Showing posts with label fantasy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fantasy. Show all posts

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Science Fiction Pick of the Week: A Memory of Light

A Memory of Light  by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

In the Field of Merrilor the rulers of the nations gather to join behind Rand al'Thor, or to stop his plan to break the seals on the Dark One's prison--which may be a sign of his madness, or the last hope for humankind. Egwene, the Amyrlin Seat, leans toward the former. All humanity is in perill--and the outcome will be decided in Shayol Ghul itself. The Wheel is turning, and the Age is coming to its end. The Last Battle will determine the fate of the world. For twenty years The Wheel of Time has enthralled more than forty million readers in over thirty languages. A Memory of Light brings this majestic fantasy creation to its richly satisfying conclusion.

Click on the title to place it on hold at the Ventress Memorial Library!

Read a great book lately? Want to recommend it as Pick of the Week? Email me!

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Teen Pick of the Week: Beautiful Creatures Movie Tie-In!

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia

Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the small Southern town of Gatlin has ever seen, and she's struggling to conceal her power, and a curse that has haunted her family for generations. But even within the overgrown gardens, murky swamps and crumbling graveyards of the forgotten South, a secret cannot stay hidden forever. Ethan Wate, who has been counting the months until he can escape from Gatlin, is haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl he has never met. When Lena moves into the town's oldest and most infamous plantation, Ethan is inexplicably drawn to her and determined to uncover the connection between them.

Coming out in Theaters on February 14, 2013!

Click on the title to place it on hold at the Ventress Memorial Library!

Read a great teen book recently? Want to recommend it as Teen Pick of the Week? Email me!

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Teen Pick of the Week: Finale

Finale by Becca Fitzpatrick

Nora and Patch thought their troubles were behind them. Hank is gone and they should be able to put his ugly vendetta to rest. But in Hank's absence, Nora has become the unwitting head of the Nephilim and must finish what Hank began. Which ultimately mean destroying the fallen angels--destroying Patch. Nora will never let that happen, so she and Patch make a plan; lead everyone to believe they have broken up, and work the system from the inside. But the best-laid plans often go awry. Nora is put through the paces in her new role and finds herself drawn to an addictive power she never anticipated. As the battle lines are drawn, Nora and Patch must confront the differences that have always been between them and either choose to ignore them or let them destroy the love they have always fought for.

Click on the title to place it on hold at the Ventress Memorial Library!

Read a great teen book recently? Want to recommend it as Teen Pick of the Week? Email me!

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Teen Pick of the Week: Hidden

Hidden: A House of Night Novel by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast

At last Zoey has what she wanted, the truth is out. Neferet's evil has been exposed, and the High Council is no longer on her side--but she's far from done wreaking havoc in the vampyre world. First, a mysterious fire ravages the stables. Then, Neferet makes a devastating move that will test them all. With the seeds of distrust sown and Darkness breeding chaos at the House of Night, everyone must band together--but that's proving to be more difficult than ever before.

Click on the title to place it on hold at the Ventress Memorial Library!

Read a great teen book recently? Want to recommend it as Teen Pick of the Week? Email me!

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Teen Pick of the Week: Nevermore

Nevermore: The Final Maximum Ride Adventure by James Patterson
In the beginning, there was Maximum Ride. A girl. A fighter. A leader. A superhuman with a mission to save the world. She's gone to the ends of the earth seeking her destiny. And now the end isn't near... It's Here.

Click on the title to place it on hold at the Ventress Memorial Library!

Read a great teen book recently? Want to recommend it as Teen Pick of the Week? Email me!

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Fiction Pick of the Week: Shadow of Night

Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness
Book Two of the All Souls trilogy plunges Diana and Matthew into Elizabethan London, a world of spies and subterfuge, and a coterie of Matthew's old friends, the mysterious School of Night. The mission is to locate a witch to tutor Diana and to find traces of Ashmole 782, but as the net of Matthew's past tightens around them they embark on a very different journey, one that takes them into the heart of the fifteen-hundred-year-old vampire's shadowed history and secrets. For Matthew Clairmont, time travel is no simple matter; nor is Diana's search for the key to understanding her legacy.

Read the first in the series, if you haven't already:  A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Murder, Mystery, and Oddities

Say You're Sorry by Michael Robotham
When pretty and popular teenagers Piper Hadley and Tash McBain disappear one Sunday morning, the search for them captivates a nation, but the girls are never found. Three years later, during the worst blizzard in a century, a husband and wife are brutally killed in the farmhouse where Tash once lived. A suspect is in custody--a troubled young man who hears voices and claims that on the night of the disappearance he saw a girl being chased by a snowman. Convinced that Piper and Tash might still be alive, clinical psychologist Joe O'Loughlin and ex-cop Vincent Ruiz persuade the police to reopen the investigation. But they are racing against time to save the girls from someone with an evil, twisted, and calculating mind.

