In a conquered land, starvation fells the youngest and oldest,memories and hunger gnaw at those who can still work,
who suffer under heavy taxes, hating their English overlords.
The Welsh nobles and working folk have been thrown out of their town, forced into damp stone huts, forbidden to gather in groups or carry weapons, and the spark of rebellion still burns.
Caernarvon Castle in the late 13th century is a mighty stone structure overlooking the river and town, garrisoned by the King of England’s soldiers for the past decade.
Torn away from the land where she was born, where people speak good English, not this “tongue-pull” sing-song Welsh, a young lady is aware of only what she wants to see in her new home, oblivious to the dangerous currents of local politics that may pull her under forever.
Jillian Anderson Coats’ debut novel illuminates a small slice of history through two unforgettable voices, as Cecily and Gwenhwyfar wish their paths had never crossed, but must carry their own burdens through to the end. You’ll find this May 2012 release now at your local library or independent bookstore.
**kmm
Book info: The Wicked and the Just / J. Anderson Coats. Harcourt, 2012. [author’s website] [publisher site] [book overview video] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My Recommendation: Cecily isn’t happy about moving from the family estates to Wales. Nor are the Welsh happy to have their homes taken over by Englishmen sent by the King to subdue them. So many tensions and such oppression… a tinderbox just waiting for a spark of rebellion.
If only her uncle hadn’t returned from the Crusades, then Cecily would have inherited Edgeley Hall from her father, ever staying near the grave of her loving mother. But as the younger brother, her father has no land now and jumps at the chance to rise in the King’s service. As a burgess in Caernarvon, he’ll be free from forced military service and heavy taxes imposed on the conquered Welsh. Better yet, Cecily will become lady of the house and perhaps find a suitable husband someday among its English nobles.
Gwenhwyfar is Cecily’s age, working dawn to night for the Edgeleys to earn enough to keep her younger brother and crippled mother alive. Agonizing as Gruffydd falls in with men who whisper plans of rebellion, the Welsh girl despises Cecily’s snooty manners as much as she longs to take the crusts that the English girl casts aside.
How bitter to be a servant in the house which truly belongs to Daffydd, a Welsh nobleman reduced to hauling quarrystones, to see that brat Cecily sewing in the parlour where she should be as Daffydd’s wife, to know that Welsh children are dying daily from starvation as the English burgesses hoard grain in the King’s castle above Caernarvon city…
Ten years is a long time to be conquered and spat upon, long enough to make bitter plans for revenge, desperate enough to rebel despite overwhelming odds – 1293 may be the worst of times to be English in Wales.
Told from two very different points of view, The Wicked and the Just takes readers to a little-noted historical era as the age-old struggle for power roars through town and castle.
(One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)
Arise, by Tara Hudson (fiction) – spirits prowling New Orleans
It’s getting worse for the young couple,
Joshua looks like a loner at school because he’d rather talk to her, and no one else can see mostly-dead Amelia.
And when they kiss, Amelia vanishes spontaneously, reappearing elsewhere with no control over her location.
A trip out of town for the holidays doesn’t sound half-bad, even if they might encounter Joshua’s grandmother Ruth who’s a Seer dedicated to eliminating all ghosts like Amelia.
Happy Book Birthday tomorrow (June 5th, 2012) to Arise! You’ll enjoy this spooky adventure even more if you read Hereafter first to learn how Amelia and Joshua met (my no-spoiler recommendation here), so grab it at your local library or independent bookstore, then head for the French Quarter with Arise.
**kmm
Book info: Arise (Hereafter series, 2) / Tara Hudson. Harper Teen, 2012. [author’s website] [publisher site] [book trailer]
Entering the Mayhew family’s ancestral home is like walking into a supernatural force field, as all the relatives gathered there for Christmas are Seers attuned to the spirit world. The teen cousins can see Amelia’s ghost-form and include the newcomers in their mysterious winter-break plans.
Amelia encounters ghosts wandering around the French Quarter tourist areas who warn her of dark demons gathering nearby, all invisible to the living. Gabrielle is another thing entirely, a spirit-girl they meet at a Voodoo shop, one ghost who’s found a way to stay with the living and might be able to help Amelia do the same. For every time that Amelia vanishes and reappears, yet another piece of her ghostly form is lost…
Is it coincidence that the dark forces are rising just when the Seers of the Mayhew clan are all in one place?
