I for I’ll Be There, by Holly Goldberg Sloan (fiction) – connected by a song

Apr10

book cover of I'll Be There by Holly Goldberg Sloan
In a song, music can speak louder than mere words,
In a friendship, hope can be renewed,
In a heartbeat, everything can be stolen from you.

When being unremarkable is ingrained and staying anonymous has been beaten into you, getting noticed is dangerous, worrying, possibly life-saving.

Sam loved reading books in his second-grade class, the last time the teen was in school. His little brother Riddle has never been to school, never seen a doctor for his wheezing breath and watering eyes. Their father hears voices, distrusts everything and everyone – even the sons he stole from their mother.

Since music is vital to this book, the author has put together a playlist for each major character (including the Bells’ dog Felix) on her website, where you can also read chapter one of I’ll Be There for free, and read the lyrics to the song that brings Sam and Emily together,of course.

Check out Sloan’s debut novel at your local library or independent bookstore and enjoy its quiet interludes of friendships begun and rushing torrents of danger, with the unpredictable behavior of Sam and Riddle’s dad as wild card.
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Book info: I’ll Be There / Holly Goldberg Sloan. Little Brown Books, 2011. [author’s website] [publisher site] [video book recap] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My Book Talk: Her song was aimed straight for that guy in the back, the only person who didn’t know how badly Emily sang solos – and nothing would ever be the same for the two teens again.

For Emily, it was the last time that she’d let her music professor dad force her to do a solo. He just has to accept the fact that neither she nor little brother Jared had a musical bone in their bodies.

For Sam, it was just another church in just another town where his petty thief father Clarence had dragged him and his so-silent little brother Riddle over all these years. But music was the only beautiful thing in his life, and Sunday morning churches were a good place to find it.

Somehow, Emily and Sam find one another, find snippets of time to be together without alerting Sam’s unstable father. Riddle needs Sam to help him navigate the world, an unschooled child who speaks little and doodles constantly, filling phone book pages with detailed mechanical drawings. So eventually both boys meet Emily’s family – her dad amazed at Sam’s guitar talents, Riddle mesmerized by her mother and food that doesn’t come from fast food dumpsters.

Of course, the Bells have no idea that the boys’ dad is just staying in town until his small crimes attract police attention. Then, without warning, Clarence will listen to the voices in his head, bundle what he can into the old truck, grab the boys, and go somewhere, anywhere.

Emily’s classmate Bobby knows that she’s hiding something – must be, if she’s turning down dates with him – and uses private investigating skills learned from his mom to find out where Sam lives, the abandoned house they’re squatting in, the fake license plates on the truck. When Bobby snaps a cellphone photo of Sam’s dad, Clarence decides it’s time to skip town.

And the boys are gone from the Bells’ lives, just like that.

Emily falls into depression, Bobby pretends to help search for Sam to stay close to her, and the old truck rattles off further and further into the wilderness, driven by a crazy man who might finally decide that his sons are too much burden to keep carrying.

Can you find someone when they’re expert at being anonymous? Can the sheer force of love keep someone alive over the miles? Can the promise of a song defeat insanity’s desperation?

This well-crafted novel is lyric in description and rich in characters that readers will long remember as they hum the classic hit song whose title it shares. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)

Giveaway winner for CAT GIRL’S DAY OFF (reflective)

Apr10

Max and Rufus send purring thanks to all who entered the giveaway for Kimberly Pauley’s new book Cat Girl’s Day Off. They put all the entries into the Random Sequence Generator, which whirred and replied: —>

So comment number 8 from Jacqui is our winner! Your ARC of Cat Girl’s Day Off will be sent directly from Tu Books once you reply to the email from Max and Rufus.

Everyone can read the first 3 chapters on Kimberley’s website, where she also introduces the characters – who can resist a pink cat or the girl who can understand him?

And if you buy the book before the end of April 2012, then e-mail Kimberly with your info, she will send you a signed bookplate and a letter – all the way from England! Details here on her website.

Max, Rufus, and I appreciate our readers and hope that you’ll visit BooksYALove often to find great YA books beyond the bestsellers – or before they become bestsellers!
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Random number sequence generated at http://www.random.org/sequence.

Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Illuminate, by Aimee Agresti (fiction) – H for Haven, Hotel, and Hell?

Apr9

Al Capone had his gangster headquarters at The Lexington Hotel,
President Benjamin Harrison enjoyed its luxuries as he dedicated Chicago’s famous World Columbian Exposition,
and now shy Haven Terra will be part of its gala grand re-opening.

She doesn’t recall applying for an internship in hotel management, but is glad for anything that will help pay for college…and she gets to live there full-time instead of enduring spring semester at her high school, too! Great!

But soon she and fellow intern Lance find flaws in The Lexington’s quest for perfection – a hidden agenda that will require guests to check their souls at the door, their beautiful bosses’ evil alliances, and mysterious messages telling Haven how to stop this devilish enterprise.

It’s up to her to find a way to Illuminate the dark secrets of this surface-bright world and to keep her friends from being lured into its depths…forever. First book in The Gilded Wings series and Agresti’s writing debut – it’s a thrill ride!
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(p.s. LAST DAY! Giveaway for ARC of Cat Girl’s Day Off continues here closes at 11:59 p.m. Monday, April 9, 2012.)

