Tons and Tons of New Books: Part One

Part One will have all the fantasy. After that comes all the rest--that's just how much I have to show you.

But first, a question...

Do you think the publishers knew how close these two book covers were? Do you think the cover designers did?




Because that's pretty similar!

As you see, we have The Awakening by Kelley Armstrong, sequel to The Summoning as well as Fragile Eternity, the third book in Melissa Marr's series including Wicked Lovely and Ink Exchange.

Following in the paranormal romance/dark fantasy vein, we have Stargazer by Claudia Gray, also a sequel. The first book in this series is Evernight.

And one more paranormal sequel, this one to Lili St. Crow's novel Strange Angels, Betrayals.


I hope this one is as fun as the first was. It's really like a dark version of the Maximum Ride books, lone girl (Dru Anderson) against the world, only in this case she can't just fly away from danger. Oh, and her mother was some kind of superhuman creature, her dad was a zombie--before she killed him, and her only friend just got bitten by a werwulf. Oops. Oh, and now the quasi-vampire guy who came to her rescue has taken her to this secret school where someone wants to kill her.

Poor Dru can't catch a break.

The Singing by Alison Croggon, the fourth book in her Pellinor series.


One more series book: Raven Rise, book nine of the Pendragon books, by D. J. MacHale.


Book ten comes out in paperback in September, so look for it on our shelves then!

Here Lies Arthur by Philip Reeve, Gwyna is a girl running from her village, which has been attacked, pillaged, burned to the ground, and so forth.


She runs into Myrddin, a bard and storyteller who takes her into his service. He trains her as a fighter, a spy, and transforms her into the mysterious Lady of the Lake, all as part of a plot to turn Myrddin's master, Arthur, into King Arthur, the greatest hero of all time.

Something that well thought out can't possibly go wrong, can it? And if it did, nobody would get hurt, right?

Oh.

Aurelie: A Faerie Tale, by Heather Tomlinson...


Three children and a river dragon make a promise, and one day one of them breaks it. Now they are grown and barely speaking and the country is in turmoil. Aurelie is sent on a peacekeeping mission, trying to prevent a war between her closest friends.

Silver Phoenix by Cindy Pon


Ai Ling remains unmarried, to her family's dishonor and her own relief. She would prefer a life lived free, not trapped in an unequal marriage.

Now on a quest, Ai Ling is pursued by something powerful. She will need all her strength to face it as she journeys closer to the Palace of Fragrant Dreams, and, hopefully, her missing father.

Zombies, anyone?

The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan.


Little bit of romance, little bit of zombies, little bit of shoddy fence repair...

And a book trailer!



Wasn't that one well done? I don't always show them because sometimes they're ridiculous and other times there's nothing to them but moving words, like something any one of us could make with Power Point or Movie Maker, so it doesn't really impress. But this one is good! Like that video game Silent Hill...if you know that series or the other series, Fatal Frame. Good n' Scary.

Dreams of the Dead, book one of The Waking, by Thomas Randall.


Kara Foster moves to Japan, but fitting in at a new school in a new country is the least of her worries. She befriends a fellow outcast, Sakura, whose sister was murdered at the school, a case that remains unsolved. Soon, she's having nightmares that wake her up at night. Not long after that, more students appear, dead, with strange marks on their bodies.

Mystery and the paranormal, all in one freaky package for your reading pleasure.

And a bizarre graphic novel, The Eternal Smile, which I nonetheless found though provoking and interesting. This from Gene Luen Yang, Printz and Eisner Awards Winner.


Including such stories as that of a frog with a computer chip, and an office assistant escaping into a fantasy world by responding to an e-mail requesting her bank account information...

Beautiful Creatures

I just finished reading Beautiful Creatures, and it was wonderful!


When it first arrived, I thought for sure I could just sandwich it in with all the other Twilight-esque books, but you can't. Beautiful Creatures is its own thing, paranormal without being cliche, romantic without being the kind of desperate dependence/romance that drives me mad; it is the kind of fantasy you can read without considering it ridiculous and unbelievable. As you read about each Ethan and Lena, you believed their struggle was immediate.

I love fantasy, but I hate dark fantasy (if that makes any sense at all), so I was sure this, falling as I assumed it would under the "dark fantasy" label, would be not quite my cup of tea. Not so.

