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Sailor Twain or The Mermaid in the Hudson by Mark Siegel


Turn of the century riverboat captain Elijah Twain is a righteous dude: upstanding, responsible and totally devoted to his lovely wife Pearl, who waits patiently for him at home while he sails the Hudson saving up for the expensive medical treatments required to free her from her wheelchair. He looks down his nose a bit at the riverboat’s owner, a flashy playboy named Lafayette who seems to take ladies to bed as a hobby. But Captain Twain finds his high and mighty morals sorely tested when he makes a surprising discovery one dark night. A wounded mermaid has pulled herself up on the deck of his boat and passed out. Shocked and more than a little intrigued, Twain hides her in his room and gradually nurses her back to health. The mermaid’s very presence soothes him and seems to inspire his writing, which had lately taken a back seat to his riverboat work. Soon Twain feels torn between his trusting wife and the otherworldly beauty who has become his muse. Meanwhile, Lafayette has developed an intense interest in mermaids, even inviting an eccentric author of Hudson Valley folklore on board to discuss the topic with him. Guilt-ridden Twain becomes very worried—does Lafayette know his secret? When the mermaid disappears with Twain’s pocket watch, and Lafayette seduces his seventh simultaneous romantic conquest, the captain and his roguish friend are drawn into fantastical nautical mystery that is both whimsical and terrifying, and more than a little naughty. (Let’s just say that mermaids are traditionally topless and Lafayette gets caught with his pants down more than once) This marvelous blend of mythology, morality, love and obsession kept me up all night, as I couldn’t resist turning just one…more…page. And the charcoal artwork, which ranged from softly shaded to deep and vibrant was so stunning that I didn’t even miss the color. All my high school peeps who love historical fiction and fantasy are going to want to own this resplendent graphic novel in hardcover. Because as much as I want to recommend this gor-ge-o-so volume to friends and students, I’m having a hard time parting with my pretty copy.  (And if you’d like to take a look for yourself, you can start reading here)

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Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor



Beautiful blue haired Karou finally knows her true identity, but it has brought her no peace. Instead, she has been convinced to help make living killing machines for a war she doesn’t truly believe in and knows deep in her heart is impossible to win. Still she toils on, the memories of her deceased family members always in the front of her mind, guiding her hands as she continues Brimstone’s work. Meanwhile, miles away on the battlefield, the Misbegotten seraph Akiva still dreams of his lost love, even though he believes that both she and any hope they ever had for ending this ceaseless war are dead. But their love has changed him and he can no longer willfully participate in the chimera genocide. Is it possible for Akiva to overthrow the Emperor’s murderous plan? All he knows is that he must try, if for nothing else but the bittersweet memory of his beloved. Have no clue what I’m talking about? Start here. For those of you in the know, prepare yourselves for the lush, violent sequel to one of the most original fantasy series in recent history. More gorgeous world building, more pages, more drama, more blood, more treachery, more heartbreak, more, more, MORE! (It’s Laini Taylor, ya’ll. She of the hot pink hair, epic story arc and velvet prose. Did you think it could ever be LESS?) Don’t expect closure–Book 3 is in the works and while I was left satiated for the moment, I am already salivating for the next volume. At any rate, to say any MORE would give away stunning secrets that are best left for your own delighted discovery when DBAS comes to a library, bookstore or e-reader near you November 2012.

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Ask the Passengers by A.S. King



“I think about how I have different secrets hidden from different people in my life in different areas of my life. I think about how that might be the reason I’m chewing on Rolaids all the time.” Astrid Jones is an excellent secret keeper. If anyone ever finds out that her best friend is gay or that her dad is smoking pot in the garage or that her mother doesn’t really love her, it’s not going to be because they heard it from Astrid. The only people who ever get to listen to Astrid’s secrets are the anonymous passengers she imagines in planes that fly over the backyard picnic table where she goes to lie down and think. It’s safe to silently tell the passengers. They won’t report back to her mom or gossip about her at school. The passengers are the only ones that know Astrid has a secret too, and it’s about who she loves. But secrets have a way of coming out. All of Astrid’s secrets are suddenly revealed one night when she is caught somewhere she shouldn’t be, and any comfort she ever gleaned from conversations with the imaginary passengers vanishes. Now she will have to take a risk and reach out to the real people in her life–which won’t be easy, but promises to be much more rewarding. This perceptive offering about an introspective teen trying to learn to live her life out loud is just the type of super smart book I’ve come to expect from wickedly cerebral author A.S. King. She’s building quite an impressive back list and I can’t wait to see what she does next. (To read a short, funny and insightful interview with out-of-the-box King that will challenge your image of authors, click here.)

