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Talking Characters with Allison van Diepan
Tweet Please give a warm welcome to the fabulous Allison Van Diepan! On a blog tour to promote her newest book, The Vampire Stalker, Allison is here to share with us a bit of background to the book. I love this post. As fellow readers, I’m sure you all wished one of your favorite characters really existed at some point. Allison van Diepan understands that, but I’ll let her explain. Could the characters we love be real? In The Vampire Stalker, Amy discovers that her favorite book character, the dashing Alexander Banks, is actually a real person. In fact, all of…
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Book Review: Bloodspell
Tweet Title: Bloodspell Author: Amalie Howard Publisher: Langdon Street Press Pages: Paperback; 369 Release Date: June 1, 2011 Source: Publisher/TBS ==================== Intended Reading Group: Young Adult Content Screening: Violence HDB Rating: 5 Keys to My Heart The spell was simple… Cruentus Protectum (Defend the Blood) But what do you do if your blood is your enemy? Victoria Warrick has always known she was different. An outcast at school, she is no stranger to adversity. But when she receives an old journal for her seventeenth birthday, nothing prepares her for the dark secrets it holds — much less one that reveals…
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Book Review: Possession
Tweet Media Type: Book Title: Possession Author: Elana Johnson Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pages: Hardcover; 416 Release Date: June 7, 2011 Source: Publisher/TBS ===================== Intended Reading Group: Young Adult Content Screening: Mild violence HDB Rating: 3 Keys to My Heart Vi knows the Rule: Girls don’t walk with boys, and they never even thinkabout kissing them. But no one makes Vi want to break the Rules more than Zenn…and since the Thinkers have chosen him as Vi’s future match, how much trouble can one kiss cause? The Thinkers may have brainwashed the rest of the population, but Vi is determined…
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Book Review: Nerd Camp
Tweet Media Type: Book Title: Nerd Camp Author: Elissa Brent Weissman Publisher: Antheneum Books Pages: Hardcover; 160 Release Date: May 24, 2011 Source: GalleyGrab ==================== Intended Reading Group: Middle Grade Content Screening: Nothing of note. HDB Rating: 4 Keys to My Heart Ten-year-old Gabe has just been accepted to the Summer Center for Gifted Enrichment. That means he’ll be spending six weeks at sleep-away camp writing poetry and perfecting logic proofs. S.C.G.E. has been a summer home to some legendary middle-school smarty-pants (and future Jeopardy! contestants), but it has a reputation for being, well, a Nerd Camp. S.C.G.E = Smart…
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Audio Book Review: The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place
Intended Reading Group: Middle Grade/Young Adult Content Screening: Nothing! HDB Rating: 5 Keys to My Heart Media Type: Audio Book Title: The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: The Mysterious Howling Author: Mayrose Wood Narrator: Katherine Kellgren Publisher: Books on Tape Format: Audio CD Duration: 5:27 Source: Library Found running wild in the forest of Ashton Place, the Incorrigibles are no ordinary children: Alexander, age ten or thereabouts, keeps his siblings in line with gentle nips; Cassiopeia, perhaps four or five, has a bark that is (usually) worse than her bite; and Beowulf, age somewhere-in-the-middle, is alarmingly adept at chasing squirrels.…
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Book Review: The Lens and the Looker
Tweet Media Type: Book Title: The Lens and the Looker Author: Lory Kaufman Publisher: The Fiction Studio Pages: Paperback; 336 Release Date: March 16, 2011 Source: Pump Up Your Book ===================== Intended Reading Group: Young Adult Content Screening: Mild language, Mild violence HDB Rating: 4 Keys to My Heart It’s the 24th century and humans, with the help of artificial intelligences (A.I.s) have finally created the perfect post-dystopian society. To make equally perfect citizens for this world, the elders have created History Camps, full sized recreations of cities from Earth’s distant pasts. Here teens live the way their ancestors did,…
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Book Review: A Golden Web
Tweet Media Type: Book Title: A Golden Web Author: Barbara Quick Publisher: HarperTeen Pages: Hardcover; 266 Release Date: April 6, 2010 Source: Publisher/TBS ==================== Intended Reading Group: Young Adult Content Screening: Nothing of note HDB Rating: 5 Keys to My Heart Alessandra is desperate to escape. Desperate to escape her stepmother, who’s locked her away for a year; to escape the cloister that awaits her and the marriage plans that have been made for her; to escape the expectations that limit her and every other girl in fourteenth-century Italy. There’s no tolerance in her quiet village for Alessandra and her…
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Book Review: The Chosen
Tweet Media Type: Book Title: The Chosen Author: Andrea Buginsky Publisher: Solstice Pages: Ebook; 113 Release Date: December 14, 2010 Source: Author/TBS ===================== Intended Reading Group: Upper Middle Grade/Young Adult Content Screening: Fantasy violence HDB Rating: 3 Keys to My Heart A young dwarf leads a quiet life until she learns of her true calling and becomes a hero of her world. Halli, a shy young dwarf, discovers she’s a Holy Paladin with the power to heal. She learns of this from Queen Laurali of the Elves, who has come to see Halli after the villages of their world, Phantasma,…
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Book Review: The Misadventures of PIP
Tweet Media Type: Book Title: The Misadventures of PIP Author: Donna Peterson Publisher: Bonneville Pages: Paperback; 96 Release Date: June 14, 2011 Source: NetGalley =================== Intended Reading Group: Middle Grade/Young Adult Content Screening: None HDB Rating: 4 Keys to My Heart Pip, whose real name is Phillip Isaac Penn, feels that the world is against him as he struggles to deal with angry parents, a bossy older sister, a frazzled teacher, and memorable characters such as Bully Bart, Cheater Chaz, Know-It-All Nell, Liar Lizzy, Stealer Steffan, Conman Cody, and Tattle-Tale Tess. Every day of the week brings another challenge that…
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Book Review: Forgotten
Tweet Media Type: Book Title: Forgotten Author: Cat Patrick Publisher: Little, Brown Pages: Hardcover; 304 Release Date: June 7, 2011 Source: Publisher/TBS ===================== Intended Reading Group: Young Adult Content Screening: Nothing to report! HDB Rating: 5 Keys to My Heart Each night when 16 year-old London Lane goes to sleep, her whole world disappears. In the morning, all that’s left is a note telling her about a day she can’t remember. The whole scenario doesn’t exactly make high school or dating that hot guy whose name she can’t seem to recall any easier. But when London starts experiencing disturbing visions…