Can Gaby’s midnight ceremony in the graveyard anchor Amelia in the world of the living?
Or should she stick with her plan to save Joshua and his family from the deepest evils by disappearing from his life forever?
This sequel to Hereafter travels from countryside to city, from known dangers to unforeseen perils, from the hope of being together for a lifetime to the agony of potentially being apart forever – ghosts and Seers alike have little time to discover their allies and enemies. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
Other stories, other poets (book reviews) – novels-in-verse
Much like eclipse-viewers look indirectly at the sun, we can get a glimpse into life situations which may or may not mirror our own through novels-in-verse.
Click each title link to open my no-spoilers recommendation in a new window/tab for each of these BooksYALove favorites.
**kmm
Camille and Becca don’t realize that they share a school, a coffeehouse, and one boy’s kiss… until an ill-timed cellphone photo makes all the connections fall into place.
Told in alternating chapters by each teen, their free verse ranges through the emotions that they must deal with as they try to reconcile what they thought was true with what reality is, After the Kiss of Alec, the haiku-writing baseball star.
Sara feels like her life at the ballet academy, far from her small New England hometown, is a never-ending Audition, as the dancers constantly compete for lead roles, for advanced classes, for the eye of handsome student assistant Remington.
Is he really interested in Sara? Can she continue to keep up with her schoolwork and her dance lessons and her hidden relationship with Remington? Only her poetry journal hears her fears and dreams.
Religious turmoil becomes armed warfare in 1980s India, and Maya is caught in the upheaval almost as soon as she arrives with her father and the ashes of her mother, brought “home” to the family which disowned them when they married, a Sikh and a Hindu who thought that love would overcome all.
Is it Karma that brought their only child to a place she’s only heard of, far from her birthplace on the Canadian prairies, that separates her from her Bapu, that makes her versified memories a clouded mirror?
(all review copies and cover images courtesy of their respective publishers)
The Peculiars, by Maureen Doyle McQuerry (book review) – quests, steampunk inventions, strange folk
Lying awake at night,
wondering if she’s “having wild thoughts”
or if her overlong fingers truly are goblin hands,
Lena never hears good things about her father…
Never hears from him until her 18th birthday when the money enclosed in the only letter he’s ever written to her allows her to start searching for him, despite her mother’s concerns and her grandmother’s fretting about unladylike behavior.
Why stay hidden in the City when adventure calls?
This steampunk adventure-romance-paranormal quest is set in a different United States of America than the one seen in our history textbooks about the late 19th century. While both USAs share Charles Darwin, the Pony Express, self-righteous missionaries, and Mark Twain’s writings, only Lena’s world includes winged persons, a cat whose purrs always sound like human speech, and a successful steam-powered flying machine with titanium frame.
Hoping that author McQuerry is a fast writer so that we can have more of Lena’s adventures soon!
**kmm
Book info: The Peculiars / Maureen Doyle McQuerry. Amulet Books, 2012. [author’s website] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My Book Talk: Lena’s long-vanished father is responsible for her elongated fingers and overlarge feet and not much else in her life. So when her 18thbirthday brings a message from him, she feels compelled to travel from the City to the wildness of Scree – hiding place of goblins, flying people, and outlaws – to find him and discover what Peculiar blood might flow in her veins.
As the steam train chugs north, Lena keeps to herself, longtoed boots hidden by her traveling skirt, gray gloves covering her long, long fingers. One young man doesn’t take her hints, insisting on talking about their destination, a coastal town near Scree where he’s taken a position as librarian to a scientist, and about his fiancée and his family’s expectations.
During dinner, the train suddenly halts as masked men rescue a prisoner and rob the passengers! Thankfully, Lena had pinned her father’s envelope inside her bodice, but now has little money to finance her planned expedition into Scree. And the sheriff investigating the train heist has been chasing after her father for years…
Luckily, Jimson’s eccentric employer decides that Lena should also help catalog his unusual collection, giving her time to save up money to venture into Scree. A steam-powered typewriter, doors with intricate opening mechanisms, books with gem-encrusted covers – the library is a treasure of wonders and even a few answers for Lena’s questions about the Peculiars and Scree.
But she sees a strange winged figure on the roof at night, finds drawings of hands like her own in Mr. Beasley’s medical case sketchbook, and is getting more attention from Sheriff Saltre than she wants. If Lena doesn’t go into Scree quite soon, she’ll be trapped by winter weather and her growing affection for Jimson.