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Keeping the Castle by Patrice Kindl



“Perhaps one day women might be able to to choose their husbands with no thought of money and position, but not in this day and age in Lesser Hoo, Yorkshire, England.” In Regency-era England, seventeen year old Althea Crawley is beautiful and broke. Her widowed mother has a falling down castle to her name and that’s about it. Factor in a dependent little brother and two greedy, homely stepsisters and the situation is clear: to save her loved ones from financial ruin and escape her nasty step sibs, Althea will have to snag a wealthy husband. There are no shortage of eligible bachelors in the neighborhood, but since all Althea has to bring to the union is a pretty face, they aren’t exactly knocking down the castle door. Enter handsome Lord Boring (how much do I love that character name?!) a new arrival to Lesser Hoo. LB has the looks and the money that Althea is sure will make her and her family very, very happy. Luckily, he seems to feel the same. But if she’s so sure that Lord Boring is The One, why does his irritating, argumentative business partner Mr. Fredericks keep popping up in her thoughts? If you look under the definition of “delightful” in the dictionary, you will find a picture of this adorable tome. Full of sparkling wit, wonderfully bumbling misunderstandings and unrequited love for DAYS, this lovely homage to Regency romances will leave you giggling and swooning in equal measure.  I have a distinct feeling that Patrice Kindl had as much fun writing this frothy confection as I had reading it. A must read for all you die-hard Jane Austen & Dodie Smith fans.

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Adaptation by Malinda Lo



It starts with the birds. Great flocks of birds begin flying directly at airplanes across the United States, Canada and Mexico, causing massive crashes that kill hundreds of people. On her way home from a failed debate meet with her partner David, Reese is at the airport when the news hits. Terrified, the teens attempt to avoid the ensuing cancelled flight chaos by renting a car and driving from Nevada to California. They never make it. Just outside of Las Vegas, Reese and David are involved in a car crash and land in a military hospital near the infamous Area 51. There they are treated for their injuries and sent home to their families. But it isn’t long before they both notice that something is different. They are having strange dreams and odd sensations that ripple across both their bodies and minds. Why did the doctors make them sign nondisclosure statements about their hospital stay and order them not to give even their own parents any details? And how is it that the scars from their nearly fatal injuries have almost disappeared only a few short weeks after their discharge? Reese is determined to find the answer to these questions, even though she finds herself sidetracked by a beautiful distraction: the enticing Amber, who Reese thinks she may be falling in love with. This new relationship is complicated by the fact that Reese thought she was head over heels for David. But who has time for romance when it’s possible she and David have been part of some secret government conspiracy? Reese must set aside her confusing feelings and focus on what’s important: finding out exactly what happened to her in the hospital and discovering what it means not only to her and her family, but to her country and potentially the entire human race.  A thought provoking and sobering sci-fi thriller that holds loads of appeal for you X-Files conspiracy theorists, this pace-y page-turner will help keep your homework blues at bay.

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Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick



In 1975, Arn Chorn-Pond was a carefree and enterprising Cambodian kid who snuck into movies with his brother, listened to the Beatles and played games of chance on the street to make money for candy and coconut cake. Then the Khmer Rouge came to town. The rebel military group had won control of Cambodia, and they began ordering Arn’s family and neighbors to pack up and leave because the Americans who had been at war with Vietnam were now coming to bomb them. The rebels would protect them and bring them back to their homes in three days. Frightened, but also a little excited, Arn joins the mass exodus out of the city of Battambang. But what he doesn’t know is that the Khmer Rouge are lying. There are no attacking Americans. What waits for him and thousands of other children in the country and fields outside of town isn’t salvation but fear, starvation and death at the hands of the brutal Khmer Rouge who believe that in order to build a new Communist society, they must first destroy the old one. So begins Arn’s horrific odyssey through a Khmer Rouge work camp, training as a child soldier and eventual escape to the United States. He quickly learns that showing emotion can be deadly: “I make my eye blank. You show you care, you die. You show fear, you die. You show nothing, maybe you live.” But while he finds physical safety, will he ever be able to forget the friends and family he was forced to leave behind? “…after all the thing I been through, now being rescue is something I also have to survive.” This true story of heroism and fortitude was related by Arn himself to the award-winning author Patricia McCormick, who wove his words into a fictionalized account of real events. The result is a harrowing but ultimately uplifting narrative that demonstrates humanity’s enduring tendency towards hope, even in the darkest of circumstances. I was completely undone by the simplicity and power of this book, couldn’t stop thinking about it for DAYS and already anticipate that it will be wearing several shiny metals on it’s cover come YA book award season. In other words, an absolute must read! (To see an interview between Arn and McCormick and to find out more about the Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian Killing Fields, click here)

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Bloody Chester by JT Petty & Hilary Florido



Chester Kates is a hardscrabble teenage orphan who lives on whiskey, pancakes and fistfights in a desolate corner of the Old West. It’s not much of a life, so when a shady railroad exec offers him 40 bucks to burn down a ghost town called Whale that sits in the railroad’s future path, Chester jumps at the chance. But when he gets there, he finds that Whale is not entirely deserted. It is still home to a few souls who were fortunate enough to have survived the mysterious fatal plague that laid waste to Whale’s meager population. Chester teams up with Caroline, the pretty daughter of a crazy miner named Whitley Barber who may or may not have hidden a valuable treasure somewhere in Whale. Together they try to convince Barber to uncover his loot and leave the doomed township before Chester burns it to the ground. But the old miner won’t budge, and when Chester discovers the evil reason why, he is forced to make a terrible decision between love and justice. This imaginative graphic novel is a bone-chilling blend of horror, mystery and Western that will keep you guessing until the very last page. JT Petty’s dark story has more twists and turns than a bucking bronco, while Hilary Florido’s sketchy manga-light artwork conveys the inhospitable bleakness of home on the range–which is quickly shown to be the opposite of the cozy cowboy song. If you find your appetite whetted for more menacing Old West/horror mash-ups, try The Sixth Gun or American Vampire.

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Dust Girl: The American Fairy Trilogy, bk. 1 by Sarah Zettel



What would you do if you found out that your long lost dad was a high ranking fairy prince? That’s the situation that Okie teen Callie finds herself in during a hard core dust storm in 1935 Kansas. After the “worst dust storm ever recorded” seemingly swallows up her sweet-tempered Mama, Callie is left shaken and full of questions. But not alone. The storm spit out a mysterious man named Baya who tells Callie that Mama is not just a struggling single mother trying to manage a dying hotel and raise her headstrong daughter. Instead she is the abandoned wife of a prince from the Unseelie Court who has been imprisoned for daring to marry a human. With Baya’s help, Callie sets out to find both Mama and her real father and untangle her strange genealogy before she herself is captured. Because the storm has raised more than dust. It has also lifted the curtain between Callie’s world and the world of the Fey, and now that Callie’s fairy family has located her, they want her back with them whether she wants to go or not. But Callie’s not going anywhere without Mama. This fast paced hist. fic/high fantasy mash-up will blow your wig off with it’s killer combination of period detail and scary fairies. Within these wholly original pages, there’s everything from giant carnivorous grasshoppers to enchanted dance competitions that only end after everyone has boogied themselves to death. A perfect genre blender to blow the dust off your summer reading brain.

