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Wed, January 2, 2013

Waiting On Wednesday – Jan. 2 Picks

“Waiting On” Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Breaking the Spine to shine a spotlight on upcoming releases that we’re eagerly anticipating.

When You Were Here
By Daisy Whitney
Little, Brown, 257 pages
To be released June 2013

Filled with humor, raw emotion, a strong voice, and a brilliant dog named Sandy Koufax, When You Were Here explores the two most powerful forces known to man-death and love. Daisy Whitney brings her characters to life with a deft touch and resonating authenticity.

Danny’s mother lost her five-year battle with cancer three weeks before his graduation-the one day that she was hanging on to see.

Now Danny is left alone, with only his memories, his dog, and his heart-breaking ex-girlfriend for company. He doesn’t know how to figure out what to do with her estate, what to say for his Valedictorian speech, let alone how to live or be happy anymore.

When he gets a letter from his mom’s property manager in Tokyo, where she had been going for treatment, it shows a side of a side of his mother he never knew. So, with no other sense of direction, Danny travels to Tokyo to connect with his mother’s memory and make sense of her final months, which seemed filled with more joy than Danny ever knew. There, among the cherry blossoms, temples, and crowds, and with the help of an almost-but-definitely-not Harijuku girl, he begins to see how it may not have been ancient magic or mystical treatment that kept his mother going. Perhaps, the secret of how to live lies in how she died.

— Goodreads.com description

I’ve been meaning to ready Daisy Whitney forever…this one sounds sad but intriguing.

Icons
By Margaret Stohl
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 448 pages
To be released May 7, 2013

Your heart beats only with their permission.

Everything changed on The Day. The day the windows shattered. The day the power stopped. The day Dol’s family dropped dead. The day Earth lost a war it didn’t know it was fighting.

Since then, Dol has lived a simple life in the countryside — safe from the shadow of the Icon and its terrifying power. Hiding from the one truth she can’t avoid.

She’s different. She survived. Why?

When Dol and her best friend, Ro, are captured and taken to the Embassy, off the coast of the sprawling metropolis once known as the City of Angels, they find only more questions. While Ro and fellow hostage Tima rage against their captors, Dol finds herself drawn to Lucas, the Ambassador’s privileged son. But the four teens are more alike than they might think, and the timing of their meeting isn’t a coincidence. It’s a conspiracy.

Within the Icon’s reach, Dol, Ro, Tima, and Lucas discover that their uncontrollable emotions — which they’ve always thought to be their greatest weaknesses — may actually be their greatest strengths.

Bestselling author Margaret Stohl delivers the first book in a heart-pounding series set in a haunting new world where four teens must piece together the mysteries of their pasts — in order to save the future.

— Goodreads.com description

Heart-pounding sounds about right!

Truth or Dare
By Jacqueline Green
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 368 pages
To be released May 14, 2013

Some say the seaside town of Echo Bay is cursed. They may be right. When a game of truth or dare spins out of control, three beautiful teen girls start receiving mysterious dares containing hints to dark secrets long buried. For artsy outcast Sydney Morgan; perfect, popular Caitlin “Angel” Thomas; and queen bee Tenley Reed, the truth is not an option.

This is no party game—it’s do or die.

And it’s their turn to play.

— Goodreads.com description

AHHHH, scary!

Wed, May 23, 2012

Waiting on Wednesday – Foretold and More

“Waiting On” Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Breaking the Spine to shine a spotlight on upcoming releases that we’re eagerly anticipating.

Foretold: 14 Tales of Prophecy and Prediction
By Richelle Mead, Simone Elkeles, Meg Cabot, Heather Brewer, Saundra Mitchell, Diana Peterfreund, Laini Taylor, Margaret Stohl, Matt de la Pena, Kami Garcia, Malinda Lo, Lisa McMann and Michael Grant (edited by Carrie Ryan)
304 pages
Random House Children’s Books, to be released Aug. 28, 2012

Have you ever been tempted to look into the future? To challenge predictions? To question fate?

It’s human nature to wonder about life’s twists and turns. But is the future already written—or do you have the power to alter it?

From fantastical prophecies to predictions of how the future will transpire, Foretold is a collection of stories about our universal fascination with life’s unknowns and of what is yet to come as interpreted by 14 of young adult fiction’s brightest stars.

— Goodreads.com description

Um, whoa. I’m pretty sure the author list speaks for itself.

The Almost Truth
By Eileen Cook
272 pages
Simon Pulse, to be released Dec. 4, 2012

When a teenaged con artist realizes that she looks like an age-enhanced photo of a missing child, she decides to pull the ultimate con–until she begins to suspect she may actually be the missing child.

— Goodreads.com description

This sounds like the very definitely of “An Anna Book.” I need this book!

What’s Left of Me
By Kat Zhang
336 pages
Harper, to be released Sept. 18, 2012

NEVER LET ME GO meets HIS DARK MATERIALS in a beautiful, haunting YA debut, the first book in The Hybrid Chronicles.

Eva and Addie live in a world where everyone is born with two souls, but where only the dominant one is allowed to survive childhood. Fifteen years old, and closer even than twins, the girls are keeping Eva, the ‘second soul’, a secret. They know that it’s forbidden to be hybrid, but how could they ever be apart?

When a dramatic event reveals what really happens to hybrids if they are discovered, Eva and Addie face a dangerous fight for survival, neither wanting to be the one left behind…

— Goodreads.com description

I’m dying to read this one. I think it’s gonna be HUGE.