Alarmed by the sheriff’s investigations, Mr. Beasley and Jimson prepare for household members to escape Zephyr House. Can the flying machine get everyone out in time? Have they hidden the inventor’s secrets and experiments regarding the Peculiars well enough? Will Lena get to Scree and find her father after all these years?
Set in an alternative steampunk United States of late 1800s, those called The Peculiars face extreme prejudice and lifelong slavery in Scree’s mines, as Lena and compatriots from Zephyr House are about to discover first-hand. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)
Border Town: Crossing the Line, by Malin Alegria (book review) – sisters, competition, the truth
High school cliques.
Social pecking-order.
You’ve got to know where you stand
and when crossing the line is the right thing to do.
Big sister Fabi is sure she has all the answers that ninth-grader Alexis will need to succeed in their high school in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. But pretty little Alexis isn’t satisfied with being a quiet Mexican-American good-girl and decides to run with the popular crowd, setting her sights on football star Dex, despite his bad-boy reputation in town.
Alexis and Fabi’s extended family ranges from arguing grandmothers who stay on opposite sides of the Garza restaurant to baby brother Rafael (also known as Baby Oops) to their many, many uncles and aunts and cousins.
Like many border towns, questions of immigration and fair work, legal enterprises and criminal activities “from away” are the unspoken undercurrents that disturb the balance of life in Dos Rios and finally demand answers.
This is the first book in the Border Town series, with the Garza family’s next adventures coming soon: Quince Clash (#2) will be published July 1, 2012, with Falling Too Fast (#3) and No Second Chances (#4) following at three-month intervals. Fans of the popular Bluford High series should jump right into Border Town.
**kmm
Book info: Border Town: Crossing the Line (Border Town #1) / Malin Alegria. Point (Scholastic), 2012. [author’s website] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My Book Talk: Fabi is excited that her little sister will attend her high school this year, but worries when Alexis won’t listen to the rules that keep them safe in their Texas border town. Crossing the line into the wrong crowd is more than a social miscue – it could endanger their family’s business.
There have always been tensions between long-time residents of Dos Rios and newcomers, between Mexican-Americans and whites. When it comes to the patrons of her family’s Mexican restaurant, Fabiola Garza knows who to joke with and who to be quiet around. Her cousin Santiago can sweet-talk anyone, especially their two grandmothers, one whose answer to every question is a rosary, the other who just adores conjunto musician Little Rafa.
Alexis starts seeing bad-boy Dex, deciding that being popular is more important than attending the voice lessons that her parents work so hard to pay for. Too bad that Fabi’s best friend moved away – she needs Georgia Rae’s advice more often than just weekends.
Chuy is attacked in the restaurant one night, but the waiter can’t identify the robbers. Luckily new student Milo is with Fabi when she discovers him. As other immigrants are robbed of their earnings on payday, the townspeople get worried. Are the drug cartels coming across the border from Mexico now or is anti-Mexican sentiment in Dos Rios turning violent?
When Santiago starts flashing cash around town, the police decide he’s responsible for the thefts. Fabi overhears Dex bragging to his football buddies about mugging immigrants and asks Georgia Rae and Milo to help her uncover the truth.
Can Fabi convince Alexis to stay away from the football star for good?
Can she keep her cousin out of prison?
Can she convince anyone that the judge’s grandson Dex is a thief?
First in the fast-moving Border Town series, Crossing the Line is followed by Quince Clash (book 2), Falling Too Fast (book 3), and No Second Chances (book 4). (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)
How to Be Bad, by Lauren Myracle, Sarah Mlynowski, E. Lockhart (fiction) – Florida roadtrip, funny friendships
Road trip!
Grab some junk food and a towel, a couple of maps,some sights to see, and make some memories on the road.
Wonder if Jesse really thought this whole road trip thing through before she and Vicks and Mel left town…
Yes, there really is a Niceville, Florida and a huge Old Joe stuffed gator at Wakulla Springs and a mysterious Coral Castle.
The three teens take turns telling their story as a straightforward trip down to the University of Miami turns into quite the adventure. The three authors who collaborated on How to Be Bad took their own road trip so they could weave Florida’s true atmosphere into every page.
