Trapped in Silver by Emily Sowden

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This Debut Author Is One To Watch

Here’s the thing about real people. They’re complicated. Okay, fine. We’re complicated. We can stand up to a pack of wolves with nothing but a knife at dusk and then shiver in a warm bed until dawn, terrified by a nightmare we don’t even remember. It doesn’t make any sense. Real people don’t always make sense. Emily Sowden gets that. She gets how real life works.

Take Ava. She might not be great at fighting, but she’s a survivor. She knows how to depend on herself. When her mother dies and her father starts disappearing, she holds the family farm together. So what if women aren’t allowed to conduct business in her misogynist, backwater town? She’ll dress herself as a young man and get the job done. That’s practical strength. That’s real strength.

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The City in the Mountains by Valerie Noble

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Sci-Fi Action with a Kick-Ass Heroine

Ever since Kaia was born, she has been taught that the alien Descenders rescued a dying Earth from the brink of ecological disaster. Now she lives in a sustainable utopia, in which all human beings and Descenders alike must “earn” the energy they use. Athletes are the rock stars of this future world, producing enough energy to bring wealth and prosperity to their home grids, and Kaia is already one of the best.

But there is a Resistance brewing—rebel Descenders are plotting against their own government and its strange genetic experimentation. Are Kaia’s purple eyes and extra-sensory abilities the signs they have been waiting for? Is she the first evolutionary leap of humanity, the one that could save the Descenders from their own looming extinction?

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Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison

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Funny with a Mean Streak

I bought this one as a “blind date” from Malaprops. They wrap books in brown paper and write things like “hilarious” or “pee-your-pants funny” or whatever, and you buy it like that and then open it to see what you bought! It’s so fun! (If you already have it you can exchange it right away, so it’s a much better deal than your usual blind date ha ha!)

So Georgia is 14. She lives in Great Britain and has all kinds of misadventures like dressing up as an olive for a party and wrestling her own rather terrifying house cat. She’s very funny most of the time, but sometimes she’s kind of mean so I didn’t always sympathize with her.

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The Blazing Star – by Imani Josey

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Interesting Premise with a Gorgeous Setting

I was scrolling through the young adult section looking for a new read, and the shelf was like this: HOT GUY on the cover, HOT GUY on the cover, HOT GUY on the cover…

Although I enjoy a hot-guy romance as much as the next hot-guy enthusiast… every single cover? Really? So I was THRILLED to run across The Blazing Star. The heroine of the story, actually dominating the cover. Imagine that.

I requested it immediately.

The initial chapters (set in the real world) did not disappoint. There are universal tensions that any heart can relate to, and I cared about both sisters right from the start. And then… Egypt! The glimpses into the daily life of this fantastical version of ancient Egypt are one of the book’s greatest strengths.

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