Tilt by Ellen Hopkins features a trio of stories involving love and all of its consequences. Jonathan Maberry unleashes his final zombie apocalypse novel, Flesh & Bone, while Sarah Rees Brennan introduces us to her new series, Unspoken: The Lynburg Legacy.
Three teens, three stories — all interconnected through their parents’ family relationships. As the adults pull away, caught up in their own dilemmas, the lives of the teens begin to tilt….
Mikayla, almost eighteen, is over-the-top in love with Dylan, who loves her back jealously. But what happens to that love when Mikayla gets pregnant the summer before their senior year — and decides to keep the baby?
Shane turns sixteen that same summer and falls hard in love with his first boyfriend, Alex, who happens to be HIV positive. Shane has lived for four years with his little sister’s impending death. Can he accept Alex’s love, knowing that his life, too, will be shortened?
Harley is fourteen — a good girl searching for new experiences, especially love from an older boy. She never expects to hurdle toward self-destructive extremes in order to define who she is and who she wants to be.
Love, in all its forms, has crucial consequences in this standalone novel.
Sons of the 613 by Michael Rubens
Beyond: A Ghost Story by Graham McNamee
Unspoken: The Lynburn Legacy by Sarah Rees Brennan
Shadowfell by Juliet Marillier
During her dangerous journey, she receives aid from the Good Folk, who tell her she must pass a series of tests in order to recognize her full potential. She also finds help from a handsome young man, Flint, who rescues her from certain death — but whose motives in doing so remain unclear. Neryn struggles to trust her only allies. They both hint that she alone may be the key to Alban’s release from Keldec’s rule. Homeless, unsure of who to trust, and trapped in an empire determined to crush her, Neryn must make it to Shadowfell not only to save herself, but to save Alban.
Hidden (Firelight) by Sophie Jordan
Shattered bonds.
Undying passion.
Jacinda was supposed to bond with Cassian, the “prince” of their pride. But she resisted her fate long before she fell in love with Will — a human and, worse, a hunter. When she ran away with Will, it ended in disaster, with Cassian’s sister, Miram, captured. Weighed down by guilt, Jacinda knows she must rescue her to set things right. Yet to do so she will have to venture deep into the heart of enemy territory.
The only way Jacinda can reach Miram is by posing as a prisoner herself, though once she assumes that disguise, things quickly spiral out of her control. As she learns more about her captors, she realizes that even if Will and Cassian can carry out their part of the plan, there’s no guarantee they’ll all make it out alive. But what Jacinda never could have foreseen is that escaping would be only the beginning…
Loyalties are tested and sacrifices are made in the explosive conclusion to Sophie Jordan’s Firelight trilogy.
Island of Doom (Hunchback Assignments) by Arthur Slade
Hanging by a Thread by Sophie Littlefield
Summer is the best part of the year in Winston, California, and the Fourth of July is the highlight of the season. People consider themselves lucky to live in the quaint, serene beachside town, and native Clare Knight, now a city girl, feels doubly lucky to be moving back there a week before the July festivities kick off.
But the perfect town Clare remembers has changed, and everyone is praying that this summer will be different from the last two — that this year’s Fourth of July festival won’t see one of their own vanish without a trace, leaving no leads and no suspects. The media are in a frenzy predicting a third disappearance, but the town depends on tourist dollars, so the residents of Winston are trying desperately to pretend nothing’s wrong.
And they’re not the only ones hiding something.
Clare has been blessed — or perhaps cursed — with a gift: she can see people’s pasts when she touches their clothes. And since she’s a seamstress who redesigns vintage clothing, her visions are frequent — and usually unwanted. When she stumbles across a denim jacket that once belonged to Amanda Stavros, last year’s Fourth of July victim, Clare sees her perfect town begin to come apart at the seams.
The Brides of Rollrock Island by Margo Lanagan
The witch Misskaella knows the way of drawing a girl from the heart of a seal, of luring the beauty out of the beast. And for a price a man may buy himself a lovely sea-wife. He may have and hold and keep her. And he will tell himself that he is her master. But from his first look into those wide, questioning, liquid eyes, he will be just as transformed as she. He will be equally ensnared. And the witch will have her true payment.
Margo Lanagan weaves an extraordinary tale of desire, despair, and transformation. With devastatingly beautiful prose, she reveals characters capable of unspeakable cruelty, but also unspoken love.
