by Faith Gardner ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 2015
An edgy, intriguing debut novel of suspense, suspicion, and surprise
When she starts seeing the ghost of her sister’s recently drowned friend, troubled 16-year-old Arielle worries she may be “a little bit crazy.”
Sensitive, imaginative Arielle believes in ghosts, in contrast to her annoying, brainy older sister, Casey. The suspicious lakeside drowning in contemporary Velero, California, of Casey’s former friend, Perdita, triggers unresolved issues for Arielle and her family members, who have never recovered from her older brother’s drowning 10 years ago. Haunted by Perdita in bizarre dreams and strange visions, Arielle has trouble “telling the difference between sleep and wakefulness.” Grappling with intensifying psychic episodes and wondering who murdered Perdita, Arielle finds her shaky emotional balance further unsettled by Casey’s departure for college, her family’s downsizing move into an apartment, her best friend’s unexpected defection, and her own attraction to Perdita’s handsome brother. Sad, frightened, disoriented, confused, and abandoned, Arielle describes, in an intimate, fascinating, gripping first-person narration, how her “world seems to be crawling toward something different” as she descends into what she fears is insanity. The unexpected answers to what really happened to Perdita and what’s really happening to Arielle will shock readers as much as they do Arielle.
An edgy, intriguing debut novel of suspense, suspicion, and surprise . (Suspense. 14-18)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4405-8811-2
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Merit Press
Review Posted Online: April 28, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
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by Meg Cabot ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 26, 2011
In the current game of one-upsmanship that is the teen paranormal romance market, how does one top vampires, faeries, angels (fallen and otherwise) and the like? Why, make your dark and brooding male lead the Lord of Death, of course. Seventeen-year-old Pierce Oliviera and her mother have just moved to Isla Huesos (an alternative Key West) to start over after her near-death experience two years earlier (she drowned in the backyard swimming pool) and her parents' subsequent breakup. But Isla Huesos just happens to be a portal to the Underworld, making it very easy for tall, dark and handsome John to monitor the girl who ran away from him at 15. She wants to live, darn it, and bad things always happen when he shows up, so why is she so unhappy when he takes back the magical necklace he gave her when she was dead? Cabot's a pro; Pierce is a perfectly likable if almost preternaturally good protagonist; her relationships with her ex-con uncle, underachieving cousin and new buddy Kayla are genuinely endearing, and her interactions with John have the right mix of humor and sexual chemistry. A refreshingly offhandedly gay cemetery sexton rather testily helps Pierce along the way. Ultimately, though, the conventions of the form leach real suspense from the plot, making it feel more like a progress to the inevitable sequel (Underworld, coming in the indefinable soon) than any real reboot of the genre. (Paranormal romance. 14 & up)
Pub Date: April 26, 2011
ISBN: 970-0-545-28410-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Point/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2011
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by Meg Cabot ; illustrated by Cara McGee
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by Trinity Faegen ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 27, 2011
The back story may not sink in but the romantic tension captivates
Debut author Faegen’s paranormal romance impels a celestial girl toward a dark paramour who embodies a purpose and a partner for all eternity.
Seeking her father’s killer, Sasha entertains the notion of joining a cultish secret society that mysteriously grants the wishes of initiates. It turns out renouncing God and pledging fealty to Eryx, a relation of the devil, is not in store for Sasha. In some inventive takes on the eternal good-versus-evil dichotomy, Sasha is part-angel, and Eryx has a troupe of brothers who nobly seek to thwart him, though they are also sons of Hell. Big, strong, long-haired and immortal, Jax is the brother who is fated to shack up with Sasha, should she forsake her mortality and enlist with the brothers in their mission. Much of what drives the story comes across as just plain arbitrary. Early on, Sasha’s mother is deported to Russia, and Sasha has to move to Colorado, where Jax lives, to reside with evil relations. It turns out Sasha is an adopted child with no clue who her real parents are, and by the time she agrees to sacrifice normalcy to join Jax forever, she has nothing to lose and no one to fall back on anyway. The dialogue partakes of an aggressively teen vernacular—"… major bummer that her aunt isn't just a lost soul, but a crazy-bitch lost soul"—but the narration seems to have a hard time finding its rhythm.
The back story may not sink in but the romantic tension captivates . (Paranormal romance. 14 & up)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-60684-170-9
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Egmont USA
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
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