jesus standing in the middle of his bedroom. After all, he’d prayed for whoever was up there to help him, and to help his mom, who hadn’t stopped crying since Noah died two months ago. But since when have prayers actually been answered? And since when has Jesus been so . . . irreverent? But as astounding as Jesus’ sudden appearance is, it’s going to take more than divine intervention for Walker to come to terms with his brother’s sudden death. Why would God take seventeen-year-old Noah when half of the residents in his mom’s nursing home were waiting to die? And why would he send Jesus to Coaltown, Illinois, to pick up the pieces? In a spare and often humorous text, renowned poet Ron Koertge tackles some of life’s biggest questions — and humanizes the divine savior in a way that highlights the divinity in all of us.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Coaltown Jesus?
I love its relative brevity. My first YAs, and we’re going back at least a couple of decades, were traditional novels. “The Arizona Kid,” for example, is a couple hundred pages with a traditional story arc: a new kid comes to town, has adventures, leaves with some hard-earned maturity. In “Coaltown Jesus” the newcomer is Jesus but the story arc belongs to Walker. I’ve been a poet since I was twenty, and even though my usual writing style is informal with long, loose stanzas sometimes, I’m always aware of what scholars call “the integrity of the line.” I fooled around a lot with the lines in “Coaltown Jesus,” making every word work as hard as it could. I asked myself regularly, “Do you need this stanza? Do you need that conversation? Or in the case of Shadow, “How about a dog?”
Good athletes make what they do look easy. Behind their grace, lie months of practice and discipline. If “Coaltown Jesus” reads easily, I’ve done my job, and nobody had to see me sweat!
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No Angel
Beauty”s Daughter: The Story of Hermione and Helen of Troy
Backwards
by Todd Mitchell
Hardcover Giveaway
Candlewick
Released 10/8/2013
An edge-of-your-seat thriller asks: Is it possible to fix a tragic future by changing the past — while experiencing life backwards?
At the moment Dan’s life ends, the Rider’s begins. Unwillingly tied to Dan, who seems to be shuffling through life, the Rider finds himself moving backwards in time, each day revealing more of the series of events that led to Dan’s suicide. As the Rider struggles to figure out what he’s meant to do, he revels in the life Dan ignores. Beyond the simple pleasures of a hot shower and the sun on his face, the Rider also notices the people around Dan: his little sister, always disappointed by her big brother’s rejection, and his overwhelmed mom, who can never rely on Dan for help. Most of all, the Rider notices Cat with her purple hair, artistic talent, and misfit beauty. But Cat doesn’t want anything to do with Dan, paying attention instead to popular football player Finn. As the days move in reverse and Halloween looms, Cat becomes the center of the Rider’s world — until the Rider finds out the shocking reason why Cat is so angry with Dan. Can the Rider make things right before it’s too late?
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Backwards?
My favorite thing about Backwards is that I’ve honestly never read a book like it. It’s hard to classify — a bit of a mystery, romance, character drama, with some bizarre humorous moments — all narrated by a character who takes over a dead teen and starts traveling backwards in time.
The book was inspired by tragedy. Long story short, a few people I knew killed themselves, and some others tried to. This all happened around the same time, and it really shook me up. For me, books often start with a question — something I need to figure out or understand better. With Backwards I had many questions. Trouble was, I didn’t want to write another suicide book. I wasn’t satisfied with the way many other books I’d read portrayed tough issues like suicide. Too many seemed to glorify it, or reward the suicide fantasy, while others I’d read were so depressing that I could barely read them. So with Backwards I wanted to create a book that explored the seriousness of suicide and other self-destructive behaviors, while at the same time being an uplifting, compelling read (because I’m generally a very optimistic person). And the only way I could think of to do that was to tell the story backwards.