Vessel by Sarah Beth Durst
Liyana has trained her entire life to be the vessel of a goddess. The goddess will inhabit Liyana’s body and use magic to bring rain to the desert. But Liyana’s goddess never comes. Abandoned by her angry tribe, Liyana expects to die in the desert. Until a boy walks out of the dust in search of her.
Korbyn is a god inside his vessel, and a trickster god at that. He tells Liyana that five other gods are missing, and they set off across the desert in search of the other vessels. For the desert tribes cannot survive without the magic of their gods. But the journey is dangerous, even with a god’s help. And not everyone is willing to believe the trickster god’s tale.
The closer she grows to Korbyn, the less Liyana wants to disappear to make way for her goddess. But she has no choice: She must die for her tribe to live. Unless a trickster god can help her to trick fate — or a human girl can muster some magic of her own.
Flesh & Bone (Rot and Ruin) by Jonathan Maberry
Reeling from the devastation of Dust & Decay, Benny Imura and his friends plunge deep into the zombie-infested wastelands of the great Rot & Ruin. Benny, Nix, Lilah, and Chong journey through a fierce wilderness that was once America, searching for the jet they saw in the skies months ago. If that jet exists then humanity itself must have survived…somewhere. Finding it is their best hope for having a future and a life worth living.
But the Ruin is far more dangerous than any of them can imagine. Fierce animals hunt them. They come face to face with a death cult. And then there’s the zombies — swarms of them coming from the east, devouring everything in their paths. And these zombies are different. Faster, smarter, and infinitely more dangerous. Has the zombie plague mutated, or is there something far more sinister behind this new invasion of the living dead?
One thing Benny and his companions can’t afford to forget: In the great Rot & Ruin, everything wants to kill you.
Call the Shots by Don Calame
Coop is cooking up another sure-misfire scheme (big surprise), and this time the comedy plays out from Sean’s point of view. What’s the new master plan? Making a cheapo horror movie guaranteed to make Coop, Sean, and Matt filthy rich! It’s a terrible idea, and Sean knows it. But he actually is desperate for cash — and for a way to wipe that big fat L off his girlfriend-less forehead. But when he agrees to write a script about the attack of zombie-vampire humanzees, he has no idea just how powerful a chick magnet this movie will be. Suddenly Sean is juggling not one but three interested ladies. There’s his accidental-girlfriend-turned-psychotic-stalker, Evelyn. There’s the wicked hot actress from drama class, Leyna, who seems willing to do anything to land the starring role. And even his twin sister’s gothed-out best friend, Nessa, is looking at Sean in a whole new way. Will any of them wind up as Sean’s true leading lady? Will Sean stop being a doormat and finally start calling the shots?
Anything But Ordinary by Lara Avery
When she wakes up in the hospital, all Bryce can think of is her disastrous Olympic diving trial. But everything is different now. Bryce still feels seventeen, so how can her little sister be seventeen, too? Life went on without her while Bryce lay in a coma for five years. Her best friend and boyfriend have just graduated from college. Her parents barely speak. And everything she once dreamed of doing — winning a gold medal, traveling the world, falling in love — seems beyond her reach.
But Bryce has changed too, in seemingly impossible ways. She knows things she shouldn’t. Things that happened while she was asleep. Things that haven’t even happened yet. During one luminous summer, as she comes to understand that her dreams have changed forever, Bryce learns to see life for what it truly is: extraordinary.
Personal Effects by E.M. Kokie
Ever since his brother, T.J., was killed in Iraq, Matt feels like he’s been sleepwalking through life — failing classes, getting into fights, and avoiding his dad’s lectures about following in his brother’s footsteps. T.J.’s gone, but Matt can’t shake the feeling that if only he could get his hands on his brother’s stuff from Iraq, he’d be able to make sense of his death. But as Matt searches for answers about T.J.’s death, he faces a shocking revelation about T.J.’s life that suggests he may not have known T.J. as well as he thought. What he learns challenges him to stand up to his father, honor his brother’s memory, and take charge of his own life. With compassion, humor, and a compelling narrative voice, E.M. Kokie explores grief, social mores, and self-discovery in a provocative first novel.
Fish in the Sky by Fridrik Erlings
Josh Stephenson’s thirteenth year starts with a baffling sequence of events. His estranged father has just sent him a taxidermied falcon for his birthday. His flirty seventeen-year-old girl cousin has moved into his house, using his bedroom as a passageway and taking bubble baths in the unlockable bathroom. And now he’s gone AWOL from school to escape the locker room teasing about certain embarrassing anatomical changes. On top of all that, he’s in love, but wondering if dreams of love can ever come true. Hiding out in his secret hollow in a big rock by the sea, Josh tries to figure out once and for all: is his life being sucked into a black hole, or is this just being thirteen?
