Tag Archive | survival

Altered, by Jennifer Rush (fiction) – build-a-soldier: strength tweak here, loyalty serum there

Feb11

book cover of Altered by Jennifer Rush published by Little BrownSecret laboratory.
Experimental subjects.
Super-soldiers with no memories…

Anna reads the journal that her mom left, makes the recipes just as she noted, wishes that she could be with Sam more often – but what future could she have with a memory-wiped young man who’s confined like a lab rat?

What future is there for Anna anyway? She could never talk to outsiders, in case she accidentally said something about the Lab beneath their farmhouse, the Lab housing four young men that the Branch is secretly training for some sort of mission… the four young men who escape, taking Anna with them!

This 2012 title is a “don’t blink” thriller; imagine what will happen to the crew next!
**kmm

Book info: Altered / Jennifer Rush. Little Brown, 2012.  [author’s website] [publisher site] [audiobook excerpt]

My Recommendation:  Anna is content in her secluded home-schooled world of the remote farmhouse with her dad and the underground lab where “the boys” live. Why the Branch wanted four young men with no memories to be part of this research was never discussed, nor were the many scars on those very physically fit bodies.

When she turned 16, Dad asked Anna to assist him with testing Sam, Nick, Trev, and Cas, little knowing that she’s been sneaking downstairs to play chess with Sam every night for months. When a routine lab inspection by the Branch brings along highly armed soldiers to remove the boys, Anna’s calm life shatters as the boys manage to escape – and Dad sends her along with them, insisting that she must stay as far away from the Branch as possible!

Suddenly, they’re on the run, trying to outguess agents of the maybe-government-related Branch and stay ahead of police when desperation forces them to steal a car and food. Every hour away from the lab unlocks more of the boys’ impressive physical skills as they seem to react before danger occurs and fight as a team without speaking.

Somehow, tendrils of memory guide Sam to a remote farmhouse where he might have lived before his memories were wiped out by the Branch. Everything is now a clue that could help them unlock the boys’ secrets and regain their pasts.

When Anna’s long-absent mother arrives at the farmhouse with surprising news, there’s little time for a tender reunion as gunfire from Branch agents zings through the walls and windows. Was this a set-up or an accident?

Fleeing again, Anna, Sam and company keep trying to figure out the meaning of the numbers within their scars and messages hidden in their tattoos. Code? Map coordinates?

Harder and harder to stay ahead of the Branch as the crew darts from hiding place to newly remembered landmark to safe house. Graveyards and memories, dead men and long-dead children… whatever happens, Anna cannot leave Sam!

Why were the four young men in the Branch lab in the first place?
Why were their memories wiped out?
How far will they all go to stay out of the Branch’s grasp forever?

Jennifer Rush’s debut novel races along faster than Anna’s feelings for Sam, diving into a dark past that could lead to an even darker future. (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.

Safekeeping, by Karen Hesse (fiction) – on the run, will home still be there?

Feb7
book cover of Safekeeping by Karen Hesse published by Fiewel and Friends

The president assassinated!
Martial law declared.
No travel without permits.

She got her plane ticket home as soon as she could, leaving the sweet children at the Haitian orphanage where she volunteered. But there was no way for Radley to know that her parents would not be at the airport waiting for her and that everything she knew as safe would be gone.

Listen to the first chapter of Safekeeping  here, then grab the book at your local library or independent bookstore so you can consider each of each black-and-white photograph as you worry through Celia, Radley, and Jerry Lee’s desperate journey away from despair and danger.

What would you do to survive if you were in Radley’s mud-soaked shoes?
**kmm

Book info: Safekeeping / Karen Hesse. Feiwel and Friends (Macmillan), 2012. [author’s blog]  [author video interview]  [publisher site]

My Recommendation: When the president is assassinated, Radley rushes home from volunteering at a Haitian orphanage, but everything is going wrong. Her parents should be waiting for her at the airport, but they’re not. No one answers the phone at home, her credit cards no longer work, her cellphone is dead, and US marshals are everywhere.

New curfews and travel restrictions mean that the teen must walk for days to cover the hour’s drive home, avoiding checkpoints and scavenging food where she can find it. Arriving at her empty house, Radley passes dark stains on the pavement and hides in a secret attic room as police pound on the door in the morning, over and over.
No electricity, no food left, only mom’s photos escaped the looting. She can’t stay here, she’s got to get away – from the marshals, from the uncertainty about her parents’ whereabouts, from the totalitarian state that New Hampshire has become.

