Tag Archive | love

B for Bluebeard in Strands of Bronze and Gold, by Jane Nickerson (fiction) – luxurious halls, ghostly companions

Apr2

book cover of Strands of Bronze and Gold by Jane Nickerson published by KnopfRescued from a life of drudge work,
Cocooned in luxury,
No visitors welcomed or allowed, at all.

An old English abbey transplanted with all its contents into the sweltering Mississippi woods, secrets behind every locked door, mysterious names etched into hidden corners of Sophie’s bedroom furniture… four wives tragically lost, M. Bernard’s only child dead, ghosts murmuring in her room.

The Bluebeard legend is lushly retold by Jane Nickerson, who lived in Mississippi several years before moving to Canada. She shared her writing inspiration in a Nerdy Bookclub blog post on her novel’s publication birthday, and I saw a tweet that it’s the first in a trilogy!

How do you know when something is too good to be true?
**kmm

Book info: Strands of Bronze and Gold / Jane Nickerson. Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2013. [author’s website] [publisher site]

My Recommendation:  Whisked away to her godfather’s mansion after her father’s death in 1855, auburn-haired Sophia envisions plenty in place of her family’s genteel poverty. She is startled by the luxury she finds there, unsettled by slavery supporting the rich, sensitive to the ghost women wandering the halls, yet slow to heed the dire messages they try to convey.

The seventeen-year-old couldn’t have prepared herself for the magnificence of Monsieur de Cressac’s estate, a real English abbey shipped to America stone by stone and reassembled at his rural Mississippi plantation 25 years ago. Nor could she have imagined that her bearded godfather was so handsome, so much younger looking than always-ailing Father, nor that Madame de Cressac was deceased and that Mrs. Duckworth the housekeeper would be her chaperone in this vast mansion.

Monsieur insists that Sophia call him by his first name, that she cast off her mourning for the finest clothes, that she try every dish the chef prepares. Mrs. Duckworth cautions her against defying him, as his temper can get the better of him, so she allows the new lady’s maid to help her dress for dinner and plays the piano pieces he prefers.

But amid all this opulence, strange details emerge: M. Bernard has lost not one wife, but four. Their spirits appear to Sophia when she visits the long-closed nursery, as she pretends to sleep when Bernard taps on her door in the middle of the night, as her nightmares begin to outnumber her dreams.

By chance, she meets a young minister and an old former slave woman in the Abbey’s extensive woodlands; both warn her of Bernard’s very dark reputation. She writes many letters to her sister and brothers in New England, yet receives none in reply. Bernard decides that they must be married, despite their age difference and her misgivings – and will not accept no for an answer.

What truly happened to M. de Cressac’s wives?
Did he choose to court each one because of her red hair?
Can Sophia escape this house of darkness before it is too late?

This lush retelling of the Bluebeard story is garlanded with details about all that Sophia experiences as she moves from a loving home with few comforts to Bernard’s extravagant estate, supported on the backs of countless slaves and circumscribed by his moods.  (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Exposure, by Kim Askew and Amy Helmes (fiction) – Predictions, fame, love, death

Mar22

book cover of Exposure by Kim Askew and Amy Helmes published by Merit Press
Competitive pals Duff and Duncan,
Three masks predict doom,
Bloodstain that will not wash away…
in an Alaskan high school instead of medieval Scotland.

Welcome to the second book in Askew and Helmes’ Twisted Lit series, definitely as brooding as Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” which inspired it, as dark as the long winter nights in Skye’s hometown of Anchorage, as dangerous as Beth’s desperation to rise above her modest beginnings.

If you know the “Scottish play” well, some twists here will still surprise you; if not, you’ll find that the plotline is largely faithful to the original, so you will have a better chance of following all the action in the play when you read it yourself.

How far should ambition take us? How far is too far?
**kmm

Book info: Exposure (Twisted Lit #2) / Kim Askew and Amy Helmes. Merit Press, 2013.  [Kim’s website]  [Amy’s website]   [publisher site]   [book series trailer]

My Recommendation: Skye would rather be home in Anchorage, but how could she stay after what Craig did? A boyfriend who killed someone…

The summer that he moved north for his dad’s job, cute sophomore Craig hung out with Skye, but once school started, he was rapidly drawn into the popular clique. Skye would much rather hide out in the art room than listen to Beth and her posse giggle and posture. Just one more year, then she can get out of here…

As photographer for the school paper, Skye at least gets to see Craig through her telephoto lens at hockey games. The team was lucky that he’d turned out to be a great power forward since their star player Duff had suddenly gone to Scotland as an exchange student. Rumor has it that former girlfriend Beth had something to do with that, but now she’s all over Craig.

