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Underland
Mary Patterson Thornburg
Synopsis: Pursued by menacing strangers through her small Midwest city, twelve-year-old Alyssha Dodson takes refuge in a mysterious room under a bridge, a place that turns out to be a doorway into another universe. In the country where she then finds herself, Alyssha learns that the pursuit has not ended. A powerful and sinister man, Lord Raf Var Ne, seeks to gain possession of an object she was given years ago by her older brother a few days before he went missing. Told she can't return to her own world, she begins a search for that brother, aided by Lord Raf's charming but impetuous stepson. In the process, the two become involved in a revolutionary conflict. Underland is the story of a girl's coming of age in the midst of an adventure like no other.
Publication Date: 12/28/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
In High Places
Harry Turtledove
Synopsis: In the 21st-century Kingdom of Versailles, the roads are terrible and Paris is a dirty little town. Serfdom and slavery are both common, and no one thinks that's wrong. Why should they? Most people spend their lives doing backbreaking farm work anyway.

But teenaged Khadija, daughter of a prosperous family of Moorish business travellers, is unfazed. That’s because Khadija is really Annette Klein from 21st-century California, and her whole family are secret agents of Crosstime Traffic, trading for commodities to send back to our own timeline. Now it's time for Annette and her family to go home for the start of another school year, so they join a pack train bound for their home base in Marseilles, where the crosstime portal is hidden.

Then bandits attack while they're crossing the Pyrenees. Annette/Khadija is separated from her parents and knocked out, and wakes up to find herself a captive in a caravan of slaves being taken to the markets in the south. She's in a tight spot.

Then the really scary thing happens: her purchasers take her, along with other newly purchased slaves, to an unofficial crosstime portal…leaving open the question of whether Crosstime Traffic will ever be able to recover her!
Publication Date: 12/27/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
The Greenstone Grail
Amanda Hemingway
Synopsis: A desperate mother spirits away her infant son, seemingly drawn (chased, perhaps?) to the small English village of Thornyhill. She ends up on the doorstep of old Bartlemy, a curious man who has lived on the forested land for as long as anyone can remember–and who comes to believe that the child is destined for great things. . . .

While growing up under Bartlemy’s protective eye, Nathan Ward senses something else watching him, a shift of shadows in the surrounding Darkwood. Then pieces of his dreams begin to come to life. A man he saved from the ocean washes ashore on the television news. A greenish stone cup set with jewels that has haunted his visions sounds eerily like one lost by the Thorn family centuries ago–a cup that has recently made its way back into the hands of the village’s last living ancestor.

Yet when Nathan learns the chalice may have come from another world, a land with bloodstained moons and a toxic sun, he knows he is destined to play a part in something beyond his most vivid imagination. But why is the cup here, and what could it possibly want with a teenage boy and a sleepy town of villagers full of tall tales? With the help of his best friend, Hazel, Nathan must figure out why he’s been chosen–and for what purpose. Even if it means traveling deeper each night into dreams, into lands, into legends that both terrify and mesmerize him.

The Greenthorn Grail is the first novel of a thrilling new trilogy, tracing a boy’s journey–a quest rife with magic, wonder, and forces as dark as midnight.



From the Hardcover edition.
Publication Date: 12/27/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
When the Beast Ravens
E. Rose Sabin
Synopsis: The thrilling conclusion to the award-winning fantasy trilogy that began with A School for Sorcery...
As Gray Becq is about to discover, there are fates worse than death. It has been a full year since his escape from the Dire Realm. A year since a fellow student--having used his powers of sorcery to league himself with dark forces--betrayed him. Locked him away in a world beyond time, a world of unspeakable evil and unbearable tortures. Had it not been for Tria Tesserell and her extraordinary powers, he surely would have died. Now he almost wishes he had.
For no sooner has Becq adjusted himself to the familiar surroundings of The Lesley Simonton School for the Magically Gifted than a series of horrible accidents occur. Suspicion falls on Gray. Could he have brought a demon back with him from the Dire Realm? To find the truth, Gray will have to confront the most powerful demon he has ever faced: the demon that lies within.
Publication Date: 12/27/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
JumpMan Rule 2
James Valentine
Synopsis: No sooner is their first date over than Jules and Gen find themselves back at work after a JumpMan comes looking for them to tell them of their friend's involvement with Quincy Carter One and their plans to change the history of the world.
Publication Date: 12/20/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Bizenghast 1 (Bizenghast)
M. Alice Legrow
Synopsis: When a young girl moves to the forgotten town of Bizenghast, she uncovers a terrifying collection of lost souls that lead her to the brink of insanity. One thing becomes painfully clear: The residents of Bizenghast are just dying to come home.
Publication Date: 12/15/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Icing on the Lake
Catherine Clark
Synopsis:

ICING ON THE LAKE

Beach reads for snow bunnies–our wildly popular beach reads expand to winter! The author of Maine Squeeze is back with another funny, romantic novel, this time in the snow.

Publication Date: 12/13/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
The Bungler's Paradox
R. M. Wilburn
Synopsis: Book by Wilburn, R. M.
Publication Date: 12/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Catch
Will Leitch
Synopsis: Everything comes easy for Tim Temples. He’s got a sweet summer job, lots of love from the ladies, and parties with his high school buddies. Why does he need to go to college?

