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Tour of the Merrimack
R. M. Meluch
Synopsis: The U.S.S. Merrimack was the finest battleship class spaceship in Earth's fleet, able to stand up against the best the Palatine Empire could throw at them. They were even able to survive  an attack by the  deadly swarms of the seemingly unstoppable Hive. Only her sister ship, the Monitor, was her equal. However, with the Palatine forces preparing a massive offensive, and the Hive targeting every living organism in the galaxy for destruction, even these two great battleships may fall....

This omnibus edition includes the first two novels of R.M. Meluch's acclaimed Tour of the Merrimack series, The Myriad and Wolf Star.
 
Publication Date: 10/01/13
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
Les Miserables
Chris Bohjalian, Norman MacAfee, Lee Fahnestock, Lee Fahnestock, Victor Hugo
Synopsis: The only completely unabridged paperback edition of Victor Hugo’s masterpiece—a sweeping tale of love, loss, valor, and passion.

Introducing one of the most famous characters in literature, Jean Valjean—the noble peasant imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread—Les Misérables ranks among the greatest novels of all time. In it, Victor Hugo takes readers deep into the Parisian underworld, immerses them in a battle between good and evil, and carries them to the barricades during the uprising of 1832 with a breathtaking realism that is unsurpassed in modern prose.

Within his dramatic story are themes that capture the intellect and the emotions: crime and punishment, the relentless persecution of Valjean by Inspector Javert, the desperation of the prostitute Fantine, the amorality of the rogue Thénardier, and the universal desire to escape the prisons of our own minds. Les Misérables gave Victor Hugo a canvas upon which he portrayed his criticism of the French political and judicial systems, but the portrait that resulted is larger than life, epic in scope—an extravagant spectacle that dazzles the senses even as it touches the heart.
 
Translated by Lee Fahnestock and Norman Macafee, based on the classic nineteenth-century Charles E. Wilbour translation
 
Inlcudes an Introduction by Lee Fahnestock
and an Afterword by Chris Bohjalian
Publication Date: 10/01/13
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Classic
Be Positive! Think Positive! Feel Positive! Surviving Junior High Vol. 2
Synopsis:

Surviving junior high! - How to succeed in everything that that you want and could wish for…

It happened at a party. You saw her standing over there, smiling at you, flirting with her eyes and waiting for you to go up to her.And you just stood there, as if you were glued to the ground, you were frozen to the spot frantically imagining all sorts of scenarios, so much so that nothing good could possibly happen. You were just about to make the biggest fool of yourself ever…and…you really don’t want to know what happened next…

There are no two ways about it - the ways to become cool and popular are already inside of you! You already have the inner strength to help you get there and this book will show you how to use it!

In this self help book you’ll learn:•How to think positively!•How to believe in your selves!•How to succeed at school and with others, in everything that that you want and could wish for…

Let me share the secret with you – of how to become attractive no matter what you look like, how to attract to yourself the reality that you really want!!!

This teenager self help book, the second in the popular series, (the books can be read in any sequence) includes:•True life stories about growing up! •Tips, helpful rules, simple to do exercises!•Fun ‘test yourself’ questionnaires•A personal journal All of which will help you discover how to be positive, think positive and feel positive and most importantly how to be “simply me” and to survive Junior high school!

Scroll up and grab your book today!

Publication Date: 09/29/13
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Educational
Risking Exposure
Jeanne Moran
Synopsis: Munich, 1938. A timid 14-year-old Hitler Youth member contracts polio. Photographs she takes of fellow polio patients are twisted, turned into propaganda which mocks people with disabilities. That's when she realizes - her new disability has made her an outsider in her own country, a target of Nazi scorn and possible persecution. 
Her only weapon is her camera. 

This book is a B.R.A.G. Medallion Honoree for Historical Fiction. For fans of The Book Thief, Number the Stars, and Code Name Verity. 
Publication Date: 09/28/13
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Historical Fiction
Revelations: The Merlin Chronicles (Book One)
Synopsis: Merlin the Magician only exists in myth and legend – at least that’s what archaeology student Jason Carpenter thought until he discovered the mysterious orb that had housed history’s greatest wizard for 1,600 years. Forced into an uneasy alliance, Jason and Merlin are sucked into a web of deceit, intrigue and murder that sends them on a chaotic race to outwit, and out run, Merlin’s ancient nemesis, the evil sorceress Morgana le Fay, her gang of drug smugglers and a 500 year-old Chinese necromancer. Tis a race against time to complete their quest before an army of dragons are unleashed on a vulnerable and unsuspecting 21st century world.
Publication Date: 09/25/13
Age Level: Mature Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy
The Scroll of Years
Chris Willrich
Synopsis: It's Brent Weeks meets China Mieville in this wildly imaginative fantasy debut featuring high action, elegant writing, and sword and sorcery with a Chinese flare.
 
