Winner Fiction: Young Adult The 2020 Best Book Awards
The epic conclusion of The Avalonia Chronicles is here…
War is on the horizon. Queen Morgana's power grows every day, aided by her army and unseen dark forces. Illiador and Eldoren have fallen completely under her reign. There is no one who can stand against her now-except one.
Aurora Firedrake has finally come to understand the power she is capable of wielding, but is it too late? Stripped of her allies and those she holds dear, failure seems inevitable. To win the war for Avalonia, she must journey to the deepest parts of the Darklands to find a way to take back all she has lost, before Morgana opens the Book of Abraxas and releases the greatest evil the world has ever known.
Aurora, the Dawnstar, is all that stands between Avalonia and total destruction. But can she find the strength to unite her people and defeat Morgana and her wicked forces? Or will Avalonia be lost forever?
Spooky arrives at a wilderness boot camp for troubled teens with two suitcases and an ultimatum: either she keeps her head down over the summer or she won’t be allowed home at the end of it. All she wants to do is survive the pyros, bullies, and power-tripping counselors, get through senior year, and start her life somewhere new. She’ll do just about anything to protect that future.
But when an encounter with another camper goes awry and ends with Spooky hiding in the woods, something else finds her. Something ancient and powerful has sent out feelers, hoping to catch a human alone. For its purposes, one human is as good as any other. Even a delinquent teen will do.
If Spooky wants to survive to see any kind of future, she will have to figure out how to gain leverage over a god. And as if the one wasn’t bad enough, a pantheon of dark entities are lining up between her and the life she’s always wanted...
For fantasy fans, comes one girl’s journey through dark worlds of magic, gods, and monsters.
Tia, the most powerful witch of her time, leaves her position at the Court of Wizards and, with a scarf hiding her purple locks, passes through the ancient walls of Paiza. As an assistant to the court magician, Tia spends her days brewing trickster potions, gossiping with Anna, navigating her way through the inventions and mechanics of Paiza and, most importantly, hiding her identity. Tia’s dream of a calm, simple life starts to become a reality, until the day she meets Rhein, the King of Paiza, with his captivating gray eyes and cherished pocket watch, and the whispers of war reach her. Will Tia be forced to reveal her true identity in order to protect her new home? Or will her power erupt and shatter her life once more?
Seventeen-year-old Lauren is a closet poet trying to keep her messy family together. She juggles responsibility for her two younger sisters and her bipolar mother. When her allegedly now sober father wants back into their lives to reconnect, everything spins out of control and Lauren’s writing is her only escape.
Just a Girl in the Whirl is about family, forgiveness and being bold enough to create your own life, your own way.
Fourteen-year-old Jillian has no idea who her dad is but uses her banishment from summer parties in Toronto to isolation in Banff National Park to track him down. But it's not easy. A reclusive log cabin, a grumpy aunt, few trips to civilization and seriously-no cell phone reception?
When she's not searching for her dad, Jillian pursues an elusive girl, Mika, who lives on her own in the wilderness. Together they track down a poacher and Jillian reunites Mika with her family. All should be well - but it isn't. Big secrets in Jillian's family surface, Jillian's boyfriend ditches her, and her dad wants proof he's her dad. Like she'd make this up?
Jillian swaps her English saddle for a western one as she unravels the truth about who she really is. What she learns changes everything she knows about herself and demands an inner strength she never knew she had.
It is 1976, William Smith and his family pack up and move to Albany, New York. He enrolls into St. John Catholic School. If going to a new school isn't hard enough, he is starting middle school. William is a kid obsessed with getting good grades and playing basketball. Meanwhile, Patrick Thompson is a kid that has gone to St. John since kindergarten. Patrick has been bullied for years, and now he has decided to be the bully. As sixth grade starts, he is ready to strike back. Just wait until William and Patrick’s worlds collide...Then there is Mrs. Luckmeyer, their new homeroom teacher. There are strict teachers, and then there is Mrs. Luckmeyer. Each student must follow the rules and get straight A’s, otherwise watch out for her punishments. William, Patrick, and the other students will encounter many adventures along the way. But will they survive sixth grade, you must read to find out...
In the spirit of classic Judy Blume coming of age stories, Of Butterflies and Bullies is a sincere story of a 10-year-old girl, Molly, who learns that she has to find her own strength during a tumultuous and unexpected experience at a new school. It’s creative non-fiction, based on the author's life as a young girl. Jenny Dalton was so moved by her own explorations into how bullying impacted her life that she felt she should share her story.
