YA fall books preview

This summer, I had the privilege of reading several upcoming fall titles via Netgalley. (LOVE Netgalley!) And today I'm sharing the best of the lot. You can find reviews I've done on these titles over at Goodreads, but I'm just sharing the blurbs here because....

This list is really a PRIZE list!! WOOT! As you may know, Emily King and I are hosting the What I Did Last Summer: Fact or Fiction? bloghop next week. Your job: to fool us with two summer stories - one fact, the other fiction. The writer who fools the most into thinking their story is fiction when it's actually fact gets to choose one of these books for their very own. How cool is that?? (Want to join us? Go here to sign up. The list is small right now - exactly how I like it - but there's room for a few more.)

UNSPOKEN by Sarah Rees Breenan (Go here to read Sarah's interview, and here to read my first reaction to this title. Serious. Love.) Release date: Sept. 11
Kami Glass loves someone she’s never met . . . a boy she’s talked to in her head ever since she was born. She wasn’t silent about her imaginary friend during her childhood, and is thus a bit of an outsider in her sleepy English town of Sorry-in-the-Vale. Still, Kami hasn’t suffered too much from not fitting in. She has a best friend, runs the school newspaper, and is only occasionally caught talking to herself. Her life is in order, just the way she likes it, despite the voice in her head.

But all that changes when the Lynburns return.

The Lynburn family has owned the spectacular and sinister manor that overlooks Sorry-in-the-Vale for centuries. The mysterious twin sisters who abandoned their ancestral home a generation ago are back, along with their teenage sons, Jared and Ash, one of whom is eerily familiar to Kami. Kami is not one to shy away from the unknown—in fact, she’s determined to find answers for all the questions Sorry-in-the-Vale is suddenly posing. Who is responsible for the bloody deeds in the depths of the woods? What is her own mother hiding? And now that her imaginary friend has become a real boy, does she still love him? Does she hate him? Can she trust him?

IRONSKIN by Tina Connolly; Release date: Oct. 2

Jane Eliot wears an iron mask.

It’s the only way to contain the fey curse that scars her cheek. The Great War is five years gone, but its scattered victims remain—the ironskin.

When a carefully worded listing appears for a governess to assist with a "delicate situation"—a child born during the Great War—Jane is certain the child is fey-cursed, and that she can help.

Teaching the unruly Dorie to suppress her curse is hard enough; she certainly didn’t expect to fall for the girl’s father, the enigmatic artist Edward Rochart. But her blossoming crush is stifled by her own scars, and by his parade of women. Ugly women, who enter his closed studio...and come out as beautiful as the fey.

Jane knows Rochart cannot love her, just as she knows that she must wear iron for the rest of her life. But what if neither of these things is true? Step by step Jane unlocks the secrets of her new life—and discovers just how far she will go to become whole again.

THE BRIDES OF ROLLROCK ISLAND by Margo Lanagan; Release date: Feb. 12

On remote Rollrock Island, men go to sea to make their livings--and to catch their wives.

The witch Misskaella knows the way of drawing a girl from the heart of a seal, of luring the beauty out of the beast. And for a price a man may buy himself a lovely sea-wife. He may have and hold and keep her. And he will tell himself that he is her master. But from his first look into those wide, questioning, liquid eyes, he will be just as transformed as she. He will be equally ensnared. And the witch will have her true payment.

Margo Lanagan weaves an extraordinary tale of desire, despair, and transformation. With devastatingly beautiful prose, she reveals characters capable of unspeakable cruelty, but also unspoken love.

THRONE OF GLASS by Sarah Maas, released Aug. 7

After serving out a year of hard labor in the salt mines of Endovier for her crimes, 18-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien is dragged before the Crown Prince. Prince Dorian offers her her freedom on one condition: she must act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin.

 Her opponents are men-thieves and assassins and warriors from across the empire, each sponsored by a member of the king's council. If she beats her opponents in a series of eliminations, she'll serve the kingdom for three years and then be granted her freedom. Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Westfall, challenging and exhilirating. But she's bored stiff by court life. Things get a little more interesting when the prince starts to show interest in her... but it's the gruff Captain Westfall who seems to understand her best. Then one of the other contestants turns up dead... quickly followed by another. Can Celaena figure out who the killer is before she becomes a victim?

