Tag Archive | memories

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.

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.

Hysteria, by Megan Miranda (fiction) – murder, memory, missing pieces

Feb4
book cover of Hysteria by Megan Miranda published by Bloomsbury Walker Books

Thudding heartbeats in the night,
bruises appearing each morning,
the rumors, the gossip, the lies…

Welcome to the tradition-filled halls of Monroe Prep, Dad’s alma mater, where Mallory’s reputation precedes her – the knife, Brian’s blood on her kitchen floor, the self-defense verdict.

Are her nightmares just reaction to the trauma or something more sinister? Surely Reid believes that Brian’s mom’s car was parked outside the school gates, that someone keeps entering her room, that she’s not seeing things – they’ve known each other since they were kids because their dads were high school roommates up here.

The crazy things happening now at Monroe cannot just be Mallory’s imagination… can they?

Read chapter one of Hysteria free here, then rush to your local library or independent bookstore to get it tomorrow on its publication day.

Megan Miranda crafts another chilling story teetering between paranormal and murderous; her debut novel Fracture  (my review) just came out in paperback – don’t miss either mysterious book!
**kmm

Book info: Hysteria / Megan Miranda. Bloomsbury/Walker Books for Young Readers, 2013. [author’s website] [publisher site] [book trailer]

My Recommendation:

The blood, the knife, the holes in her memory – Mallory knows she should be glad for the “self-defense” ruling, but the pulsating hum in her brain won’t stop. Neither will the nightmares or Brian’s mom stalking her, asking where her dead son is.

Maybe boarding school in the New Hampshire woods will be far enough from her seaside house where Brian died in a pool of his own bright-red blood. Dad pulled strings to get her admitted to his alma mater at the last minute; he couldn’t stop the rumors about Mallory from getting there first.

Being a new student at Monroe Prep is worse than being at a regular high school since the snooty rich kids have known each other forever. Well, Reid is nice to her, probably because their dads were roommates here and their families got together often over the years. Last time she saw him was his dad’s funeral, not a good memory on lots of levels.

Despite her sleeping pills, Mallory still has nightmares, hears the booming echoes of Brian’s heart, wakes up with a handprint-shaped bruise on her shoulder that she couldn’t have done to herself, window unlocked when she knows she locked it. No cellphone service in these mountains, so she can never get through to her best friend Colleen at home, the only person who understands what she’s enduring.

A green car glimpsed through the fog – is Brian’s mother stalking her again?

A red handprint on her door, vandalism in her dorm room, menacing whispers – is her presence threatening someone at Monroe?

A hidden ruin in the woods, tribute to a lost student – is she supposed to be next?

Once again Megan Miranda crafts a chilling story of the hazy boundary between death and life in this psychological thriller with traces of the paranormal. (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

January progress on TBR2012 Challenge (reflective) – read lots, recommended more

Jan31
Faced with overflowing shelves of 2012-dated ARCs (advance reader copies) and published books as the old year wound down, I leaped at the TBR Challenge posted by Evie on her Bookish blog (I’m #251). So, in January, I’ve re-read and written recommendations on BooksYALove (and am posting the brief reviews for several titles on www.abookandahug.com) for these 2012 books:Fantasy:
Watersmeet,  by Ellen Jensen Abbott

Historical fiction:
A Hundred Flowers,  by Gail Tsukiyama

Paranormal:
Every Other Day, by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
The Unnaturalists,  by Tiffany Trent

Realistic fiction – Young Adult:
The Butterfly Clues,  by Kate Ellison
The Difference Between You and Me,  by Madeleine George
Fish in the Sky,  by Fridrik Erlings
Moonglass,  by Jessi Kirby
Putting Makeup on the Fat Boy,  by Bil Wright
What Happens Next,  by Colleen Clayton

SciFi:
Adaptation,  by Malinda Lo
Year Zero, by Rob Reid

As you’re hunting up these great books, remember to check with your local library and independent bookstore, since all these titles have been published already. Keeping your book-dollars close to home is good sense and good business, as these singing booksellers remind us!

Yes, I’m making progress on my To-Be-Read stack of new books and 2013 ARCs, while also writing up my To-Be-Recommended books from 2012 (and some from 2011!). Let’s see what February brings…
**kmm

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)

Save

Save

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.

Moonglass, by Jessi Kirby (book review) – seaside mystery, running to forget

Jan18

book cover of Moonglass by Jessi Kirby published by Simon SchusterA  moonglass pendant,
Some childhood memories,
Innumerable questions –
All that Anna has left of her mother.

