Showing posts with label Michael Harmon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Michael Harmon. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

New School Year, New Books! September New Books (part 9)

Shutter by Courtney Alameda
Paranormal 
Micheline Helsing is a tetrachromat -- a girl who sees the auras of the undead in a prismatic spectrum. As one of the last descendants of the Van Helsing lineage, she has trained since childhood to destroy monsters both corporeal and spiritual: the corporeal undead go down by the bullet, the spiritual undead by the lens. With an analog SLR camera as her best weapon, Micheline exorcises ghosts by capturing their spiritual energy on film. She's aided by her crew: Oliver, a techno-whiz and the boy who developed her camera's technology; Jude, who can predict death; and Ryder, the boy Micheline has known and loved forever. When a routine ghost hunt goes awry, Micheline and the boys are infected with a curse known as a soulchain. As the ghostly chains spread through their bodies, Micheline learns that if she doesn't exorcise her entity in seven days or less, she and her friends will die. Now pursued as a renegade agent by her monster-hunting father, Leonard Helsing, she must track and destroy an entity more powerful than anything she's faced before . . . or die trying. Lock, stock, and lens, she's in for one hell of a week.

Siren's Fury by Mary Weber
Fantasy 
Nym has saved Faelen only to discover that Draewulf stole everything she valued. Now he’s destroyed her Elemental storm-summoning ability as well.
When Nym sneaks off with a host of delegates to Bron, Lord Myles offers her the chance for a new kind of power and the whispered hope that it may do more than simply defeat the monster she loathes. But the secrets the Bron people have kept concealed, along with the horrors Draewulf has developed, may require more than simply harnessing a darker ability.
They may require who she is.
Set against the stark metallic backdrop of the Bron kingdom, Nym is faced with the chance to change the future.
Or was that Draewulf’s plan for her all along?

Slasher Girls & Monster Boys by various
Paranormal 
For fans of Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, American Horror Story and The Walking Dead comes a powerhouse anthology featuring some of the best thriller and horror writers in YA A host of the sharpest young adult authors come together in this collection of terrifying tales and psychological thrillers. Each author draws from a mix of literature, film, television, and music to create something new and fresh and unsettling. Clever readers will love teasing out the references and can satisfy their curiosity at the end of each tale, where the inspiration is revealed. There are no superficial scares here; these are stories that will make you think even as they keep you on the edge of your seat. From blood horror, to the supernatural, to unsettling, all-too-possible realism, this collection has something for anyone looking for an absolute thrill. 

Stick by Michael Harmon
Contemporary Fiction 
"Stick" is the best wide receiver in the history of his high school--the football seems magnetically drawn to his hands, hence his nickname. Preston is an outcast, and his pipsqueak stature and nerdy social status couldn't be further from a star athlete's. Stick puts on his football costume every week to make others--his teammates, his dad, everyone but himself--happy, but he's fallen out of love with the sport and feels that he's lost control of his future. Preston puts on his homemade superhero costume every night to help others, too: to avenge his father's murder, he's determined to right the wrongs he sees in his neighborhood and regain control of the flawed world he sees around him. A twist of fate brings this unlikely pair together in a friendship that is as odd as it is true.

Terrible Typhoid Mary: A True Story of the Deadliest Cook in America by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
Nonfiction 
What happens when a person's reputation has been forever damaged? With archival photographs and text among other primary sources, this riveting biography of Mary Mallon by the Sibert medalist and Newbery Honor winner Susan Bartoletti looks beyond the tabloid scandal of Mary's controversial life. How she was treated by medical and legal officials reveals a lesser-known story of human and constitutional rights, entangled with the science of pathology and enduring questions about who Mary Mallon really was. How did her name become synonymous with deadly disease? And who is really responsible for the lasting legacy of Typhoid Mary? This thorough exploration includes an author's note, timeline, annotated source notes, and bibliography.


Friday, July 1, 2011

Hooray, new books! Part 1

Chamber of Five by Michael Harmon
In a private-school conspiracy novel, 16-year-old Jason Weatherby knows exactly why he's at the Lambert School for the Gifted. And it's not for his brains. His dad is an influential state senator. It's this same connection that lands him a spot on the secretive Chamber of Five, the elite group of students who run the school with a shadow government, tapping into the same lines of powers as their parents. When he's asked to physically assault and ruin the reputation of another student as part of his initiation, Jason sees firsthand the depravity of the Chamber—and decides to work from the inside to take it down. But Jason taps into a conspiracy—and school secrets—far more insidious than he could ever have imagined. From award-winning author Michael Harmon comes a taut, thrillingly paced novel about the perils of privilege. Can one bold student set things right?


The Day Before by Lisa Schroeder
Sixteen-year-old Amber, hoping to spend one perfect day alone at the beach before her world is turned upside down, meets and feels a strong connection to Cade, who is looking for his own escape, for a very different reason.


Fairy Bad Day by Amanda Ashby
High schooler Emma is devastated to learn that she may not follow in her mother's footsteps as a dragon slayer, but with an unlikely band of allies she discovers that she may, indeed, be more adept at slaying giant killer fairies.


The Girl in the Steel Corset by Kady Cross
In 1897 England, sixteen-year-old Finley Jayne has no one...except the "thing" inside her. When a young lord tries to take advantage of Finley, she fights back. And wins. But no normal Victorian girl has a darker side that makes her capable of knocking out a full-grown man with one punch.... Only Griffin King sees the magical darkness inside her that says she's special, says she's one of them. The orphaned duke takes her in from the gaslit streets against the wishes of his band of misfits: Emily, who has her own special abilities and an unrequited love for Sam, who is part robot; and Jasper, an American cowboy with a shadowy secret. Griffin's investigating a criminal called The Machinist, the mastermind behind several recent crimes by automatons. Finley thinks she can help-and finally be a part of something, finally fit in. But The Machinist wants to tear Griff's little company of strays apart, and it isn't long before trust is tested on all sides. At least Finley knows whose side she's on-even if it seems no one believes her.


Hidden Talents by David Lubar
When thirteen-year-old Martin arrives at an alternative school for misfits and problem students, he falls in with a group of boys with psychic powers and discovers something surprising about himself.


How I Stole Johnny Depp's Alien Girlfriend by Gary Ghislain
 Fourteen-year-old David, the son of a famous French psychologist, falls in love with Zelda, a new patient who believes she is from outer space, and soon they are tearing through Paris in search of her chosen one, Johnny Depp, so that she can take him to her home planet, Vahalal.