Skye wishes that everything were as easy as developing film (yes, she’s old school about that). Then she could un-separate her parents, un-commit to going to prom with dorky Lenny, un-hear the eerie predictions coming out of the Native Yu’Pik masks worn by her three best pals for their art project.

She told Craig that the party in the woods would only be a drunkfest, but came along anyway just to make his social-climber girlfriend mad. When flashlight tag in the snow begins, Skye retreats to the jeep, never dreaming that she’d overhear Beth telling him they’d keep it all a secret, never imagining that hockey player Duncan would be found dead beside the half-frozen creek the next day or that the police would still be investigating weeks later.

Life sort of goes on at school after Duncan’s death, with the crush of college applications, protests against chopping down its 200-year-old courtyard tree, the Running of the Reindeer and other efforts to keep the long Arctic winter at bay. Beth is sure that she and Craig will be Prom King and Queen, despite her increasingly bizarre behavior.

How can Skye go away to college if Mom and Dad really do split up? Money was tight before they separated…
What’s the secret that Beth and Craig are keeping? It seems to be eating away at them…
Are the answers in Skye’s huge collection of senior year photos? Those eerie predictions might be right…

A modern retelling of Shakespeare’s Macbeth under the Northern Lights, this sinister tale uses quotations from “the Scottish play” as its chapter headings in Askew and Helmes’ second book of the Twisted Lit series.  (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Mothership, by Martin Leicht and Isla Neal (book review) – pregnant teens, space yacht, attacked!

Mar20

book cover of Mothership by Martin Leicht and Isla Neal published by Simon Schuster BFYRPregnant at sixteen,
the dad leaves town,
by 2074, some things haven’t changed.

But having such a surplus of unused earth-orbiting luxury cruise ships that one can be repurposed into a school for unwed mothers? That definitely puts this book into sci fi category (aliens as high school teachers and vid-ads targeted to your personal nutritional and health needs are just bonus!)

You can find Elvie’s rather offbeat pregnancy journey at your local library or independent bookstore as it’s a 2012 release (still waiting on publication date for book 2).

Anyone you know been abducted by aliens lately?
**kmm

Book info: Mothership (The Ever-Expanding Universe, Book 1) / Martin Leicht and Isla Neal. Simon & Schuster BFYR, 2012. [Martin’s info]  [Isla’s info]  [video interview]   [publisher site] [book trailer]   (Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher)

My Book Talk: Elvie wanted to go into space, but as part of the Mars colonization project, not as a pregnant teen in the first-ever low-orbit high school for unwed mothers… Getting attacked by paramilitaries wasn’t part of the plan either, but Elvie still has some brains despite the Bump.

She’s been planning her whole life to travel everywhere, like her mom didn’t get to do, dying when Elvie was born, leaving behind a huge book of maps with notes about future family trips. Her dad has an emergency plan for absolutely any possible (or improbable) event and decides that Hanover School for Expecting Teen Mothers is just the place for her; he obviously didn’t know that Elvie’s nemesis in the Class of 2076 would be part of the school’s first group, too.

And the baby’s daddy? Vanished into thin air as soon as Elvie told him the news. Thankfully, she has best-friend-for-life Ducky as backup; that guy is so dorky about researching pregnancy stuff. Too bad he’s on Earth, and Elvie’s in orbit with snooty cheerleader Britta, who got pregnant a couple of weeks before her. No, Elvie won’t tell her that Cole fathered both babies; she doesn’t have a death wish.

When an unexpected ship docks onto the space cruise liner, Hanover is boarded by paramilitary forces…including Cole, who tells Elvie that her teachers are aliens and that their babies aren’t exactly their own anymore. She decides her baby belongs on Earth when it’s born in a few weeks, so she and the other very-pregnant teens waddle through escape routes and try to sabotage the aliens’ plans along the way.

If the teachers are aliens, what are the paramilitary guys?
Should Elvie believe the handsome hunk who knocked her up and left town?
Will there be any chocolate-pretzel-caramel-prenatal ice cream left in the snack center?

In this first book of the Ever-Expanding Universe series, Elvie’s life changes drastically in a short time; the rest of Earth’s population is in for a big surprise as well!