Her intention with Of Butterflies and Bullies is to both bring increased awareness to the passive qualities of girl bullying and to inspire young girls who may be victims to know they are not alone and that transformation is always happening. Nothing is permanent and nothing other people do can define you.
Alora was born with the ability to Lift, a power no other women on Terra possess. If the wrong people find out, there’s no telling what will happen. But when she almost kills a man in self-defense, her secret is exposed and she’s forced to run for her life.
On Earth, Alora's running from something else: hazy memories of her parents’ death and the social worker who wants to separate her from her brother. When she sees the man she almost killed on Terra at work, she's stunned. She’s never recognized anyone from there before—after all, Terra exists only in her dreams…
When her dreams begin to leach into reality, something incredible awakens in Alora. But she knows better than anyone that everything comes with a cost. As the barrier between worlds crumbles, Alora must decide which is safer, which is more powerful, and which world is worth saving.
In the sleepy town of Townsend, Washington, there was an act so gruesome that no one would ever be the same. What heinous crime do I speak of? Skylar Torres thinking she could pull off a crop top with that pudgy body of hers. Oh, did you think I was going to say my murder. Well, I thought it was more sensational than anything else, but the real scandal was who killed me and why.
You should already know my name since it was on everyone’s lips once they found me with my throat ripped out. People thought they should have only feared me, but the Liberty Lion’s cheer squad knew one thing, hunt or be hunted.
No one’s hands were truly clean from all the dirt and blood on them. Be safe, watch your back and always remember, Happy Hunting.
At twelve years old, Felicity Hale loses her mother to a car accident. One year goes by and Felicity falls to the dark side. Four years go by and it's time for her and her father to start anew in a new city.
Felicity meets Janessa Owens and Allison Blair, who become her immediate friends when the ghost of an unknown girl begins terrorizing them. It doesn't take long before she physically and psychologically tortures them, testing them to determine how strong their friendship is. Felicity, Janessa, and Allison are forced into situations where they have to watch each other's backs and endure a great deal of fear and sacrifices, to not only keep themselves alive, but to keep one another from death.
The ghost's reason is unknown. Many questions are unanswered. This is far from over.
After Covid-19 ends, sixteen-year-old Theo yearns for her life to get back to normal. Instead, her mother plans to move her from Chicago to a small, sleepy town in the Midwest. Her best friend warns her she is heading to a redneck land, where people's knuckles scrape the ground, so it is with some trepidation that Theo arrives at her family's Minnesotan fishing resort. Trying to find her footing in her strange, new environment, she gets entangled in the mystery of multiple dead bodies -- which inconveniently keep popping up. As she seeks answers, she becomes involved in the Miss Apple Blossom pageant, where contestants literally risk their lives because the pageant is cursed! While searching for the serial killer, coping with auditory worries, and struggling with her parents' divorce, she optimistically keeps fishing for her first kiss.
Lost on the Edge of Eternity is paranormal thriller that takes readers on a ghostly roller coaster adventure through high school and beyond.
The excitement begins when Bill Fellars, the guidance counselor of Brownville High, is visited by Randy Galphin, a former student. The problem? Randy is dead! Randy tells Fellars he and some others are stuck between worlds and they need his help in passing over to the other side. Fellars is both intrigued and alarmed by the request. If news of this gets out, he could wind up in the psychiatric ward of the local hospital. On the other hand, if he doesn’t help, all these spirits will be stuck in limbo forever. Skirting some laws and breaking others, Fellars works with the students to get them married, adopt a child, exact revenge, and other irregular situations that have been holding them back. But with a local thug out for his blood, the corrupt town cop breathing down his neck, and a dead misfit teen terrorizing him, can Fellars remain alive or out of jail long enough to complete his mission?
In the first book in THE RISE AND FALL OF DANI TRUEHART series, RISING STAR, fifteen-year-old Dani Truehart is living a life that is not quite her own. Driven by her mother's desire for fame and fortune, she has spent her childhood dutifully training for a career as a pop star. On the brink of discovery, doubts begin to creep into Dani's mind as she questions her own desire for fame, and she wonders whether she can trust the motivations of the adults who are driving her forward.