Create great summer memories with good times, good friends, and good books, including these intriguing road trip novels, too:
A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend, by Emily Horner
Don’t Stop Now, by Julie Halpern
The Statistical Probability of Falling in Love, by Jennifer E. Smith
**kmm
Book info: How to Be Bad / Lauren Myracle, Sarah Mlynowski, E. Lockhart. Harper Teen, 2008. [Lauren’s website and Facebook] [Sarah’s website] [Emily’s website and blog] [publisher site] [book trailer] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My Book Talk: Summer before senior year should be more than just work, everyone says. So Jesse decides on a quick road trip with her best friend Vicks, and yeah, the new girl can go, too. Long miles and long days later, the three have more adventures than they planned on and make some memories they didn’t expect.
It’s just a road trip for three girls who work at Waffle House together – Jesse isn’t really trying to outrun the news from Mom’s cancer doctor. And Vicks needs to visit her boyfriend at college football camp (not calling her for two weeks – huh!). Even misplaced rich girl Mel wants to see huge Old Joe gator and Coral Castle and other unique sights featured in Fantastical Florida. Nine hours to Miami, nine hours back, an easy weekend drive, right?
Jesse does need some time away from Mom and all the dogs at their trailer for grooming and Mom’s boyfriend with the icee cart. They just can’t see how praying about Mom’s diagnosis would help, how going to church with Grandma would make them all feel better.
The little sister to a houseful of big brothers, Vicks loves sports and weird stuff like Old Joe, refuses to be a clingy girlfriend – still not cool that Brady won’t call her from the university after they’ve been dating for a year. She’ll just remind him how she’s different from all those athlete-worshippers he’ll meet in Miami.
Mel’s rich dad keeps moving their family around, so here they are in Niceville, another big house, another place to not fit in. A middle kid, she gets outvoted by her crazy younger brother and perfect older sister on everything. Having a chance to make some real friends – that would make paying for any road trip worthwhile.
A temperamental car, roadmaps gone wrong, detours and cute guys and crazy weather – each chapter is written from one girl’s viewpoint by one author, creating a triple look at a simple road trip that turned into so much more. Who knew that trying to be a little bad could turn out to be good after all?
Extras at the end of the book include the Bad Girls’ Playlist (music for a road trip), a Bad Girls’ quiz, and notes on how writing pals and popular young adult authors E. Lockhart, Sarah Mlynowski, and Lauren Myracle wrote How to Be Bad together when they lived far apart. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)
Lost Code (Atlanteans 1), by Kevin Emerson (book review) – ozone layer gone, Atlantis calls
Archery, crafts, swimming in the lake,
bright-colored “bug juice” that all tastes the same,
it’s summer camp, just like every other summer camp…
A future Earth unshielded by the ozone layer
Camp Eden is trying to make campers feel like everything is just fine, but their 22nd century world ravaged by global warming lurks just beyond the BioDome with its radiation-blocking panels and artificial sky.
So how does average guy Owen find himself drowned on the first day of camp, yet alive and a super-swimmer soon after? Why does any visit to the camp infirmary – from sprained ankle to skin rash – involve a blood test? And that voice beckoning him toward the light deep in the lake…an ancient prophecy? Can the legend of Atlantis be real? Is Lilly part of the prophecy, too?
I met author Kevin Emerson at KidLitCon in Seattle last September, shortly after this book was headed to his publisher, so I was pleased to see its “book birthday” scheduled for May 22 and truly enjoyed reading Owen’s adventures in a solar-scorched future with a mystery that ties him to the distant past.
Be sure to request The Lost Code at your local library or independent bookstore soon so you can help Owen puzzle out this mystery of the Atlanteans.
**kmm
Book info: The Lost Code (The Atlanteans book 1) / Kevin Emerson. Katherine Tegen Books, 2012. [author’s website] [publisher site] Review copy courtesy of the author; cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My Book Talk: Drowning on the first day of summer camp was not on Owen’s agenda. He hadn’t planned on being underwater for ten minutes and getting cuts on his neck, either. Or being bullied by his bunkmates or hearing voices call him underwater or kissing a girl or being chased by terrorists…
Owen felt strange at Camp Eden, being outside under the huge BioDome with a real lake and trees instead of safely inside the caves of Yellowstone Hub with his dad. Could those TruSky panels really protect campers from the massive solar radiation blasting Earth since the ozone layer had vanished? Better safe than sorry, they slather on NoRad lotion for all daylight activities.