So she heads north to Canada, traveling by night, avoiding other people and their potential dangers, staying clear of the small towns swarming with soldiers, until a big dog comes to her and begs that she follow him. Radley finds Celia ill and feverish, nurses her until the trio can continue plodding north through the rainy woods.
A small, safe place – that’s all they need – somewhere away from the soldiers and curfews and guns.
Can Radley, Celia, and Jerry Lee actually make it to Canada?
Where are their parents, their neighbors, their friends?
Will they ever be able to go home, or will martial law grip the US forever?
Karen Hesse’s own black-and-white photographs of the places where the girls and dog travel fill this book with darkness and light, as the cadence of her words measures the steps and steps and steps that Radley takes on this long journey.  (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

A Hundred Flowers, by Gail Tsukiyama (fiction) – Mao’s China, family’s fracture

Jan30
book cover of A Hundred Flowers by Gail Tsukiyama published by St Martins Press

You can see the White Cloud Mountain, if you look hard.
You must climb the spiny kapok tree to get high enough.
Is any tree tall enough to see where Tao’s father is?

Chairman Mao asked that “one hundred schools of thought” contend so that “one hundred flowers” would bloom during the Cultural Revolution. But could intellectuals believe that the dictator truly wanted opposing opinions to be voiced in Communist China?

Listen to the beginning of the story here, courtesy of Macmillan Audio, publishers of the audiobook version of A Hundred Flowers,  narrated by Audie Award winner, Simon Vance.

Get to know Tao’s family and this intriguing, difficult time in China’s history today at your local library or independent bookstore.

Should Tao’s mother have told him the truth about his father’s political imprisonment, or was she right in allowing her young son to believe that papa would soon return to them?
**kmm

Book info: A Hundred Flowers / Gail Tsukiyama. St. Martin’s Press, 2012. [author’s website] [publisher site] [author video interview]

My Recommendation:

Perhaps Tao can see where his father has gone if he climbs the tallest tree in their Guangzhou courtyard. Instead his fall breaks his leg, but doesn’t break the Communist Party’s iron grip on his homeland, doesn’t bring Father home, doesn’t stop schoolmates from taunting that Father is a traitor.
If Chairman Mao’s call “let a hundred schools of thought contend” to be believed, then intellectuals like his papa Sheng and grandfather Wei would be safe to express their opinions, even if contrary to Communist doctrines. But a letter from their courtyard house to the Chairman results in papa’s departure, and mama won’t tell seven-year-old Tao where he has gone.
As Tao’s badly broken leg heals, he is often visited by Auntie Song who lives downstairs, by his grandfather who tells stories of olden times, and always by his mother, whose herbal remedies are renowned throughout the city. Into the courtyard house, Mother invites a lost teenage girl, a pregnant runaway grateful for small kindness and an empty corner.
Visits to the police to explain that Sheng must come home after his son’s terrible accident were useless; letters arrive from the re-education center rarely. Why did the Party think that making a teacher work in a dangerous stone quarry would change anything?
Finally grandfather Wei decides that he must take the grueling train journey north alone to see for himself that Sheng is still alive and try to convince the officials to let him come home.
A fascinating cross-generational tale, told through the voices of the residents of Tao’s courtyard house during the Cultural Revolution which crushed China’s artistic and intellectual communities, rippling like an undercurrent in its society even today. [Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.]

Every Other Day, by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (book review) – hunt the supernatural, survive high school

Jan28

book cover of Every Other Day by Jennifer Lynn Barnes published by EgmontHigh school kid, demon hunter,
High school kid, werewolf killer,
Repeat, repeat, repeat…

Kali has enough trouble spending alternating days as a supernatural clean-up gal, but when someone may have injected the cheerleaders at her high school with bloodsucking parasites…

A classmate marked for supernatural harvest, answers producing even more questions, high-level conspiracy – how did Kali wind up in all this?
How much does she have in common with the Hindu goddess Kali, slayer of demons?

Find Every Other Day  now in hardback at your local library or visit your independent bookstore for its January 22nd paperback release; both covers are the same haunting hourglass dripping blood…

How far should you go to protect your friends while risking your very life?
**kmm

Book info: Every Other Day / Jennifer Lynn Barnes. Egmont USA, hardcover 2011, paperback 2013. [author’s website] [publisher site] [fan-created book trailer][author interview] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My Book Talk: If that ouroboros on Bethany’s back is not a tattoo, then the cheerleader will be dead today, just when Kali is merely human, instead of a supernatural hunter like she will be tomorrow. Flip-flopping capabilities every 24 hours is more than annoying now – it’s liable to be deadly.