Instead of suicide being the ending, I made it the beginning, as the Rider comes to life at the moment of Dan’s death. Then the Rider inhabits Dan’s body, and starts traveling backwards in time trying to figure out why Dan killed himself, and what could be done to change things. Rather than focusing on the aftermath of suicide, the focus is on the choices that lead up to Dan’s death and a few other self-destructive behaviors. It’s my hope that this book can be used to start a conversation about some tough issues. Plus, it’s a pretty quick, exciting read, so hopefully it will attract some readers who don’t like reading heavy books. Above all, I wanted it to be a good story that asks some big questions. I hope you’ll check it out.
PS: One of my other favorite thing about Backwards is that the design team used some funky backwards title fonts. You need to see it to get I mean (or better yet, hold it up in a mirror).
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Pull Down the Night
by Nathan Kotecki
Hardcover Giveaway
HMH Books for Young Readers
Released 10/8/2013
This year at Suburban High School is just as troubling as the last. A curly-haired girl ghost is disrupting lives with dreaded “kiss notes,” and students are inexplicably sinking into depression. Bruno—the new kid on the block—finds himself at the center of the mystery when he discovers his natural map-reading abilities are actually supernatural. When the reluctant hero isn’t engaged in cosmic battles against evil, Bruno is swooning over the mesmerizing Celia (from The Suburban Strange) and navigating the goth sensibilities and musical obsessions of the Rosary, her über-chic clique. A hypnotic coming-of-age novel that chills and thrills.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Pull Down the Night?
This is a difficult question to answer because my favorite thing about PULL DOWN THE NIGHT is incredibly spoiler-y! What can I tell you…
While there is a strong supernatural component to this series, I feel very strongly that the center of these books is in the real-world, coming-of-age journeys taken by my main characters (Celia in THE SUBURBAN STRANGE, and now Bruno in PULL DOWN THE NIGHT). The fantastic stories have to be grounded by character arcs in which these people deal with the types of problems we all know: how to be part of a group and remain true to yourself; what it means to make decisions about the person you want to become; how the experiences we choose each day ultimately shape us into who we are. I am most proud of these two books because I believe Celia and Bruno are different people at the end of their stories than they were at the beginning – they’ve grown.
In PULL DOWN THE NIGHT, a lot of $#!% goes down for Bruno – some of it supernatural, some of it all too real. His convictions are tested, and his values are questioned. Near the end of the book, though, he has a moment – a very quiet moment, but also, I think, the true resolution of his story – that is my absolute favorite thing about the book. He has fought his way through some rather intense supernatural challenges with plenty of collateral damage along the way, and the resolution of those challenges is obviously key to the plot. But he’s also been on a more ‘slow-burn’ journey as a regular guy with a friend who has no idea anything supernatural has happened, and it’s the resolution of that story line that gives Bruno his heart. And while I can’t tell you what it is, it’s my favorite part.
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One Crow Alone
by S. D. Crockett
Hardcover Giveaway
Feiwel & Friends
Released 10/8/2013
“They say it’s going to get worse. That it’s not going to end.”
The snow won’t stop falling in this dangerous-new-world.
The long, bitter winters are getting worse, and a state of emergency has been declared across Europe. In Poland, the villagers are subject to frequent power cuts and fuel shortages. After the death of her grandmother and the evacuation of her village, fifteen-year-old Magda joins forces with the arrogant, handsome Ivan and smuggles her way onto a truck bound for London – where she hopes to find her mother. But London, when they reach it, is a nightmarish world, far from welcoming. Riots are commonplace and the growing chaos is exploited by criminals and terrorists alike. Magda’s mother is not to be found, and as the lost girl struggles to come to terms with her changing situation, she eventually becomes friends with a rag-tag group of travellers planning a new home and future. They will need all the cunning and know-how they possess as they realise that the frozen wilderness of Britain has become just as lawless as the as the city.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about One Crow Alone?
One Crow Alone is my celebration of story telling. The lead characters from my first book, After the Snow–Willo and Mary–are sitting with their baby in a windswept, clifftop cottage. To calm the baby, Mary begins a Tell: a story telling. She then recounts the journey of Magda, Willo’s stepmother, a minor character from After the Snow. And she tells Magda’s story through the voice of The Crow, an all seeing character from an imaginary Polish Folk Tale.
