After surviving the harrowing experience of the Dust Bowl, Callie LeRoux feels invincible. She has her life figured out and loves her stylish job at a film company, where she can live the fast life in the glamourous era of the 1920s. Despite her success, she cannot let this distract her from her true mission, finding her mother. She finds herself tangled up in a world of magic, caught in between conflicting fairy clans.
Emma's life is not going so well at the moment; she can't get along with her step-father, her grades are failing and the only person she seems to connect with is Caleb, a boy with a terrible reputation. She longs to be comforted by her mother, but Emma's mom is brain dead, only kept alive by life support in order to bring a baby to term. Emma's grief has caused her to withdraw from the world, but Caleb, who has suffered his own tragedy, appears to be the only person who can make Emma feel alive again. Will she allow Caleb to help her heal?
When an orphaned girl named Samantha gets an opportunity to meet her mom, she takes it. She goes with two men and a giant she doesn't know to another world to meet the person who abandoned her on a doorstep, but it is a much bigger adventure than she expected. She has to fight vampires, werewolves, and she discovers something special and amazing about herself and her mother.
Astrid is not your average student. She is a trouble maker with billionaire parents. The elite Bristol Academy has recently caught her in another one of her ploys, cheating on an exam. This is her last straw as she is kicked out of the school. This is strange to Astrid, after all she did cheat, but she isn’t one to get caught. This means one of her accomplices ratted on her, and Astrid wants revenge. After being kicked out of her last private school, Astrid’s world turns upside down as she’s trapped in public school.
Set in Australia, Out of This Place is the story of three friends who just want to get out of their respective situations and set out on their own adult paths.
Luke has an average family, plays sports, and has a job. What he doesn't have is a plan for his future. He struggles to make important decisions about his schooling and career, and stresses over the predicaments of his two best friends.
Beholding Bee is a book about a girl who has to brave people laughing at her because of her birthmark. Bee is an orphan who is allowed to stay with a woman at the circus. When Bee and her guardian Pauline get separated by a man, Bee needs support more than ever. After Pauline leaves, Bee runs away with her dog and pig. Soon she meets her great grandmothers and they send her to school. At school she learns that she doesn’t need to hide, but needs to show that she isn’t scared to be different or to show her birthmark or her feelings.
Pie in the Sky is a fictional story from the 1960's time period; the setting is in North Carolina. The main characters are a girl named Abby Lovett, who is just entering high school, and two horses named True Blue and Pie in the Sky. When the plot develops, Abby takes True Blue to a learning clinic she’s not quite ready for. And then something happens that Abby was not expecting, and the story develops from there.
Steampunk!: An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories is exactly what it says on the cover--a collection of rich and strange stories that all, in some way, have to do with the theme of steampunk. When I first heard of this book, I was instantly intrigued. Writing a steampunk novel is already tough work, setting the scene and all, but imagining fourteen short stories that all would create unique steampunk worlds in just a few pages was beyond me. Thankfully, I had the opportunity to read and review this book!
When treasure is thought to be located in a usually boring coastal town in California, thousands of treasure hunters gather. They're all determined to find the treasure, but none of them want it more than four 7th graders. Will, Mikey, Susan and Evelyn know that they can find the treasure by each using their separate skills. But the treasure is hidden well, and the kids are up against a lot of grown-ups with all kinds of fancy gadgets.
No Other Story is a light-hearted fantasy book about the Cheeseman family and a time machine. They are trying to save their mother and wife, Olivia. They try to travel back in time to prevent her death, but they end up in Some Times instead. In Some Times, everything happens at once. The Cheesemans find dinosaurs and Egyptians living alongside Neanderthals and modern day New Yorkers. With the help of old friends and new friends, they attempt a daring escape from Some Times to save Olivia’s life.
