Luka Kane is a normal 16 year old who is in a Juvenile prison called "The Loop." He is on death row. He knows that he won't be going home, but he can delay his execution by agreeing, every 6 months, to participate in a medical experiment. Sometimes these experiments, or "delays," are innocuous, but...

The God Game by Danny Tobey is about a group of high school friends who are in a computer club together.  They decide to play an online game, the God Game.  The game is the result of some computer scientists feeding into an artificial intelligence all of the available information about religion, all religions.  The...

Two Can Keep A Secret is about a twin brother and sister, Ellery and Ezra, who are sent to their mom's home town, Echo Ridge, for their senior year of high school. It is a very small town where everyone knows everyone else ... and their business.  Ellery is into true crime books and movies...

The Emperor's Blades is the story of three royal siblings, two princes and a princess, whose lives are thrown into chaos when their father, the king, is assassinated.  The eldest, Kaden, the heir to the throne, was sent away to a remote mountain monastery at the far reaches of the kingdom.  There he has endured...

Daughter of Smoke and Bone is the story of a 17 year old art student, Karou, who lives in Prague.  When she gets together with her friends they share the art they have been working on,  Karou has wonderful drawings of fantastical creators in her journal that tell stories about them.  They are wonderful half-animal,...

I really liked Wildlife by Fiona Wood. It is about two 16 year old girls, Sib and Lou, whose school has a "term in the woods" program.  Lou is new.  She just transferred in.  Her boyfriend died in an accident and she is trying to cope with her grief.  Lou is no-nonsense, understandably withdrawn, and...

The Red Knight by Miles Cameron is a sword and magic type of fantasy story. The Red Knight is a bit of a mysterious character. He is the leader of a mercenary company and is unusually young to hold that position. In the early part of the book we know that he comes from a...

Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi is a pretty amazing book.  It is a story that takes place in a dystonian future and is about Juliette, who has survived alone in prison without seeing another person.  This isn't a story of someone wrongly accused.  Juliette is in for murder and she believes she deserves to be there and...

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater is a young adult paranormal story about Blue, her family, and some boys from a nearby private school.  Everyone in Blue's family is psychic ... except for her. Blue does have a gift, she acts as an amplifier for other psychics.  Blue has had a number of readings over...

A Dance of Cloaks is a story with a very large cast of characters. At it's heart there is Thren Felhorn, master of the Spider Guild, and his son Aaron. There are several other thieves guilds with their leaders and lieutenants.  There is the king and his main adviser.  There are three great merchant families, each...

Sky in the Deep is an amazing, well written book based on Viking lore. It is an incredibly rich well told story about a young Aska warrior, Eelyn.  The story begins on the battlefield where once again the Aska face off against their traditional enemy, the Riki. Five years previously, Eelyn lost her brother Iri in...

Daughter of the Pirate King is a fun story. Like many pirate tales, there is a good mix of action, adventure, and romance. A difference is that the main character, Alosa, is female. She is the daughter of the pirate king and captain of a ship in his fleet. The story opens with the capture...

Have you noticed the tendency of authors to focus on books and reading? Take The Reader by Traci Chee as an example of this self-reflective preoccupation. This is not surprising given that writing and books, and readers and reading, are at the center of an author's life. However, there are others for whom books are...

I listened to the audiobook version of The Queen's Poisoner by Jeff Wheeler, read by Kate Rudd. The story opens with the Duke of Kiskaddon returning home from battle. His side was victorious, but there was a small problem, or rather a major problem. At a crucial point in the battle, when it looked like they...

"According to science, humans have no souls. There is no afterlife or guardian angels or ghosts or spirits or anything at all supernatural. Our world is purely physical. The government has systematically removed God from society." So begins The Gifting by K.E. Ganshert, a dystopian science fiction story where "science won." The protagonist of the story,...