‘Once upon a time. When Crow again came to walk about on this earth amongst men and a shadow came to fall over the land. There lived a poor woman and her granddaughter–‘
So you can see, I am interested in Fairy Tales and Folk Tales. In my opinion, they form the basis of our story telling ability and understanding of narratives, real and imaginary. As we get older,of course, we need our stories more complex and nuanced perhaps, but the basics of good versus bad, temptation, quest and overcoming the monster are as relevant today as they have always been. So for me, whilst I loved dragging poor Magda through hell and high water towards her slavation, the thing I enjoyed as much, was weaving the thread of Myth and Fairy Tale right into the heart of the story.
As Mary says to Willo when she has finished her Tell and the baby is asleep:
“I didn’t get it all right,’ she said. ‘About your Da and everything. Or Magda. I know I had to make some bits up. But that weren’t really the point.”
That for me is the beauty of telling stories, the magical suspension of disbelief: that whole edifice created by the story teller; and the staggering leap of faith the reader takes. Nothing is real, everything is real. So my favourite thing in One Crow Alone, apart from Magda herself of course, will have to be–Danaa! The Crow.
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Premeditated
by Josin L McQuein
Advance Reader Copy Giveaway
Delacorte Press
Released 10/8/2013
A week ago, Dinah’s cousin Claire cut her wrists.
Five days ago, Dinah found Claire’s diary and discovered why.
Three days ago, Dinah stopped crying and came up with a plan.
Two days ago, she ditched her piercings and bleached the black dye from her hair.
Yesterday, knee socks and uniform plaid became a predator’s camouflage.
Today, she’ll find the boy who broke Claire.
By tomorrow, he’ll wish he were dead.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Premeditated?
My favorite part of Premeditated is the one thing I thought would keep me from writing it in the first place. I don’t normally write realistic fiction, and I never thought I would. In a weird way, writing about supernatural things and super powered people had become a crutch. Premeditated was the result of letting it go.
Dinah is resourceful and smart, without having super strength or telepathy. The closest thing to super computers or robots she has at her disposal is her techy-friend Brucey. The villain is very human, and all the more monstrous for it. I love Premeditated because it made me try something new.
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Juvie
by Steve Watkins
Hardcover Giveaway
Candlewick
Released 10/8/2013
Heart-wrenching and real, Juvie tells the story of two sisters grappling with accountability, sacrifice — and who will be there to help you after you take the fall.
Sadie Windas has always been the responsible one — she’s the star player on her AAU basketball team, she gets good grades, she dates a cute soccer player, and she tries to help out at home. Not like her older sister, Carla, who leaves her three-year-old daughter, Lulu, with Aunt Sadie while she parties and gets high. But when both sisters are caught up in a drug deal — wrong place, wrong time — it falls to Sadie to confess to a crime she didn’t commit to keep Carla out of jail and Lulu out of foster care. Sadie is supposed to get off with a slap on the wrist, but somehow, impossibly, gets sentenced to six months in juvie. As life as Sadie knew it disappears beyond the stark bars of her cell, her anger — at her ex-boyfriend, at Carla, and at herself — fills the empty space left behind. Can Sadie forgive Carla for getting her mixed up in this mess? Can Carla straighten herself out to make a better life for Lulu, and for all of them? Can Sadie survive her time in juvie with her spirit intact?
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The Kingdom of Little Wounds
by Susann Cokal
Hardcover Giveaway
Candlewick
Released 10/8/2013
A young seamstress and a royal nursemaid find themselves at the center of an epic power struggle in this stunning young-adult debut.
On the eve of Princess Sophia’s wedding, the Scandinavian city of Skyggehavn prepares to fete the occasion with a sumptuous display of riches: brocade and satin and jewels, feasts of sugar fruit and sweet spiced wine. Yet beneath the veneer of celebration, a shiver of darkness creeps through the palace halls. A mysterious illness plagues the royal family, threatening the lives of the throne’s heirs, and a courtier’s wolfish hunger for the king’s favors sets a devious plot in motion.