In other words, it was a good book.

I thought I would just read the first few chapters of this one, but over the stretch of the last week, I read the whole thing. I was very impressed by this novel. It's an impressive achievement for two first-time authors.

Go check it out!

New Books Again

We have a lovely new stack of brand new, shiny-looking books for me to put out for all of your reading pleasure.

And, let's face it, for my reading pleasure. I read. A lot. The people I know will confirm that.

Heist Society from Ally Carter, the author of the Gallagher Girls novels...



I read it, I loved it, and you all ought to read it too. It's like Mission Impossible only with thieves...

The third Cathy book, Cathy's Ring...


Which I was very much looking forward to. It's jumped to the front of my reading list. I love the integration of art in these books, it always makes me pull out my sketch pad so that I can draw badly for several days, until I finally realize I put the sketch pad away for a reason, and it wasn't because I ran out of charcoal.

And, of course, if you don't use dial-up, you can always go here to take a peek at some of the illustrations...

Eternal by Cynthia Leitich Smith...


Guardian angel, evil vampire king, high school theater wannabe, need I say more?

The much-talked-of Scarlett Fever.


I say much-talked-of because I've talked a lot about it. Here, to my friends and family, to people who don't really even know me...This is a great book. Somehow, Maureen Johnson managed to make her sequel to Suite Scarlett even better than the original! And I loved that book.

James Kennedy's The Order of the Odd Fish...


In this book there are actual knights who research useless information. That should be me. I am like the queen of useless information. How else would I know how you make a Bloomin' Onion when I've never actually tried to make one, worked at Outback Steakhouse, or been taught. I know because I read about it. But I don't have a deep-fryer at home. So no Bloomin' Onions. Still, if you're interested, send me a note. I'll clue you in.

Wherever Nina Lies by Lynn Weingarten...


When Ellie's older sister Nina vanishes, Ellie spends the next two years wondering where she could have gone. When everyone else has given up, Ellie keeps hoping. She knows her sister is out there somewhere. When Ellie finds a drawing that she thinks is a clue to her sister's location, she takes off on a road trip with her crush in an effort to find Nina.

Quaking by Kathryn Erskine...


Matt (who never goes by Matilda), never lets anyone get close. Everything changes when she finds a new home with a Quaker family. The wars in the middle east are mirrored in Matt's struggles to free herself from her painful past. As she learns to stand up for her beliefs, her new family is threatened. She must stand up to her fears before she can find the peace she's been seeking.

We also have Printz Honor Books The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey and Tales of the Madman Underground by John Barnes, both of which are amazing.

The Monstrumologist is the diary of Will Henry, orphan and assistant to Dr. Pellinore Warthrope, who studies monsters the way some might study anatomy or zoology. One evening in 1888--think Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus--a grave robber arrives with their most horrifying case to date...


Gothic horror at its finest.

Tales of the Madman Underground opens on Wednesday, September 5, 1973.


My impression so far (on page 30), is that this novel is very Catcher in the Rye-esque. Karl Shoemaker must make it through his senior year, escape Lightsburg, Ohio, hold down five jobs, care for his "seriously unhinged drunk mother", endure his litter-box of a house, and try to end his membership in the Madman Underground, a group of kids forced to attend group therapy during school hours, for reasons that escape Karl's understanding.

His goal for the school year? "Get up and be normal. Just for today" (pg 3).

Let's see how that works out for him.

And last but certainly not least, Printz Award Winner Going Bovine by Libba Bray.


Poor Cameron just got some bad news. He just wants to get finished with high school. With as little effort as possible. Except he can't do that, because he's going to die.

But just as he's about to collapse into a miserable ball, reveling in the waste that is his life, loopy, punk-angel/hallucination Dulcie comes along telling him that if he can just give her enough sugar--oh, wait--if he can just go out and get it, there's a cure.

This is good news.

So Cam grabs Gonzo, a death-obsessed Gamer dwarf and Viking god/yard gnome Balder and sets off on a road trip meeting up with happiness cults who chug smoothies, physicists who jump between parallel universes so often, they can't remember which one they started out in, mythic jazz musicians in New Orleans, television game shows, snow globe-addicts, and fame-obsessed teens. Here's a little blurb, "From New York Times bestselling author Libba Bray comes a dark comedic journey that poses the questions: Why are we here? What is real? What makes microwave popcorn taste so good? Why must we die? And how do we really learn to live?"

