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Sign of the Crescent
Debbie Federici
Synopsis: Teenagers are mysteriously disappearing in Tucson, Arizona, and other cities. One night, seventeen-year-old Taryn nearly becomes one of them when a revolting, unearthly creature attacks her. The touch of a Zumar warrior should render her unconscious, but Taryn has the strength to fight until a young man with a sword comes to her rescue.

This is how Taryn, an orphan with Ménière's disease, meets Erick, a Haro Knight from another world. His job is fighting the Zumar who are kidnapping and enslaving oldworlders (Earth people). It is forbidden for Erick to socialize with oldworlders, but he can't ignore the strong attraction between them . . . and Taryn seems different from other Earth people. When she's abducted by the Zumar and taken to their evil sorcerer leader, Taryn is confronted with shocking truths that explain her strange dreams and special powers.

Publication Date: 10/08/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
Lord Loss
Darren Shan
Synopsis: Grubbs Grady has stiff red hair and is a little big for his age, which means he can get into R-rated movies. He hates history and loves bacon, rats, and playing tricks on his squeamish older sister. When he opts out of a family weekend trip, he never guesses that he is about to take a terrifying journey into darkness. Hungry demons and howling werewolves haunt his waking nightmares... and threaten his life.
Publication Date: 10/05/05
Age Level: Mature Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy
The Telling Pool
David Clement-Davies
Synopsis: A thrilling new fantasy from the author of the cult favorites Fire Bringer and The Sight.

From the author known for his popular, "intricately crafted" novels, as praised by The Boston Globe, comes a new tale set against the backdrop of Richard the Lionheart's Crusade to Jerusalem. The Telling Pool's richly atmospheric tale draws on Authurian legend and pagan belief, following the fate of young Rhodri Falcon and his crusader father as they become entangled in the war of a king and the machinations of a seductive sorceress who literally steals men's hearts. Its up to Rhodri to defeat the sorceress and save his father before all is forever lost. As Rhodri discovers the evils of war fought in the name of religion with enemies who will stop at nothing to defeat him, he must dig deep within to discover the hero who will save his father and lead himself toward the man he will become.

Expertly told, The Telling Pool transports young readers to the days of the Crusades, magic sorcery and the land where legends were formed. In the best-selling tradition of his previous books, Clement-Davies introduces readers a new character, Rhodri Falcon, who will forge ahead, determined to find good and in a land of evil.
Publication Date: 10/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
May Bird and the Ever After
Jodi Lynn Anderson, Leonid Gore
Synopsis: Most people aren't very comfortable in the woods, but the woods of Briery Swamp fit May Bird like a fuzzy mitten. There, she is safe from school and the taunts and teases of kids who don't understand her. Hidden in the trees, May is a warrior princess, and her cat, Somber Kitty, is her brave guardian.

Then May falls into the lake.

When she crawls out, May finds herself in a world that most certainly does not feel like a fuzzy mitten. In fact it is a place few living people have ever seen. Here, towns glow blue beneath zipping stars and the people -- people? -- walk through walls. Here the Book of the Dead holds the answers to everything in the universe. And here, if May is discovered, the horrifyingly evil Bo Cleevil will turn her into nothing.

May Bird must get out.

Fast.

Within these pages, Jodi Lynn Anderson shares with us the beginning of May Bird's daring journey into the Ever After, a haunting place where true friends -- and one terrible foe -- await her on every corner.
Publication Date: 10/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
The Wreath
Chloe Howard, Chris Howard
Synopsis: The Wreath is a story of betrayal and the struggle for control over the forces of magic and scientific knowledge. Kassandra's a bookish teenager with an extreme fear of water. She comes from the sea, but she spends most of her life far from it, an exile sent inland to grow up, betrayed by her own family and fated for slavery. She's caught between a murdering king, a governess who's been trying to kill her since she was four, and river witches who spy on her through the plumbing. She's managed to stay alive so far, but on her thirteenth birthday, Kassandra's world tumbles into the abyss. She cries for the first time in her life, and not just a tear. She discovers that her mother and father didn't abandon her, and there's more to her governess than the tyrannical facade.
Publication Date: 09/30/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
Sign of the Raven
Julie Hearn
Synopsis: Mind the gap.

Something odd is going on in the basement of an old house in London. An inexplicable gap has formed, a gap in time that links the present to the past. And twelve-year-old Tom, who discovers the gap while on a visit to his grandmother, is torn between both worlds.