     Persimmon Gaunt and Imago Bone are a romantic couple and partners in crime. Persimmon is a poet from a well-to-do family, who found herself looking for adventure, while Imago is a thief in his ninth decade who is double-cursed, and his body has not aged in nearly seventy years. Together, their services and wanderlust have taken them into places better left unseen, and against odds best not spoken about. Now, they find themselves looking to get away, to the edge of the world, with Persimmon pregnant with their child, and the most feared duo of assassins hot on their trail. However, all is never what it seems, and a sordid adventure--complete with magic scrolls, gangs of thieves, and dragons both eastern and western--is at hand.
Publication Date: 09/24/13
Age Level: Mature Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Witchstruck
Victoria Lamb
Synopsis: If she sink, she be no witch and shall be drowned. 

If she float, she be a witch and must be hanged. 

Meg Lytton has always known she is different—that she bears a dark and powerful gift. But in 1554 England, in service at Woodstock Palace to the banished Tudor princess Elizabeth, it has never been more dangerous to practise witchcraft. Meg knows she must guard her secret carefully from the many suspicious eyes watching over the princess and her companions. One wrong move could mean her life, and the life of Elizabeth, rightful heir to the English throne. 

With witchfinder Marcus Dent determined to have Meg's hand in marriage, and Meg's own family conspiring against the English queen, there isn't a single person Meg can trust. Certainly not the enigmatic young Spanish priest Alejandro de Castillo, despite her undeniable feelings. But when all the world turns against her, Meg must open her heart to a dangerous choice. 

The Secret Circle meets The Other Boleyn Girl in Witchstruck, the first book of the magical Tudor Witch trilogy.
Publication Date: 09/24/13
Age Level: Mature Young Adult
Genre: Romance
The Scroll of Years
Chris Willrich
Synopsis: It's Brent Weeks meets China Mieville in this wildly imaginative fantasy debut featuring high action, elegant writing, and sword and sorcery with a Chinese flare.
 
     Persimmon Gaunt and Imago Bone are a romantic couple and partners in crime. Persimmon is a poet from a well-to-do family, who found herself looking for adventure, while Imago is a thief in his ninth decade who is double-cursed, and his body has not aged in nearly seventy years. Together, their services and wanderlust have taken them into places better left unseen, and against odds best not spoken about. Now, they find themselves looking to get away, to the edge of the world, with Persimmon pregnant with their child, and the most feared duo of assassins hot on their trail. However, all is never what it seems, and a sordid adventure--complete with magic scrolls, gangs of thieves, and dragons both eastern and western--is at hand.
Publication Date: 09/24/13
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
Two and Only Kelly Twins
Tuesday Mourning, Johanna Hurwitz
Synopsis: Johanna Hurwitz invites readers into the world of the funny, lovable Kelly twins, who are truly two of a kind.

Second-graders Arlene and Ilene Kelly are twins — identical twins to be exact — and they love being a pair. They love to dress alike, they have identical pet ferrets, and they do everything together. But being a twin is not always easy. When a set of triplets comes to school, Arlene and Ilene wonder whether triplets are more special than twins. At Halloween, on different streets in identical witch costumes, some neighbors think that the girls are one person trying to get extra candy. And when Arlene gets sick and has to visit the hospital, the twins each find out what it’s like to be one instead of two. But whether they’re together or apart, Arlene and Ilene know they’re lucky to have each other.
Publication Date: 09/24/13
Age Level: 5 - 8
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Wild Boy
Rob Lloyd Jones
Synopsis: Murder mystery meets carnival flair in a rollicking Victorian adventure centered on a boy with a unique appearance — and unique gifts.

In the seedy underworld of Victorian London, a boy is born and abandoned. Snatched up by an unscrupulous and abusive showman, Wild Boy, covered in hair from head to toe, becomes a sideshow freak. Isolated from other children and wickedly abused by the cruel master who bought him, Wild Boy becomes an avid observer, developing Sherlock Holmes–like deductive skills. Although he is tormented and insulted, kicked and spat at, his quick mind takes in everything he sees. When a murder occurs at the fair, Wild Boy is hastily accused. Can he use his powers of deduction to save himself? And will the talented and spunky young acrobat Clarissa be with him — or against him? Readers will be swept along by the cinematic pace, immersed in the vivid historical setting, and gripped by suspense as they wait to find out if a better fate could possibly await someone so very different.
Publication Date: 09/24/13
Age Level: 8 - 12
Genre: Adventure
Rooftoppers
Terry Fan, Katherine Rundell
Synopsis: Embrace possibility in this luminous novel about a girl in search of her past who discovers a secret rooftop world in Paris.

Everyone thinks that Sophie is an orphan. True, there were no other recorded female survivors from the shipwreck that left baby Sophie floating in the English Channel in a cello case, but Sophie remembers seeing her mother wave for help. Her guardian tells her it is almost impossible that her mother is still alive—but “almost impossible” means “still possible.” And you should never ignore a possible.

So when the Welfare Agency writes to her guardian, threatening to send Sophie to an orphanage, she takes matters into her own hands and flees to Paris to look for her mother, starting with the only clue she has— the address of the cello maker.