Good thing that her supernatural phase includes rapid healing powers, as the werewolves and hellhounds who battle against her during extermination runs always seemed to slash and bite Kali viciously. And who wants to show up at high school the next morning looking like that?

When Dad decided that she needed to go to public school for ‘social interaction’ Kali was sure it was just because his new boss at the university labs was sending his daughter there. Now, with a chupacabra stalking the cheerleading squad, maybe her presence at Heritage High can keep her classmates safe.

Luring the spirit from Bethany’s ouroboros into her own blood was the fastest way for Kali to save her life on this human-phase day. But now Kali has to survive many more hours with an aware parasite coursing through her veins and whispering in her brain before she turns supernatural hunter again.

How will she get the parasite out of her body to kill it?
Why does Bethany think that the cheerleaders were purposely injected with the parasite?
What’s in the lab under Bethany’s house?

If the zombies don’t get the teens, maybe Kali will get some answers – and live long enough to get into her hunter phase and strike back.  (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)

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Unnaturalists, by Tiffany Trent (fiction) – steampunk, witch-fairy mutiny?

Jan23

book cover of The Unnaturalists by Tiffany Trent published by Simon SchusterScience is good, magic is bad.
Technology is better than nature.
The powers-that-be hold all the power in this city…
or do they?

Steampunk plus pixies, manticores, and sphinxes – all in an alternate London swept out of its own world and time by a Tesla coil in the wrong hands! Vespa is in great peril as she awakens to her powers as a witch in this so-rational City.

If you’ve ever wondered about how book covers are created, go behind the scenes at the photo shoot for The Unnaturalists.  You’ll find it in hardback now at your local library or independent bookstore; don’t wait for the August 2013 paperback edition!

So, just how steampunk do you like your alternate history books?
**kmm

Book info: The Unnaturalists / Tiffany Trent. Simon & Schuster BFYR, 2012. [author’s website] [publisher site]

My Recommendation: Vespa loves working with her father, preparing captured magical creatures for display in the museum. But now she must make a good match, ignoring the signs that she’s as Unnatural as anything in the museum – and in terrible danger.

The Church of Science and Technology controls New London after a temporal quirk landed that city in an alternate England generations ago; it allows no magic or witchery within its bounds. The Tinker folk who respect nature and its Elementals endure a hardscrabble existence outside the City Wall, adopting City children born with magical traits and abandoned there, exposed to the Creeping Waste.

Syrus listens to Granny’s stories in the Tinker camp, knows that the City soldiers will soon take more Tinkers to slave in the Refinery which produces the substance to power the City, senses that Vespa is not like other City folk, knows that the land will rupture and perish when the last Elementals are gone.

The secret society of Architects also knows that the Church cannot keep capturing Elementals /Unnaturals without endangering their world, and they foil the Refiners at every turn. When Syrus gets caught up in their conflict, he rushes to rescue his clan members from the Refinery.

Vespa’s time as Companion to high-born Lucy is filled with dressmaker’s appointments and matchmaker consultations, when her mistress suddenly demands that she use magic to craft a love charm! But lurking secrets in Lord Virulen’s manor house may upset the young ladies’ scheme before it begins.

Does so-ordinary Vespa possess enough untapped magic to help Lucy capture a nobleman’s heart before the Empress discovers their crime?
Who is the secretive Architect risking exposure as he shields Syrus from the Refiners’ wrath?
Why didn’t Vespa ever suspect that she was a witch in the first place?

Steampunk and fantasy collide in this alternate world created by Tiffany Trent, as the creatures seen as Elementals by the Tinkers and as Unnaturals by the Citizens hold the key to everything.(One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Butterfly Clues, by Kate Ellison (fiction) – obsession, loss, mystery

Jan21
book cover of The Butterfly Clues by Kate Ellison published by Egmont

If the arrangement is precise,
life will fall into place.
If the collection is balanced,
personalities will align again.
If manipulating objects could only heal people…

Lo isn’t hoarding; she’s trying to make sense of hurtful events that seem so random. Even if it puts her in danger, investigating in a bad part of town, compelled to steal things to add to the display of possible answers…to find a killer, to discover why her brother left, to find herself.

