Winter Town by Stephen Emond

Stephen Emond’s novel WinterTown explores what it’s like when someone you think you know everything about becomes a mystery to you. Evan and Lucy have been friends since childhood. Since moving to Georgia after her parent’s divorce, Lucy has continued to visit every winter to see her dad and hang out with Evan. He looks forward to these visits but during one of them the usually upbeat Lucy shows up with a goth look and a dark and aloof personality. Evan figures that something must have happened to Lucy in the preceding year but can’t get her to tell him what.

Emond does a stellar job developing Lucy and Evan as well Winter Town’s many supporting characters. Evan starts to question his goal-oriented life and Lucy eventually opens up about what she has been through in the past year. The book also includes drawings by the author including excerpts from "Aelysthia," a comic Evan and Lucy work on in the book. 

John

Blizzard of Glass: The Halifax Explosion of 1917 by Sally Walker

December 6, 1917: A seemingly typical morning in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Families were getting ready to go to work and school; businesses were opening. But just before 9:00 a.m. there was activity in Halifax's harbor that were anything but typical. A munitions ship was getting ready to leave the dock as another ship was coming in the opposite direction in the area known as The Narrows. And this area is called that for a reason. Very difficult to navigate, with only captains with many years of experience are allowed to handle. But somehow, this was overlooked. And just after 9:00 a.m., the unthinkable happened - the two ships collided. And what happened next was one of the worst disasters known to man.

With a cargo full of TNT, the explosion that occurred was as strong as that of an atom bomb. It destroyed the town in an instant, as well as taking almost 2,000 lives. The devastation was extraordinary. And, as if this was not enough, a blizzard fell on the town the following day.

But Blizzard of Glass is much more than just a tale of destruction, it is a tale of hope. Through relief efforts from other provinces and the Untied States, the people of Halifax that survived this event were able to go on.

Reading more like a novel then non-fiction, readers can really feel what it might be like to be caught in such a horrific event.

Karen

Burning Blue by Paul Griffin

In this psychological thriller, Nicole Castro, the pretty, wealthy, most popular girl in the school is attacked and half her face ends up burnt by acid. The narrator of this story is Jay Nazzaro, an accomplished computer hacker who has been an outcast himself ever since a seizure left him with wet pants in front of the entire school. Jay, rather than starting gossip or making fun of Nicole like everyone else, decides to use his hacking skills to figure out who it was that attacked Nicole.

At first things do not go well between him and Nicole. Obviously, he was not in her circle prior to the incident. But as time goes on and he gets to know her better he realizes that she is not the snob he once thought she was and that she even has some issues of her own. Jay is more determined than ever to help her.

As he digs deeper into finding out what happened, there are many twists and turns along the way. And many, many complications. Jay knows he must find the answers before the acid thrower strikes again. And what he discovers not only shocks him, but may put him at risk as well.

Burning Blue is both a mystery and a love story, as well as a tale of desperation and healing.

Karen

Mysteries

Looking for a little intrigue or hoping to perfect your sleuthing skills? Read one of these great mystery and suspense novels!

 Guy Langman, Crime Scene Procrastinator by Josh Berk
Guy Langman can't be bothered with much. But when his friend Anoop wants Guy to join the forensics club with him in the hopes of impressing some girls, Guy thinks why not. They certainly aren't expecting to find a real dead body on the simulated crime scene they're assigned to collect evidence from but, after some undignified screaming, the two realize they have stumbled across a real, dead murder victim. Meanwhile, Guy has been looking into the past of his father who recently passed away. He apparently had a whole past Guy never even knew about. Could his father's past and the dead body be linked? Does Guy want to know? He's going to need all his new forensics skills to find out.

The Butterfly Clues by Kate Ellison
Lo Marin has grown up moving from one rundown city to the next and she's learned to cope by collecting quirky trinkets and souvenirs in each new place. But since her brother Oren's death, Lo's hoarding has blossomed into a full-blown obsession. She discovers a beautiful, antique butterfly pendant at a flea market and recognizes it as having been stolen from the home of a recently murdered girl. Now Lo can't get the murder out of her mind. As she attempts to piece together the mysterious "butterfly clues," Lo quickly finds herself caught up in a seedy, violent underworld much closer to home than she ever imagined--a world, she'll ultimately discover, that could hold the key to her brother's tragic death.