Following a brilliant audition arranged by her vocal/dance coach and former '80s pop icon Martin Fox, Dani is thrown full-force into the music industry. She leaves her friends, family and scheming mother behind to move with Martin, who has become her legal guardian, into the Malibu compound of her new manager, Jenner Redman. Jenner, the former swindling manager of Martin's boy band, leverages what's left of his depleted fortune to launch Dani's career.
No one knew about the doorbell until the news story of the boys’ mysterious disappearance.
If certain people couldn’t own the doorbell or if it rejected them, they wanted to destroy it and the boys behind it, calling it a hoax.
Ivor and Inge Borg have been tracking Astrid Sims, who has escaped from the ancient Norse myth as Skuld, the weaver of the future, fate and destiny of humankind. She’s the norn of the future. Urd of the past and Verdandi of the present. Ivor and Borg need her return so they can continue to spin the threads of life and decide the fate of all human beings. Skuld was reborn and escaped into a new childhood existence. She emerged as a teenager in the 1950s and later as a wife and mother in an American heartland town.
“We are most courageous at our weakest; when we believe we have faced what we fear the most and have nothing more to lose.”
Set against the backdrop of two warring towns, Oby Aligwekwe’s Young Adult debut—told from the viewpoint of her main character—is inspired by her West African heritage, fables, and spiritual beliefs. Ona’s journey reveals the power of choice, the true source of happiness, and, most importantly, the transformation one must go through to realize and eventually occupy their purpose.
At the sudden death of her grandfather, Ona’s pain transports her to mystical Luenah—a place of infinite possibilities, free of turf wars and other ills that plague the earthly dimension she lives in. In Luenah, where her grandfather awaits her, Ona learns she is an Eri, one bestowed with unique intuitive and spiritual gifts passed down from generation-to-generation.
Emma-Christian daughter of Mo and Amy Matthews, big sister to Shelby, lover of John Hughes films, and Salutatorian of the senior class-has spent her entire high school career playing it safe because she stifles her risk-taking gene for perfectionism instead. This behavior isn't necessarily because that's who she is, but because of all of those external expectations wrapped up in her parents' approval and the religious messages she's grown up believing. She's not a perfect girl; she just feels like she's supposed to be. Now, she's headed to college in the fall ill-equipped to face the challenges of real life. Though that one time junior year when she got drunk for the liquid courage to coerce Tanner James into kissing her might be an outlier, unlike most of her well-laid plans (even if she got what she wanted), she took the calculated risk to squash her infatuation for Tanner and it didn't work. She still wants to have sex with him.
Reckless courage, desperate loyalty, and the will to survive.
Redmond knows three things about the woman who has imprisoned his archers. She is beautiful. She is cunning. And she cares nothing for their lives.
When she drugs his men in preparation for enslavement in the deadly salt mines, Redmond embarks on an audacious and impossible plan—steal the castle from her and sell it to the highest bidder. To do that, he and his band of archers must hold the castle against an overwhelming force of men who believe Redmond murdered their relatives and a King more preoccupied with territorial expansion than peace and security in his realm. Failure means a lingering death in the mines, but success might be just as dangerous.
Sequel to the award-winning book, The Rabbit Princess: The Path.
"It doesn’t take strength to wake up; it takes courage to wake up. It takes strength to live."
After the war, Annie, Pika and Naso carry on their pilgrimage to find the unicorn, Qilin, but they are pulled into a battle at a human village, compelling them to reflect on their own journeys—past and future—and forcing them to make difficult choices. Years later, a new force has arisen to overthrow the kingdom. Naso must find the others to help her and her granddaughter, Osani, fight to keep the kingdom they so love from falling apart. Along the way, they learn that no matter where their journeys lead them, the ties that bind their hearts—love, integrity and loyalty—will always bring them back together.
How do you fix a computer glitch that disappears before you get a good look at it? How do you negotiate with a hacker who doesn’t seem to want anything?
Colorful sixteen-year-old Fireball and her elite team of classmates from Cinzento Secure’s corporate academy must do exactly that. They’re investigating a hack at a prestigious bank, and the bizarre network issues they've observed are turning out to be something stranger than Team Raven has ever encountered.
That Something grows more serious by the minute, reaching tendrils outside the bank and into critical infrastructure. As the team races to keep the hack from costing lives, a new question is added to the mix: why is someone stalking their newest team member?