It’s No Name-Calling Week, highlighting ways we can prevent bullying behavior, put-downs, and harassment, like Lo experienced with the acid-burned photos stuck on her school locker.

Just out in paperback (look for the blue cover with red butterfly), you’ll also find The Butterfly Clues  in hardback at your local library or independent bookstore.

How much can we rearrange things and people?
**kmm

Book info: The Butterfly Clues / Kate Ellison. Egmont USA, hardback 2012, paperback 2013. [author’s website] [publisher site] [book trailer]

My Recommendation:  Lo is guided to each object she takes, compelled to arrange them just-so, trying desperately to be unnoticed at school like she is at home, since her brother disappeared. She ignores those who call her Penelope, like Mom ignores the outside world now.

She taps significant patterns to keep her safe as she roams neighborhoods to stay out of the too-quiet house. A bang, shattering glass, a bullet in the brick wall nearby – Lo checks the news online later to discover that a young woman was killed at that moment, in that place, jewelry stolen.
At the flea market, a butterfly figurine calls to her to be taken (but-ter-fly, 3 perfect syllables). Lo recognizes it from the news article, stolen from the dead girl Sapphire, she just knows it. Seller says it was in a dumpster, but who’d stick around a murder scene to steal costume jewelry and knick-knacks, then dump them? Something is off-balance here, and Lo can’t stand for anything to be unbalanced, so she starts to investigate.
Visiting the gentlemen’s club where Sapphire worked, talking to homeless people, Lo can’t stop looking for things that will unmask the killer. Meeting Flynt the artist is an unexpected bonus, a joy, but can he be trusted not to tell what Lo is doing in this bad part of Cleveland on her own?
When the phone rings at home, telling her to mind her own business, Lo is a little worried. When acid-scorched photos appear on her school locker, telling her to back off, she gets anxious. When she sees Flynt’s tattoo and remembers a clue in Sapphire’s house, she gets frantic.
Will the killer come to her home?
Will Flynt deny the connection that Lo has discovered?
Will she be able to keep her counting compulsions under control long enough to convince the police to do something?

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

Adaptation, by Malinda Lo (fiction) – bird disasters, brain waves, conspiracy, love and mystery

Jan14
book cover of Adaptation by Malinda Lo published by Little Brown

All flights grounded due to bird accidents.
Panic, chaos, cellphone systems overloaded.
Desert car crash, coma, 27 days lost…

Lucky their flight was delayed, but their headlong car trip from Phoenix to San Francisco lands Reese and David in a super-secret hospital near Area 51– and it gets weirder.

Extraterrestrials, conspiracy, visions that Reese can’t explain and can’t erase, comfort in Amber’s arms, what is going on??

As authors often do, Lo wrote Adaptation  while listening to playlists of songs that evoked different characters and scenes; listen to her 12 favorites here and read her reasons for selecting each one.

So, aliens among us or not??
**kmm

Book info: Adaptation / Malinda Lo. Little Brown, 2012. [author’s website] [publisher site] [book trailer]

My Recommendation: All flights cancelled due to multiple plane crashes with birds? After her dismal performance at the national tournament, now her debate partner David will be stuck with Reese even longer, as they drive from Phoenix to San Francisco – and it all goes crazy.

Speeding across the Nevada desert near Area 51, their rental car flips when a bird flies into it, and the teens wake up 27 days later in a secret military hospital. Confidentiality statements signed, they’re taken home to their very anxious parents, and Reese’s dreams (or nightmares) begin.
She sees doctors from the secret hospital in town – or does she? David doesn’t call her anymore – did he ever realize that Reese had a crush on him? These dreams of dripping yellow, of a red here, a red there – after-effects of the concussion?
Meeting Amber was a welcome change, with her punky pink hair and her see-it-all attitude for the city she’s visiting while she apartment-sits for her uncle. Reese is a bit mystified that Amber is attracted to such an average person as herself, but relishes the attention and affection.
Her best friend Julian helps Reese paint her bedroom to match the glossy reds and yellows of her dream-nightmare-dream, asks her more about Amber than she really knows, and answers the call for help when David finally contacts her to discuss his dreams, the same dreams, the same doctors seen where they shouldn’t be.
How could her scars heal so quickly?
Is Amber more than she seems? Has their relationship gone too far, too fast?
Why are those doctors following Reese and David?
The city is different without bird song, without any birds anywhere…   
(One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

What Happens Next, by Colleen Clayton (fiction) – getting past rape, finding redemption

Jan10
book cover of What Happens Next by Colleen Clayton published by Poppy Books

Ski trip!
Fresh snow, new guys, curfew broken.
Now Sid is broken, too.