Check out this fish!

It occurs to me that, although this blog is mostly about books, me reading them, me ordering you all to go out and read them, and the games and crafts we do between books, you might actually have other interests.

I know, it's astounding.

My brother (who I didn't manage to trap in a trunk or suitcase when we were children, and who therefore grew into adulthood, despite all the odds that were against him), is an environmentalist. So, our family is a little obsessed with all things environmental. If we see something in the newspaper, we clip it. We post links and e-mail them to him.

We're all as weird as you think I am. Come on. You know that's what you think.

Today I saw this! How freakish is this fish! It's the biggest fish ever (well, maybe not) and I think it's way cool. So I'm using the podium I have here to force you all to look at it, because...WOW!

It even has plume things up by its head. Why? I have to look it up. Have good weekends, everybody!

More new books!

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl...


...for the paranormal romance fans among us. Sleepy town, girl with horrible curse, boy dreaming about someone he's never met, secrets, intrigue--the works!

In the medley of books released in the Twilight , there have been some amazing novels and some duds. This is one of the amazing ones. Beautiful Creatures was one of the William C. Morris Award honorees, chosen by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) as the best books written by a first-time author writing for teens. And it wasn't alone!

Ash by Malinda Lo...


...gives us a fresh look at an ages-old, multicultural fairy tale. I mean it--check out how many different versions there are of Cinderella, it will blow your mind.

In this version, Ash (Cinderella) meets up with the dark/evil fairy Sidhean (don't ask me how to pronounce that, because I don't know--Look it up, I plan to). She thinks Sidhean can make all her problems (evil stepmother, etc.) go away. But that isn't really what happens. Then Ash meets Kaisa, the king's huntress, and she learns to love again. But what about the super-evil Sidhean? You'll have to read Ash to find out. Definitely a little Dark Fantasy connection in this one.

The Everafter by Amy Huntley...


...is one I'm really looking forward to reading. It's narrator is a girl using mystical objects, her own belongings, to relive moments of her history and finding that now, she can change them...her first kiss, a trip to Disney World, her sister's wedding, all can be different. How can she do it? Well, it's because she's dead.

The final honoree we already have: Hold Still by Nina LaCour,which I very strongly recommend.


To refresh your midterm-fogged memories: Caitlin is paralyzed by the death of her best friend Ingrid, who committed suicide. Caitlin sinks into depression, shuns family and friends, refuses to see a therapist, and only leaves her home when school begins in the fall. But when she finds Ingrid's journal, she begins to see her friend's struggles and deal with her own. It's an incredibly moving novel for anyone who's known someone struggling with depression, loss, or just missing a friend (people move away, you know. When you say "Tenth grade" I say "Ugh!").

It was amazing! I couldn't believe this was Nina LaCour's first novel; it was written brilliantly.

The winner of the William C. Morris Award was Flash Burnout by L.K. Madigan...stay tuned for a full review coming soon!

This is your moment!

We're about to meet with our website designer, so if you have some comments about the Wabash Carnegie Public Library website (not the blog, that's all me--but you can tell me what you want to see here if you'd like...), leave your opinions, questions, comments, complaints, protests, rants, etc. in the comments.

So think about this and let me know:

1. Is there something missing from the library website that you'd like to see?

2. Is the library website easy to use, or could it be simplified?

3. Could we jazz the website up to make it more fun?

4. Is this something you actually care about, or is this post the most boring thing you've read all day?

Number four is rhetorical. You so completely don't need to answer it. In fact, don't. I really would rather not know, my life is filled with enough depressing things (like winter), adding one more thing would create Mopey Laura, who is no fun at all. She reads Sad Books and will urge you to do the same.

I don't want to read Sad Books. I want Happy Books.

Speaking of which, try When You Reach Me for a Happy Book fix. It's this year's Newbery winner, and as I read it for the second time recently, it occurred to me that I should urge you all to read it.

Fans of Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time will especially love it. If you haven't read that, then I just feel sorry for you, and you should correct it immediately. Go, read Madeline L'Engle. Now.