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The Wicked and the Just by J. Anderson Coats



Cecily is a spoiled brat who bats her eyes at Daddy to get her what she wants. So she’s none too pleased when he accepts a job in a bad neighborhood far away from all her best friends. The good news is she’ll have servants to order around. The bad news is they don’t listen very well, especially Gwinny, a local girl with a snotty attitude who’s been hired to sweep the floors and help out in the kitchen. If Cecily has her way, she will teach Gwinny some manners if it’s the last thing she does. But what Cecily doesn’t understand is that she may not have the upper hand for long. Because this is no 90210 high school catfight between Brenda and Kelly. This is 1293 Wales, where the English have seized uneasy control of the Welsh people. Cecily is English. Gwinny is Welsh. Corrupt English businessmen like Cecily’s father are taking advantage of the Welsh’s vulnerable position by taxing them until they are literally starving in the streets. The Welsh people have nothing left to lose, and rebellion is in the air. What will happen to these two young women from opposite sides of the moat if English rule is toppled? There is no love lost between them. But maybe in the midst of chaos they will find a way to show each other a bit of grace. This fabulous hist. fic. showcases a time and place I’ll bet you know very little about, and Cecily and Gwinny’s wonderfully wrought first person voices will no doubt inspire you to dig up more. I was bowled over by the detailed and often humorous writing, and it is the first medieval fiction I’ve read in recent history that could give a little award winner titled Catherine Called Birdy a run for it’s money. A bone-cracking good read with enough blood, battles and hair pulling to intrigue even the biggest hist. fic. haters among you.

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Monstrous Beauty by Elizabeth Fama



In 1872, a swoony nature boy falls for a winsome water girl–who just happens to have a dolphin’s tail. Though they long to be together, they are separated by their deeply different circumstances and mobility issues. Then the winsome water girl comes up with a particularly gruesome solution to their problem, and for a while they are happy. But nothing’s ever easy when love’s involved and the former mermaid realizes that to live in the naturalist’s world, she must make the greatest sacrifice of all (and no, it’s not the loss of her tail). Flash forward 140 years. Seventeen year old Hester, professional Pilgrim impersonator and all around history geek, meets a gorgeous sad man named Ezra on the beach. She is immediately drawn to him, despite the fact that she has sworn off love forever. Because in Hester’s family, the mothers always die after the birth of their first daughter. Hester is determined that fate won’t be hers, so she avoids all relationships that may lead to romance. But this man is different, and Hester can’t deny the way he makes her feel. She is even able to ignore the fact that he lives in a cave, his old fashioned clothes never change and he can’t seem to leave the beach. Who or what is Ezra? Why does Hester feel like she has known him forever? And how is their instant bond related to the swoony nature boy and winsome water girl of long ago? Once Hester has all the pieces to this historical puzzle, she just might be able to solve the deadly mystery of the dying mothers.

I have to say that I normally bypass anything that smacks of cross species/supernatural kissing. With a few exceptions, I have mostly had it up to here with paranormal romance. But this book not only rocked my little reading boat, it blew me out of the genre water and any other ocean related expression you can think of. By linking together mythology, history and genealogy in a thoroughly entertaining (and wee bit gory) way and inventively reinterpreting The Little Mermaid (this ain’t no redheaded Disney movie, y’all) for a new generation, Elizabeth Fama has successfully escaped the curse of the tired old “girl/boy-falls-for-vampire/werewolf/fallen angel/zombie” formula.

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Such Wicked Intent by Kenneth Oppel



There are handful of authors who never disappoint me, and Kenneth Oppel is one of them. This splendid sequel to This Dark Endeavor proved to be just as satisfying, if not even a bit more so, than its predecessor. Victor’s twin Konrad is barely cold in his grave before the young Frankenstein is trying to raise him from the dead. Of course, for any one else this would be utter madness, but Victor’s hubris knows no bounds. He’s sure that if he just had the right formula, he could defy even Death. Led by enigmatic clues that appear in a self portrait of his famous ancestor Wilhelm Frankestein, Victor finds his way into a shadow world of his family’s vast mansion where his brother still lives. Accompanied by his cousin-crush Elizabeth and best friend Henry, Victor travels to this strange purgatory frequently to search for a way to bring Konrad back to life. But what he doesn’t know is that there is malevolent presence that is invested in not only keeping his beloved brother right where he is, but drawing Victor, Elizabeth and Henry closer and closer to death as well. If I tell anymore, it will give too much away, but the way Oppel inventively reinterprets the classic Frankenstein monster will just floor you. Perfect pacing, non-stop action and complicated characters make Oppel’s writing an absolute pleasure to read. I adore brilliant, headstrong, jealous Victor and his raging ego. And Cousin Elizabeth is no shrinking violet, regularly kicking Victor to the curb every time he tries to convince her that it is really him and not his dead twin she is in love with. While you could easily read this title without having paged through the first one, why would you? And since SWI won’t be coming to a library, bookstore or e-reader near you until August 2012, you have plenty of time to go back to the beginning of this fantastic Frankenstein re-boot!