Sisters Red, by Jackson Pearce (fiction) – werewolf-hunting sisters long for love

Mar18

book cover of Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce published by LBTeenRemote town or crowded city,
more “missing” young women reported,
time to hunt down the werewolves.

The first in Pearce’s Fairytale Retellings, Sisters Red  takes the Little Red Riding Hood tale several steps into the present-day with chilling effectiveness.

The Atlanta-based author keeps her Retellings series firmly rooted in today’s South with Sweetly (Hansel and Gretel…and Fenris) and Fathomless (the Little Mermaid…and Fenris). Click the title links to go to my no-spoiler recommendations.

Which cover art do you prefer – the new paperback release with the hatchet or the original hardback and paperback art with the two girls’ faces and those red wolfeyes?
**kmm
original paperback cover of Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce published by LBTeen
Book info: Sisters Red (Fairytale Retellings #1) / Jackson Pearce. LB Teen, 2010 hardback, 2011 paperback. [author’s website] [publisher site] [book trailer]

My Recommendation:  Girls are disappearing – time for Rosie and Scarlett to take up their hatchets, don their red cloaks, and hunt down the werewolves again. Perhaps the teen sisters can kill enough of these Fenris before their power becomes too strong…

Closer than twins, Scarlett and Rosie feel like they are one heart divided between two people and that they have a mission to protect people from the Fenris who slaughtered their grandmother, clawed out Scarlett’s right eye, left the March sisters selling off Oma’s things to stay afloat – hunting killer werewolves near and far leaves no time for a regular job. At least Silas is back from California, back to being their nearest neighbor out in the Georgia countryside, even if he didn’t take the traditional woodsman’s path like the rest of his family.

Attacks on young women during the Apple Time Festival reveal that outside clans of Fenris are converging on their area, and the sisters’ scan of the news tells them that Atlanta is getting hit hard. It’s Silas who suggests that they temporarily move to the city to deal with the werewolf outbreak, the three of them hunting together again to keep unwitting victims safe.

Now the trio has a whole new landscape to learn, trying to remain unseen as they stalk the leering men whose skin bursts forth into full fur when their prey has no more way to escape, the two girls donning mysterious red capes to entice the Fenris away from others and into the death trap of their hatchets and knives.

Silas insists that Rosie do something – just one thing – that’s not Fenris-related so she can keep her mind and soul together, so she tries an origami class. In the calm classroom, Rosie wonders if she’ll fight the Fenris forever, if she could have a future with Silas.

What is luring the other Fenris into territory not their own?
Can the three young people stop them?
Is there more to life than fighting away this darkness?

Told in alternating chapters by Rosie and Scarlett, Sisters Red brings an old fairytale into the here and now as the author’s home city is plagued by werewolves.  (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Tempestuous, by Kim Askew and Amy Helmes (book review) – blizzard, robbery, clique wars, corndogs

Mar15

book cover of Tempestuous by Kim Askew and Amy Helmes published by Merit PressPopular crowd versus geek teens,
Trapped together by a blizzard
With bad cellphone reception… and a robber!

It’s Gossip Girl  and MacGyver woven into Shakespeare’s play The Tempest as authors Kim Askew and Amy Helmes throw the Bard’s heroine Miranda Prospero into a winter-whipped shopping mall with Ariel as her corndog-cooking sidekick.

Check your local library or independent bookstore for this first book in the Twisted Lit series from new publisher Merit Press.

Kind of crazy, lots of fun! What other Shakespeare remixes do you know of?
**kmm

Book info: Tempestuous (Twisted Lit #1) / Kim Askew and Amy Helmes. Merit Press, 2012. [Kim’s website]  [Amy’s website]   [publisher site]   [book trailer]    (Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher)

My Book Talk: Trudging through the snow toward the mall, Miranda again laments the unfairness of her life. Forced to work at a corndog stand in the mall to pay back the finks who turned her tutoring-matchmaking service into a cheating scam, Daddy taking away her platinum charge cards, wearing this hideous uniform with the revolving-wienie hat… at least other teens working in the mall turn to her for advice in sticky situations.

Thank goodness perky co-worker Ariel also pulled this Saturday night shift at Hot Dog Kebob, so Miranda can throw her a surprise birthday party for her after closing. The petite home-schooled 17-year-old deserves the ice cream cake that Grady the security cop will pick up later. Maybe moody Caleb from the game store and gangly Chad from the sports store will come by, but no one has seen their pal Mike from collectibles tonight.