Here in the palace at Skyggehavn, things are seldom as they seem — and when a single errant prick of a needle sets off a series of events that will alter the course of history, the fates of seamstress Ava Bingen and mute nursemaid Midi Sorte become irrevocably intertwined with that of mad Queen Isabel. As they navigate a tangled web of palace intrigue, power-lust, and deception, Ava and Midi must carve out their own survival any way they can.
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* * * *
The Brokenhearted
by Amelia Kahaney
Advance Reader Copy Giveaway
HarperTeen
Released 10/8/2013
A teenage girl is transformed into a reluctant superhero and must balance her old life with the dark secret of who she has become.
Prima ballerina Anthem Fleet is closely guarded by her parents in their penthouse apartment. But when she meets the handsome Gavin at a party on the wrong side of town, she is immediately drawn into his dangerous world. Then, in a tragic accident, Anthem falls to her death. She awakes in an underground lab, with a bionic heart ticking in her chest. As she navigates her new life, she uncovers the sinister truth behind those she trusted the most, and the chilling secret of her family lineage…and her duty to uphold it.
The Dark Knight meets Cinder in this gripping and cinematic story of heartbreak and revenge. From Alloy Entertainment, this inventive new superhero story is sure to captivate any reader.
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YA BOOK GIVEAWAYS LAST WEEK: WINNERS
Eat, Brains, Love
by Jeff Hart
Paperback
HarperTeen
Released 10/1/2013
WINNER Taffy Lovell
Two teenage zombies search for brains, love, and answers in this surprisingly romantic and laugh-out-loud funny debut novel with guts.
Jake Stephens was always an average, fly-under-the-radar guy. The kind of guy who would never catch the attention of an insanely popular girl like Amanda Blake-or a psychic teenage government agent like Cass. But one day during lunch, Jake’s whole life changed. He and Amanda suddenly locked eyes across the cafeteria, and at the exact same instant, they turned into zombies and devoured half their senior class.
Now Jake definitely has Amanda’s attention-as well as Cass’s, since she’s been sent on a top-secret mission to hunt them down. As Jake and Amanda deal with the existential guilt of eating their best friends, Cass struggles with a growing psychic dilemma of her own-one that will lead the three of them on an epic journey across the country and make them question what it means to truly be alive. Or undead.
Eat, Brains, Love is a heartwarming and bloody blend of romance, deadpan humor, and suspense that fans of Isaac Marion’s Warm Bodies will devour. With its irresistibly dry and authentic teen voice, as well as a zombie apocalypse worthy of AMC’s The Walking Dead, this irreverent paperback original will leave readers dying for the sequel that’s coming in Summer 2014.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Eat, Brains, Love?
“Maybe this is a cop out answer, but my favorite thing about EAT, BRAINS, LOVE is that it’s finally coming out. As a debut author, I wouldn’t say I was totally ignorant of the publishing process – revising, copy-editing, marketing, all that behind-the-scenes sausage-making stuff – I knew how long it would take, sort of like how a kid knows when his next birthday is, you know, theoretically. But I wasn’t prepared for how lo-o-o-ong it would feel. It’s very strange to be talking about EBL now – finally! – when I’m already working on the second draft of its sequel. The book has felt like this kinda private, far-off thing for so long, that it’s equal parts exciting and surreal to have it actually out there, in people’s hands. Oh, and my actual favorite part of the book? Probably when my two zombie leads – Jake and Amanda – go all Lady and the Tramp on the intestines of a recently deceased trucker. ROMANCE!
“
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Unbreakable
by Kami Garcia
Hardcover
LBYR
Released 10/1/2013
WINNER Nicole Planchett
Supernatural meets The Da Vinci Code in this action-packed paranormal thriller, the first book in a new series from New York Times bestselling author Kami Garcia.
I never believed in ghosts. Until one tried to kill me.
