Cover Reveal
The Crimson Hunt by Victoria H. Smith
…
We're an Open Book
Synopsis: Parker Shelton pretty much has the perfect life. She’s on her way to becoming valedictorian at Hundred Oaks High, she’s made the all-star softball team, and she has plenty of friends. Then her mother’s scandal rocks their small town and suddenly no one will talk to her.
Now Parker wants a new life.
So she quits softball. Drops twenty pounds. And she figures why kiss one guy when she can kiss three? Or four. Why limit herself to high school boys when the majorly cute new baseball coach seems especially flirty?
But how far is too far before she loses herself completely.
Parker Shelton was always a good Christian girl.With good Christian friends and a clean reputation. That is until her mother comes out as a lesbian and runs away with the church’s secretary. Like the tagline says, one strike– to her facade of a perfect life that is– and she’s out. Parker loses her grip on who she is, to become the person she believes everyone needs her to be.
Stealing Parker is the follow up to Kenneally’s Catching Jordan. Like Catching Jordan this novel is sports-themed however Stealing Parker is less about the sport and more about the characters.
Parker is your average self-conscious snarky teenager. She is so concerned with what everyone thinks and things never seem to turn out the way they should for her. She loses weight, stops playing softball and starts making out with more boys just to confirm to everyone she is not a lesbian like her mom.
…
Synopsis: Eva and Addie started out the same way as everyone else—two souls woven together in one body, taking turns controlling their movements as they learned how to walk, how to sing, how to dance. But as they grew, so did the worried whispers. Why aren’t they settling? Why isn’t one of them fading? The doctors ran tests, the neighbors shied away, and their parents begged for more time. Finally Addie was pronounced healthy and Eva was declared gone. Except, she wasn’t . . .
For the past three years, Eva has clung to the remnants of her life. Only Addie knows she’s still there, trapped inside their body. Then one day, they discover there may be a way for Eva to move again. The risks are unimaginable-hybrids are considered a threat to society, so if they are caught, Addie and Eva will be locked away with the others. And yet . . . for a chance to smile, to twirl, to speak, Eva will do anything
What’s Left of Me by Kat Zhang has to be one of the most hotly anticipated YA novels of 2012. This book has been on Books and Sensibility’s radar since we featured Zhang in our 25 Under 25 feature and the young author does not disappoint with her debut YA novel.
In the world of What’s Left of Me, everyone is born with two souls and in early childhood the dominate soul takes over and the recessive one fades away. It’s completely natural, normal and expected. Only, in the case of Eva and Addie, Eva is a recessive soul that never settles. She refuses to fade away and when doctors declare only Addie to be left, Eva’s exostence becomes a secret only Addie know. Being a hybrid, having two souls is illegal and considered dangerous so the sisters work together to keep their closely guarded secret. But, when Addie meets Halley, the new girl in school the girls learn that they are not the only hiding hybrids, but this knowledge may cost them everything.
…
We don’t always get to meet our favorite authors face to face, but YouTube can be a nice substitute. These writers aren’t just stacking up loyal readers but also subscribers! It’s a place to hear your favorite authors give advice, writing insights and a little peek into their lives.
…
It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.
Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.
His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble
Opening with an Edgar Allen Poe epigraph, I immediately connect The Raven Boys with the Southern Gothic literature movement. Characterized by its broken characters, social realism and fantasy elements I’ve always felt this genre fits perfectly within the YA spectrum. In The Raven Boys, New York Times Bestselling author Maggie Stiefvater has cleverly combined the Southern Gothic tradition with vivid characterization and a modern edge to create a novel that is unlike anything I’ve read this year.
The plot develops nicely throughout novel in an observant third-person point of view. There is a level of maturity and complexity in Stiefvater’s writing. Each word is carefully crafted to form a coherent mood and image.
…
Synopsis: In a city of daimons, rigid class lines separate the powerful from the power-hungry. And at the heart of The City is the Carnival of Souls, where both murder and pleasure are offered up for sale. Once in a generation, the carnival hosts a deadly competition that allows every daimon a chance to join the ruling elite. Without the competition, Aya and Kaleb would both face bleak futures–if for different reasons. For each of them, fighting to the death is the only way to try to live.
All Mallory knows of The City is that her father–and every other witch there–fled it for a life in exile in the human world. Instead of a typical teenage life full of friends and maybe even a little romance, Mallory scans quiet streets for threats, hides herself away, and trains to be lethal. She knows it’s only a matter of time until a daimon finds her and her father, so she readies herself for the inevitable. While Mallory possesses little knowledge of The City, every inhabitant of The City knows of her. There are plans for Mallory, and soon she, too, will be drawn into the decadence and danger that is the Carnival of Souls
So, remember those articles where moral guardians condemned some YA novels for being too dark ? Well, this probably would have been one of the books they targeted.
Carnival of Secrets is a gritty,violent, and vaguely sex obsessed fantasy novel from best-selling author Melissa Marr
In The City, daimons live in a strict Caste system ruled by their leader, Marchosias. At the center of The City is the Carnival of Souls, a marketplace where one goes to trade money for favors from the black masked assassins or red masked prostitutes among other things.
The only way out of the Caste you were born into is to enter Marchosias Competition and compete in a series of fights to the death to earn a spot in the ruling class.
Kaleb is a cur, a member of the lowest caste and winning the competition is his only way at a life of more than assassin or prostitute. He believes his path to victory is clear until he crosses paths with Aya, the first ruling class girl to enter The Competition and Mallory, Marchosia’s only child who lives hidden in the human world unaware of her lineage.
…