Tag Archive | villains

Dinosaurs & time travel! Chronal Engine, by Greg Leitich Smith (fiction)

May3
book cover of Chronal Engine by Greg Leitich Smith published by Clarion Books

Rare fossilized dinosaur footprints.

Heart attack, kidnapping, possible murder?

What a way to start a summer!

No one has seen the Loblolly dinosaur tracks on their grandpa’s ranch in years. Max can’t wait – he got the family “dinosaur-hunter” genes, Mom says. Kyle and Emma would rather stay home in Austin the summer before their sophomore year , but with Mom leaving to excavate feathered dinosaurs in Mongolia, they’ve all got to stay somewhere. At least Grandpa’s housekeeper has a daughter their age; Petra seems glad to have some other teenagers on the ranch for a while.

Grandpa’s security-locked basement looks like a 1920s library, if the library had a humming time-travel device in the center. Predicting his own heart attack to the minute, leaving messages in places no one can reach – has Grandpa really used the Chronal Engine to travel through time?

Greg Leitich Smith’s fascination with dinosaurs is firmly woven into this exciting action tale, as our adventurers meet teeny Tyrannosaurs (meat-eaters have horrible bad breath), massive Apatosaurus (even dinosaur expert Max still loves the old name of Brontosaurus), and some human villains back in the Cretaceous Era. You’ll enjoy Blake Henry’s manga-influenced black and white illustrations, too.

I didn’t see any boot prints in the fossilized dino tracks when I visited Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose, but that’s well north of Chronal Engine‘s setting in the Texas Hill Country, so who knows? Grab this summer thrill-ride read at your local library or independent bookstore soon!

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Book info: Chronal Engine / Greg Leitich Smith; illustrations by Blake Henry. Clarion Books, 2012.  [author’s website] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My Recommendation: All summer out at their grandpa’s ranch? Max, Kyle, and Emma know that rare dinosaur tracks are located there, but they’ll miss their friends and Austin’s city comforts so much. His wild time-travel theories turn out to be truer than they could ever imagine!

Sure, Mom is headed for the most important dinosaur dig in Asia, but the teens have met her father just once; the only time in 15 years that he left the ranch was to attend their own dad’s funeral five years ago. For decades, Grandpa has refused to let researchers on his land to study the dinosaur tracks, even though that “hard science” might erase the taint of craziness left by great-great-grandfather Mad Jack Pierson’s insistence that he’d invented a time-traveling engine.

At the ranch house, it’s nice to meet Petra, who is their age and enjoys the outdoors as much as Max does. She knows the way to the dinosaur tracks and what perils to avoid in the Hill Country.

When Grandpa refuses pecan pie during their first dinner together because he knows an ambulance will arrive in 15 minutes because of his upcoming heart attack, they wonder about it. After he gets Max to promise that all four teens will go to the fossil tracks in the morning and gives him a heavy envelope to open later, Grandpa shows them the Chronal Engine and its last recall device to return to the present time – then has a heart attack, just as the medflight helicopter touches down! If he knew the timing of his own heart attack, does that mean Grandpa has used the Chronal Engine?

Visiting the dinosaur tracks the next morning, they find human bootprints in the fossilized mud! And Emma’s boot fits the print exactly… but how? A sudden flash of light and a man appears next to their sister, grabs her, and disappears into another flash of light. So Emma has been kidnapped…to the Cretaceous Era? Suddenly Max, Kyle, and Petra decide to travel back in time using the Chronal Engine to rescue her.

Will it work? Will their compass work? Can they survive among huge herbivorous dinosaurs and speedy meat-eaters? Can they outsmart other time-traveling humans who have guns and are ready to use them? Will any of them get back to the present – alive?

This mile-a-minute adventure story includes dromaeosaur babies and bow-hunting, toothed prehistoric birds and T. Rexes and 40-foot-long crocodilians among the adventures encountered by four young teens on a time-traveling mission. The author notes currently known facts and recent theories about prehistoric life at the end of the book, which includes funny/accurate illustrations by Blake Henry. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

All These Things I’ve Done, by Gabrielle Zevin = Z (fiction) – chocolate, crime, deadly

Apr30

Payoffs keep New York City running.
Chocolate and caffeine are illegal drugs.
Paper is scarce and clean water even scarcer.
Welcome to 2083.

