Countdown: February 2014 (3)

You can't get much more romantic as far as destination cities, than Paris, France. While I'm hopeful that I'll be able to find a few new reads that fall into the romance department during the "romantic" months, I'm not limiting myself to only those types of reads. There are so many new titles hitting the shelve this year that I know I'll never be able to keep up. But it never hurts to try, and these countdown posts keep my list fresh and helps me narrow down my choices when I'm on the hunt for what to read next. Are there any titles you are looking forward to come February? Do you tend to find yourself reading romances during February or do you go the opposite route? Here are a few coming out next month that I'm looking forward to adding to my bookshelf.

 

Countdown Pick #1:  Three (Article 5, #3) by Kristen Simmons (02/11/2014)

 

Ember Miller and Chase Jennings are ready to stop running. After weeks spent in hiding as two of the Bureau of Reformation’s most wanted criminals, they have finally arrived at the safe house, where they hope to live a peaceful and quiet existence—but all that’s left is smoking ruins.

Devastated by the demolition of their last hope, Ember and Chase follow the one thing left to them—tracks leading away from the wreckage. The only sign that there may have been survivors.

Because of their high profiles, they know they can’t stay out in the open for long. They take shelter in the wilderness and amid the ruins of abandoned cities as they follow the tracks down the coast, eventually finding refugees from the destroyed safe house. Among them is someone from Chase’s past—someone he thought he’d never see again.

Banding together, they search for a place to hide, aiming for a settlement a few of them have heard about… a settlement that is rumored to house the nebulous organization known as Three. The very group that has provided Ember with a tiny ray of hope ever since she was first forced on the run.

Three is responsible for the huge network of underground safe houses and resistance groups across the country. And they may offer Ember her only chance to tell the world her story—and to fight back.

 

There was no way I could resist adding this title to the list. It's a series that won me over, and left me wanting more. I've got the sequel in the series to still read, so I tried to avoid reading the synopsis for this third installment so I wouldn't spoil anything for myself, but I'm sure it sounds just as exciting and thrilling as the last two.

Countdown Pick #2:  The Drowned Forest by Kristopher Reisz (02/08/2014)

 

A Southern Gothic about a drowned girl who's haunting her best friend, who has been lost without her and may be dragged down into the river with her unless she finds a way to put Holly to rest.

Most of you who follow the blog know that I tend to steer clear of all things scary and creepy, because I'm a wimp when it comes to material like that.  But when I came across this February release for some reason, I found myself adding it to my countdown list.  I'm not sure what about it struck a cord with me, but I'm curious to see how Holly's best friend will handle this haunting, on top of trying to deal with the death of her best friend.  What will happen in the end is definitely a mystery, but it's one I hope I can muster up the courage to get through.

 

Countdown Pick #3:  Red Rising by Pierce Brown (02/18/2014)

 

Darrow is a miner and a Red, a member of the lowest caste in the color-coded society of the future. Like his fellow Reds, he digs all day, believing that he and his people are making the surface of the planet livable for future generations. Darrow has never seen the sky.

Yet he spends his life willingly, knowing that his blood and sweat will one day result in a better future for his children.

But Darrow and his kind have been betrayed. Soon he discovers that humanity already reached the surface generations ago. Vast cities and sprawling parks spread across the planet. Darrow and Reds like him are nothing more than slaves to a decadent ruling class.

Inspired by a longing for justice, and driven by the memory of lost love, Darrow joins a resistance group in order to infiltrate the ruling class and destroy society from within. He will stop at nothing to bring down his enemies... even if it means he has to become one of them to do so.

 

Get excited for another dystopian new release!  If Darrow plans on infiltrating the ruling class and going undercover to make a change, I want to be right there reading alongside him as he starts his adventure.  It's easy for readers to get behind the underdog and choose sides against an oppressive ruling body, so I have no doubt this will be a release that a lot of readers are eager to add to their collection.

 

Countdown Pick #4:  The Well's End by Seth Fishman (02/25/2014)

 

Mia Kish is afraid of the dark. And for good reason. When she was a toddler she fell deep into her backyard well only to be rescued to great fanfare and celebrity. In fact, she is small-town Fenton,Colorado’s walking claim to fame. Not like that helps her status at Westbrook Academy, the nearby uber-ritzy boarding school she attends. A townie is a townie. Being nationally ranked as a swimmer doesn’t matter a lick. But even the rarefied world of Westbrook is threated when emergency sirens start blaring and the school is put on lock down, quarantined and surrounded by soldiers who seem to shoot first and ask questions later. Only when confronted by a frightening virus that ages its victims to death in a manner of hours does Mia realize she may only just be beginning to discover what makes Fenton special.

The answer is behind the walls of the Cave, aka Fenton Electronics. Mia’s dad, the director of Fenton Electronics, has always been secretive about his work. But unless Mia is willing to let her classmates succumb to the strange illness, she and her friends have got to break quarantine, escape the school grounds, and outsmart armed soldiers to uncover the truth about where the virus comes from and what happened down that well. The answers they find just might be more impossible than the virus they are fleeing.

 

I think I've been terrified of wells ever since watching that horror movie, The Ring where the girl climbs out of the well all broken, etc...  I get chills and goosebumps just thinking about that scene.  I'm hoping that since this well accident Mia was involved in happened when she was younger, that by some miracle the author will only glance over that event and move right along to get to the rest of the story because it's one I'm curious to read more about.  If there are too many scene with a well as a backdrop, I can only imagine that I'll only be reading this story during daylight hours, and forcing myself to watch or read something cheerful before I go to bed to avoid the nightmares.

