Offspring

By Scott Appleton

Summary
Following the untimely demise of his wife, Ilfedo is thrust into the role of ruler in the Hemmed Land. With the help of his five sisters-in-law, he raises his daughter and formas a nation out of the scattered settlements and towns. As his daughter grows into womanhood, she exhibits compassion and strength beyond her years. When the Hemmed Land is invaded, he leads his army to a distant land, waging a battle that nearly costs him his daughter's life. And on the same battlefield, Specter finds the ancient traitor Auron and brings him to his knees.

Bewitching: The Kendra Chronicles

Alex Flinn

Kirkus Reviews
This entertaining twist on "Cinderella" centers on a centuries-old witch who sometimes helps her friends. Kendra's family died in the plague in 1666, the year she discovered she was a witch. Throughout the centuries, Kendra occasionally uses her powers to aid people, but not always to good effect. So Kendra hesitates when she meets Emma, a girl tormented by her new stepsister, Lisette. Lisette, the Cinderella character in the story, turns out to be the evil one, with dorky, bookish Emma the victim. Gorgeous, talented Lisette cares for no one but herself and successfully, it seems, steals Emma's beloved stepfather's affections, her jewelry, her clothes, her room and her car, and she seems to have her sights set on Emma's new boyfriend. Kendra, however, recounts several stories of magic gone bad, and isn't sure she ought to intervene. When finally she does, the story takes a delightfully surprising twist. Flinn throws in retellings of "Hansel and Gretel," "The Little Mermaid" and "The Princess and the Pea," along with the overriding Cinderella scenario, and she keeps the narrative moving along in sprightly fashion. It all adds up to plenty of fun that should appeal to many readers, particularly those who will delight in seeing the familiar tales in their new clothes. It's often touching, with an undercurrent of wry comedy, some history and a bit of a moral thrown in, as in any good fairy tale. Clever and enjoyable.

The Way We Fall

By Megan Crewe

Publishers Weekly Review
In this tense apocalyptic thriller, first in a planned series, Crewe (Give Up the Ghost) explores the slow collapse of society in a microcosm, as a deadly disease ravages a small Canadian island community. Chronicling her town's descent in diary-style letters to her best friend, Leo, who is away at school, introverted 16-year-old Kaelyn watches as a virus sweeps through the town, its victims losing all social inhibitions before dying. With the island quarantined from the mainland and no cure in sight, hope dwindles. Some of the uninfected try to maintain order and help each other survive, while others resort to drastic measures. As Kaelyn loses people she's known all her life, she slowly forms new bonds of friendship and even love. But when she gets sick and inexplicably recovers, it forces her to reassess her life and dreams. As hope wars with loss, this gripping, psychological thriller never loses focus. Though Crewe's story can be gruesome and horrifying, she escapes the trap of making events too depressing and hopeless, maintaining a strong sense of realism throughout. 

Halflings

Heather Burch

Publishers Weekly Review
Burch opens her YA paranormal series with a chomp: "Fangs settled into Nikki Youngblood's leg." After that in media bite of an opener, readers quickly learn about three halflings-half-angels, half-humans, who look like teenage boys-sent to protect 17-year-old Nikki. Mace, Raven, and Vine live with their angel "father" and crew chief, Will. Something odd is going on in Nikki's small Missouri town, and it involves a local lab, her biology teacher, and, possibly, her godfather. Complicating emotional matters is the attraction Nikki feels to both Mace and Raven, which is mutual with each boy and also forbidden. Burch has a great idea, and details about the halflings intrigue: they generate an electrical field, and varied powers are "perks" of their half-divine birthright. The book has some technical problems. Nikki's parents aren't well-developed and their presence is fairly arbitrary; the villain has the subtlety of an elbow to the ribs; and the writing is too often trite ("fear and torment had stolen the last shreds of her strength"). Still, this is popcorn: easy to overlook flaws, gobble up, and seek more. 

