Stand-Alone Titles

CRUEL SUMMER
Alyson Noel
St. Martin’s Griffin
ISBN: 9780312355111 
Ages 12-up
240 pages

• Read a Review & Excerpt
• Buy from Amazon.com

Having recently discarded her dorky image --- and the best friend that went with it --- Colby Cavendish is looking forward to a long hot season of parties, beach barbeques, and hopefully, more hookups with Levi Bonham, the hottest guy in school. But her world comes crashing down when her parents send her away to spend the summer in Greece with her crazy aunt Tally.

Stranded on a boring island with no malls, no cell phone reception and an aunt who talks to her plants, Colby worries that her new friends have forgotten all about her. But when she meets Yannis, a cute Greek local, everything changes. She experiences something deeper and more intense than a summer fling, and it forces her to see herself --- and the life she left behind --- in a whole new way.

THE DISAPPEARED
Gloria Whelan
Dial Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780803732759
Ages 12-up
144 pages

• Buy from Amazon.com

The Disappeared. Los desaparecidos. This is the name given to those who opposed Argentina’s dictatorial government and were kidnapped to ensure their silence. With her hometown of Buenos Aires ensconsced in the political nightmare, Silvia devises a plan to save her missing brother. She’ll make Norberto, son of the general who arrests dissenters, fall in love with her --- and he’ll have his father set Eduardo free.
 
Told in alternating chapters, THE DISAPPEARED follows Silvia as she spirals into Norberto’s world, and Eduardo as he struggles to endure physical and emotional torture. Will Silvia’s scheme reunite her family? Or will the pursuit of freedom cost these devoted siblings their lives?

GONE
Michael Grant
HarperTeen
ISBN: 9780061448768
Ages 12-up
576 pages

• Read a Review
• Buy from Amazon.com

In the blink of an eye. Everyone disappears.

Gone.

Except for the young. Teens. Middle schoolers. Toddlers. But not one single adult. Just as suddenly, there are no phones, no Internet, no television. No way to get help. And no way to figure out what's happened.

Hunger threatens. Bullies rule. A sinister creature lurks. Animals are mutating. And the teens themselves are changing, developing new talents --- unimaginable, dangerous, deadly powers --- that grow stronger by the day.

HIGH DIVE
Tammar Stein
Knopf Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780375830242
Ages 14-up
208 pages

• Read a Review
• Buy from Amazon.com

Arden has a plane ticket to Sardinia to say goodbye to her family’s beloved vacation home after her father’s sudden death and her mother’s deployment to Iraq as an army nurse. Lonely for her father and petrified for her mother’s safety, Arden dreads her trip to the house in Sardinia --- the only place that has truly felt like home to her. So when she meets a group of fun, carefree and careless friends on their summer break, she decides to put off her trip and join them to sample the sights and culinary delights of Europe. Arden tries to forget about the danger her mom faces every day, but the house in Sardinia beckons and she has to make a choice. Is Arden ready to jump off the high dive?

HOW TO BUILD A HOUSE
Dana Reinhardt
Wendy Lamb Books/Random House
ISBN: 9780375844539
Ages 14-up
240 pages

• Read a Review
• Buy from Amazon.com

Harper’s dad is getting a divorce from her beloved stepmother, and Harper loses her stepsister in the process. Harper decides to escape by joining a volunteer program to build a house for a family in Tennessee who lost their home in a tornado --- even though she knows nothing about construction. Soon she’s living in a funky motel and working long days in blazing heat with a group of kids from all over the country. At the site, she works alongside Teddy, the son of the family for whom they are building the house. Their partnership turns into a summer romance, complete with power tools.

HURRICANE SONG
Paul Volponi
Viking Juvenile
ISBN: 9780670061600
Ages 12-up
144 pages

• Buy from Amazon.com

Miles has only lived in New Orleans with his musician father for a few months when Hurricane Katrina hits. They haven’t exactly been getting along. Miles is obsessed with football, while his dad’s passion is jazz. But when the storm strikes, they’re forced to work through their differences to survive a torturous few days in the Superdome. Paul Volponi creates a gripping hour-by-hour portrayal of what life was like for those left behind once the floodwaters began to rise.

IVY
Julie Hearn
Ginee Seo Books/Atheneum
ISBN: 9781416925064
Ages 12-up
368 pages

• Read a Review & Excerpt
• Buy from Amazon.com

Ivy is used to being overlooked. The youngest in a family of thieves, scoundrels and roustabouts, the girl with the flame-colored hair and odd-colored eyes is declared useless by her father from the day she is born. But Ivy has a quality that makes people take notice. It's more than beauty --- and it draws others toward her.
 
This makes her the perfect subject for an aspiring painter named Oscar Aretino Frosdick, a member of the pre-Raphaelite school of artists. Oscar is determined to make his mark on the art world, with Ivy as his model and muse. But behind Ivy's angelic looks lurk dark secrets and a troubled past --- a past that has given her an unfortunate taste for laudanum. And when treachery and jealousy surface in the Eden that is the artist's garden, Ivy must learn to be more than a pretty face if she is to survive.