When Kennedy Waters finds her mother dead, her world begins to unravel. She doesn’t know that paranormal forces in a much darker world are the ones pulling the strings. Not until identical twins Jared and Lukas Lockhart break into Kennedy’s room and destroy a dangerous spirit sent to kill her. The brothers reveal that her mother was part of an ancient secret society responsible for protecting the world from a vengeful demon — a society whose five members were all murdered on the same night.
Now Kennedy has to take her mother’s place in the Legion if she wants to uncover the truth and stay alive. Along with new Legion members Priest and Alara, the teens race to find the only weapon that might be able to destroy the demon — battling the deadly spirits he controls every step of the way.
Suspense, romance, and the paranormal meet in this chilling urban fantasy, the first book in a new series from Kami Garcia, bestselling coauthor of the Beautiful Creatures novels.
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How To Love
by Katie Cotugno
Hardcover
Balzer + Bray Books
Released 10/1/2013
WINNER Bailee Christiansen
Before: Reena Montero has loved Sawyer LeGrande for as long as she can remember: as natural as breathing, as endless as time. But he’s never seemed to notice that Reena even exists…until one day, impossibly, he does. Reena and Sawyer fall in messy, complicated love. But then Sawyer disappears from their humid Florida town without a word, leaving a devastated—and pregnant—Reena behind.
After: Almost three years have passed, and there’s a new love in Reena’s life: her daughter, Hannah. Reena’s gotten used to being without Sawyer, and she’s finally getting the hang of this strange, unexpected life. But just as swiftly and suddenly as he disappeared, Sawyer turns up again. Reena doesn’t want anything to do with him, though she’d be lying if she said Sawyer’s being back wasn’t stirring something in her. After everything that’s happened, can Reena really let herself love Sawyer LeGrande again?
In this breathtaking debut, Katie Cotugno weaves together the story of one couple falling in love—twice.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about How To Love?
I think my favorite thing about HOW TO LOVE is how flawed the characters are. Sawyer and Reena are both real pains when they want to be, making one bad decision after another and messing up time after time. Hopefully their faults make them human and sympathetic to read about and root for–it definitely makes them more interesting to me.
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Hideous Love: The Story of the Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein
by Stephanie Hemphill
Hardcover
Balzer + Bray Books
Released 10/1/2013
WINNER Rachelle Hayes
From award-winning author Stephanie Hemphill comes the fascinating story of Mary Shelley, a brilliant teenager who wrote one of the greatest literary masterpieces of all time: Frankenstein.
An all-consuming love affair.
A family torn apart by scandal.
A young author on the brink of greatness.
Hideous Love is the fascinating story of Gothic novelist Mary Shelley, who as a teen girl fled her restrictive home only to find herself in the shadow of a brilliant but moody boyfriend, famed poet Percy Shelley. It is the story of the mastermind behind one of the most iconic figures in all of literature: a monster constructed out of dead bodies and brought to life by the tragic Dr. Frankenstein.
Mary wrote Frankenstein at the age of nineteen, but inspiration for the monster came from her life-the atmospheric European settings she visited, the dramas swirling around her, and the stimulating philosophical discussions with the greatest minds of the period, like her close friend, Lord Byron.
This luminous verse novel from award-winning author Stephanie Hemphill reveals how Mary Shelley became one of the most celebrated authors in history.
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MORE YOUNG ADULT FICTION IN STORES NEXT WEEK WITH AUTHOR INTERVIEWS
Red
by Alison Cherry
Hardcover
Delacorte Press
Released 10/8/2013
Felicity St. John has it all—loyal best friends, a hot guy, and artistic talent. And she’s right on track to win the Miss Scarlet pageant. Her perfect life is possible because of just one thing: her long, wavy, coppery red hair.
Having red hair is all that matters in Scarletville. Redheads hold all the power—and everybody knows it. That’s why Felicity is scared down to her roots when she receives an anonymous note:
I know your secret.