Book info: Illuminate / Aimee Agresti. Harcourt, 2012. [author’s website] [publisher site] [book trailer]

My Recommendation: Haven was surprised to be chosen to intern with the successful young owner of the swanky Lexington Hotel – and get school credit, too. The suave and glamorous trainees there seem rather soulless, though, like being a member of “The Outfit” has polished away their own personalities…

It’ll be hard to give up working at the children’s hospital and living with Joan, the nurse who found her as an abandoned five-year-old and gave her a home. Nothing ever discovered about Haven’s past, why she had those terrible scars on her back, why she had been left in the frozen mud. But it’s only for the spring semester.

Shy, smart Haven sure won’t miss feeling like an outcast at her high school, especially since her best (and only) friend Dante will be shadowing The Lexington’s amazing chef. And Lance from their school will be there, working with handsome manager Lucien. Everything will be fine, especially when owner Aurelia gives Haven a great camera and charges her with filling the lobby gallery with large-format portraits of The Outfit for The Lexington’s grand opening.

Browsing the hotel library for more history about its heyday when Al Capone was a regular, an odd little book intrigues her. And later, the book starts to write messages to Haven in its back pages… messages that warn her to trust no one, to explore carefully, and to train her muscles and stamina for a future challenge.

As the hotel’s grand opening nears, The Vault basement club starts welcoming Chicago’s elite and famous to its “ring of fire” seating and exquisite cocktails. All the gorgeous young people of The Outfit spend their evenings there too, so Lucien and Aurelia ask Haven to take lots of publicity photos. Lucien particularly enjoys having Haven nearby…

When Haven sees Lucien open an iron basement door into a fiery pit, she knows that The Lexington is not just another fancy hotel. And surely it’s not coincidence that her own high school has scheduled its prom there!

Why are hideous distortions appearing on every photo of The Outfit that Haven takes? Why is Dante suddenly so distant? Can Haven and Lance stay clear of the hotel’s mysterious perils? Why is the book warning her to be prepared against evil? What’s this about Haven keeping souls from…extinction?

Agresti’s stunning debut novel is the first book in The Gilded Wings trilogy. Step into The Lexington with Haven, if you dare. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

G for Ghost Flower, by Michele Jaffe (book review) – missing heiress, ghostly best friend, forever?

Apr7

The resemblance is uncanny.
This no-money runaway looks just like a missing heiress,
the one who will inherit millions on her birthday this month.
What could go wrong with a short-time acting gig?
Oh, Eve, if you only knew…

With no roots and no need to be protected, Eve is even more like the desert’s ghost flower than Aurora was. Perhaps that’s why Bain and Bridgette chose her to fill in as their missing cousin, so it’s that much easier to sweep her away later and let The Family’s money flow to those who appreciate it and badly want it??

And why does Eve get such conflicting stories about Aurora’s best friend Liza? There’s something wrong about Liza’s suicide, something that Eve can almost figure out – when the phone calls start, from ‘unknown number‘ – phone calls from Liza, trying to warn Aurora about something, someone,
reminding her that they’re best friends… forever.

Grab this page-turner at your local independent bookseller as soon as it’s published on April 12, 2012 – and once you get to the halfway point, plan on staying up late to finish it.
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(p.s. Giveaway for ARC of Cat Girl’s Day Off continues here through 11:59 p.m. Monday, April 9, 2012.)

Book info: Ghost Flower / Michele Jaffe. Razorbill, 2012. [author’s website] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My Book Talk: Oh, she looks just like their missing cousin! Two rich teens offer Eve a chance to break out of poverty. Just convince the family that she really is runaway Aurora, come home in time to collect her inheritance, then conveniently disappear again once she’s given most of the money to them. What has she got to lose?

Maybe it’s time for her to take a chance on a better future, one far away from Tucson and the troubling flashbacks to terrible times in foster care which have increased since she moved here.

Studying photographs of Aurora’s relatives and school friends, eating only her favorite foods, wearing only her favorite colors – Eve is being transformed into wild, crazy Ro under the exacting instructions of Bridgette and Bain, secluded in a desert hideaway.

Bridgette has Aurora’s return to Tucson society meticulously planned for the week of her high school’s graduation, just before the memorial to its two lost classmates – Aurora and her best friend Liza, who committed suicide on the night that Ro disappeared.

But the new Aurora has her own ideas for convincing everyone that she’s the real deal and jumps back in early, encountering a psychic medium with a chilling message at a graduation party séance, a police officer who believes her memory is gone but sees her sorrows too well, and eerie phone calls day and night – from Liza!

Glaring omissions in the detailed information that Bain and Bridgette provide Eve to study – do the cousins want Eve to succeed or fail in her attempt to convince her wealthy grandmother, the rest of the Sterling family, and Tucson’s high society that she truly is their wild, impetuous Aurora?

Ghostly phone calls from Liza – can the dead truly communicate with us?
Who is she warning Eve about?
Why don’t all the puzzle pieces surrounding her death fit together right?

The desert’s Ghost Flower only blooms where the spirits of the dead rest uneasy. Lock the door, turn off the cell phone, and venture with Eve into Aurora and Liza’s privileged and perilous world. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)