Lured by a mysterious voice, Tom leaps into the early eighteenth century, to a time when circus "freaks" like the Bendy Man and the Gorilla Woman appeared at Bartholomew Fair. The voice he hears belongs to Astra, a tiny changeling child, whose limbs are no bigger than a man's thumb. She has called him into the past, because she is convinced that Tom is the only one who can help her and her friends from danger. Doctors are paying a high price for unusual bodies to dissect, and Astra and her friends are prime subjects.

But Tom is dealing with difficulties of his own. His mum has cancer and is constantly fighting with his gran. And then he discovers a dark secret in his family's past...a secret that pulls the strands of time together and might just close the gap forever.

Publication Date: 09/27/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
The Dark Flight Down
Marcus Sedgwick
Synopsis: In the morning you should think
You might not last unto the night
In the evening you should think
You might not last unto the morn
Boy has survived the terrors of life with the magician Valerian, dark magic, and deadly chases, but he is still on the run. Now, as the City lies frozen, he is captured and incarcerated in the Emperor Frederick’s palace. Boy is transported to a world of splendor, and wealth beyond his wildest imagining. But beneath its golden veneer, this world is full of madness and cruelty, closely guarded secrets, and terrifying revelations.
In a mesmerizing conclusion to the enthralling story begun in The Book of Dead Days, Boy and Willow are plunged into the heart of it–the furies of the Emperor; the tricks of necromancers; a trail of blood that will lead to the grisly Phantom. Holding all their lives between its pages, The Book of Dead Days waits to deceive its next reader.
Publication Date: 09/27/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
Falcondance
Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
Synopsis: Nicias has never felt completely at home among the avians and serpiente in Wyvern’s Court, despite his loyalty to Oliza Shardae Cobriana, the heir to both thrones. He is a falcon, the son of two exiles from Anhmik–and images of this distant island have always haunted his dreams. But when Nicias’s visions become more like reality, his parents have no choice but to send him back to the homeland–and a royal falcon–they’ve tried their best to forget.
If Araceli won’t bind Nicias’s newfound magic, it could destroy him. In a place where everyone is a pawn, only one other woman has the potential to save Nicias. But she holds the keys to a dangerous power struggle that will force Nicias to choose between his duty–and his destiny.
Publication Date: 09/13/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
Barry, Boyhound
Andy Spearman
Synopsis: This is the story of a boy named Barry. Some stuff happens, and overnight like magic he turns into a boyhound. Not a hound, but a boyhound–which means while he may still look like a boy, he is, in fact, a dog. And even in his boyhound brain, Barry knows there are lots of advantages to being a dog. You don’t have to clean your room or use dental floss, for example.
But things get crazy. He eats something too disgusting to mention. He’s attacked by telepathic squirrels. An innocent squashed frog becomes involved. Plus, his mother’s getting pretty mad. And that’s all before the really bad thing happens. . . .
Publication Date: 09/13/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
Elsewhere
Gabrielle Zevin
Synopsis: Is it possible to grow up while getting younger?

Welcome to Elsewhere. It is warm, with a breeze, and the beaches are marvelous. It’s quiet and peaceful. You can’t get sick or any older. Curious to see new paintings by Picasso? Swing by one of Elsewhere’s museums. Need to talk to someone about your problems? Stop by Marilyn Monroe’s psychiatric practice.  Elsewhere is where fifteen-year-old Liz Hall ends up, after she has died. It is a place so like Earth, yet completely different. Here Liz will age backward from the day of her death until she becomes a baby again and returns to Earth. But Liz wants to turn sixteen, not fourteen again. She wants to get her driver’s license. She wants to graduate from high school and go to college. And now that she’s dead, Liz is being forced to live a life she doesn’t want with a grandmother she has only just met. And it is not going well. How can Liz let go of the only life she has ever known and embrace a new one? Is it possible that a life lived in reverse is no different from a life lived forward? This moving, often funny book about grief, death, and loss will stay with the reader long after the last page is turned. Elsewhere is a 2006 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.
Publication Date: 09/09/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
The Seven Professors of the Far North
Synopsis: Eleven-year-old Sam finds himself involved in a dangerous adventure when he and his new friends, brother and sister Ben and Zara, set off for the Arctic to try and rescue the siblings' great-uncle and five other professors from the mad scientist holding them prisoner.
Publication Date: 09/08/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
Shadowqueen
Susan Vaught, Debbie Federici
Synopsis:

The Shadowmaster has been defeated and the witch sanctuaries are safe for now. But the effort has cost Jazz her life. Trapped in Talamadden, the land of the dead, the former Queen of the Witches is lost in a dark limbo until a spirit guide revives her memories. Desperate to reunite with Bren, she wrestles menacing harpies and shadows to find a way back to the living.