Because Felicity is a big fake. Her hair color comes straight out of a bottle. And if anyone discovered the truth, she’d be a social outcast faster than she could say “strawberry blond.” Her mother would disown her, her friends would shun her, and her boyfriend would dump her. And forget about winning that pageant crown and the prize money that comes with it—money that would allow her to fulfill her dream of going to art school.
Felicity isn’t about to let someone blackmail her life away. But just how far is she willing to go to protect her red cred?
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Red?
My favorite thing about RED is Felicity’s best friend, Ivy—she’s funny and snarky and doesn’t care what anyone else thinks of her, and I’m honestly quite jealous that Felicity gets to hang out with her all the time!
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Muckers
by Sandra Neil Wallace
Hardcover
Knopf Books for Young Readers
Released 10/8/2013
Former ESPN sportscaster Sandra Neil Wallace (wife to Knopf author Rich Wallace) makes her young adult novel debut with a historical fiction story that is equal partsHoosiers and October Sky. Felix O’Sullivan’s world is crumbling around him: the mine that employs most of town is on the brink of closing, threatening to shutter the entire town. And Felix, or Red, after his fire-colored hair, will be one of 24 students in the final graduating class of his local high school. But Red’s got his own burdens to bear: his older brother, Bobby, died in the war, and he’s been struggling to follow in his footsteps ever since. That means assuming Bobby’s old position as quarterback, and leading the last-ever Muckers team to the championship. Maybe then his angry, broken-hearted father will acknowledge him, and they’ll be able to put Bobby’s death behind them.
But the only way for the hardscrabble Muckers team to win State is to go undefeated, and tackle their biggest rival, Phoenix United, which would be something of a miracle. Luckily, miracles can happen all the time on the field. Fans of Friday Night Lights and Tim Tharp’s Knights of the Hill Country will take to this enthralling story of a town rallying together to turn a tragedy into a triumph.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Muckers?
What I like about Muckers is that it’s inspired by a true story. This brought deeper meaning to my writing. I wanted to capture the excitement of a championship season balanced with the real-life issues that were simmering at the time in post-World War II America: racial tension, poverty, and inter-racial love. I discovered the Muckers story in a box of letters, giving me a first-hand glimpse of what segregation meant in Arizona back in 1950. It also helped me write in the voices of young men. But more than that, interviewing the real Muckers players and seeing the successful lives they created after the championship season and how humble they are, inspired me personally. One of my favorite movies is Hoosiers. I always wanted to know what happened to the team after the championship. In Muckers, I give my characters options despite seemingly insurmountable odds, and hope like the real Muckers, they’ll triumph off the field.
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MORE YOUNG ADULT NOVELS NEW IN STORES NEXT WEEK
Tandem
by Anna Jarzab
Paperback
Delacorte Press
Released 10/8/2013
Everything repeats.
You. Your best friend. Every person you know.
Many worlds, many lives–infinite possibilities.
Welcome to the multiverse.
Sixteen-year-old Sasha Lawson has only ever known one small, ordinary life. When she was young, she loved her grandfather’s stories of parallel worlds, inhabited by girls who looked like her but led totally different lives. Sasha never believed such worlds were real—until now, when she finds herself thrust into one against her will.
o prevent imminent war, Sasha must slip into the life of an alternate version of herself, a princess who has vanished on the eve of her arranged marriage. If Sasha succeeds in fooling everyone, she will be returned home; if she fails, she’ll be trapped in another girl’s life forever. As time runs out, Sasha finds herself torn between two worlds, two lives, and two young men vying for her love—one who knows her secret, and one who believes she’s someone she’s not.
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The Eye of Minds
by James Dashner
Hardcover
Delacorte Press
Released 10/8/2013
An all-new, edge-of-your seat adventure from James Dashner, the author of the New York Times bestselling Maze Runner series, The Eye of Minds is the first book in The Mortality Doctrine, a series set in a world of hyperadvanced technology, cyberterrorists, and gaming beyond your wildest dreams . . . and your worst nightmares.
