Wednesday, January 9, 2013

New Fiction

Boy 21 by Matthew Quick
Finley, an unnaturally quiet boy who is the only white player on his high school's varsity basketball team, lives in a dismal Pennsylvania town that is ruled by the Irish mob, and when his coach asks him to mentor a troubled African American student who has transferred there from an elite private school in California, he finds that they have a lot in common in spite of their apparent differences.--Summary.

Dragonswood by Janet Lee Carey
In 1192 A.D. on Wilde Island, Tess, the daughter of a cruel blacksmith, is accused of witchcraft and must flee, but when she meets a handsome and enigmatic warden of Dragonswood who offers her shelter, she does not realize that he too harbors a secret that may finally bring about peace among the races of dragon, human, and fairy.–Summary.

Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley
Told in alternating voices, an all-night adventure featuring Lucy, who is determined to find an elusive graffiti artist named Shadow, and Ed, the last person Lucy wants to spend time with, except for the fact that he may know how to find Shadow.--Summary.

Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers
In the fifteenth-century kingdom of Brittany, seventeen-year-old Ismae escapes from the brutality of an arranged marriage into the sanctuary of the convent of St. Mortain, where she learns that the god of Death has blessed her with dangerous gifts--and a violent destiny. –Summary.

Irises by Francisco Stork
Kate, eighteen, and Mary, sixteen, must make some adult decisions about the course their lives should take when their loving but old-fashioned father dies suddenly, leaving them with their mother, who has been in a persistent vegetative state since an accident four years earlier.–Summary.

Numbers by Rachel Ward
Numbers Trilogy; Book One
Fifteen-year-old Jem knows when she looks at someone the exact date they will die, so she avoids relationships and tries to keep out of the way, but when she meets a boy named Spider and they plan a day out together, they become more involved than either of them had planned. –Summary.

The Chaos by Rachel Ward
Numbers Trilogy; Book Two
Like his mother, Jem, when fifteen-year-old Adam looks in people's eyes he can see the dates of their deaths and now he sees the same date, six months in the future, in nearly everyone around him in the London of 2026.–Summary.

Infinity by Rachel Ward
Numbers Trilogy; Book Three
Adam, Sarah, and Mia are living together, struggling with the fame brought about by their knowing the dates when people will die, but ever since Mia swapped her number for another, her new power makes her a target that puts them all in jeopardy.–Summary.

Son of A Witch by Gregory Maguire
Wicked Years; Book Two.
"Ten years after the publication of Wicked, beloved novelist Gregory Maguire returns at last to the land of Oz. There he introduces us to Liir, an adolescent boy last seen hiding in the shadows of the castle after Dorothy did in the Witch. Bruised, comatose, and left for dead in a gully, Liir is shattered in spirit as well as in form. But he is tended at the Cloister of Saint Glinda by the silent novice called Candle, who wills him back to life with her musical gifts. What dark force left Liir in this condition? Is he really Elphaba's son? He has her broom and her cape -- but what of her powers? Can he find his supposed half-sister, Nor, last seen in the forbidding prison, Southstairs? Can he fulfill the last wishes of a dying princess? In an Oz that, since the Wizard's departure, is under new and dangerous management, can Liir keep his head down long enough to grow up?"–Jacket.

A Lion Among Men by Gregory Maguire
Wicked Years; Book Three.
"In the much-anticipated third volume of the Wicked Years, we return to Oz, seen now through the eyes of the Cowardly Lion. While civil war looms in Oz, a tetchy oracle named Yackle prepares for death. Before her final hour, a figure known as Brrr—the Cowardly Lion—arrives searching for information about Elphaba Thropp, the Wicked Witch of the West. Abandoned as a cub, his path from infancy is no Yellow Brick Road. In the wake of laws that oppress talking Animals, he avoids a jail sentence by agreeing to serve as a lackey to the warmongering Emperor of Oz. A Lion Among Men chronicles a battle of wits hastened by the Emerald City's approaching armies. Can those tarnished by infamy escape their sobriquets to claim their own histories, to live honorably within their own skins before they're skinned alive?"–Publisher.

Out of Oz by Gregory Maguire
Wicked Years; Book Four.
Glinda, former Throne Minister, held under house arrest by General Cherrystone, obtains the infamous Grimmerie, supposedly a volume of magical lore, coveted by Oz. Meanwhile, Lir's daughter Rain begins her quest to discover her true identity and unravel the layers of political and personal secrets that have caused strife and division in Oz.–Summary.

Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan
"Serena Frome, the beautiful mathematician daughter of an Anglican bishop, has a brief affair with an older man during her final year at Cambridge, and finds herself being groomed for the Intelligence Service. The year is 1972: Britain, confronting economic disaster, is being torn apart by industrial unrest and Irish terrorism and faces its fifth state of emergency. The Cold War has entered a moribund phase but the fight goes on and MI5 hesitates at little to influence hearts and minds. Serena, a compulsive reader of novels, is sent by her new employers on a secret mission that brings her into the literary world of Tom Haley, a promising young writer. First, she loves his stories, and then she begins to love the man. Can she maintain the fiction of her undercover life? And who is deceiving whom? To answer these questions, Serena must abandon the first rule of espionage - trust no one."–Jacket.

The Crown of Embers by Rae Carson
The Girl of Fire and Thorns; Book Two
“Elisa is a hero. She led her people to victory over a terrifying sorcerer’s army. Her place as the country’s ruler should be secure. But it isn’t. Her enemies come at her like ghosts in a dream, from foreign realms and even from within her own court. And her destiny as the chosen one has not yet been fulfilled. To conquer the power she bears, once and for all, Elisa must follow a trail of long forgotten – and forbidden – clues, from the deep, hidden catacombs of her own city to the treacherous seas. With her go a one-eyed spy, a traitor, and the man whom – despite everything – she is falling in love with. If’s she’s lucky, she will return from this journey. But there will be a cost.–Jacket.

The Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi
Companion to Ship Breaker
In a dark future America that has devolved into unending civil wars, orphans Mahlia and Mouse barely escape the war-torn lands of the Drowned Cities, but their fragile safety is soon threatened and Mahlia will have to risk everything if she is to save Mouse, as he once saved her.–Summary.

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith
Hadley and Oliver fall in love on the flight from New York to London, but after a cinematic kiss they lose track of each other at the airport until fate brings them back together on a very momentous day.–Summary.