Then Tim falls hard for Helena—a worldly and mysterious twenty-two year-old. Their relationship opens his eyes to life outside the small town of Mattoon, Illinois. Now Tim has to choose: Will he settle for being a small town hero, or will he leave it all behind to follow his dreams?
Publication Date: 12/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Octagon Magic
Andre Norton
Synopsis: The secret of Octagon House

When her grandmother gets sick, eleven-year-old Lorrie Mallard is sent to live with her aunt in the U.S. Things were different back home in Canada, and Lorrie is homesick—especially when boys like Jimmy Purvis and Stan Wormiski tease her. One day, Lorrie finds herself at the door of Octagon House, where she is welcomed by the elderly Miss Ashemeade and her servant, Hallie. Could the kindly Miss Ashemeade truly be a witch, like everyone says? Lorrie doesn’t know, but with the help an old rocking horse and a dollhouse she finds in a mysterious eight-sided room, she begins to unlock the secrets of Octagon House.
Publication Date: 12/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Chainfire
Terry Goodkind
Synopsis:

With Wizard's First Rule and seven subsequent masterpieces, Terry Goodkind has thrilled readers worldwide with the unique sweep of his storytelling. Now, in Chainfire, Goodkind returns with a new novel of Richard and Kahlan, the beginning of a sequence of three novels that will bring their epic story to its culmination.

After being gravely injured in battle, Richard awakes to discover Kahlan missing. To his disbelief, no one remembers the woman he is frantically trying to find. Worse, no one believes that she really exists, or that he was ever married. Alone as never before, he must find the woman he loves more than life itself....if she is even still alive. If she was ever even real.

Publication Date: 11/29/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Kim
Rudyard Kipling
Synopsis: Nobel Prize-winning author Rudyard Kipling set his final and most famous novel in the complex, mystery-shrouded India of the mid-19th century where an exotic landscape teems with natives living under British colonial rule.
Kim, the poor orphaned son of an Irish soldier stationed in Lahore, straddles both worlds. Neither wholly British nor completely Indian, the young boy searches for his identity in the country where he was born; but at the same time, he struggles to create an identity for himself. Cunning and street wise, Kim is mature beyond his thirteen years and learns to move chameleon-like between the two cultures, becoming the disciple of a Tibetan monk while training as a spy for the British secret service.
Far above the average adventure story, Kim will captivate Kipling devotees as well as fans of tales brimming with foreign intrigue and treachery.
Publication Date: 11/08/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Open Ice
Pat Hughes
Synopsis: NICKY TAG! NICKY TAG!
All his life, crowds have been cheering for Nick Taglio.
He’s been skating since he could walk, scoring goals since he picked up a hockey stick. He’s only a sophomore but he rules the ice, because Nicky Tag’s a fighter. Which means you have to take some hits; concussions come with the territory. When he gets another head injury, his doctor, his parents, and his coach tell him he can never play again. Too dangerous, they say. He can’t risk his future.
But they don’t understand that without hockey, Nick has no future. It’s not a game, it’s his life. And nobody can stop him from playing.
Publication Date: 11/08/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Befiddled
Pedro de Alcantara
Synopsis: Becky Cohen has a rough life. She’s an outsider everywhere she goes: shunned and mocked at school, at her violin lessons, and at home by her disapproving mother. Her only true friend is her brilliant little brother, newspaper-loving Benjy. She dreams of becoming a great violinist, but at the group lessons she’s forced to take at the Y, Becky panics and plays badly. Then Becky meets Mr. Freeman, her building’s handyman. He has a lot to teach her about becoming a musician, and being a friend.
Gradually, Becky begins speaking her mind more often, and finds that people are actually listening. Then Mr. Freeman tells Becky about a local performing arts high school’s scholarship contest. With the lessons learned from Mr. Freeman and Benjy, can Becky overcome her fears and play what’s in her heart?
Publication Date: 11/08/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Anyone But You
Lara M. Zeises
Synopsis: Critter and Jesse have been close to Seattle since her dad moved in with their mother. Closer still since he took off six years ago and Layla decided to raise Sea as one of her own. It’s a decision none of them regrets, especially not Critter. He’s more than a brother–he’s Seattle’s best friend.
Now it’s vacation, and Seattle and Critter are stoop sitters, at least until summer school starts in July. It beats working like Jesse, or worse, studying like Layla wants them to. It’s too hot for Seattle to be on her skateboard–too hot, even, for Critter to be scamming on girls. But Sea comes up with a plan for them to bluff their way into the ritzy swimming pool the next town over. Big mistake.
Soon Critter’s got his heart set on a Penn Acres princess, while Seattle’s trying hard not to fall for a skater boy on the rebound. For the first time in a long while, they can talk to anyone but each other. Then Seattle’s dad shows up unexpectedly, and the way of life Critter and Seattle have always known begins to change even more. . . .
Publication Date: 11/08/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
True Confessions of a Hollywood Starlet
Synopsis: Teen movie star Morgan Carter retreats to a small midwestern town to recuperate anonymously after a near fatal overdose outside LA's Viper Room, recording her thoughts in a diary.
Publication Date: 11/03/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction

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