As the young assassin investigates, her search leads her to discover a greater destiny than she could possibly have imagined.

DARK LORD: THE EARLY YEARS by Jamie Thomson; release date: Oct. 2

The Dark Lord is confounded when he awakens in the middle of a small town on a planet he's never seen before. What is this strange place, why do they keep calling him Dirk Lloyd, and why is he powerless against these earthlings who insist on finding his parents? Could it be that Dirk Lloyd is really a human incarnation of the Dark Lord who, after a cataclysmic final battle with his arch nemesis, was hurled into the Pit of Uttermost Despair, aka Earth? Or is he just a lost and confused boy? The Dark Lord must regain his rightful place in the universe before his powers of domination and destruction are lost forever, and help comes from a most unlikely source . . .

Obviously, this list isn't all encompassing or the post would be wayyy too long. Other great YA reads: Send Me A Sign by Tiffany Schmidt, Gennifer Albin's Crewel, The Sweetest Spell by Suzanne Selfors, Swipe and Sneak (first two in a series) by Evan Angler, and Blood Red Road - which is already out but too good not to mention - by Moira Young.

What great new titles have you read recently?

Summer Reads

Our last day of school was Friday, which means summer is here whether or not the weather cooperates. I've got a huge list of to-dos, the biggest of which is completing my master's degree - a class that requires writing 13 thesis papers. (Thirteen!!!) So I'll be diving into fiction whenever I can just to distract myself. :) Plus, reading is a summer requirement at my house.


Here are a few recommendations for your summer escapes:

SWIPE

I really enjoyed SWIPE by Evan Angler. As a kid who watched the movie Thief in the Night and had nightmares for years afterward, I'm not a huge fan of contemporary tales of the Biblical tribulation. But Angler does a great job of weaving in technology with end-time predictions in a way that won't turn off people who don't know/believe in those prophecies.
There are plot similarities to other dystopian books on the market right now, the difference being that there's no love triangle and Logan isn't driven by his teenage hormones - he wants to know what happened to his sister and why he's suddenly being targeted by the Markless. I have a feeling I know where this is going in book 2 and hope I'm right. :)

Debuts August 7

THRONE OF GLASS
I was so excited to read this book. The swords/fantasy genre is packed with heroes and it's about time a heroine got to swing a lance and take down a baddie. Maas has built up quite a readership using an online forum and she credits her fans with making sure the multi-year odyssey of writing this story came to fruition.
The action in this book was great - good twists, lots of imagination and world building. It was obvious the author really put some thought into her backstory and legends that make up her universe. People have compared the plot to Hunger Games, in that the MC has to battle it out for the chance to be the king's champion. Celaena has to go on many 'quests' to keep proving her worthiness, which kept me interested.
 My feelings for Celaena blew hot and cold. One minute she's behaving like a besotted girl, the next she's battling demons like a kind of fae Joan of Arc, and then she's a hardened assassin. It was like she was three distinct people instead of one person with different reactions. I liked the assassin best and by the end of the story, she seems to be firming up into a riveting character.

THE LIMPOPO ACADEMY OF PRIVATE DETECTION

I am a HUGE fan of this seris and with Limpopo Academy, McCall Smith draws us back into Precious Ramatswe's world with a tale of a lonely detective, a falsely accused mechanic, a deposed orphanage director and a devious house builder.

McCall Smith has that elusive talent of making the ordinary so special, we hang on his every sentence. Or I do. Precious's life is so ordered and slow paced; there is always time for a cup of bush tea or a discussion with the neighbors. No matter what shenanigans those neighbors get up to, Precious is up to the task of sorting it all out. Smith brings Botswana to life with each book, and his setting serves the dual role of accenting the differences between life in Africa and other nations, and the similarities of daily living we all share.


So what are your recommendations for summer, 2012? I really want to know - share them in the comments!