Anya has inherited her crime boss father’s business sense, his stake in the mafiya chocolate empire, and responsibility for her mentally disabled older brother, precocious younger sister, and dying grandmother.

What a time to fall in love! And with Win, of all people. Her lab partner for anatomy and physiology class is cute, smart, and the son of NYC’s newest assistant district attorney who is determined to make it to the top by shutting down illegal chocolate operations.

In the face of the frightening choices that she must make to keep her immediate family safe, Anya asks God’s forgiveness for All These Things I’ve Done, first in the Birthright series.

So this is the last A-to-Z Blog Challenge post for this year, 26 new book recommendations in April! On to the 2012 WordCount Blogathon for May and BooksYALove’s first birthday tomorrow.
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Book info: All These Things I’ve Done (Birthright, book 1) / Gabrielle Zevin. Farrar Straus Giroux, 2011 (hardback); Square Fish, 2012 (paperback). [author’s website] [publisher site] [book trailer]

My Recommendation: Illegal or unwise – which choice is worse? Anya’s mafiya family makes chocolate, that forbidden drug, in crime-riddled New York City in 2083. The teen is trying to keep life normal for her grandmother, brother, and sister when someone is poisoned by tainted Balanchine chocolate. Now the police and the mafiya are trying to pin the blame on her.

The cute boy she’s falling for at school turns out to be son of the new DA who’s determined to prosecute chocolate and caffeine trafficking to the max, her older brother is incapable of caring for himself, and her grandmother’s health is failing. If Nana dies, the mafiya will gladly take over all the assets left to her by her dead crime boss father, and the city authorities will separate her from her brother and sister.

Surely Win knows who she is, knows what her extended family does – how can he start a relationship that’s guaranteed to anger his father? At least she’s finally broken up with that loser Gable, who was only after her chocolate connection.

When her brother Leo loses his cleaning job and starts hanging out with some of their more unsavory cousins, Anya warns him that they’re just trying to take advantage of him. No one could imagine that he’d get stuck in the middle of a big mafiya operation or that foreign racketeers might be trying to take over Balanchine’s territory.

Who’s really behind the chocolate poisonings? How can Anya keep juggling her siblings’ needs, her schoolwork, and her feelings for Win? How deep do family loyalties run and how far will their “protective” reach go? (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

N for Naive: Strings Attached, by Judy Blundell (fiction) – mobsters, favors, payback

Apr16

Kit has see if she can make it in New York City on her own,
since Billy left for the Army.
She can sing, act, dance. She just has to do it.

So what if Billy’s dad wants to help her a little?
“No strings attached,” says Nate the Nose…
How much can you trust a gangster, Kit? How can you be so naive?

New York City in 1950. Recovered from World War II, all hustle and bustle and bright lights, with plenty of time for nightclubs and business deals – legitimate and otherwise. Lots of big theaters and smoky little dives like the one where Kit gets a job, where they’ll believe she’s old enough to work, not a 17-year-old running away from home.

Eventually she has to decide whether Nate’s help is worth the risks of observing which lawyer talks to which shady character at the nightclub, especially when some of them disappear. Can she risk not telling Nate when his son will come visit her? Why does she feel like the Korean warfront might be a safer place for Billy than being with his father?

Find out what Kit decides when you pick up Strings Attached at your local library or independent bookstore. (A fun note about author Judy Blundell: she’s also written Star Wars Journals and Star Wars Jedi Apprentice books under pen name Jude Watson.)
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Book info: Strings Attached / Judy Blundell. Scholastic Press, 2011. [author’s website] [publisher site] [book trailer] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My Book Talk: This chorus line job just could be Kit’s lucky break. When Mr. Benedict offers her an apartment near the New York City club, she considers it – after all, he is her boyfriend Billy’s father…and rumored to be a gangster.

Anything’s better than staying in Providence, with her father’s drinking and her siblings trying to hide it (like triplets could ever hide anything from each other – ha!) and the scorn of Billy’s upper-class mother for the Corrigans’ genteel poverty.

Oh, how Billy argued with his father before leaving for basic training! Nate Benedict just couldn’t believe that he’d be stupid enough to join the Army during the Korean War. Now Billy returns his father’s letters unopened, and Nate wants Kit to let him know how his son is doing when he writes to her.