Rapture by J.R. Ward
Mels Carmichael, reporter for the Caldwell Courier Journal, gets the shock of her life when a man stumbles in front of her car outside the local cemetery. After the accident, his amnesia is just the kind of mystery she likes to solve, but she soon discovers they're in over their heads with his past. Over their heads with passion too.

Dark Currents by Jacqueline Carey
The Midwestern resort town Pemkowet boasts a diverse population: eccentric locals, wealthy summer people, and tourists by the busload--not to mention faeries, sprites, vampires, naiads, ogres and a whole host of eldritch folk, presided over by Hel, a reclusive Norse goddess. To Daisy Johanssen, who was fathered by an incubus and raised by a single mother, it's home. And as Hel's enforcer and the designated liaison to the Pemkowet Police Department, she has to ensure the relations between the mundane and eldritch communities run smoothly. But when a young man from a nearby college drowns--and signs point to eldritch involvement--the town's booming paranormal tourism trade is at stake. Teamed up with her childhood crush, Officer Cody Fairfax, a sexy werewolf on the down-low, Daisy must solve the crime--and keep a tight rein on the darker side of her nature. For if she's ever tempted to invoke her demonic birthright, it could accidentally unleash nothing less than Armageddon.

Friday, September 21, 2012

Treasure Island, H.G. Wells, and Tammyland

Silver: Return to Treasure Island by Andrew Motion
It's almost forty years after the events of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. Jim Hawkins now runs an inn called Hispaniola on the English coast with his son, Jim, and Long John Silver has returned to England to live in obscurity with his daughter, Natty. Their lives are quiet and unremarkable; their adventures have seemingly ended. But for Jim and Natty, the adventure is just beginning. One night, Natty approaches young Jim with a proposition: return to Treasure Island and find the remaining treasure that their fathers left behind so many years before.

The Map of the Sky by Felix Palma
1898. New York socialite Emma Harlow agrees to marry well-to-do Montgomery Gilmore, but only if he accepts her audacious challenge: to reproduce the Martian invasion featured in H.G. Well's popular novel The War of the Worlds. Meanwhile in London, Wells is unexpectedly made privy to certain objects, apparently of extraterrestrial origin, that were discovered decades earlier on an ill-fated expedition to the Antarctic. On that same expedition was an American crew member named Edgar Allan Poe, whose inexplicable experiences in the frozen wasteland would ultimately inspire him to create one of his most enduring works of literature. When eerie, alien-looking cylinders begin appearing on the outskirts of London, Wells is certain it is all part of an elaborate hoax. But soon, to his great horror, he realizes that a true invasion of the earth has indeed begun.

Miss Me When I'm Gone by Emily Arsenault
Author Gretchen Waters made a name for herself with her bestseller Tammyland--a memoir about her divorce and her admiration for country music icons Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn, and Dolly Parton that was praised as a "honky-tonk Eat, Pray, Love." But her writing career is cut abruptly short when she dies from a fall down a set of stone library steps. It is a tragic accident and no suspects foul play, certainly not Gretchen's best friend from college, Jamie, who's been named the late author's literary executor. But there's an unfinished manuscript Gretchen left behind that is much darker than Tammyland: a book ostensibly about male country musicians yet centered on a murder in Gretchen's family that haunted her childhood. In its pages, Gretchen seems to be speaking to Jamie from beyond the grave--suggesting her death was no accident and that Jamie must piece together the story someone would kill to keep untold.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Teen Pick of the Week: The Serpent's Shadow

The Serpent's Shadow by Rick Riordan
When young magicians Carter and Sadie Kane learned how to follow the path of the Ancient Egyptian gods, they knew they would have to play an important role in restoring Ma'at--order--to the world. What they didn't know is how chaotic the world would become. The Chaos snake Apophis is loose and threatening to destroy the earth in three days' time. The magicians are divided. The gods are disappearing, and those who remain are weak. Walt, one of Carter and Sadie's most gifted initiates, is doomed and can already feel his life force ebbing. Zia is too busy babysitting the senile sun god, Ra, to be of much help. What are a couple of teenagers and a handful of young trainees to do?

Click on the title to place it on hold at the Ventress Memorial Library!

Read a great teen book recently? Want to recommend it as Teen Pick of the Week? Email me!

Friday, August 31, 2012

New Young Adult this week!

Virals by Kathy Reichs
Adventure has always been in fourteen-year-old Tory Brennan's blood. After all, she is the niece of the world-famous forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. So when she moves to middle of nowhere Morris Island, South Carolina, to live with a marine biologist she's never known, Tory does the best she can to adjust to her new life. There she meets a group of local kids who are just as "Sci-Phile" as she is--science geeks who've grown up exploring the backwoods marshlands of nearby Loggerhead Island. But there's something strange going on at the Loggerhead Research Institute...maybe even something deadly. After rescuing a stray wolfdog pup from a top-secret lab, Tory and her friends are exposed to a rare strain of canine parvovirus, changing them--and their DNA--forever.

