Loveboat Reunion by Abigail Hing Wen (Loveboat Taipai book 2)

 

SPOILER ALERT! If you haven’t read the first book in the series, Loveboat Taipai, Stop! I don’t want to ruin this companion story for you.

“Sophie Ha and Xavier Yeh have what some would call a tumultuous past.

Hearts were broken, revenge was plotted—but at least they're friends now. They left the drama behind them back in Taipei—at their summer program, Loveboat—forever.

Now that fall is here, they're focusing on what really matters. Sophie is determined to be the best student Dartmouth’s ever had. Xavier just wants to stay under his overbearing father’s radar, collect his trust fund when he turns eighteen, and concentrate on what makes him happy.

But the world doesn’t seem to want either to succeed. Sophie’s college professor thinks her first major project is “too feminine.” Xavier’s father gives him an ultimatum: finish high school or be cut off from his inheritance.

Then Sophie and Xavier find themselves on a wild, nonstop Loveboat reunion, hatching a joint plan to take control of their futures. Can they succeed together . . . or are they destined to combust?” - taken from Goodreads.

I devoured this book in just two days and enjoyed it so much more than the first installment. The chemistry between Sophie and Xavier was off the charts as they begin to see the hidden parts of one another and discover their strengths. This was a great story about the meaning of family, friends, and following your dreams.

Visit Abigail Hing Wen’s website.

The Lying Woods by Ashley Elston

 

“The truth won’t stay buried.”

“Owen Foster has never wanted for anything. Then his mother shows up at his elite New Orleans boarding school cradling a bombshell: his privileged life has been funded by stolen money. After using the family business, the single largest employer in his small Louisiana town, to embezzle millions and drain the employees' retirement accounts, Owen's father vanished without a trace, leaving Owen and his mother to deal with the fallout.

Owen returns to Lake Cane to finish his senior year, where people he can barely remember despise him for his father's crimes. It's bad enough dealing with muttered insults and glares, but when Owen and his mother receive increasingly frightening threats from someone out for revenge, he knows he must get to the bottom of what really happened at Louisiana Frac--and the cryptic note his father sent him at his boarding school days before disappearing.

Owen's only refuge is the sprawling, isolated pecan orchard he works at after school, owned by a man named Gus who has his own secrets--and in some ways seems to know Owen better than he knows himself. As Owen uncovers a terrible injustice that looms over the same Preacher Woods he's claimed as his own, he must face a shocking truth about his own past--and write a better future.” - taken from Goodreads.com

This was an incredible mystery that begins with why Owen's father embezzled millions of dollars from the company he owned and devastates the small town in Louisiana where they live. Left a cryptic note by his father, Owen arrives home from boarding school to find out his mother is the target of threats. Soon after arriving in town, he stumbles into a part-time job at a pecan farm that his father held when he was Owen’s age. 

The story is told in alternating points of view between present-day Owen and his father Noah when he first arrives in Lake Cane. The mystery soon deepens into something neither Owen nor the reader could have ever imagined. Definitely worth the read.

Visit Ashley Elston’s website.

Call It What You Want by Brigid Kemmerer

“When his dad is caught embezzling funds from half the town, Rob goes from popular lacrosse player to social pariah. Even worse, his father’s failed suicide attempt leaves Rob and his mother responsible for his care.

Everyone thinks of Maegan as a typical overachiever, but she has a secret of her own after the pressure got to her last year. And when her sister comes home from college pregnant, keeping it from her parents might be more than she can handle.

When Rob and Maegan are paired together for a calculus project, they’re both reluctant to let anyone through the walls they’ve built. But when Maegan learns of Rob’s plan to fix the damage caused by his father, it could ruin more than their fragile new friendship...

This captivating, heartfelt novel asks the question: Is it okay to do something wrong for the right reasons?” - taken from Goodreads.com

This was my first Brigid Kemmerer book despite the fact that her Elementals series has been in a box by my bed for years. Fortunately, this will not be my last book by this author. I literally blew through this book in two days. Maegan and Rob’s story sucked me in and didn’t let go until the end, which was a heartbreaking mixture of emotions. Kemmerer’s contemporary novels are now on my auto-read list. 

Visit Brigid Kemmerer’s website.

Crossover by Kwame Alexander

"With a bolt of lightning on my kicks . . .The court is SIZZLING. My sweat is DRIZZLING. Stop all that quivering. Cuz tonight I'm delivering," announces dread-locked, 12-year old Josh Bell. He and his twin brother Jordan are awesome on the court. But Josh has more than basketball in his blood, he's got mad beats, too, that tell his family's story in verse, in this fast and furious middle grade novel of family and brotherhood.