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The Diviners by Libba Bray

Sometimes you read a book and you say, “That’s my book.” It seems like the author wrote it just for you, that everything in it was created for your amusement and suspense and pleasure. It is intimate and wonderful and you want to tell everyone you know about it and keep it all to yourself at the same time. I know many of you have felt that way about this book, and this one and this one. And that is how I feel about Diviners by the diabolically funny and utterly fabulous Libba Bray. This is SO my book. It is full of everything awesome and scary and merry and sweet. It is set in the Roaring Twenties in a swanky, swaggering New York City and features a collection of complex, confused teens with mysterious powers, who, one by one, realize that their destiny is to fight an ancient evil that is rising up in their very midst. (My favorite started out as unapologetic party girl Evie, but oh, you are gonna have such a crush on dance hall Theta and moody poet Memphis as well) There is both a haunted house AND a haunted museum. There’s a serial killer who steals body parts and a terrifying religious cult baying for blood. There are speakeasys and rent parties. It is about both big things like Manifest Destiny and little things like sparkly headbands. You get a front row seat to the Harlem Renaissance and a balcony chair to the Ziegfeld Follies. And the frights aren’t just lame-o gross-outs, but deep psychological chills that get under your skin (although there are some pretty good gross-outs, and someone does lose their skin). There’s a diversity of character that without message or pretense, makes you understand that America is and always has been a melting pot and that characters of color or of various sexual orientation can be an intregal part of a story without their background being THE story. There is romance (but not too much), gore (but not too much), loads of suspense and even a Model-T car chase. All things I adore (who knew I loved Model-T car chases but it turns out that I DO). All things I can’t believe are in the same epic voluminous book that despite being over 500 pages is as tight as a proverbial drum. And the only reason that I’m not in deep mourning at having finished it and at never being able to read it again for the first time is that it is just the FIRST BOOK IN A NEW SERIES. THERE WILL BE MORE. And I’m already a hot mess of anticipation for book 2. An exquisitely written, sumptuous affair of a novel that you will want to pull up around your ears and roll around in like a flapper’s mink stole. I can’t wait for you to discover that this is YOUR BOOK TOO when it comes to a library, bookstore or e-reader near you. On your way to the library, check out this hilarious video of LB acting out the first scene of The Diviners with action figures. (Yes, I know. You thought you couldn’t love her more and now YOU DO.)

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Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers




In 1485 Brittany, seventeen-year-old Ismae is rescued from an arranged marriage to a brutish pig farmer by a hedge witch who recognizes Ismae for who she is: a daughter of Mortain, god of Death. She is bundled off to the convent of St. Mortain, where is she trained by killer nuns to become a first rate assassin who specializes in poisons. She swears utter obedience to the convent and it’s hard core Mother Superior in exchange for a new life free from the demands of men. Once her education is complete, her first assignment is to pose as the mistress of a high-ranking advisor named Duval in the court of Brittany’s young duchess Anne, whose rule is being challenged by many powerful enemies. The convent is closely aligned to the duchess; her fate may well become theirs.  So Ismae’s job is two-fold: to report to the Mother Superior everything she observes at court that may threaten the duchess, but also to spy on Duval, who the Mother suspects may be a traitor. This is all fine by Ismae, who’s been chomping at the bit to get out into the field and murder some deserving villain. But before long she is caught up in complicated court politics and suddenly things don’t seem quite so black and white. She finds herself questioning the Mother Superior’s directions and forming dangerous opinions of her own. But worst of all? She thinks she might be falling for the very man she has been assigned to spy on. When the dreaded order to murder someone close to her comes by crow from the convent, Ismae has a terrible choice to make: maintain her allegiance to the organization that saved her life, or throw away the only security she has ever known to follow her treacherous heart. This epic supernatural hist. fic. went on a touch too long for me as an adult reader, but I suspect the voluminous length will be no problem for you teen folk, who seem to never want a good book to end. And make no mistake, this is a very good book, full of backstabbing politics, duplicitous double crosses and back-room-deals gone bad. I liked it best when Ismae was efficiently going about her killing business. The assassination scenes are so riveting and suspenseful, you’ll find yourself guiltily paging ahead to the next murder. I found the poison bits especially intriguing, and was fascinated when Ismae was cataloging her toxic library of potions and filing away how each poison worked and what awful symptoms the victim could expect to suffer. And tucked between the swoony romance and stone cold killings, there’s also meaty themes about gender and class in the Middle Ages, and the very limited ways women were allowed to function in society. Even the royal duchess Anne who Ismae is fighting to protect has no real authority but is just a pawn being pulled back and forth between groups of powerful men who don’t care about her but only want what she represents. If historical fiction has been your poison in the past, then I highly recommend this terrific tome as the antidote.