Tumbled roughly in sand and waves for countless months and years, seaglass goes from sharp shards to a smooth and frosted beauty. Anna’s mom always called it “moonglass” as she found the best pieces while walking the beach during a full moon.

Losing her mother as a toddler, staying away from the seaside town where Mom grew up, returning at last with her father – maybe the tossing and tumbling of her life will finally stop for Anna, maybe she’ll find out why her mom died, maybe she’ll finally stop running away from memories and find herself.

This is the paperback cover to look for at the independent bookstore; your local library may have the darker blue hardback edition.

What do you search for when you walk along the beach?
**kmm

Book info: Moonglass / Jessi Kirby. Simon & Schuster, hardcover 2011, paperback 2012. [author’s website] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My Book Talk: Mom just walked away from her, walked away from her toddler daughter waiting on the beach, walked into the waves and never came back out.

When Dad’s job takes them back to the beachside town where her parents met and fell in love, Anna thinks that the years following her mother’s death might not keep unhappy secrets buried deep enough, so she keeps her distance from Dad, from people at her new high school, from the shore lifeguards.

Running helps Anna meditate away (well, ignore) her problems and worries, so she tries out for the cross-country team, cheered on by her new sorta-ditzy friend Ashley who truly does think that retail therapy and meditation can fix anything. Having to move in the middle of high school stinks… but being able to hear the waves every night, the same ocean that her mom listened to growing up, that counts as a small plus.

Dad has strictly warned Anna away from the beach lifeguards who work for him at the state park – after all, he was a lifeguard with quite a reputation here at this same park as a teen, where he met her mom, where they lived as newlyweds.

But Tyler isn’t the crazy lifeguard, like Dad was, and he helps Anna explore some of the old cottages left vacant when the seashore became a state park. Maybe some clues about Mom can be found in the neighbors’ left-behind bits and pieces…

Why won’t Dad tell her more about Mom and their past?
Can Anna reconcile what she thought she knew about her mother with what people in her mom’s hometown are remembering?
Why would Mom just walk away, under the moonlight, into the sea?  (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)

Fish in the Sky, by Fridrik Erlings (fiction) – everything changes at age 13?

Jan16

book cover of Fish in the Sky by Fridrik Erlings published by CandlewickMath on Monday mornings,
Bullies in the gym shower,
Long-legged girls who ignore him…

Why would 13-year-old Josh want to be at school when he could be nestled into an almost-cave on the rocky seashore, wondering when his dad will come back again from his cargo ship voyages, when his strange cousin will move out, when anything in his life will make sense?

As his own translator from the Icelandic, Erlings captures this teen boy’s voice and ever-circling worries perfectly. Listen to the first three minutes of the novel here, as Josh wakes up on his thirteenth birthday and finds his long-traveling father’s gift.

Another great book from Candlewick Press to pick up at your local library or independent bookstore.

What would you do with a stuffed falcon, staring at you from its tree branch perch those black eyes?
**kmm

Book info: Fish in the Sky / Fridrik Erlings; translated from Icelandic by the author. Candlewick Press, 2012. [about the author] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My Book Talk: A stuffed falcon? That’s what Dad sent Josh from the ocean freighter for his 13th birthday? Yet another thing that’s not understandable in his universe, like why the girls allow themselves to be chased at recess or how no one stands up to the bullies who throw underwear in the showers after PE or why Mom lets his 17-year-old girl cousin move in with them.

She’s in trouble back home, this Trudy, and Josh is sure that it won’t be better at his house with her here. Mom has transformed his huge walk-in closet into Trudy’s room, so this girl who’s practically a stranger has to walk through his room to get anywhere!

School is even worse than being home: the agony of morning math with the headmaster, the giggling girls who send knowing looks but never walk with him during break time, the torture of PE class and the mean locker-room monitor and the bullies who pick on everyone different than them.

Josh decides that he’s learned enough for now and forges a series of excuse notes to stay away from seventh grade; if Mom weren’t so busy with two jobs, she’d do it, right?

How will Josh and Peter work on their film about falcons with Trudy barging in all the time?
And a growing guy needs his sleep; doesn’t that girl ever turn down her music?
Wait, it’s too quiet in Trudy’s space – has she snuck out after promising mom that she’d behave?
Dad’s calling from shore – why isn’t he on the cargo ships, like always?<

The confusion of becoming a teen and trying to understand other people wanders through Josh’s days and dreams in this coming-of-age novel, translated from the Icelandic by the author.

Save