Nate brings Kit lovely clothes “like Billy would want for her,” and soon her upstairs neighbors think she’s a kept woman. The Greeleys were both teachers until they were fired for possible “Communist sympathies,” so they have lots of time to keep an eye on the neighborhood.

Kit often sees Nate in the nightclub audience, talking to known mobsters and crooked lawyers. When he asks her to have dinner with some of these guests, she realizes that her great apartment has a bigger price than she expected. When Billy forbids her to tell his father that he’s coming to the city, Kit knows that something is going to go wrong.

Does Billy really love her? Is his father a real gangster or just trying to make himself look good to the big city guys? How close is the Greeleys’ opinion of her to the truth of the matter?

A mystery, a love story, a growing-up tale – all piled into the hustle and bustle of 1950 New York City – with Strings Attached. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)

K for Kidnapping the wrong person – The Night She Disappeared, by April Henry (fiction)

Apr12

Kayla made the pizza delivery run.
Kayla never came back.
Not the one he asked for,
what to do with her now?

Gabie has to keep working to keep from worrying, has to keep up appearances at home so her overprotective parents don’t find out that she was the kidnapper’s target, has to keep trying to understand Drew’s life on the fringes of society when he wants to stay silent about it.

How Kayla endures being a captive, how her family and friends cope with not knowing whether she’s alive or dead, how Gabie and Drew watch every shadow for a clue about the kidnapper… the story is told through conversations, found pieces of paper, 9-1-1 call transcripts, lab reports, and newspaper clippings.

Taut suspense and realistic characters from Oregon author April Henry – grab a copy of The Night She Disappeared, just published this week.
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Book info: The Night She Disappeared / April Henry. Henry Holt Books, 2012 [author’s website] [publisher site]

My Recommendation: Kayla didn’t return from her pizza delivery and everyone’s worried. Gabie learns that the caller requested her and she’s terrified. What will the kidnapper do with the wrong victim?

Working at Pete’s Pizza after school isn’t a bad job at all – pretty Kayla likes meeting customers, Gabie likes being out of her too-quiet house while both her surgeon parents work late, and Drew needs the money to support his addicted mom. They all go to the same Portland high school, but skateboard slacker Drew doesn’t exactly fit into the girls’ social circles.

When Kayla’s truck is found abandoned by the rushing Columbia River with her purse and the pizzas still inside, police comb the area for clues. Her GPS took her close to the phony address given by the customer, but not much other information is available – until Drew mentions to Gabie that the guy on the phone asked if “the girl who drives the Mini” was doing deliveries that night.

Had he targeted Gabie and gotten Kayla instead? Detectives say that lead won’t help them solve the case and continue questioning everyone at Pete’s and all Kayla’s friends at school. Gabie and Drew decide to track down every possibility themselves, careful not to let her parents know that she was the intended target. Kayla’s parents even bring in a psychic who specializes in missing persons.

As days turn into weeks, hopes for recovering Kayla at all become faint. But Gabie can sense that she’s still alive, trapped in a small space. Can Gabie and Drew find her before it’s too late? Can they keep the kidnapper from snatching Gabie, too? (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

F for False Prince, by Jennifer A. Nielsen (fiction) – imposters, treason, survival

Apr6
Freed from the bleak orphanage,
Acquired for a secret project,
Led into treason by a high-ranking nobleman,
Surviving each challenge,
Endgame in sight – is it worth the lies?

Buffeted by neighboring countries that want to devour its outlying provinces, lacking full leadership since the sudden deaths of the entire royal family, the country of Carthya may soon explode into civil war.

Of course, the ruling council must select a king next month to unify the country.
Of course, all wish that Prince Jaron hadn’t been lost at sea, killed by pirates just before his parents and brother died.
Of course, one treacherous nobleman will risk treason to make Prince Jaron appear at the selection ceremony – even if he has to create the prince himself.

Four orphan teen boys have the chance to escape poverty – if they’re willing to lie for the rest of their lives. And since only one prince is needed, three of those lives will be very short indeed.

You’ve got to read this first book of The Ascendance Trilogy for yourself to experience all its twists and turns…and to see who appears before the ruling committee claiming to be Prince Jaron.
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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: The False Prince (The Ascendance Trilogy #1) / Jennifer A. Nielsen. Scholastic Press, 2012. [author’s website] [publisher site] [book trailer]  Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

My Recommendation: Sage stole to survive – orphans in Carthya often did. But being bought so he could imitate a missing prince? That was something new.