Josh and Jordan must come to grips with growing up on and off the court to realize breaking the rules comes at a terrible price, as their story's heart-stopping climax proves a game-changer for the entire family.” - taken from Goodreads.com

Visit Kwame Alexander’s website.

Half Wild by Sally Green (Half Bad Trilogy book 2)

SPOILER ALERT! If you haven’t read the first book in the series, Half Bad, Stop! I don’t want to ruin Nathan’s story for you.

Kept in a cage for two years by the Council of White Witches, Nathan was trained to kill his father, the most violent and feared of Black Witches. Now Nathan has escaped, and he dreams of a quiet life of freedom with Annalise, the girl he loves - but Annalise is a prisoner, wasting away in a death-like sleep. Nathan's friend Gabriel is missing, likely dead, and although Nathan has found his unique magical Gift, he can't control it. The Council's Hunters are on his trail, so he is always on the run. Nathan's only hope of survival is to join with new friends and old enemies in an alliance to bring down the Council, and they want Nathan's help: they, too, want Nathan to be a killer. Maybe that's the only way out. Maybe that's just who he is now. - Goodreads.com

The story concludes on March 29, 2016 with Half Lost.

Visit Sally Green’s website.

Half Bad by Sally Green (Half Bad book 1)

Wanted by no one.
Hunted by everyone.

"Sixteen-year-old Nathan lives in a cage: beaten, shackled, trained to kill. In a modern-day England where two warring factions of witches live amongst humans, Nathan is an abomination, the illegitimate son of the world's most terrifying and violent witch, Marcus. Nathan's only hope for survival is to escape his captors, track down Marcus, and receive the three gifts that will bring him into his own magical powers—before it's too late. But how can Nathan find his father when there is no one safe to trust, not even family, not even the girl he loves?" - taken from Goodreads.com

Nathan's story continues with book two i the trilogy, Half Wild.

Visit Sally Green's website.

The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod: Twelfth Grade Kills - Book Five

SPOILER ALERT!!!: Please don't read any further if you haven't read the first four books in the series and don't want to ruin the ending.

"Twelfth Grade Kills" picks up immediately where "Eleventh Grade Burns" leaves off. Dorian has just sacrificed himself to save Vload's life from the hands of his slayer friend, Joss. Vlad believes that he saw his deceased father but he can't be sure. Having drunk from Dorian before his death, Vlad wonders if he inherited some of Dorian's madness. In this conclusion of the final book in tne series, Vlad discovers the truth about his parents, who his real friends are, hopes to graduate from Bathory High and survive his trial with the council.

Heather Brewer is writing a spin-off series starring Joss and some of your favorite vampires in The Slayer Journals coming out in the fall of 2011.

Visit Heather Brewer's website.

Born to Rock by Gordon Korman

In the fourth grade, Leo Caraway needed his birth certificate for a field trip to Canada. What Leo would learn was that Erik Caraway, the man he knew as his dad was not his biological father. A man by the name of Marion X. McMurphy was. Fast forwarded to Leo's senior year; 4.0 GPA, early acceptance to Harvard, a prestigious scholarship and a member of the young Republicans, Leo has his future mapped out and tries to keep McMurphy or the X factor, his wild impulses as he calls them, under control. That is until Melinda Rapaport, Leo's oldest friend, asks him to tutor Owen Stevenson, someone Leo does not really like. Melinda is the complete opposite of Leo; liberal, Goth and punk rock all the way.

After "tutoring" Owen, Leo has the bad luck of sitting next to him during the test. He notices that Owen is having difficulty with the one concepthe actually let Leo help him on. On impulse, Leo whispers a one word clue to Owen and gets in trouble for cheating. When the assistant principal gives Leo the opportunity to throw Owen under the bus to save himselk, Leo's inner McMurphy comes out. Now accused of cheating, Leo has a black mark on his permanent record. He is kicked out of the Young Republicans and his full scholarship is rescended. Leo has learned that Melinda keeps a blog and secretly reads it to see what his friend that he is slowly drifting away from is writing. On it she posts her English class essay entitled "Poets of Rage: A Sociological History of Punk and Its Offshoots" and in it Leo finds out exactly who his biological father is. Marion X. McMurphy, aka King Maggot, is the lead singer of Purge, the "angriest band in America". Leo discovers that he is Prince Maggot.

When Purge announces a reunion tour over the summer, Leo sees a way to get his tuiton to Harvard, he decides to ask the King. After causing an incident at the Purge press conference, Leo finally gets to meet his supposed father. Leo is surprised when Marion wants to get to know him better and offers him a job with the tour over the summer. Leo decides to do it and after a little father-son time to hit me up for a loan.

Leo soon realizes that life on the road is hard, especially when you are the boss' son. And Leo learns about true friendship, love and what a father really is.

Visit Gordon Korman's website.