Michael is a gamer. And like most gamers, he almost spends more time on the VirtNet than in the actual world. The VirtNet offers total mind and body immersion, and it’s addictive. Thanks to technology, anyone with enough money can experience fantasy worlds, risk their life without the chance of death, or just hang around with Virt-friends. And the more hacking skills you have, the more fun. Why bother following the rules when most of them are dumb, anyway?
But some rules were made for a reason. Some technology is too dangerous to fool with. And recent reports claim that one gamer is going beyond what any gamer has done before: he’s holding players hostage inside the VirtNet. The effects are horrific—the hostages have all been declared brain-dead. Yet the gamer’s motives are a mystery.
The government knows that to catch a hacker, you need a hacker.
And they’ve been watching Michael. They want him on their team.
But the risk is enormous. If he accepts their challenge, Michael will need to go off the VirtNet grid. There are back alleys and corners in the system human eyes have never seen and predators he can’t even fathom—and there’s the possibility that the line between game and reality will be blurred forever.
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Confessions: The Private School Murders
by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
Hardcover
Little, Brown and Company
Released 10/7/2013
Tandy Angel may have played the hero when she solved the case of her magnificently wealthy parents’ mysterious deaths, but she isn’t done yet. Her brother Matthew stands trial for homicide, young girls are found murdered all around New York’s Upper West side, and Tandy is determined to use her piercing intellect to get to the bottom of both cases. But the biggest mystery of allmay be what actually happened to James Rampling, the handsome son of a family enemy, whom Tandy fell in love and ran away with–though most of her memories of the affair are disturbingly absent…
The confessions keep coming as Tandy delves even deeper into her own tumultuous history and the skeletons in the Angel family closet.
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The Midnight Dress
by Karen Foxlee
Hardcover
Knopf Books for Young Readers
Released 10/8/2013
Quiet misfit Rose doesn’t expect to fall in love with the sleepy beach town of Leonora. Nor does she expect to become fast friends with beautiful, vivacious Pearl Kelly, organizer of the high school float at the annual Harvest Festival parade. It’s better not to get too attached when Rose and her father live on the road, driving their caravan from one place to the next whenever her dad gets itchy feet. But Rose can’t resist the mysterious charms of the town or the popular girl, try as she might.
Pearl convinces Rose to visit Edie Baker, once a renowned dressmaker, now a rumored witch. Together Rose and Edie hand-stitch an unforgettable dress of midnight blue for Rose to wear at the Harvest Festival—a dress that will have long-lasting consequences on life in Leonora, a dress that will seal the fate of one of the girls. Karen Foxlee’s breathtaking novel weaves friendship, magic, and a murder mystery into something moving, real, and distinctly original.
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Bang
by Lisa McMann
Hardcover
Simon Pulse
Released 10/8/2013
Jules should be happy. She saved a lot of people’s lives and she’s finally with Sawyer, pretty much the guy of her dreams. But the nightmare’s not over, because she somehow managed to pass the psycho vision stuff to Sawyer. Excellent.
Feeling responsible for what he’s going through and knowing that people’s lives are at stake, Jules is determined to help him figure it all out. But Sawyer’s vision is so awful he can barely describe it, much less make sense of it. All he can tell her is there’s a gun, and eleven ear-splitting shots. Bang.
Jules and Sawyer have to work out the details fast, because the visions are getting worse and that means only one thing: time is running out. But every clue they see takes them down the wrong path. If they can’t prevent the vision from happening, lives will be lost. And they may be among the casualties…
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BZRK Reloaded
by Michael Grant
Hardcover
EgmontUSA
Released 10/8/2013
From best-selling author Michael Grant, comes the highly anticipated, terrifying, and mind-bending second book in the BZRK trilogy.
The entire BZRK cell–including Noah and Sadie–has been left in pieces after the last round of battle with the Armstrong Twins, conjoined brother who plot to rob mankind of its free will. Vincent’s mind is shattered, and his memories hold dangerous secrets–secrets that Lear, BZRK’s mysterious leader, will stop at nothing to protect.