The Girl in the Park by Mariah Fredericks
When Wendy Geller's body is found in Central Park after the night of a rager, newspaper headlines scream,"Death in the Park: Party Girl Found Strangled." But shy Rain, once Wendy's best friend, knows there was more to Wendy than just "party girl." As she struggles to separate the friend she knew from the tangle of gossip and headlines, Rain becomes determined to discover the truth about the murder.

Social Suicide by Gemma Halliday
Twittercide: the killing of one human being by another while the victim is in the act of tweeting. Hartley figured writing for the Herbert Hoover High Homepage would be a pretty sweet gig. Pad the resume for college applications, get a first look at the gossip column, spend some time ogling the paper's brooding bad-boy editor, Chase Erikson. But on her first big story, Hartley discovers Sydney Sanders, a homecoming queen--hopeful, dead in her pool. Electrocuted while Tweeting. Now, in addition to developing a reputation as HHH's resident body finder, Hartley is stuck trying to prove that Sydney's death wasn't suicide.

The Night She Disappeared by April Henry
Gabie drives a Mini Cooper. She also works part time as a delivery girl at Pete's Pizza. One night, Kayla - another delivery girl - goes missing. To her horror, Gabie learns that the supposed kidnapper had asked if the girl in the Mini Cooper was working that night. Gabie can't move beyond the fact that Kayla's fate was really meant for her, and she becomes obsessed with finding Kayla. She teams up with Drew - who also works at Pete's - and, together, they set out to prove that Kayla isn't dead - and to find her before she is.

I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga
Jazz is a likable teenager. A charmer, some might say. But he's also the son of the world's most infamous serial killer, and for Dear Old Dad, "Take Your Son to Work Day" was year-round. Jazz has witnessed crime scenes the way cops wish they could--from the criminals' point of view. And now, even though Dad has been in jail for years, bodies are piling up in the sleepy town of Lobo's Nod. Again. In an effort to prove murder doesn't run in the family, Jazz joins the police in the hunt for this new serial killer. But Jazz has a secret--could he be more like his father than anyone knows?

A Girl Named Digit by Annabel Monaghan
Farrah "Digit" Higgins has left her geek self behind in another school district so she can blend in with the popular crowd at Santa Monica High and actually enjoy her senior year. But when Farrah, the daughter of a UCLA math professor, unknowingly cracks a terrorist group's number sequence, her laid-back senior year gets a lot more interesting. Soon she is personally investigating the case, on the run from terrorists, and faking her own kidnapping--all while trying to convince a young, hot FBI agent to take her seriously.

Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone by Kat Rosenfield
Becca has always longed to break free. Free from her backwater hometown. Free from its small-town gossip and dead-end lives. But the horrifying discovery of a dead body--an outsider, Amelia Anne--on the morning after graduation sends Becca into an unexpected tailspin. As the violence of the real world creeps close to home, Becca retreats, paralyzed from moving forward for the first time in her life. The details of Amelia Anne's final, harrowing moments play out against Becca's own out-of-control summer as Becca's and Amelia's parallel stories twist the reader closer and closer to the horrifying truth.

The Book of Blood and Shadow by Robin Wasserman
When the night began, Nora had two best friends and an embarrassingly storybook one true love. When it ended, Chris was dead. His girlfriend Adriane, Nora's best friend, was catatonic. And Max, Nora's boyfriend, was gone. Max was also--according to the police--a murderer. Desperate to prove his innocence, Nora follows the trail of blood ultimately to Prague. She is soon drawn into a dark web of secret societies and shadowy conspirators, all searching for the Lumen Dei--an ancient machine purported to allow direct communication with God. Unbeknownst to her, Nora now holds the crucial key to unlocking its secrets.

Kimberly

Waiting by Carol Lynch Williams

London, the narrator of Carol Lynch Williams’ novel in verse Waiting, lives in Florida with her parents and with the memory of her late brother Zach hanging over her family. Her mother has not spoken to her since Zach’s death. Her father seems warm by comparison, but it is obvious Zach’s death has also deeply affected him. London has a strained relationship with Taylor, her former boyfriend who was also a friend of Zach’s and soon starts to develop feelings for Jesse, the new guy at school. In her grief-stricken state, London rarely makes good choices when it comes to Taylor and Jesse.

 London’s parents are former missionaries and she and Zach became best friends as their family traveled from country to country together. Zach’s death strains the religious beliefs of all three surviving family members. London constantly questions her faith. Her mom has quit going to church altogether while her dad continues to work for the church and hold on to his belief that Zach’s death was all part of God’s plan.

Williams is very slow to reveal how Zach died and this helps build tension in the novel. It also makes Waiting a novel about how people deal with the death of a loved one instead of a novel about why someone died. Waiting is an honest and moving look at a difficult subject.