Someone Else's Life

By Katie Dale

Publishers Weekly Review
When Rosie's mother dies of Huntington's disease, British teenager Rosie tells her family friend Sarah, the midwife who delivered her, of her plans to get tested for the debilitating genetic illness. But Sarah has some life-changing news for Rosie: Sarah switched Rosie with another baby at birth, a premature girl whose teenage mother had abandoned her, something not even Rosie's mother knew at the time. The other baby, Holly, survived and was raised in America by Rosie's biological father. As Rosie grapples with both the knowledge that she is disease-free and that the mother she loved and lost was not her mother at all, alternating chapters offer Holly's point of view. Holly is engaged, newly pregnant, and completely unaware that she was switched at birth and may be at risk for Huntington's disease. Though dizzying melodrama and convoluted plot points strain believability as Rosie sets out to meet Holly, her father, and her biological mother-now a TV star-readers should be drawn into the fast-paced, high-stakes narrative. 

The Survivors

Will Weaver

School Library Journal Review
Gr 7-10-In this sequel foreshadowed a decade ago in the popular Memory Boy (HarperCollins, 2001), the author deftly interweaves the Newell family dynamics with changes wrought by the post-volcanic apocalypse. Travel restrictions, rationing, black markets, and a vague but pervasive feeling of unease dominate the emerging culture. Guns pretty much equal power. Conflicts between the capable but sometimes bossy Miles and his resentful younger sister, Sarah, as well as with their fairly oblivious parents, are resolved as circumstances require the siblings to learn new skills to wrest a living from the environs of their cabin hideaway in the Minnesota North Woods. Sarah proves to be a quick study, and it is she who develops a tender first-love interest, and later, with her formerly laid-back father, propels the family forward into a world that, while still uncertain, finds them more empowered. Told from a third-person point of view in alternating chapters titled "Miles" and "Sarah," a technique that effectively highlights their differing perspectives, this quick-reading and satisfying tale is not as persistently dark as Susan Beth Pfeffer's Life As We Knew It (Harcourt, 2006), but is thoroughly plausible. It should appeal to readers of futuristic fiction as well as those with an interest in hunting, fishing, and the outdoors. The chapters related to deer hunting are detailed with particular veracity

The Wood Queen

By Karen Mahoney

 Kirkus Reviews
The Iron Witch (2011) ended with the restoration of Donna Underwood's friends and the death of the monster that haunted her nightmares. However, Donna's first journal entry in this sequel states that her "dreams are still full of fear and pain, even though it is a different sort of fear and a new kind of pain," promising an exciting installment in this fantasy series. Saving her friends has serious consequences among the secret company of alchemists her family belongs to. During the trial for her so-called offenses against the Order of the Dragon, Donna is approached by a messenger of the Wood Queen, who--in a later meeting--promises to restore her mother to health if she opens the door to Faerie. Characters from the previous book are joined by a few (possibly) minor additions. With the exception of her friend Navin and the is-he-or-isn't-he boyfriend Xan, she never knows whom she can trust. This additional stress doubles the story's tension and adds to the uncertainty of her success. The shocking climax and many unresolved plot threads predict at least one more novel to come. Readers of the previous book will welcome this addition and wait impatiently for the next book in the series. (Urban fantasy. 13-16) 

 Amanda/Miranda

Richard Peck

 Booklist Review
Gr. 7^-12. Peck understood the lure of the Titanic long before the current craze, and wrote an adult novel about it, Amanda Miranda, which was published almost 20 years ago. This book is an abriged version of that novel, and it is one of the better tie-ins to the movie. Eighteen-year-old Mary, born to poor parents and raised to be a servant, joins the Whitwell Hall staff to attend to her lookalike, Amanda Whitwell, a spoiled, petulant girl who is betrothed to American Gregory Forrest but loves someone else. When Amanda recognizes the amazing resemblance, she quickly dubs her servant Miranda and conceives a plan to get everything she wants. Peck has a sure winner here. Some Titanic fans may long for more time on board the ship and others may want more depth of story in general, but this is still a charming novel, full of mistaken identity, class differences, thwarted love, and sweet revenge. 

