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Wicked Dead
Thomas Pendleton, Stefan Petrucha
Synopsis:

Tonight's tale . . .

Rabbit food. Windowpanes. Pennies. Chelsea Kaüer counts and frets over everything—her OCD won't let her stop. But when her biology teacher, Ms. Mandisa, asks her to pet-sit, Chelsea can't think of a reason to say no. After all, it's extra pocket money—nothing to worry about, right?

Wrong. Ms. Mandisa's "pet" is a six-foot lizard with a poisonous bite and a taste for red meat. And if Chelsea doesn't think fast, she'll be dead meat. . . .

Publication Date: 09/09/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
Boost
Kathy Mackel
Synopsis: Thirteen-year-old Savvy is six two and full of raw basketball talent; her three-point shot is deadly. But she’s also skinny and gets pushed around on the court. Her older sister, Callie, is a freshman on varsity cheerleading, but she’s not quite light enough to be a flier—her coveted position. Both girls need to boost their level of competition to get off the bench and into the action. When steroids are found in Savvy’s gym bag, she claims they are not hers. Suddenly, accusations are flying and nobody knows who is telling the truth. When it comes to competitive sports, no one is exempt from being offered a boost.
Publication Date: 09/04/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
Dark Destiny
Melody Lowe, Kym Hackenberger
Synopsis: Scorned by her betrothed; shunned by her family; her true love murdered in a less-than-chivalrous battle... An innocent young princess takes a turn down the twisted path of vengeance to become the Queen of the Dark Realm. "THAT'S NOT FAIR!" we cry, outraged at the latest injustice that life has tossed our way. But life isn't always fair, a fact that no one knows better than Elspeth, Princess of Rookskrieg. What could transform an innocent young princess, full of life and hope and all that's good, into the evil queen of Sleeping Beauty fame, who condemns an innocent child to her death? Dark Destiny is the Sleeping Beauty story that's never been told, the story of a young woman whose dream of blissful life outside her royal destiny is shattered by the twists of fate.
Publication Date: 09/03/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
Ghost Medicine
Andrew Smith
Synopsis:

The summer before Troy Stotts turns seventeen, his mother dies. Troy and his father barely speak, communicating instead by writing notes on a legal pad by the phone. Troy spends most of his time with his closest friends: Tom Buller, brash and fearless, the son of a drunk; Gabe Benavidez, smart enough to know he’ll never take over the family ranch; and Gabe’s sister, Luz, whose family overprotects her, and who Troy has loved since they were children.

           Troy and his friends don’t want trouble. They want this to be the summer of what Troy calls “ghost medicine,” when time seems to stop, so they won’t have to face the past or the future. But before the summer is over, their paths will cross in dangerous and fateful ways with people who will change their lives: Rose, a damaged derelict who lives with a flock of wild horses and goats; and Chase Rutledge, the arrogant sheriff’s son.

           Troy and his friends want to disappear. Instead, they will become what they least expect —brothers, lovers, heroes, and ghosts.

Publication Date: 09/02/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
The Soldier King
Violette Malan
Synopsis: A new novel of high fantasy and adventure featuring martial arts masters Dhulyn and Parno.

Fulfilling their Mercenary contract, Dhulyn and Parno have accepted the surrender of Prince Edmir, heir to the Tegriani Realm. The Common Rule of the Mercenary Brothers states that prisoners taken by them go free and unharmed. But when the War Commander who hired them refuses to honor this agreement, the duo break their contract and escape with the prince. And thus they take the first step along a path that might lead Dhulyn to the truth about her past?or bring them to a magical trap from which there may be no escape.
Publication Date: 09/02/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
The Rule of Won
Stefan Petrucha
Synopsis:

The secret of The Rule of Won is simple, yet its power has been suppressed for generations. The universe is one of infinite abundance—ask, and you shall receive.

Umm, yeah right.  Meet Caleb Dunne, slacker extraordinaire. Caleb prefers to glide through life with the minimal amount of effort, so he isn’t too jazzed when his overachieving girlfriend, Vicky, convinces him to join a new school club based on a controversial book, The Rule of Won. Slackers don’t join school clubs, do they?  As The Rule gains popularity, though, the club members start to gain power within the school. From dark posts on the club’s online message board to all-out threats in the hallways, it becomes apparent that the group is getting out of control. For slacker Caleb, though, the only thing worse than doing something is not doing something.