Oh, he wasn’t the only one acquired for Bevis Conner’s project. The nobleman had gathered up four orphaned young men, each with some of the lost prince’s characteristics. And after Conner was through with them, one would be so much like Prince Jaron that he could fool the ruling council and become king, naming Conner as his chief advisor, of course. As to the fate of the other three boys, well…

It was treason, pretending to be royal, especially in these dark days after the deaths of the king, queen, and crown prince from a sudden illness. If Prince Jaron hadn’t been captured by pirates a few years earlier, the younger son would have become king immediately. With Carthya’s nobles becoming restless and outside enemies threatening, the council will soon have to name a new king to lead the country – unless Jaron appears in time to claim his throne.

At his remote estate, Conner trains each boy in the prince’s traits that each lacks: Sage must learn to read well, Tobias to swordfight, Roden to master Carthya’s history. All must practice court manners and dancing, know the royal lineage forward and backward, and watch each other like hawks, since only one will be allowed out of this mansion alive.

Can Conner really transform these orphan boys into princely youths? Can the winner truly fool the ruling council? Can the losers find a way to save their lives?

With more twists and turns than the Carthyan trade road, this first book of a new trilogy takes readers into a far-distant land and into the mind of Sage as he tries to survive Conner’s lessons long enough to become The False Prince. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)

C is Cat Girl’s Day Off, by Kimberly Pauley (book review) – cat voices and kidnapping in Chicago

Apr3

book cover of Cat Girl's Day Off by Kimberly Pauley published by Tu BooksOne sister is a child genius, the other a human lie detector.
Her dad is a super-sniffer and mom can out-think anyone anywhere.
Why is Natalie’s Talent so… everyday?
No wonder “hearing cats talk” is graded as class D.

Nat is trying to keep her Talent quiet, but when she spots a pink cat on video and understands his pleas for help, she can’t just sit idly by. Rufus’s person has been kidnapped right here in Chicago, and it all has something to do with the movie being filmed at her high school.

Wrigley Field and other Windy City locales used in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” are the backdrop for the friends’ madcap chase after clues by train, car, and sneakers, discussing things with cats they encounter (through Nat, of course).

Rufus and my cat Max chat a bit in my next post as they introduce my first giveaway! For your chance to win an Advance Reader Copy of Cat Girl’s Day Off, go here.
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Book info: Cat Girl’s Day Off / Kimberly Pauley. Tu Books, 2012. [author’s website] [publisher site] Review copy (viewed through NetGalley) and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My Recommendation: Better to be a regular high school kid than show off her low-level Talent, thinks Natalie – until her gift for understanding cats’ speech may solve a kidnapping!

Her mom, dad, and sisters are so Talented – supersniffing, X-ray vision, truth detection, chameleon camouflage – that Nat’s talent seems worse than worthless. If the students at Shermer High treated her like that one boy in grade school who could make frogs change color by kissing them… bad news.

Her best friends Melly and Oscar know that she can talk to cats, but it’s no big deal to them. The big deal to them is the movie that will be filming scenes at their school, just as “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” did – and they could be extras in the movie! Oscar is swooning over the leading man, while Melly hopes that appearing in “Freddy’s Day Off” will boost her acting career.

In a video news clip of movie blogger Easton West – all in pink, of course – and her dyed-pink dog and cat arriving in Chicago, Nat realizes that the pink cat is yowling that this person is an imposter and that Easton West has been kidnapped! West’s next blog post includes info that convinces Oscar that the person in that video is a fraud and that the pink cat must be telling the truth.

The three friends decide to rescue the pink cat and find out what’s happened to the real Easton West – as fast as they can between sitting through take after take of movie scenes at the school and Wrigley Field.

How can Nat make the authorities take this seriously, when no other humans speak Cat? Easton West’s last blog post before coming to Chicago threatened to expose one of the actresses – is this part of a plot? Will the imposter make good on her threat to kill the real Easton West? Oh, what will Nat’s cute classmate Ian think if he discovers that she talks to cats and that they talk back??

Lots of twists and turns as the friends and the cats they meet along the way chase after clues all over the Windy City, racing against the clock. One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)