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray
The fifty contestants in the Miss Teen Dream Pageant thought this was going to be a fun trip to the beach, where they could parade in their state-appropriate costumes and compete in front of the cameras. But sadly, their airplane had another idea, crashing on a desert island and leaving the survivors stranded with little food, little water, and practically no eyeliner. What's a beauty queen to do? Continue to practice for the talent portion of the program--or wrestle snakes to the ground? Get a perfect tan--or learn to run wild? And what should happen when the sexy pirates show up?

Fire by Kristin Cashore
It is not a peaceful time in the Dells. Young King Nash clings to the throne, while rebel lords, in the north and south, build armies to unseat him. War is coming. The mountains and forests are filled with spies and thieves. This is where Fire lives, a girl whose startling appearance is impossibly irresistible and who can control the minds of everyone around her. Everyone...except Prince Brigan.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Teen Pick of the Week: Steel

Steel by Carrie Vaughn
Sixteen-year-old Jill has fought in dozens of fencing tournaments, but she has never held a sharpened blade. When she finds a corroded sword piece on a Caribbean beach, she is instantly intrigued and pockets it as her own personal treasure. The broken tip holds secrets, though, and it transports Jill through time to the deck of a pirate ship. Stranded in the past and surrounded by strangers, she is forced to sign on as crew. But a pirate's life is bloody and brief, and as Jill learns about the dark magic that brought her there, she forms a desperate scheme to get home--one that risks everything in a duel to the death with a villainous pirate captain.

Click on the title to place it on hold at the Ventress Memorial Library!

Read a great teen book recently? Want to recommend it as Teen Pick of the Week? Email me!

Friday, July 6, 2012

Teen Pick of the Week: Hunger

Hunger by Jackie Morse Kessler
Lisabeth Lewis has a black steed, a set of scales, and a new job: she's been appointed Famine. How will an anorexic seventeen-year-old girl from from the suburbs fare as one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse? Traveling the world on her steed gives Lisa freedom from her troubles at home--her constant battle with hunger and the struggle to hide it from the people who care about her. But being Famine forces her to go places where hunger is a painful part of everyday life and to face the horrifying effects of her awesome new power. Can Lisa find a way to harness that power--and the courage to fight her own inner demons?

Click on the title to place it on hold at the Ventress Memorial Library!

Read a great teen book recently? Want to recommend it as Teen Pick of the Week? Email me!

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Teen Pick of the Week: Of Poseidon

Of Poseidon byAnna Banks
Galen, a Syrena prince, searches land for a girl he's heard can communicate with fish. It’s while Emma is on vacation at the beach that she meets Galen. Although their connection is immediate and powerful, Galen's not fully convinced that Emma's the one he's been looking for. That is, until a deadly encounter with a shark proves that Emma and her Gift may be the only thing that can save his kingdom. He needs her help--no matter what the risk.

Click on the title to place it on hold at the Ventress Memorial Library!

Read a great teen book recently? Want to recommend it as Teen Pick of the Week? Email me!

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Teen Pick of the Week: Another Jekyll, Another Hyde

Another Jekyll, Another Hyde by Daniel and Dina Nayeri
When Thomas's Billionaire father marries French governess Nicola Vileroy, high society is all abuzz--but Thomas, the most popular student at Marlowe, is just plain high. Ever since his girlfriend Belle dumped him, he's been spending less time with other friends and more time getting wasted at club. But after someone slips him a designer drug one night--and his stepmother seems to know way too much about his private life--things really start to get crazy. As Thomas's blackouts give way to a sinister voice inside his head, and as news of a vicious hate crime has students on edge, Thomas comes to the sickening realization that Madame Vileroy is far more sinister and powerful than your average wicked stepmother, and has made him the victim of a horrifying supernatural plan.

Click on the title to place it on hold at the Ventress Memorial Library!

Read a great teen book recently? Want to recommend it as Teen Pick of the Week? Email me!

Thursday, March 29, 2012

New York Times Bestsellers

Put your name on hold for any of these New York Times Bestsellers by clicking on the titles!

Number 1 this week is Jodi Picoult's new book Lone Wolf. The children of a man who studies wolves must make difficult decisions when he is seriously injured in an accident.

Number 5 this week is Private Games by James Patterson and Mark Sullivan. Peter Knight pursues a murderer who is trying to destroy the London Olympics.

Number 10 this week is The Wolf Gift by Anne Rice. Anne Rice is back with a tale about the making of a modern werewolf.