Fever

By Lauren De Stefano

Kirkus Reviews
The atmospheric worldbuilding, moral dilemmas and romantic possibilities of Wither (2011) never heat up in this, the second novel in the dystopian Chemical Garden Trilogy. Having recently escaped the compound where she was forced to marry, take on sister wives and ultimately become her evil father-in-law Vaughn's scientific experiment in the name of finding a cure for the virus that kills off men and women at a young age, Rhine, along with former servant and love interest Gabriel, finds herself in trouble again. Plotting another escape from a heartless "First Generation" who runs a brothel out of an abandoned carnival site, continuing to evade Vaughn, picking up a malformed and mute girl and trying to find Rhine's twin brother should be adventurous. And finally being able to communicate freely should bring out the intimacy between Rhine and Gabriel. Instead, the repetitive story, filled with too many similar dream sequences and nearly nonstop illnesses, falls flat, and readers may wonder at times if Rhine and Gabriel even like each other. Their constant running and hiding overshadow the interesting questions about the ethics of science, relationships, sexuality and power raised in the first book. Readers who want to know more about the causes and effects of the mysterious virus will have to wait for the third installment, purposefully set up by another rushed ending. (Dystopian romance. 14 & up) 

Beneath a Meth Moon

By Jacqueline Woodson

Publishers Weekly Review
Fifteen-year-old ex-meth addict Laurel is writing an "elegy to the past" in an attempt to recover her life. After her mother and grandmother die in Hurricane Katrina, Laurel, her father, and her younger brother, Jesse Jr., move from their temporary new home in Jackson, Miss., to Galilee, Iowa, for a fresh start. Laurel makes a new friend, joins the cheerleading squad, and begins dating star athlete T-Boom, but she is still bereft over her lost family. When T-Boom offers her a taste of "the moon" (meth), her sadness evaporates. "Thing about the moon is-it takes you deeper," Laurel says. "Deeper than you'd go on your own." She quickly becomes addicted, neglects her friends and family, and winds up begging on the street in pursuit of more. Woodson's (Peace, Locomotion) dreamlike story is constructed of Laurel's patchy memories peppered with the voices of expertly sketched characters and rich with writerly observations. While readers know that Laurel survives, Woodson maintains tension throughout, making it abundantly clear how easy it is to succumb to meth and how difficult it is to recover from it. Ages 12-up.

The Nightmare Garden

By Caitlin Kittridge

Kirkus Reviews
This second installment in the Iron Codex series is as inventive and as bloated as its predecessor. Spoiled, inconsistent, often-thoughtless heroine Aoife Grayson nearly destroyed the world when she broke the Lovecraft Engine and sundered the gates between the worlds of human and Fae. But she's not going to let a little thing like that stop her, so she sets off on an exhausting, somewhat episodic adventure through the steampunk-horror '50s nightmare that is her world. She meets Erlkin, spends time with her estranged father, travels in a sub with Russian pirates and tries to play off her many enemies against one another. In so doing, she awakens a much greater threat with little regard to consequences. And she experiences love and loss, but her first-person narration sometimes strains credulity. Aoife states things she cannot know, says contrary things repeatedly (about her own emotions, the behavior of others, even the setting) and provides exposition at moments of high emotional tension, lessening the impact. Secondary characters exist only to move the plot along and then conveniently fade into the background, much like aspects of Aoife's personality. Even so, the unusual world stands out. There is a fan base that loved book one and will clamor for more of the same, which this certainly is. The ending promises even bigger adventures to come.

