This Is Not the Jess Show by Anna Banks (Jess Show book 1)

 

“Like any other teenager, Jess Flynn is just trying to get through her junior year without drama ... but drama seems to keep finding her. Between a new crush on her childhood best friend, overprotective parents cramping her social life, and her younger sister's worsening health, the only constant is change--and her hometown of Swickley, which feels smaller by the day.

Swickley is getting weirder by the day, too. Half the population has been struck down by a mysterious flu. Conversations end awkwardly when Jess enters the room. And then one day, a tiny, sleek black device--with an apple logo on it--falls out of her best friend's backpack and lands at Jess's feet.” - taken from Goodreads.com

This book started off slow for me and I was trying to figure out what was going on along with Jessica Flynn herself. Without giving away too many details, unbeknownst to her Jess is the star of a reality television show about her life. As things start to come apart at the seams, can Jess escape from her own life? Be prepared, Jess’s story will be continued in a second book. 

Visit Anna Banks’ website.

Mist, Metal, and Ash by Gwendolyn Clare (Ink, Iron, and Glass book 2)

SPOILER ALERT! If you haven’t read the first book in the series, Ink, Iron, and Glass, Stop! I don’t want to ruin the story for you.

“In an alternate 19th-century Italy, Elsa has an incredible gift: she can craft new worlds with precise lines of script written in books. But political extremists have stolen the most dangerous book ever scribed―one that can rewrite the Earth itself.

Now Elsa must track down the friend who betrayed her and recover the book before its destructive power is unleashed. Can she handle the secrets she’ll uncover along the way―including the ones hiding in her own heart?” - taken from Goodreads.com

It didn’t take me long to get back into this story. Elsa and her new friends believe that Leo has betrayed them by returning to his father’s side. Unknowingly to them, Leo is trying to keep Elsa safe in the only way he knows how. A bit slow at times, the action picks up at the end. I can’t say that book two completely wraps up the story bust as of now, there is no word on whether there will be a third book.

Visit Gwendolyn Clare’s website.

Ink, Iron, and Glass by Gwendolyn Clare (Ink, Iron, and Glass book 1)

“Can she write a world gone wrong?

A certain pen, a certain book, and a certain person can craft entirely new worlds through a branch of science called scriptology. Elsa comes from one such world that was written into creation by her mother—a noted scriptologist.

But when her home is attacked and her mother abducted, Elsa must cross into the real world and use her own scriptology gifts to find her. In an alternative 19th-century Italy, Elsa finds a secret society of pazzerellones—young people with a gift for mechanics, alchemy or scriptology—and meets Leo, a gorgeous mechanist with a smart mouth and a tragic past. She recruits the help of these fellow geniuses just as an assassin arrives on their doorstep.” - taken from Goodreads.com

Ink, Iron, and Glass is a unique steampunk story with an alternative history twist. Elsa lives in the “scripted” world of Veldana with her mother Jumi. Both mother and daughter are scriptologists, but they and the world they live in are scripted by a man named Montaigne. When Jumi is kidnapped, Elsa is forced to go to the real world to find her. There she finds that Montaigne is dead, his house is on fire, and the worldbook that contains Veldana is missing.

Elsa discovers a group of young adults who are gifted like herself, scriptologists machinists, or Alchemists, who helped her begin to search for her mother. With a rich world building plot, a slow-burning romance, and shocking reveals, fans will be initially heartbroken but clamoring for the next book in the series.

Book two, Mist, Metal, and Ash, is due out February 19, 2019.

Visit Gwendolyn Clare’s website.