Finalist Fiction: Young Adult The 2020 Best Book Awards
When Bobby Ether is abducted and brought to the secluded Jade Academy in Tibet, monks teach him and other special students how to tap into their Anima--the universal energy that connects all living things. But the headmistress of the academy is secretly testing each student, looking for genetic triggers that can be exploited to create a new breed of humans born with metaphysical powers and abilities. As his abilities increase, Bobby is thrust into a cesspool of conspiracy, lies, and betrayal. A jade amulet left by his clairvoyant grandfather may provide answers, but what exactly is his family's connection to this mysterious place? Can Bobby master his talents and uncover the truth in time to avoid the schemes? If not, his fate--and the fate of all the students--may be sealed.
Finalist Fiction: Young Adult The 2020 Best Book Awards
The sequel to the award-winning novel The Secret Billionaire.
Andrew Day looks like any other student.
At the Saint Clemens boarding school, nobody knows—not even his two best friends Cameron and Olivia—that Andrew is one of the wealthiest people in the world. No one knows that he has inherited the fortune of Lyndon Surway, the legendary tycoon, who disappeared decades ago and was never found. Nobody suspects that Andrew is the new master of the Surway House, which lay uninhabited through the years.
But as life returns to the stairways and ballrooms of the magnificent home, as Andrew ventures through forgotten passages and unmapped doors, strange things start to happen, almost as if someone were watching him, as if someone had expected him. And as he learns more about the people he loves, as he journeys into dark places where no one goes, Andrew begins to wonder:
Finalist Fiction: Young Adult The 2020 Best Book Awards
Life is easy in 2647, unless you're a Diseased One...On the morning of her 16th birthday, Hollis Timewire receives the worst possible news She can't become a citizen of the world. She's a Diseased One. Born with a biomarker that bestows dangerous, brain-altering powers, Hollis is forced to hide underground with other Diseased Ones, who believe the government falsified history to cover up their genocide. Now Hollis must discover the truth, and is willing to risk anything, including her powers, to go back home.
Finalist Fiction: Young Adult The 2020 Best Book Awards
Things put underground in New Orleans don’t often stay there. Even things that should - like bodies, and secrets.
How do you fight an enemy you can’t see that can kill on a whim? In 1820s New Orleans, on the eve of her twenty-first birthday, Zéolie Cheval discovers the mangled body of her father murdered in his bed and a maniacal voice haunting the recesses of her mind. When the priest sent to comfort her is killed while the house is swarming with police, Zéolie becomes entangled in a web of mystery that takes her from the French Quarter, to the Ursuline Convent in the Ninth Ward, and deep into the Louisiana swamps.
Finalist Fiction: Young Adult The 2020 Best Book Awards
Kit Kat was born in Athens, Greece. Her mother was a prostitute, and their protector was a pimp. After an early childhood marked by violence, homelessness, and time in an orphanage, a Greek-American woman adopted her and moved her to New York. Kit Kat was eight years old, with a new name, a new country, and a new mother who tried to silence her memories and experiences. She sought refuge in books, and after a failed suicide attempt at the age of thirteen, she discovered Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. This book saved her life, and at fifteen, Kit Kat begins to write letters to Jane Eyre as a means of surviving a childhood she still remembers, the family she left behind, and the new mother that refuses to acknowledge her past.
Kit Kat’s letters to Jane Eyre demonstrate the resilience and power that she derives from Jane's own dark narrative and the parallels between their lives that include being neglected, unloved, poor, orphaned, and almost destroyed by the madwoman in their lives. This coming of age and semi-autobiographical novel is about family, loss, forgiveness, and the power of a good book.
Finalist Fiction: Young Adult The 2020 Best Book Awards
After her parents' bitter divorce, family vacations to the Big Island in Hawaii ceased. But across the miles, eighteen-year-old Tegan Rossi remains connected to local Kai Kapule, her best friend from childhood. Now, Tegan finds herself alone and confused about how she got to the Big Island. With no wallet, no cell phone, purse, or plane ticket, Tegan struggles to piece together what happened. She must have come to surprise-visit Kai. Right?
As the teens grow even closer, Tegan pushes aside her worries and gets swept away in the vacation of her dreams. But each morning, Tegan startles awake from nightmares that become more difficult to ignore. Something is eerily amiss. Why is there a strange gap in her memory? Why can't she reach her parents or friends from home? And what's with the mysterious hourglass tattoo over her heart?
Kai promises to help Tegan figure out what is going on. But the answers they find only lead to more questions. As the week unfolds, Tegan will experience the magic of first love, the hope of second chances, and the bittersweet joy and grief of being human.