The news is forecasting blizzard conditions overnight so the food court supervisor leaves early; in fact, most customers are heading out, but the closing employees must stay to lock up. Too bad Miranda’s ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend didn’t go when they could – the mall doors are now completely blocked by snow! No one is getting home from here tonight and the mall cop has just discovered a burglary!

Suddenly shoppers and workers try to find the best places to stay for the night, praying that the power stays on and that the robber stays away. Miranda accidentally gets handcuffed to Caleb, someone stalls the elevator with a panicked teen inside, and boredom threatens to become chaos if something exciting doesn’t happen soon. Finding another teen knocked out cold by the robber wasn’t in the plan!

How long are the rival factions of teens going to be trapped in the mall?
Will Caleb’s impromptu concert keep things from getting crazy?
Can Grady trap the robber before someone else gets hurt?
How can Miranda get out of these handcuffs and get to the bathroom?

A modern retelling of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, this first book in the Twisted Lit series has more wild and crazy twists than Miranda ever dreamed of, with quotes from the play as chapter headings to add to the fun. (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)

Dark Unwinding, by Sharon Cameron (fiction) – invention, espionage, affection

Mar6

Book cover of The Dark Unwinding by Sharon Cameron published by ScholasticClever clockwork devices,
A hidden town,
A special man with a child’s heart,
A spy and traitor plotting destruction…

Is it any wonder that Mr. Babcock used Uncle Tully’s money to rescue working families from the poorhouses and create a unique village to fill all the estate’s needs? Or that agents from enemy countries would try to steal Uncle Tully’s work to use against England? Or that Katharine might finally find love?

The author promises us a sequel in fall 2013, so visit Stranwyne Keep yourself soon – and watch out for Aunt Alice’s sharp tongue!
**kmm

Book info: The Dark Unwinding / Sharon Cameron. Scholastic Press, 2012.  [author’s website] [publisher site]

My Recommendation: It seems that Uncle is squandering away the family fortune, so it falls to Katharine to quietly visit the old man and gather enough evidence to have him declared insane. As “the poor relative”, the young lady has no choice but to make the long carriage journey to Stranwyne Keep, and a mysteriously strange place she finds it indeed.

A drowsy housekeeper, a mute young boy, a belligerent apprentice named Lane – that’s the entire staff for this huge English manor house? Mrs. Jeffries recognizes Katharine as Mr. Simon’s orphan daughter and avers that cousin Robert’s scheming mother must have sent her here to uproot Mr. Tully.

Where is all the money going if Uncle doesn’t throw lavish parties or buy fine horses? In his workshop across the moors, childlike genius Uncle Tully creates precise inventions in miniature with Lane’s assistance and keeps an unvarying personal timetable. Automatons, clockwork creations, part science, part magic, all Uncle Tully.

The family solicitor enlightens Katharine about how this estate is run – and how an entire village supports Uncle Tully’s projects as the estate supports its hundreds of workers rescued from London’s poorhouses! No wonder there is less money in the accounts than before… yet Mr. Babcock assures her that these projects will rebuild the fortune soon.

Katharine becomes convinced that some of her uncle’s entertaining inventions are very practical (others quite dangerous and alarming) as her fondness for this very special person grows, so she decides to support him in defiance of her aunt’s wishes, endangering her own chances of a safer financial future.

But all is not well in this idyllic setting, as strange noises taunt Katharine in the manor, Lane warns her about upsetting her uncle, a visiting student of mechanics begins to court her, people disappear from one location and reappear far away, and the villagers turn against her in defense of their dear Mr. Tully.

Who can she trust now – Lane? Mr. Babcock? Her maid and friend from the village?
What’s causing those eerie noises and her new nightmares?
Is someone really planning to steal inventions from Uncle Tully’s workshop?

A mystery and a Victorian family drama rolled into one, this Dark Unwinding twists and turns as Uncle Tully’s inventions tick-tock along, and a villain seeks to use them for nefarious purposes. (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Dangerous Boy, by Mandy Hubbard (fiction) – good girl, daredevil boyfriend, dangerous twin

Feb25

book cover of Dangerous Boy by Mandy Hubbard published by RazorbillNew guy in the small-town high school.
Handsome, rich, daring.
Falling for everyday girl Harper?
Swept off her feet, toward danger.