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The Girl in the Park by Mariah Fredericks



Rain has no problem hanging at the back of the crowd in her posh Manhattan private school. Though she has had extensive speech therapy to overcome the cleft palate she was born with, she’s still insecure about her “mushmouthed and nasal” sounding voice.  But when her former best friend and notorious party girl Wendy is found strangled to death in Central Park, Rain finds herself coming forward to defend the needy girl who hid her pain behind her boisterous personality. She wants justice for Wendy, who the newspapers have reduced to the dead girl, “The girl  in Central Park.” So Rain forces herself to leave the audience and step into the spotlight. She starts questioning people about Wendy’s death: namely bad boy Nico Phelps, who Wendy stalked on Facebook, and his cold, classy girlfriend Sasha Meloni. She must also deal with the police’s questions about her own lapsed relationship with her ex-bestie, and confront a nosy reporter who seems bent on trashing Wendy’s already damaged reputation. As she circles closer and closer to the terrible truth about what really happened in the park that night, Rain discovers that in speaking up for someone else, she has finally found her true voice. But will she solve the case only to endanger herself? Partially inspired by the Central Park Preppy Murder, this unusual crime mystery with an unlikely and admirable sleuth at its center is a tight thriller that stands out from the rest of the pink-dust-jacketed pack.


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The Book of Blood and Shadow by Robin Wasserman



Mousy Nora can’t believe her luck when super cute Chris and his equally shiny girlfriend Adriane adopt her into their exclusive circle at Chapman prep. Even though she sometimes feels like a third wheel, it’s worth it to be able to call Chris her best friend. Then after graduation, Chris scores a cool after school job for them at his nearby college: using their mad Latin skillz to help a crabby old professor translate a coded book known as the Voynich Manuscript that supposedly holds the secrets to the universe if they can decipher it’s “incomprehensible symbols…broken only by elaborate illustrations of flowers and animals and astronomical phenomena that apparently have no counterpart in the real world.” Chris and Chris’s roommate Max work on The Book while Nora tries her hand at translating the accompanying letters of Elizabeth Weston, whose stepfather was an alchemist who claimed to have broken the code. As the long nights of translating commence, Nora finds herself falling for quiet, shy Max, whose geeky love of Latin and history matches her own, and soon the two are as lip locked as Chris and Adriane. But when Nora takes one of Elizabeth’s letters from the professor’s office without permission, she accidentally sets into motion a chain of events that ends in the horrific murder of one of her closest friends, and the ultimate betrayal of another. Nora has unwittingly unlocked a dark door to the past that now opened, will not be closed until someone–maybe even herself–has paid in blood. If you are a fan of The Da Vinci Code or the archeological adventures of Indiana Jones, then you are going to absolutely relish Robin Wasserman’s supernatural, theological thriller. I am especially fond of one of the novel’s most climactic moments that reminded me of this super scary & super grody (at least when I was a litte kid) movie scene. And I’m not the only one who says so—the fantabulous Libba Bray raves about the book on her blog along with a very entertaining interview with it’s smart, funny author. So what are you waiting for? Beat a path to your nearest library, bookstore or e-reader and lay your hot little hands on a copy now!