Number 6 and 7 are Jonathan Kellerman's Victims and Defending Jacob by William Landay. In Kellerman's book, the Los Angeles psychologist-detective Alex Delaware and the detective Milo Sturgis track down a homicidal maniac. Landay's book is about an assistant district attorney's life that is shaken when his 14-year-old son is accused of murder.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Teen Pick of the Week: Bloodrose

Bloodrose by Andrea Cremer
Calla has always welcomed war. But now that the final battle is upon her, there's more at stake than fighting. There's saving Ren, even if it incurs Shay's wrath. There's keeping Ansel safe, even if he's been branded a traitor. There's proving herself as the pack's alpha, facing unnamable horrors, and ridding the world of the Keeper's magic once and for all. And then there's deciding what to do when the war ends. If Calla makes it out alive, that is. In the final installment of the Nightshade trilogy, Andrea Cremer creates a novel with twists and turns that will keep you on the edge of your seat until its final pages.

Check out the first and second book in this trilogy; Nightshade and Wolfsbane by Andrea Cremer.

Click on the title to place it on hold at the Ventress Memorial Library!

Read a great teen book recently? Want to recommend it as Teen Pick of the Week? Email me!

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Teen Pick of the Week: Pathfinder

Pathfinder by Orson Scott Card
Rigg is well trained at keeping secrets. Only his father knows the truth about Rigg's strange talent for seeing paths of people's pasts. But when his father dies, Rigg is stunned to learn just how many secrets Father kept from him--secrets about Rigg's own past, his identity, and his destiny. And when Rigg discovers that he has the power not only to see the past, but also to change it, his future suddenly becomes anything but certain.

Click on the title to place it on hold at the Ventress Memorial Library!

Read a great teen book recently? Want to recommend it as Teen Pick of the Week? Email me!

Friday, March 2, 2012

Oz, Monsters, and Delta Force

Out of Oz by Gregory Maguire
Once peaceful and prosperous, the spectacular Land of Oz is knotted with social unrest: The Emerald City is mounting an invasion of Munchkinland, Glinda is under house arrest, and the Cowardly Lion is on the run from the law. And look who's knocking at the door. It's none other than Dorothy. Yes. That Dorothy. Yet amidst all this chaos, Elphaba's granddaughter, the tiny green baby born at the close of Son of a Witch, has come of age. Now it is up to Rain to take up her broom--and her legacy--in an Oz wracked by war.

The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff
In the wake of a wildly disastrous affair with her married archaeology professor, Willie Upton arrives on the doorstep of her ancestral home in Templeton, New York, where her hippie-turned-born-again-Baptist mom, Vi, still lives. Willie expects to be able to hide in the place that has been home to her family for generations, but the monster's death changes the fabric of the quiet, picture-perfect town her ancestors founded. Even further, Willie learns that the story her mother had always told her about her father has all been a lie: he wasn't the random man from a free-love commune that Vi had led her to imagine, but someone else entirely. Someone from this very town.

Black Site by Dalton Fury
After September 11, 2001, Delta Force troop commander Dalton Fury was given the secret mission to hunt down and kill the most-wanted man in the world, the details of which were recounted in his extraordinary New York Times bestseller Kill Bin Laden. Now Fury draws upon his hard-won combat experience--and his gift for true-to-life storytelling--in a thriller that's as close to reality as readers can get.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Teen Pick of the Week: Jinx

Jinx by Meg Cabot
The only thing Jean Honeychurch hates more than her boring name (not Jean Marie, or Jeanette, just...Jean) is her all-too-appropriate nickname, Jinx. Misfortune seems to follow her everywhere she goes--which is why she's thrilled to be moving in with her aunt and uncle in New York LinkCity. Maybe when she's halfway across the country, Jinx can finally outrun her bad luck. Or at least escape the havoc she's caused back in her small hometown. But trouble has definitely followed Jinx to New York. And it's causing big problems for her cousin Tory, who is not happy to have the family black sheep around. Beautiful, glamorous Tory is hiding a dangerous secret--one that she's sure Jinx is going to reveal.

Click on the title to place it on hold at the Ventress Memorial Library!

Read a great teen book recently? Want to recommend it as Teen Pick of the Week? Email me!

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Teen Pick of the Week: Wicked Lovely

Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr
Aislinn has always seen faeries. Powerful and dangerous, they walk hidden in the mortal world. When the rules that have kept Aislinn safe fro them stop working, everything is suddenly on the line: her freedom; her best friend, Seth; her life, everything. Faery intrigue, mortal love, and the clash of ancient rules and modern expectations swirl together in Melissa Marr's stunning twenty-first century faery tale.

Click on the title to place it on hold at the Ventress Memorial Library!

Read a great teen book recently? Want to recommend it as Teen Pick of the Week? Email me!