Evading the French authorities, she meets Matteo and his network of rooftoppers—urchins who live in the hidden spaces above the city. Together they scour the city in a search for Sophie’s mother—but can they find her before Sophie is caught and sent back to London? Or, more importantly, before she loses hope?

Phillip Pullman, author of the His Dark Materials series, calls Rooftoppers “the work of a writer with an utterly distinctive voice and a wild imagination.”
Publication Date: 09/24/13
Age Level: 8 - 12
Genre: Adventure
Task Force
Brian Falkner
Synopsis: A sci-fi military thriller perfect for kids who love Halo and Call of Duty!
 
They depend on each other. Humanity depends on them.
 
The final invasion is coming. The aliens have massed on the northeastern edge of Russia, waiting to attack as soon as the turbulent waters of the Bering Strait turn to ice. Recon Team Angel must act now.
 
It’s up to them to shepherd a task force upriver and infiltrate the aliens’ stronghold. They must cripple their enemies quickly and quietly. Luckily, Recon Team Angel was made for such missions. The six teens have been modified to look like aliens. They have spent years mastering alien culture so that they can talk, act—even think—like their enemies. But with their target in sight and time running out, can they save humanity and themselves?
Publication Date: 09/24/13
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
City of Devils
Alan Caum, Fernando Caire, Justin Robinson
Synopsis:

World War II was only the beginning. When the Night War ravages America, turning it into a country of monsters, humans become a downtrodden minority. Nick Moss is the only human private eye in town, and he's on the trail of a missing city councilor. With monsters trying to turn him - or, better yet, simply kill him - he's got to watch his back while trying to find his man. Or mummy, as the case may be. Once, it was the City of Angels. But now, Los Angeles is the City of Devils...and Nick has a devil of a job to do.

Publication Date: 09/24/13
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Mystery
The Arrow Catcher
Jim Mather
Synopsis: 1948. Young Jonathan Lusk’s life was perfect. Big Boston house. Swimming pool. Summers on the Cape. His father a Nobel Prize winning Harvard professor; his mother the beautiful only child of Boston socialites. When his parents get caught between rival Arab and Jewish faculty over the creation of the State of Israel, Jonathan’s life is turned upside down. He soon finds himself in Japan, living with his grandfather, former American Ambassador and a judge on the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunals. American opulence and comfort is abruptly replaced by subtle Japanese elegance and traditional austerity. The boy is thrust into a life among strangers and forced to navigate his way through a new country, foreign customs, unfamiliar language, and ultimately political intrigue that will threaten his life. This suspenseful story, one of personal survival, is a testament to a young boy’s perseverance and to human courage and loyalty that are sometimes found in unexpected places.
Publication Date: 09/21/13
Age Level: Mature Young Adult
Genre: Fiction
Love and Mischief in Middle School
Synopsis: This is a coming of age story of several neighborhood teens going into middle school. There they learn much more than what the teachers are dishing out. They learn how to navigate all the new things at middle school that are so different than what elementary school was like. Boys and girls learn about new feelings for each other as hormones start kicking in. They learn about mischief while pulling a few pranks, but in the end, no one gets into serious trouble. Just starting out in middle school, Jeannie is tiny and afraid. She has always lacked the self-confidence to fit in with the crowd. Will this be her time to finally make friends with the popular boys and girls or merely be a repeat of what made her cry at night last year. She is so far behind the other girls in development, maybe this will even be worse! Although there are many mischievous things happening along the way, we can see from the cover that at least some things are looking up. It is written at a young adult level and if it were a movie, it would probably be rated a PG13.
Publication Date: 09/19/13
Age Level: Mature Young Adult
Genre: Humor
Frozen
Melissa de la Cruz, Michael Johnston
Synopsis: “As fearless as a futuristic Game of Thrones.”— MARGARET STOHL, New York Times bestselling co-author of the Beautiful Creatures trilogy

From Melissa de la Cruz and Michael Johnston, the New York Times bestselling authors of the Blue Bloods and Witches of East End series.

Welcome to New Vegas, a city once covered in bling, now blanketed in ice. Like much of the destroyed planet, the place knows only one temperature—freezing. But some things never change. The diamond in the ice desert is still a 24-hour hedonistic playground and nothing keeps the crowds away from the casino floors, never mind the rumors about sinister sorcery in its shadows.
 
At the heart of this city is Natasha Kestal, a young blackjack dealer looking for a way out. Like many, she's heard of a mythical land simply called “the Blue.” They say it’s a paradise, where the sun still shines and the waters are turquoise. More importantly, it’s a place where Nat won’t be persecuted, even if her darkest secret comes to light.
 
But passage to the Blue is treacherous, if not impossible, and her only shot is to bet on a ragtag crew of mercenaries led by a cocky runner named Ryan Wesson there. Danger and deceit await on every corner, even as Nat and Wes find themselves inexorably drawn to each other. But can true love survive the lies? Fiery hearts collide in this fantastic tale of the evil men do and the awesome power within us all. This is a remarkable first book in a spellbinding new series about the dawn of a new kind of magic.
Publication Date: 09/17/13
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction

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