Darkly funny and exceptionally thought-provoking, The Rule of Won, inspired by the ideas behind books like the runaway hit The Secret, shines a light on the dangers of group thinking and the inner desires that can sometimes get the best of us all.

Publication Date: 09/02/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
Going Nowhere Faster
Sean Beaudoin
Synopsis: Stan Smith has the world's dullest name, and the world's dullest life to go with it. At 17, the former junior chess champion turned "Town's Laziest Register Monkey at the Town's Only Video Store" has no car, no college, and, of course, no girl. If that weren't pathetic enough, he's got an organic-food-freak vegan mother, an eccentric inventor father, a dead-end job, a dog with a flatulence problem, and a former classmate threatening to kill him. With a 165 IQ, Stan was expected to Be Something and Go Somewhere. But when all he has is a beat-up old bike that keeps getting vandalized, he's going nowhere, faster.
Publication Date: 09/01/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
Samantha Hansen Has Rocks In Her head
Synopsis:

Ten-year-old Samantha Hansen is a mad scientist. But not the crazy kind—she doesn’t blow stuff up or mix potions or dissect bugs. She just loves science—especially rocks—and figuring out how the world around her works. But there are some things there just isn’t a scientific answer for. Like, why can’t her bossy big sister keep her hands off Sam’s rock collection? And why can’t Sam control her temper? There are some bigger questions, too, like why did her father have to die? And why won’t her mom talk about him anymore?

 

When Sam’s mom announces a family trip to the Grand Canyon, it’s a dream come true. But it’s also a challenge: If Sam can’t learn to calm down and ignore her irritating sister, she’s going to miss her chance to see one of the world’s biggest rocks and maybe find the answers to some of her questions.

Samantha Hansen Has Rocks in Her Head is a hilarious and touching debut that introduces an exuberant new character who studies the world around her as she discovers what is in her own heart.

 

F&P level: S
Publication Date: 09/01/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
Oddest of All
Bruce Coville
Synopsis: Fans of Bruce Coville’s wonderfully weird storytelling will be thrilled to know that the expert of odd is back with a new collection of nine curious and thought-provoking tales. From stories about a girl who learns the horrifying secrets about what’s really at the bottom of a murky, desolate pond, a strange chemical factory causing mutations in frogs, and a Halloween mask that becomes a gruesome clue in the disappearance of a child, the odd adventures in this new collection are filled with terrifying and ghoulish details. In the eerie, surreal tradition of Edgar Allan Poe, these reveries are sure to linger in the minds of readers.
Publication Date: 09/01/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
The Landing
John Ibbitson
Synopsis: Will Ben ever escape the Landing? The hardscrabble farm on the shores of Lake Muskoka can't generate a living, so Ben's Uncle Henry sells goods and gas to cottagers from the dock known as Cooks Landing. It had never been much of a living and since the Depression hit, it's even less. Ben's thinking a lot these days, and it's making him miserable. He's thinking about how unfair it is that his uncle only cares about work. He's thinking about what he really wants to do: play the violin. These days, he's lucky to snatch the odd bit of practice between chores, playing to the chickens in the henhouse. A new job fixing up the grand old cottage on nearby Pine Island seems at first to be just one more thing to keep Ben away from his violin. After he meets the island's owner, Ben changes his mind. Ruth Chapman is a cultured and wealthy woman from New York who introduces Ben to an unfamiliar, liberating world. After Ben plays violin for Ruth and her admiring friends, it only makes him more desperate to flee. Then, during a stormy night on Lake Muskoka, everything changes.
Publication Date: 09/01/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
The Devouring
Simon Holt
Synopsis: "When dark creeps in and eats the light,
Bury your fears on Sorry Night.
For in the winter's blackest hours,
Comes the feasting of the Vours,
No one can see it, the life they stole,
Your body's here but not your soul..."

THE VOURS: Evil, demonic beings that inhabit human bodies on Sorry Night, the darkest hours of the winter solstice.

When Reggie reads about the Vours in a mysterious old journal, she assumes they are just the musings of an anonymous lunatic. But when her little brother, Henry, begins to act strangely, it's clear that these creatures exist beyond a madwoman's imagination, and Reggie finds out what happens when fears come to life.

To save the people she loves, Reggie must learn to survive in a world of nightmares. Can she devour her own fears before they devour her?