Dead to You

By Lisa McMann

Publishers Weekly Review
This intriguing but slight character study is built around the first-person account of a teenager returning to his family nine years after strangers lured him into the backseat of a car and drove away. It's emotionally rich territory, but the setup is highly improbable. Authorities reunite 16-year-old Ethan De Wilde with his family mere hours after he makes his claim, forgoing background and DNA checks. Ethan is enrolled in school the following week without placement testing or counseling. Presumably, McMann (Cryer's Cross) has confirmed that such casual handling of a victimized family is possible, but the impression remains that the unlikely scenario has been created to suit her plot twists. Ethan's voice is convincing, even compelling at times, but too many opportunities arise over the course of the novel for readers to notice what McMann is not letting Ethan say. In a work of short fiction, these elements could have succeeded or been ignored. As is, though, the ending feels a bit deceptive. Ages 14-up.

Scarlet

By A.C. Gaughen

School Library Journal
Gr 8–10—Plenty of swashbuckling adventure and a hearty dose of romance power this re-imagining of the legend of Robin Hood. Only this time, one of the Merry Men is a female thief disguised as Will Scarlet. She refuses to reveal how she incurred the scar across her cheek or any other details of her earlier life. However, for the outlaws, her quick thinking and expertise with knives are reason enough to allow her to keep her secrets. When the Sheriff of Nottingham tasks the evil Thief Taker Lord Gisbourne (Scarlet's former fiancé) with capturing Robin once and for all, she vows to save her hero, no matter what the personal cost. The fast-paced plot is easy to follow and filled with interesting details about the difficulties of medieval peasant life. Most of the traditional aspects of the legend are intact, so readers will recognize the familiar settings, characters, and premise, but the added mystery as to why Scarlet is hiding among Robin's men adds another dimension that will entice female readers. Some graphic epithets and occasional blasphemous curses pepper the dialogue, but they are not overused and language reads true to the period. While Gaughen's work is not as inventive as Lisa Klein's Ophelia (Bloomsbury, 2006) or as poignant as Robin McKinley's classic Beauty (Harper, 1978), his Scarlet is an appealing, fiercely independent young woman.

Tempest

By Julie Cross

School Library Journal Review
Gr 8 Up-"Okay, so it's true. I can time travel. But it's not as exciting as it sounds." Actually, it is every bit as exciting as it sounds. And the more Jackson learns about his powers and the nature of time travel, the more thrilling this novel gets. At first the teen treats his ability as a benign experiment and fodder for his geeky buddy's theorizing, but soon his talent becomes the key to saving his girlfriend and, quite possibly, the world. After watching Holly get shot, Jackson learns that most of what he knows about himself and his family is a lie and that powerful, opposing forces are willing to do just about anything to have him and his developing powers on their side. While the details of time travel are complex, they don't overpower the story, which remains focused on Jackson's relationships with Holly and his father. Teens looking for a romantic, high-adrenaline novel will have a hard time putting this one down. Jackson's sacrifice at the end will tug on heart strings and leave readers hungry for the next installment in a projected trilogy.-

The Vanishing Game

By Kate Myers

VOYA
Abandoned by their unbalanced, abusive mother, twins Jocelyn and Jack relied on each other through a series of foster homes. Jack's sudden death in a car accident leaves Jocelyn reeling and rudderless. Then, a letter bearing a cryptic clue arrives from "Jason December," Jack's alter ego from childhood riddles and treasure hunts. The letter sends Jocelyn back in time to age twelve at a foster home called Seale House, a sinister place that holds dark memories. Believing Jack to be alive, Jocelyn reunites with Noah, an old friend and former resident of Seale House. Together, they face their troubled pasts and follow the trail of obscure clues in hopes that they will lead to Jack. But someone is trying to stop them. Jocelyn's voice rings true as a resilient yet damaged survivor of abuse and neglect. The memories of Seale House are painful for Jocelyn and she frequently turns away before all the details are revealed, which raises the suspicion that she may be an unreliable narrator. The narrative cuts back and forth between a dangerous present and nightmarish flashbacks to the past, the puzzle pieces never quite fitting into place. A gripping mystery with strong but flawed characters, the book is impossible to put down. The reader races to keep up with the plot only to get walloped by a mind-blowing twist ending that turns the entire story upside down. Recommend this to teens who like intrigue, mystery, and suspense.