Failing the swim test was bad, but the itchy wounds on his neck are even worse. Dr. Maria said not to get them wet, but a shower makes the pain stop. Cute lifeguard Lilly told Owen to go with any strange urges he has near the lake, so a night swim with the counselors-in-training sounds great – and he’s suddenly in his element, swimming and diving deep using his new gills. During the daytime, the thick NoRad lotion disguises their necks, and every night the CITs and Owen explore the lake’s depths – and sometimes the voice calls him toward an azure light.
Long-time camper Leech bullies everyone in their cabin, goes fishing with the camp director, and generally is obnoxious. He knows the secret trails in the camp forest and cheats during team challenges. Does he suspect that Owen isn’t just a skinny kid from the Hub anymore?
Touring the Eagle Eye Observatory which watches over the 200,000 inhabitants of EdenWest Dome, wondering if Dr. Maria knows more than she’s telling him about why he survived so long underwater, trying to stay away from Leech while he listens for the lake voice – Owen’s summer is turning out to be no picnic.
Why does the voice tell him of a prophecy?
Can there really be people who live and survive outside the Dome?
Is the camp director friend or enemy?
Can Owen trust the visions about the future of his world and the Atlantis of its past?
First in a series, finding The Lost Code could be the secret that rescues humanity from itself or the final step in sealing their fate. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)
Fated, by Alyson Noel (book review) – spirit worlds, souls unbound, evil or good
She sees him in her dreams,
those visions that sent her over the edge of sanity,
leading her to an adobe house in the desert,
to the grandmother she’s never known,
to the small town where she sees him, in the flesh.
Bound together by love or for evil?
Happy book birthday to Fated, hitting bookstore shelves today (May 22, 2012) in the USA – lucky UK readers have been devouring this first book in the Soul Seeker series for some time, and raving about it, too.
You may start to see its book trailer on TV or explore the Soul Seekers website or like its Facebook page, but you have to read the book for yourself to discover what Daine finds out about herself, her spirit animal guide, and twin brothers Cade and Dace. Noel also has released a short story in which Ever from her popular The Immortals series meets Daire.
**kmm
Book info: Fated (Soul Seekers, book 1) / Alyson Noel. St. Martin’s Griffin, 2012. [author’s website] [publisher site] [UK book trailer] [US book trailer] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My Book Talk: Time’s flow restarts, and the glowing people observe Daine from shadowed nooks, as she traverses the Moroccan marketplace on the way to her 16th birthday dinner. Not jet lag, no matter what her mother says – why can Daine alone move among the time-frozen people and animals? And why does she suddenly see severed heads on bloody spikes along the city walls, a murder of crows, the glowing ones attacking?
All her life, it’s been just Daine and her makeup-artist mom, traveling from movie set to movie set, her school classes done online, no other family, no problems. But now these visions and Daine’s uncontrollably violent reactions to them have changed all that.
Suddenly, her grandmother calls – for the first time in Daine’s life, she has another relative – and it’s decided that she must go to her rural New Mexico home and learn how to cope with her… abilities? For Paloma (mother of the father who died before Daine was born) is a seer and a healer who claims that these gifts are part of the teen’s heritage.
First time separated from her mother, first time to attend school, first time to ride a horse – Daine gradually shakes off her mental exhaustion to realize that whatever haunted her in Morocco is even stronger here. As she learns from grandmother Paloma about their family lineage as Soul Seekers, she also discovers that nearby vortexes lead to other worlds and that a strong family of ruthless soul-eaters will try to use them – and her – to bring more evil into this world.
A blind girl who sees auras, a vision quest for Daine’s spirit animal, twins separated at birth who mirror the light and the dark of this struggle – who could imagine that this small town of Enchantment would be the site of a soul-battle on Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead? First in the Soul Seekers trilogy, Daine strives to discover if she’s truly Fated to be part of all this. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)
Fourteen-year-old Khosi wonders and worries about 
Brought from unremarkable Ohio to exotic Liberia by his father’s work in the 1980s, Linus decides to reinvent himself as a cool guy. Reading about Africa, he learns that the black mamba snake is secretive and rare. Yet the first thing Linus sees when the plane lands in Africa is a black mamba!
Researchers think up lots of unusual things,