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.
Finalist Fiction: Young Adult 2021 Best Book Awards
Professor Percival Marlowe is a brilliant, elderly astrophysicist who's dying, his greatest achievement still unfinished and now beyond his diminished means.Doctor Carl Dorning, a neurosurgeon, finally discovers a secret method of transplanting memories from one person to another thanks to Marlowe's millions.Miguel Sanchez, a homeless boy, agrees to become the recipient of Marlowe's knowledge and personality in the unorthodox experiment, enticed by Dorning's promises of intelligence, wealth and respect but dangerously unaware that his own identity will be lost forever.What results is a seesaw battle for control of Miguel's body as Marlowe learns to his dismay what his lifetime of arrogance and conceit has earned him. And when Marlowe stumbles upon the shocking procedure Dorning used in desperation to succeed, the professor does what he must to defeat Dorning and redeem himself at last.
Finalist Fiction: Young Adult 2021 Best Book Awards
Two worlds, one fate …
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.
Finalist Fiction: Young Adult 2021 Best Book Awards
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.
Finalist Fiction: Young Adult 2021 Best Book Awards
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.
Finalist Fiction: Young Adult 2021 Best Book Awards
“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.
Finalist Fiction: Young Adult 2021 Best Book Awards
Adversity means nothing in the face of his tenacity.
People consider Diego Herrera different. Not only is he the son of undocumented Mexican immigrants, but he was also born with deaf mutism. Diego has fought all his life to find his path in the world and to change the world's opinion about him, but he is not alone in his journey. Diego has the help of his supportive mom, his little brother, and his best friend, Fernando, who are always cheering him on.
Diego’s greatest passion in life is soccer, and he seeks to prove he is just as capable as anyone else of reaching his goals. However, he must struggle to do so, as he is beset by naysayers he must prove wrong. Diego is not going to give up on his goals, and it finally seems like he has a chance to reach them.
But will Diego be able to achieve his dream, or will the world’s negativity drag him down?
Life is right normal for fourteen-year-old Bit Sizemore and her precocious twelve-and-a-half year old best friend, Wisteria Calliope Jones, until Bug Jeter sees Jesus in a rock and changes little Lovington, North Carolina forever. Tourists discover the sleepy mountain town, big-city pretty-boy Palmer Lee Compton threatens the girls' friendship, and the town's pets begin disappearing. That's when Wisteria decides that it's up to her and Bit to solve the mystery of the missing pets, while side-stepping the minefields of hurt feelings and teen crushes.
When Blue Mancini’s mother picked her name, it ended up being a self-fulfilling prophecy.
A year ago, Blue's brother, Jack, was involved in a car accident that killed the father of her classmate, Maya Rodriguez. Luckily for Jack, he got out of a manslaughter charge and into a plea bargain thanks to the top-notch lawyer hired by Blue’s wealthy parents.
The fallout is now affecting Blue as Maya returns to school determined to carve out a pound of flesh from the only member of the Mancini family she can reach. On top of that, Blue has a demanding mother, a father who’s never around, a drama-addicted best friend, and a secretive new guy who’s determined to make Blue his own personal cheer-up project. It’s a perfect storm of misery.
Not all gifts are blessings…Sixteen-summer-old Mirana Pinal is one of the few to have ever possessed all three magical powers of the Aspects. She has terrifying visions, however, that if she wields her powers, her homeland of Kinderra will be destroyed—through her. Desperate to keep her dark fate from unfolding, she tells no one about her destructive destiny but her beloved Teague Beltran, a young apprentice herbsman born without powers.When Mirana receives alarming premonitions of an enemy attack on Kinderra, she is forced to reveal to her people that she is a Trine to warn them of the impending assault. As the Kinderrans fight to hold armies of a cunning and ruthless enemy warlord at bay, Mirana must decide if using her powers will aid her people—or will bring them more peril.
As the Dark Trine’s noose tightens around Kinderra, young Trine Mirana Pinal and her mentor, the Trine hero Tetric Garis, embark on a quest to learn how the enigmatic watchtower of Jasal’s Keep once saved the land. Teague Beltran, Mirana’s beloved and an Unaspected herbsman’s apprentice, wants nothing more than to kill the Dark Trine himself. As one born without magical powers, however, he is forbidden to take up arms in battle. His confrontation with the Dark Trine’s forces may force him to sacrifice his healing oath. Mirana fears using her Aspects with the Light from Within will not be enough to save her people. The strength of her Aspects through the Power from Without, however, will lead her down a path she must not follow. Both must answer their true calling but each choice may leave them—and Kinderra—without hope.
Nineteen-year-old Harper has been trapped in a secret underground facility—a combination of a military school, a ward, and a laboratory—for the last five years. Memories of her prior life are gone, she’s forced to train for combat, and after being condemned as an experimental test subject, an electrifying power begins to rise within her.
Harper finally escapes, but not all of her friends get out. Unsure if she’ll be able to remember who she is or control her new power, she must find and save her friends from the clutches of the man who incarcerated her before they fall too far into his operations—and before she’s captured again.
A catastrophic event from a comet creates irreparable damage, but also hope in a new world. Many new technologies and time travel have been discovered, which create a string of events that lead to more questions. Can they undo what has already been done, or has the future already happened?
With Quarksandrium: The Beginning, B. Martinez has created an emotional, thought-provoking science-fiction adventure to another time and place. Connect to Quarksandrium through the characters' relatable emotions but expand your mind by considering new perspectives.
She is The Lost Heir, last of her line... but the secret she carries with her won't put her on the throne.
Standing atop a promontory, she sees them coming... interlopers in the desert, clumsy outsiders whose caravan blazes a trail of dust. Alisutton d'ere Lihter, who her brothers once called "Button," was abandoned in this wasteland, years ago. Is it those who betrayed her, returning? And if so... why?
The answer will bring a girl the world thought dead back across the desert, home to a place she barely remembers. The secret she carries won't put her on the throne. Instead, it prompts a race across the land, a daring rescue, and brings to light yet more mysteries. Who is hunting her along the way? Can she trust what's left of her family or the strangers who have taken her into their fold... or only herself?
Secret Cave... it remains unknown to everyone for a reason. But when a ghost from Melody's past seeks her out, she realizes she may need to reveal the cave's location to her friends. She is told to journey inside it and find a prophecy. What she doesn't know is that discovering the said prophecy could cost someone their life.
Meanwhile, evil continues to appear in the Safe Grounds. No one knows how to put a stop to it, not even the king or queen. Melody and Ashton are suspicious of Zander. They believe he knows more about how evil gets in then he says.
Do they have a right to be wary of him?
Is Zander truly on evil's side and still working for the evil creature?
