Wet. Soaked. Face down. These are the first words that come to mind before I scream.

Between
Jessica Warman
Elizabeth Valchar – pretty, popular and perfect – wakes up the morning after her eighteenth birthday party on her family’s yacht, where she’d been celebrating with her five closest friends. A persistent thumping noise has roused her. When she goes to investigate, what she discovers will change everything she thought she knew about her past, her future, and what lies between.
As Liz begins to unravel the circumstances surrounding her birthday night, she finds that no one, least of all Liz herself, was perfect – or innocent. And that some memories never stop following you no matter how hard you run.

What is interesting about Between is that the main character Elizabeth is popular but not exactly nice. Spoilt, selfish and superficial seems a fitting description. When she teams up with Alex, he doesn’t bother to hide his hatred of her. So what do the High School Queen and the quiet nobody have in common? I’m not telling because that would be a massive spoiler. To find out you’ll just have to pick up the book.

City of Bones Trailer No 2.

Since you all loved the movie trailer of City of Bones here is version two.

Run for your life.

The Paladin Prophecy
Mark Frost

This starts off as a chase conspiracy with our hero Will running from some black-capped bad guys. He hopes to gain some breathing space by enrolling in a elite boarding school, but danger follows. Could some of the students be connected? And is the man who no one else can see really a figmant of his imagination?

The Raven Boys

The Raven Boys
Maggie Stiefvater

I’m calling it. Maggie Stiefvater is cool. She is good at art, driving (http://m-stiefvater.livejournal.com/238998.html) and telling stories. Good stories. The Raven Boys has two groups of people in it; Blue, her psychic mother and their housemates and then Gansey and his best mates, Adam, Ronan and Noah. The guys are students at an elite school and spend their down time hunting for a dead king (as you do). When the paths of these two groups cross, a chance to finally solve the mystery arrives.

This book is the first of four books, so there are lots of unanswered questions and things to keep you guessing. To read the beginning click here:

http://maggiestiefvater.com/wp-content/uploads/RavenBoys-CHAP-TEASER.pdf

This sample is all about Blue but other chapters follow the boys and some different characters. The third person narration makes it a little different from Stiefvater’s usual first person style. A movie is planned for this.

New Katniss images

Some new images from ‘Catching Fire’ have been released:

http://www.myhungergames.com/catching-fire-character-portrait-katniss

Temeraire

Temeraire
Naomi Novik

I loved this book. If you think Dragons have been done to death think again. Naomi Novik has come up with a brillant alternative reality, recreating England during the Napoleonic wars. The twist is that Dragons exist and are used in battle. If you think Dragons fighting sounds cool you’d be right.

But really what make this story so good is the characters. As the reluctant caretaker of a Dragon hatchling, Captain Will Laurence is wonderful, sometimes a goody two shoes, but kind and always trying to do the honourable thing. Other minor players are also nicely developed and the Dragons themselves, their individual personalities and skills, make this novel really enjoyable. I loved that Temeraire was smart, a little vain and totally protective of Laurence.

This is the first book in a series. The writing and behaviour is old fashioned but spot on. Think Hornblower meets Dragons. (If you don’t know what Hornblower is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIKpgYNMSYA). I’m not the only one who sees the connection. Check out the fake trailer for the series:

Lots of different covers for this, some more eyecatching than others.

You are the ink, she said. Write as you want.

Green Angel
Alice Hoffman

Essentially this is a fable about grief. Beautifully presented this is sad story and you would have to be in the mood, so consider this a heads up – pick your moment.

Fifteen year-old Green is left all alone after her family is killed. She wanders about their house and the nearby town with no thought of the future. Sucked into a pit of sadness, she is unable and unwilling to crawl back out.

There has been some mixed reactions to this book, some suggesting it is perhaps a little overdone, but Publishers Weekly described it by saying, “Achingly lovely . . .In lean, hypnotic prose, Hoffman constructs a post-apocalyptic fairy tale leavened with hope.”