Logan wants a fresh start to his life after the difficulties he and his brother had in their hometown. Harper’s life after her mom’s death had gotten quieter and quieter. Boom! Romance like a whirlwind, eerie vandalism, brother Daemon mocking Harper’s affection for Logan.

If you sense a whiff of Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (read it free at Project Gutenberg here), you’ve found one inspiration for author Mandy Hubbard’s fast-moving story of Harper’s hope for happiness and the too-real peril she faces.

Grab this one today at your local library or independent bookstore but do watch for strange happenings in your neighborhood, won’t you?
**kmm

Book info: Dangerous Boy / Mandy Hubbard. Razorbill, 2012.  [author’s website] [publisher site]

My Recommendation: When handsome Logan Townsend moves to her small town, Harper is intrigued. When he asks her out, she’s amazed and delighted. When his twin brother threatens her, she doesn’t know what to think. But if she merely thinks instead of acting, it might just be too late.

Living in the old Carson mansion with their uncle way out on the river road must be boring for Daemon, who’s doing school online instead of at Enumclaw High with his twin brother. He never comes along with Logan and Harper as they go to a Halloween haunted corn maze with friends or riding four-wheelers. Logan says that Daemon messed up relationships for him at their old school, so it’s better that he doesn’t want to be with their group anyway

Bloody cow bones showing up in rural mailboxes, red handprints on every car in the school parking lot, stop signs stolen – this new rash of vandalism is getting dangerous.

Harper has never really liked doing dangerous things, but after her mother’s death, her own father is like a ghost, going through the motions at their farm, without enough energy to warn her against trying reckless things that Logan loves to do. That four-wheeler rollover when a wheel fell off was just an accident, right?

Wondering what Daemon did at the twins’ former school to make them leave that town, Harper does some checking on Facebook and the newspaper, but comes up with more questions than answers.

Why isn’t Logan tagged in any pictures with his former classmates?
What did Daemon do that was hushed up so quickly in the media?
Why does his twin want Harper to stay away from the creaking house that he shares with Logan?

Echoes of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde drift through this spooky tale, with a young woman’s safety and sanity depending on her reactions to the dangers she uncovers.  (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Spookygirl: Paranormal Investigator, by Jill Baguchinsky (fiction) – vengeful ghosts in the locker room, mystery mansion calling

Feb18

book cover of Spookygirl Paranormal Investigator by Jill Baguchinsky published by DuttonAble to see ghosts? All the time.
Talk to spirits? Piece of cake.
See her own mom’s ghost? Not a chance…

Violet’s aunt thinks her gift is unclean, her dad wonders if she’s talked to the ghost of her mom (but doesn’t dare ask), and the ghosts in the area just want to chat.

This debut novel won the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award for Young Adult Fiction in 2011, and Dutton Books’ editorial staff brought it out in hardback in 2012. Check it out at your local library or independent bookstore now, and see what the ghosts in Violet’s town are gossiping about!

Whose ghost would you like to have a conversation with?
**kmm

Book info: Spookygirl: Paranormal Investigator / Jill Baguchinsky. Dutton Books, 2012. [author’s website] [publisher site] 

My Recommendation: Vengeful spirits in the girls’ locker room, boring school uniforms, and strange rumors running ahead of her… Violet would much rather stay in the apartment above Dad’s funeral home with Buster the ghost, but unfortunately high school is still mandatory.

Ghosts always talk to her, just like they talked to her mom. It’s been ten years since Mom died during a paranormal investigation with her dad, but Violet has never seen her ghost. Some online sleuthing leads Violet to another researcher from her parents’ past expeditions, but the now-semi-respectable psychic tries to convince her to stay away from Mom’s last place on earth.

A dead football player is hanging around Palmetto High’s art room, there’s a possible hell-portal in the girls’ shower, and one of the goth kids claims he’s half-vampire. Senior citizen ghosts (Florida is full of them) help Violet stage a memorable Halloween séance in the cemetery to “scare straight” some kids who want to dabble in the dark arts, but even they warn her to stay far away from the creepy deserted estate where her mother died.

It’s up to Violet to use her psychic gifts to clear up all this, so her new not-so-goth friends help her get ready to visit the estate, and maybe hear from Mom one last time (surely she wouldn’t head to the Beyond without saying goodbye?), but things go bad in a heartbeat.

What can they do to placate the angry attacking poltergeist?
Can Violet ever reconnect with her mother’s ghost?
Are the friends going to make it out of there alive?