But she won’t let anyone help her past the attack, won’t even tell anyone what happened. The coping mechanisms that she’s chosen aren’t helping her cope too well either.

What can a slacker like Corey teach this former honor student about trust or friendship or caring what happens…

Post this info where people can find it: National Sexual Assault Hotline | 1.800.656.HOPE | Free. Confidential. 24/7. or search for a local crisis center at http://centers.rainn.org/

Grab this debut novel today at your local library or independent bookstore and cheer for Sid as she works past her outrage to a better future. The author gives us Sid’s playlist, too – you can tell a lot about someone by the music they choose.
**kmm

Book info: What Happens Next / Colleen Clayton. Poppy/Little Brown, 2012. [author’s website] [publisher site]

My Recommendation: Meeting cool college guy Dax was the best thing about the high school ski trip for Cassidy, until he convinced her to sneak out after curfew to a night she cannot remember.

Back home, Sid’s grades slide, her single-parent mom can’t figure out what’s wrong, her friends eventually give up trying to jolly her back to normal. Sid drops her advanced classes and drifts into “A/V Club” instead. Everyone knows that A/V Club is just Corey-the-Stoner hanging out in the DVD storage room until someone needs a video, so he won’t try to break through Sid’s new protective shell to help her get over things.
Except that he manages to say things that make her think, nudge her to try feeling good about herself again by exercising, make her wonder why she can’t remember anything about being with Dax – and he has no clue that he’s doing it. Nice that he always smells like the bakery where he works before school, that he brings new pastries for her to taste-test, that he’ll just listen if she ever wants to talk.
Why do they call him Stoner when she’s never seen him act druggie?
Could Sid ever be more than friends with Corey?
Will she ever find the key to the locked door of that blank ski trip night?
The author’s time spent working with teens in bad situations really shines through in this debut novel, as readers root for Sid to break through the barricades that her mind put up and uncover what happened with Dax so she can heal herself.

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

Watersmeet, by Ellen Jensen Abbott (fiction) – outcast, healer, in danger

Jan7

book cover of Watersmeet by Ellen Jensen Abbott published by Marshall Cavendish and AmazonCentaurs who collect human toes as souvenirs.
Obrium metal that only the dwarves can mine.
Settlers always moving into enemy lands, always at war.

Despite making the required sacrifices to Vran, there are still imperfect children born to Vranille village, doomed to be outcasts.
Amid grinding poverty, the outcasts are poorer still.
Among the outcasts, Abisina is most despised, her father unknown.

Look for Watersmeet (remember, the main action occurs where the waters meet) at your local library. Alas, your independent bookstore will probably not have this great fantasy, as Amazon Publishing acquired Marshall Cavendish Publishing’s fiction books and many others in late 2011, reprinting this one in paperback in 2012.
**kmm

Book info: Watersmeet / Ellen Jensen Abbott. Marshall Cavendish, 2009, hardback; Amazon Publishing, 2012, paperback. [author’s blog] [publisher site] [author interview]

My Book Talk:  Outcast, always an outcast, fatherless Abisina with her different hair color, different skin color, barely tolerated in the tradition-bound outpost because of her mother’s healing skills, until a new leader comes to Vranille. Now, anyone with the slightest difference at the Ritual of Penance is outcast, and Charach decrees all the outcasts hunted to the death.

“Watersmeet,” says her mother, finally telling Abisina where she will find her father. Far away in the mountains, through the dread country where centaurs and dwarves capture humans for sport or for food.

As Charach leads the slaughter of outcasts, Abisina watches helplessly from the woods, retrieves her mother’s necklace from the ashes, then runs until she can go no further. Rescued by a mother and son, Abisina regains her strength and plans to head north, to Watersmeet.

Will Charach allow her to escape from the lands of Vran unharmed?
Can the young teen make it all the way to the fabled city of peace?
After so many years, will her father truly be at Watersmeet?

Dark the nights, bitter the heart of Charach, growing the hope of Abisina to live free from fear in this stunning debut novel of a world where truths can be stranger than fables. (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.