The Devouring is an engrossing tale of terror that will have you wondering: what if your worst fears became your living nightmare?
Publication Date: 09/01/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
Ignatius Macfarland
Synopsis: After being teased one too many times at school, Ignatius MacFarland decides to build a rocket. Maybe extraterrestrials are nicer than his classmates! But when his rocket takes an explosive wrong turn, Ignatius ends up in another frequency run by former English-teacher-turned-dictator, Chester Arthur. Mr. Arthur has taken the art, culture, and advancements of our world, shared them with this new frequency, and convinced the creatures around him that he's a genius. It's up to Iggy and Karen, another trapped earthling, to expose Mr. Arthur for the fraud that he is-and to hopefully make it home alive.

Part comedy, part science fiction, and part fantasy, this debut novel, with line art by talented newcomer Peter Chan, makes being a geek, well, kind of cool.
Publication Date: 09/01/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
The Witches of Dredmoore Hollow
Synopsis:

Nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Juvenile Mystery

When his two strange aunts arrive at Dredmoore Hollow, eleven-year-old Elijah finds his life turned upside down. His parents suddenly leave town, and he’s whisked away to stay with Serena and Agnes on Moaning Marsh, where they run the world’s most mysterious beauty salon. Not to mention their creepy hired man, his beastly pet, and the three unusual girls who are their only customers. Elijah discovers that secrets and magic are part of the Dredmoore family legacy, and there’s no hiding from your roots no matter how deep, dark, and tangled they may be.

Publication Date: 09/01/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
Hell Week
Rosemary Clement-Moore
Synopsis: Bloodred nails, flashing white teeth, gleaming scarlet lips--Maggie Quinn has battled an ancient demon, faced down psychotic cheerleaders, and saved her best friend from certain death, but nothing can match this. Formal sorority recruitment, otherwise known as rush. Being that close to so many professional blowouts is enough to make a girl's hair stand on end. Ionic hair dryer not required.
   But Maggie is determined to make her mark as a journalist. The only problem? The Ranger Report--the college newspaper--does not take freshmen on staff. Rules are rules.
   But when has that ever stopped Maggie?
   After facing hellfire, infiltrating sorority rush should be easy. It’s no Woodward and Bernstein, but going undercover as the Phantom Pledge will allow her to write her exposé. Then she can make a stealth exit before initiation. But when she finds a group of girls who are after way more than “sisterhood,” all her instincts say there’s something rotten on Greek Row. And when Hell Week rolls around, there may be no turning back.
   If there is such a thing as a sorority from hell, you can bet that Maggie Quinn will be the one to stumble into it.

"Teens who like social commentary and witty comebacks with their horror will devour Hellweek."--School Library Journal

“Maggie’s snarky humor and quirky personality keep this novel’s first half light, but the second takes a dark, page-turning twist as Maggie is forced to figure out and destroy the ancient source of the sisters’ power.”—Kirkus Reviews

"When you need a Buffy fix, grab a copy of Hell Week. From danger to humor, romance to mystery, this book has it covered!"--Melissa Marr, author of the bestselling novel Wicked Lovely and Ink Exchange


From the Hardcover edition.
Publication Date: 08/26/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
Sovay
Celia Rees
Synopsis:

It's England, 1783. When the rich and beautiful Sovay isn't sitting for portraits, she's donning a man's cloak and robbing travelers―in broad daylight. But in a time when political allegiances between France and England are strained, a rogue bandit is not the only thing travelers fear. Spies abound, and rumors of sedition can quickly lead to disappearances. So when Sovay lifts the wallet of one of England's most powerful and dangerous men, it's not just her own identity she must hide, but that of her father. A dazzling historical saga in which the roles of thieves and gentry, good and bad, and men and women are interchanged to riveting effect.

Publication Date: 08/19/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
Dark Vengeance
Ed Greenwood
Synopsis: Orivon Firefist was captured as a six-year-old child by the Nilfghar—the dark elves—who attacked his village by night on one of their surface raids. Fifteen years later, he was a moon-pale, scarred, muscular giant of a man, who  spent his days at forgework for a dark elf family. He had been trained (and flogged and ordered about) by the beautiful Tsarnarra, a lash-wielding matron who is icily cruel, but proud of the slaves that she has trained.   Through all of this, Orivon's spirit had never been broken and he rose up and opposed his underworld tyrants.  He has successfully returned to the surface world home that he thought only existed in his most distant dreams.   But the score is far from settled. Years of oppression and new revelations of the dark deeds of his former captors only fuel his forge of rage. And the fact that their evil still permeates the underworld only intensifies his desire for a dark vengeance.
Publication Date: 08/19/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure

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