Meanwhile, Bug Man has taken control of the President’s brain, but playing with sanity is a dangerous game. The consequences can spiral way out of control, and the Armstrong Twins are not people Bug Man can afford to disappoint.
The nano is as terrifying, exhilarating, and unpredictable as ever. But the wall of secrets that surrounds it is cracking. What will it reveal? And once the dust has settled, who will be sane enough to find out?
Releases simultaneously in electronic book format (ISBN 978-1-60684-395-6)
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The Next Big Thing
by Sadie Hayes
Paperback
St. Martin”s Griffin
Released 10/8/2013
The second page-turning installment in the Start-Up series, following twin college students Amelia and Adam as they attempt to make it in the competetive world of Silicon Valley.
Amelia and Adam’s new company, Doreye, may have won over Silicon Valley, but the trouble is far from over. After facing down skepticism, a meddler from their past and a saboteur who makes their app malfunction right when it matters most, drama suddenly seems to be brewing within the ranks. While Adam has money signs in his eyes and enough charm to win over the investors, Amelia decides she wants to give away their app for free, leading to discord and a separation of responsibilities—and power.
As if that weren’t hard enough on their relationship, Adam and Amelia are both keeping secrets from each other, the kinds of secrets that could change everything if revealed. As they grow farther apart, others grow closer together. Patty finds a new boyfriend—and a fascinating new job—to distract her from Chad; Adam becomes involved with an older woman who seems to be as interested in Doreye as he is; and TJ starts to notice that Amelia is more than just a computer nerd with the tensions running high, Adam makes a decision that topples Amelia’s carefully constructed life and sets off a chain of events that could threaten the future of Doreye. Can Amelia find a way to save their company before it’s too late?
Previously published as The Anti-Social Network.
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Resist
by Sarah Crossan
Hardcover
Greenwillow Books
Released 10/8/2013
The sequel—and conclusion—to Sarah Crossan’s Breathe. Three teen outlaws must survive on their own in a world without air, exiled outside the glass dome that protects what’s left of human civilization. Gripping action, provocative ideas, and shocking revelations in a dystopian novel that fans of Patrick Ness and Veronica Roth will devour.
Bea, Alina, and Quinn are on the run. They started a rebellion and were thrown out of the pod, the only place where there’s enough oxygen to breathe. Bea has lost her family. Alina has lost her home. And Quinn has lost his privileged life. Can they survive in the perilous Outlands? Can they finish the revolution they began? Especially when a young operative from the pod’s Special Forces is sent after them. Their only chance is to stand together, even when terrible circumstances force them apart. When the future of human society is in danger, these four teens must decide where their allegiances lie. Sarah Crossan has created a dangerous, and shattered society in this wrenching, thought-provoking, and unforgettable post-apocalyptic novel.
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Blythewood
by Carol Goodman
Viking Juvenile
Released 10/8/2013
Welcome to Blythewood.
At seventeen, Avaline Hall has already buried her mother, survived a horrific factory fire, and escaped from an insane asylum. Now she’s on her way to Blythewood Academy, the elite boarding school in New York’s mist-shrouded Hudson Valley that her mother attended—and was expelled from. Though she’s afraid her high society classmates won’t accept a factory girl in their midst, Ava is desperate to unravel her family’s murky past, discover the identity of the father she’s never known, and perhaps finally understand her mother’s abrupt suicide. She’s also on the hunt for the identity of the mysterious boy who rescued her from the fire. And she suspects the answers she seeks lie at Blythewood.
But nothing could have prepared her for the dark secret of what Blythewood is, and what its students are being trained to do. Haunted by dreams of a winged boy and pursued by visions of a sinister man who breathes smoke, Ava isn’t sure if she’s losing her mind or getting closer to the truth. And the more rigorously Ava digs into the past, the more dangerous her present becomes.
Vivid and atmospheric, full of mystery and magic, this romantic page-turner by bestselling author Carol Goodman tells the story of a world on the brink of change and the girl who is the catalyst for it all.
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