Spookygirl, scary fun, terrifying investigations!  (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Return to Me, by Justina Chen (fiction) – moving away, moving on…or not

Feb15

book cover of Return to Me by Justina Chen published by Little BrownHooray for going away to college at last!
Umm, family moving there, too?
One part breaks, everything shatters…

Reb is trying to figure out whether she and Jackson can make things work for now, not forever. But this is not just another long-distance teen romance; it’s a novel with real heart and soul (and a few visions along the way).

How have long-distance, long-term relationships worked out in your life?
**kmm

Book info: Return to Me / Justina Chen. Little Brown, 2013. [author’s blog] [publisher site]

My Recommendation: Rebecca is so ready to go far away to college. When her dad moves the whole family to her new college town across the country for his new job, then immediately abandons Mom, she’s shocked. If she can’t trust rock-steady Dad, who can she trust?

She’d already decided that she must break up with Jackson before the family leaves Seattle, convinced that a long-distance relationship won’t work out. Her best friends agree with her, but she just can’t do it.

When Reb gets an overwhelming sense of something about-to-happen, she learned long ago to keep it to herself. She will be able to use her innate sense of whether a space works or not as she studies architecture, following in the footsteps of her dad’s business-minded family.

In the too-large McMansion in suburban New Jersey, far from their cozy island home and Reb’s custom-built treehouse, she watches her mom crumble as Dad makes the separation permanent and sees her 10-year-old brother retreat ever further into himself. After Reb calls Grandpa for advice, he invites them to his Hawai’i home to restore themselves.

Perched in a tropical treehouse, Reb worries about Jackson, about whether she really wants to do commercial architecture, about whether she really wants to go to college at the end of summer.

What’s this prophecy that women of her family can never stay with the men they love?
How can she balance family expectations about her career with what she truly wants to do?
How hard must she shake her phone so that Jackson will start communicating again?

Separation and reunion, perception and reality – Justina Chen once again brings readers a story with the right ending in a complex real world. (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

A Girl Named Digit, by Annabel Monaghan (fiction) – FBI takes teen math genius undercover

Feb8
book cover of A Girl Named Digit by Annabel Monaghan published by Houghton Mifflin

A brain for numbers that never, ever stops.
A hunger to have a normal senior year.
A set of digits on television that shouldn’t be there…

And now Farrah goes from understated jeans to completely undercover as the FBI realizes that her OCD about numbers and patterns is their best bet for catching an ecoterrorist whose been sending others out to do his dirty work for years.

Grab Digit’s first adventure now in hardcover or eBook at your local library or independent bookstore (it won’t be out in paperback with the much-better cover until late May 2013) then hang on for Digit’s first year at college when Double Digit  is published in January 2014!

Which of life’s codes would you be most anxious to crack?
**kmm

Book info: A Girl Named Digit / Annabel Monaghan. Houghton Mifflin, 2012. [author’s website] [publisher site] [fan-created book trailer]  

My Recommendation: To get away from the kids who nicknamed her “Digit” for her math abilities, Farrah transfers to another high school for her senior year. But it’ll take the FBI to keep her safe from the terrorist group that she accidentally exposes. Faking her own kidnapping wasn’t quite the way she’d planned to stay unnoticed at her new school…
Farrah wishes that she didn’t see patterns in everything and has had to learn extreme coping strategies to blunt her obsessive-compulsive tendencies when real life is uneven and disorganized. Her math professor dad says she can put her “gift” to work later in life and urges her to enjoy being a teen for now. Wish it were that easy…
Numbers pop up on television when they shouldn’t be there, but the station says she’s imagining them. Her genius skills crack the code, pointing to a terror attack at JFK Airport, but her report to the FBI is ignored…until it happens.
Now a ruthless band of ecoterrorists is gunning for Digit, so she has to fake being kidnapped and go undercover to help the FBI break the rest of the code to prevent more attacks and catch the terrorists. Nice to really be appreciated for her skills, even nicer to be undercover with cute young FBI agent John as they race to interpret more clues.
But somehow, the bad guys find one of the safe houses, John and Digit have to go into deep cover without contacting anyone, and the stakes in this math puzzle get deadly in a hurry.
How fast can they unravel the last parts of this puzzle?
What will the ecoterrorists’ next move be?
Will Digit’s “kidnapping” have an unhappy ending?

(One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.