Flock (Stork #3) by Wendy Delsol
After surviving her (shall we say) intense adventure in Iceland, Katla is psyched to be back for a blissfully uneventful senior year of homecoming and fashion explorations. But her hopes of dodging unfinished business are dashed by the arrival of two Icelandic exchange students: Marik, an oddly alluring merman-in-disguise, and Jinky, a tough gypsy girl. It seems Katla not only enraged the Snow Queen by rescuing her boyfriend, Jack, she also was tricked into promising her frail baby sister to the water queen — and Marik has come to collect. What’s worse, Katla doesn’t dare confide in anyone lest she endanger them, so even her soul mate, Jack, is growing suspicious. And now Katla’s stork dreams, her guide for matching babies with mothers, have become strange and menacing as well. Hold on for a thrilling finale as the heroine of Stork and Frost calls on her wits (and her wit) to protect those she loves and face a final mythic disaster.
Daylight Saving by Edward Hogan
Daniel’s expectations for his forced vacation with his father at the Leisure World Holiday Complex are low. He hates sports, and his father is mostly lost in drink and depression. But then he sees a strange girl swimming in the fake lake, and everything changes. Lexi has a smart mouth and a killer swim stroke, but dark secrets swirl around her. She’s got bruises and cuts that seem to be getting worse instead of better. She’s always alone. And her watch is ticking backwards. When a dark figure begins to stalk Lexi and Daniel, the truth must come out. This gripping ghost story will raise goose bumps and questions: does a traumatic past mean the future is a foregone conclusion?
September 13 Releases
Dead Cat Bounce by Nic Bennett
Sixteen-year-old Jonah Lightbody is shocked when the world erupts in the greatest financial crisis it has ever seen… and the bank where he and his father work has blood on its balance sheet. The head trader claims that Jonah’s father is to blame — the trades that caused the crash came from his computer. Now, Jonah will have to race to uncover the truth. But what Jonah doesn’t realize is that he’s just been catapulted to the center of a global conspiracy where money reigns, human lives are collateral, and anyone will sell you out if the payday is large enough.
Dead Cat Bounce has all the action of Anthony Horowitz’s Alex Rider series combined with the seductiveness of Wall Street, the edge-of-your-seat pacing of The Bourne Identity, and the elaborate intrigue of Too Big to Fail. It’s the story of Jonah Lightbody and he’s on a mission to save the world no matter the price.
Josie Griffin Is Not a Vampire by Heather Swain
When former good-girl-turned-rebel Josie Griffin gets busted for what was in her mind perfectly acceptable revenge on her cheating dog of a boyfriend, she lands herself in anger management therapy. It could be worse: it could be juvie, or she could be a zombie cheerleader like the rest of her former friends. But there’s something strange about therapy — these are not normal kids. There’s the wannabe ladies man with a weird accent, Johann; the blindingly gorgeous Helios; Avis with his wild dreads; and Tarren, the sprite of a girl with a wicked temper. And all of them keep talking about “powers.” Josie knows that has to be impossible, but strange things start happening, and nothing weird ever happens in Indiana. After all, there’re no such things as vampires, werewolves, Greek gods, or fairies… right?
Nerve by Jeanne Ryan
When Vee is picked to be a player in NERVE, an anonymous game of dares broadcast live online, she discovers that the game knows her. They tempt her with prizes taken from her ThisIsMe page and team her up with the perfect boy, sizzling-hot Ian. At first it’s exhilarating — Vee and Ian’s fans cheer them on to riskier dares with higher stakes. But the game takes a twisted turn when they’re directed to a secret location with five other players for the Grand Prize round. Suddenly they’re playing all or nothing, with their lives on the line. Just how far will Vee go before she loses NERVE?
Debut author Jeanne Ryan delivers an un-putdownable suspense thriller.
Lindsey Lost by Suzanne Phillips
Even though Micah’s a star pitcher, his older sister Lindsey is the real deal — a runner so good, she has a shot at the Olympics. The two of them urge each other on, and are each other’s best support. Then the unthinkable happens: Lindsey is murdered, and Micah may have been the last person to see her. But he can’t remember what happened, no matter what their parents tell him, no matter what the police say. Did he witness his sister’s murder — or commit it? Can he recall the truth before his life is sentenced to end, too?