 

Countdown Pick #5:  Rise of the Arcane Fire (The Secret Order, #2) by Kristin Bailey (02/04/2014)

 

The adventure continues as Meg becomes more deeply involved with The Secret Order. A saboteur and murderer has her in his sights in this mysterious and thrilling second installment of The Secret Order trilogy.
I've been told there will be more details to come in regards to this sequel in a series that had my curiosity flowing from start to finish.  The first time around was nothing but pure excitement as Bailey took us through this strange and unusual world and secret society where the inventions garnered nothing but respect from this eager reader.

Guest Post: Author Kristin Bailey

After her parents died in a fire and her grandfather disappeared, Meg Whitlock thought her life had come to a standstill. But when she learned that the pocket watch her grandfather left her was really an intricate key, Meg, with the help of a stable hand named Will, uncovered the Amusementists: members of an elite secret society dedicated to discovery and shrouded in mystery.

Now the Amusementists are convening in London, and Meg is determined to join their ranks. But being the first girl in the Order has its difficulties, and with Will away in Scotland Meg fears she can’t trust anyone but herself. Her worries are only supported by the sabotage happening at the academy, with each altered invention being more harmful than the last.

With threats lurking around every corner, and while trying to prove her worth as the first female Amusementist, Meg must uncover the identity of the academy’s saboteur before the botched devices become deadly. And after she finds evidence of a sinister and forbidden invention, Meg must stop it - or risk the entire future of the Amusementists.

 

Writing into the Gap

Hi everyone, and thank you for inviting me. I want to write about a phenomenon I've seen in the YA world that helped prompt the idea for THE SECRET ORDER trilogy.

When I decided I wanted to write Young Adult, I remembered the the time in my life when I was twelve and thirteen and I loved reading. I desperately used the books I read to try to make sense of the world around me. I also read them to have fun. I wanted to see in them, characters, especially girls I could aspire to be. Like the roller-coasters I loved so much, I wanted my books to be a wild ride. I loved those stories, and they inspired me to learn and grow.

According to the American Library Association, the Young Adult genre spans the ages from twelve to eighteen years old, though there are obviously adult readers as well. Middle Grade is usually defined as ages nine to twelve. So, between MG and YA books, there should be a smooth gradient of childhood reading with content for every age in the spectrum, with the fuzzy break happening for kids who are about eleven and twelve years old.

The problem is that there has been a trend to push toward older and more mature stories and characters in YA novels. So much so that former "YA" books broke out into a new genre called New Adult. Content for young adult novels has grown darker and edgier, pushing content that is solidly intended for an audience of sixteen and up. I don't know if the influx of the adult readers into the genre has helped to push characters and contact toward this higher "maturity" but the trend seems pretty clear.

I watched this trend unfolding and it broke my heart, because I saw a gap opening where I could find less and less books that formed a bridge from shorter middle grade novels into the young adult genre.

I wanted to write into that gap even though it terrified me. It meant going against the trend and writing for the kids that are just coming out of Middle Grade, but not quite ready to wrap their minds around content intended for older teens.

So for just a moment, I'd like to stand in defense of immaturity, and I hope you will join me, because I'd hate to leave the girl I was at twelve alone in the dark.

Here are some of the things I did when I was young.

I instantly fell in love, frequently. I found nothing at all wrong, weak, or abnormal about this process. I also never saw it at a failing of my personal character. Some of the people I loved so intensely I could feel the constant ache in my chest were, Legolas Greenleaf, Christian Slater, the entire cast of Young Guns, several rock stars from the eighties and early nineties that had amazing hair, at least half of my brother's friends, and one boy I completely made up in my own head.

I hid old skool Romance novels under my bed and read them with a flashlight late at night when my mother wouldn't catch me, then became baffled by the mechanics of what I was reading, and even though I was curious, I tended to regard some of those scenes with the morbid fascination that one uses when trying to figure out exactly what animal a lump of road kill used to be.

I refused to kiss a boy in a closet during a game of spin the bottle because I just wasn't ready for that and didn't want my first kiss to be a game.

I later regretted that decision when I found out all my friends did.

Then later didn't regret that decision as I grew up and learned my instincts were right.

I made stupid impulsive mistakes, over and over again, including an attempt to buy a year book for my middle school by showing up for school super early, which had the unintended consequence of terrifying my parents because they thought I had run away.

I was not allowed into a club called the "Odd Squad" because I was too odd.

And I survived all my own foibles with enough self composure that I can laugh about them now.

We need books for the young end of the YA market. We need books for the awkward, crazy girl I was, because she needed the example of how to grow and mature. To do that, sometimes we have to start young. Sometimes we need characters who show that same immaturity, and we have to give them the room and faith that they will grow and become stronger. They will show us the path so that maybe, just maybe, that path will be easier for another crazy odd girl shouldn't have to grow up so quickly.

Happy Reading,

Kristin Bailey

 About the Author:

 

 

 

Kristin Bailey grew up in the middle of the San Joaquin Valley in California. As a kid she enjoyed visiting the beach, camping and skiing with her two brothers.

Now she is a military wife and mother of two young children. She is also terrible about spoiling her pets. She has one fluffy mutt, two cats who think they own the world, and a fish tank with a quartet of fat fish, and two secretive striped ninja-assassin snails.

In the course of her adventures, she has worked as a zookeeper, balloon artist, and substitute teacher. Now she enjoys writing books for teens who enjoy mystery and adventure as much as she does.

Kristin loves hearing from readers but asks that all Goodreads messages stay on the subject of books. E-ARCs are available through Edelweiss.

 

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