Meanwhile, Bren has become King of the Witches and is now in charge of the witch villages. But he abandons them to search for Jazz, his true love, despite the fact that crossing over to Talamadden would surely kill him. Will Bren and Jazz join up once again to fight evil forces intent on destroying the witches? Or will Bren's impulsive departure leave the witch villages vulnerable to the shadows?

Publication Date: 09/08/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
Ariel
Grace Tiffany
Synopsis:

Ariel is beautiful and magical, a creator of dreams and of mischief. Sprung from the mind of a dazed sailor shipwrecked in the Bermuda Triangle, she rules half of her enchanted isle, dreaming of the savior from the east who will help her conquer all. When Prospero, a lost mariner, appears on the beach, his young daughter, Miranda, in tow, Ariel entices him with her visions of conquest. Together, she promises, they will defeat the mysterious tribe whose drums beat beyond the island's rain forest. The homesick Prospero struggles to resist Ariel's charms, but he almost falls under her spell when Miranda falls in love with their servant, the island boy Caliban. Ariel wants to march west, Prospero wants to sail east, and daughter Miranda wants to play on the beach with her boyfriend. Their clash comes to a head when Ariel, summoning her full powers, creates a cataclysmic storm that will change their lives and the island forever.

Shakespeare scholar Grace Tiffany looks at the dark side of Shakespeare's The Tempest, investing a female Ariel with tremendous strength. The Tempest takes on new meaning for new readers, as Tiffany explores the imagination's power to transform grief into dangerous dreams. A tour de force by the author of My Father Had a Daughter and Will.

Publication Date: 09/06/05
Age Level: Any Age
Genre: Fantasy
The Last Apprentice: Revenge of the Witch
Joseph Delaney, Patrick Arrasmith
Synopsis:

Capturing witches
Binding boggarts
Driving away ghosts

For years, Old Gregory has been the Spook for the county, ridding the local villages of evil. Now his time is coming to an end. But who will take over for him? Twenty-nine apprentices have tried–some floundered, some fled, some failed to stay alive.

Only Thomas Ward is left. He's the last hope; the last apprentice.

Can Thomas succeed? Will he learn the difference between a benign witch and a malevolent one? Does the Spook's warning against girls with pointy shoes include Alice? And what will happen if Thomas accidentally frees Mother Malkin, the most evil witch in the county ... ?

Publication Date: 09/06/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
Small Eternities (Withern Rise)
Synopsis:

Four months ago in the snowy depths of winter, Alaric and Naia, two teenagers who'd never met, discovered they were living almost identical lives in different versions of Withern Rise, their riverside Victorian mansion. One day, they accidentally stranded themselves in the wrong realities.

Now it's summer, and heavy rains have caused the river to overflow. Withern Rise's grounds are under water when Alaric and Naia find their separate ways into an earlier reality -- a small eternity -- and meet a boy called Aldous. Aldous Underwood.

But who is this Aldous? Is he the old vagrant Naia has met in the present day, or an Aldous destined to die very soon, under mysterious circumstances? And will their meeting change Underwood history?

Publication Date: 09/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
Dance of the Assassins
Herve Jubert
Synopsis:

In nineteenth-century London, Jack the Ripper has claimed another victim.

But this "London" is a crime-free virtual city, a historical theme park for tourists. Qualified witch Roberta Morgenstern and her fresh-out-of-the-police-academy assistant, Clément Martineau, set out to solve the murder.

A wild chase through the streets of old London brings the heroes face-to-face with the terrifying new Ripper. But then they realize their true quarry is the man behind the monster: the mastermind who is bringing some of history's most notorious villains back to life. The trail of evidence leads them from the Versailles of Louis XIV through Renaissance Venice to Montezuma's Mexico, where they have a date with the devil himself....

Publication Date: 09/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy

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