John

Because It Is My Blood by Gabrielle Zevin

Because It Is My Blood is the second novel in Gabrielle Zevin’s futuristic Birthright series following All These Things I’ve Done. Zevin continues the story of Anya Balanchine, who is a part of the Balanchine crime family. The Balanchines have made their money selling their own brand of chocolate, which is illegal in the late twenty-first century America Zevin sets the book in. Along with the crime family drama, Anya’s relationship with on again, off again boyfriend Win— whose father is running for district attorney—continues and leads to many complications for her. Among these are Win’s father getting her sent back to a juvenile detention center on trumped up charges in order to help his campaign. Her brief imprisonment leads her to break out, with quite a lot of assistance, and end up on a cacao farm in Mexico.

Because It Is My Blood was not quite as strong as the first book in the series, mainly because the plot meanders somewhat when Anya is hiding in Mexico. However, the ending was very strong and Zevin has set up what should be an exciting final book in the series.

John

Romantic Reads

Okay, love doesn't always suck. Enjoy the romance. Happy Valentine's Day!

Love? Maybe by Heather Hepler
Just because Piper's birthday is on Valentine's Day does not mean she's a romantic. In fact, after watching her father and then her stepfather leave, she's pretty sure she doesn't believe in love at all. Then her friends concoct a plan to find them all Valentine's dates, and somehow Piper finds herself with the most popular guy in school. But true love never follows a plan and a string of heartfelt gifts from a secret admirer has Piper wondering if she might be with the wrong guy.

My Life Next Door by Huntley Fitzpatrick
The Garretts are everything the Reeds are not: loud, numerous, messy, affectionate. And every day from her balcony perch, seventeen-year-old Samantha Reed wishes she was one of them. Until one summer evening, Jase Garrett climbs her terrace and changes everything. As the two fall fiercely in love, Jase's family makes Samantha one of their own. Then in an instant, the bottom drops out of her world and she is suddenly faced with an impossible decision. Which perfect family will save her? Or is it time she saved herself?

Epic Fail by Claire LaZebnik
At Coral Tree Prep in Los Angeles, who your parents are can make or break you. Case in point: As the son of Hollywood royalty, Derek Edwards is pretty much prince of the school--not that he deigns to acknowledge many of his loyal subjects. As the daughter of the new principal, Elise Benton isn't exactly on everyone's must-sit-next-to-at-lunch list. When Elise's beautiful sister catches the eye of the prince's best friend, Elise gets to spend a lot of time with Derek, making her the envy of every girl on campus. Except she refuses to fall for any of his rare smiles and instead warms up to his enemy, the surprisingly charming social outcast Webster Grant. But in this hilarious tale of fitting in and flirting, not all snubs are undeserved, not all celebrity brats are bratty, and pride and prejudice can get in the way of true love for only so long.

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
Anna is looking forward to her senior year in Atlanta, where she has a great job, a loyal best friend, and a crush on the verge of becoming more. Which is why she is less than thrilled about being shipped off to boarding school in Paris--until she meets Etienne St. Clair: perfect, Parisian (and English and American, which makes for a swoon-worthy accent), and utterly irresistible. The only problem is that he's taken, and Anna might be too if anything comes of her almost-relationship back home. As winter melts into spring, will a year of romantic near-misses end with the French kiss Anna has long awaited?

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith
Who would have guessed that four minutes could change everything? Today should be one of the worst days of Hadley Sullivan's life. Having missed her flight, she's stuck at JFK airport and late to her father's second wedding, which is taking place in London and involves a soon-to-be stepmother Hadley's never even met. Then she meets the perfect boy in the airport's cramped waiting area. His name is Oliver, he's British, and he's sitting in her row. A long night on the plane passes in the blink of an eye, and Hadley and Oliver lose track of each other in the airport chaos upon arrival. Can fate intervene to bring them together once more?

Unbreak My Heart by Melissa Walker
Sophomore year broke Clementine Williams' heart. She fell for her best friend's boyfriend and long story short: he's excused, but Clem is vilified and she heads into summer with zero social life. Enter her parents' plan to spend the summer on their sailboat. Normally the idea of being stuck on a tiny boat with her parents and little sister would make Clem break out in hives, but floating away sounds pretty good right now. Then she meets James at one of their first stops along the river. He and his dad are sailing for the summer and he's just the distraction Clem needs. Can he break down Clem's walls and heal her broken heart?

Kimberly