THE JULIET CLUB
Suzanne Harper
Greenwillow Books
ISBN: 9780061366918
Ages 12-up
416 pages

• Buy from Amazon.com

Kate Sanderson inherited her good sense from her mother, a disciplined law professor, and her admiration for the Bard from her father, a passionate Shakespeare scholar. When she gets dumped, out of the blue, for Ashley Lawson, she vows never to fall in love again. From now on she will control her own destiny, and every decision she makes will be highly reasoned and rational. She thinks Shakespeare would have approved.
 
So when she is accepted to a summer Shakespeare symposium in Verona, Italy, Kate sees it as the ideal way to get over her heartbreak once and for all. She'll lose herself in her studies, explore ancient architecture, and eat plenty of pasta and gelato. But can even completely logical Kate resist the romance of living in a beautiful villa in the city where those star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet met and died for each other?

MARLEY Z. AND THE BLOODSTAINED VIOLIN
Jim Fusilli
Dutton Juvenile
ISBN: 9780525479079
Ages 12-up
208 pages

• Read a Review & Excerpt
• Buy from Amazon.com

Marley Z. is a hip, outgoing and confident New York City kid just starting eighth grade. When her best friend is accused of stealing a priceless violin on display at The Juilliard School, Marley steps in to prove her pal’s innocence. So begins her mad dash around the city --- from the Metropolitan Museum, to stately doormen buildings, to a violin teacher’s artsy brownstone, to her favorite neighborhood Italian restaurant. Suspects and motives appear and vanish, but intrepid Marley won’t stop until she has the right answers.

OUTSIDE BEAUTY
Cynthia Kadohata
Atheneum/Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 9780689865756
Ages 12-up
272 pages

• Read a Review
• Buy from Amazon.com

There's only one way Shelby and her sisters can describe their mother: She's a sexpot. Helen Kimura collects men (and loans, spending money, and gifts of all kinds) from all over the country. She's not your typical role model, but she's also not just a pretty face and nail polish --- she’s confident and brave, and lives life on her own terms. Her four daughters simply adore her and work together to keep the family grounded in a way their mother can’t.
 
Then a late-night phone call unexpectedly shreds the family apart, catapulting the girls across the country to live with their respective fathers. But these strong-willed sisters are, like their mother, determined to live life on their own terms. What they do to pull their family back together is nothing short of beautiful.

STEALING HEAVEN
Elizabeth Scott
HarperTeen
ISBN: 9780061122804
Ages 12-up
320 pages

• Read a Review
• Buy from Amazon.com

Dani has been trained as a thief by the best --- her mother. Together, they move from town to town, targeting wealthy homes and making a living by stealing antique silver. They never stay in one place long enough to make real connections, real friends --- a real life.
 
In the beach town of Heaven, though, everything changes. For the first time, Dani starts to feel at home. She is making friends and has even met a guy. But these people can never know the real Dani --- because of who she is. When it turns out that her new friend lives in the house they've targeted for their next job and the cute guy is a cop, Dani must question where her loyalties lie: with the life she's always known, or the one she's always wanted.

TEN MILE RIVER
Paul Griffin
Dial Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780803732841
Ages 12-up
194 pages

• Buy from Amazon.com

Best friends Ray and Jose are not your typical 13-year-olds. They’ve escaped foster care and juvenile detention centers to live on their own together in an abandoned building located near Manhattan Park called Ten-Mile River. With no use for school or families, street-smart Jose and bookish, introspective Ray have everything they need in each other. They are closer than brothers until they meet Trini. She’s smart, beautiful and confident, and they both fall for her immediately. As tension creeps into their relationship, Ray must struggle to find an identity separate from Jose and try to envision a future for himself beyond Jose and Ten-Mile River.

Series Books/Sequels

The Clique Summer Collection

ALICIA: The Clique Summer Collection #3
Lisi Harrison
Poppy/Little, Brown for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780316027533
Ages 12-up
144 pages

• Read a Review
• Buy from Amazon.com

Back in Spain to visit her relatives, Alicia discovers that Spain's newest pop sensation ¡Ignacio! is searching for a true Spanish beauty to star in his new hit-single video. She can't believe her luck! If Alicia is cast as a true Spanish beauty, Massie will never call her fake-Spanish again. The only trick: She'll have to beat her super-bonita cousins to win the coveted spot.

Mariah Mundi

MARIAH MUNDI: THE MIDAS BOX
G. P. Taylor
Putnam Juvenile
ISBN: 9780399243479
Ages 12-up
292 pages

• Read a Review
• Buy from Amazon.com

The Prince Regent is no ordinary hotel. Powered entirely by steam, run by an eccentric inventor who doesn’t believe in sleep, it’s a place full of shadowy characters and dangerous secrets. Mariah has just started working there as a magician’s assistant, and when he and his co-worker Sacha unwittingly learn more than they were meant to know, they suddenly find themselves pawns in an evil plot so full of twists and turns that even the labyrinth of hidden tunnels and caverns beneath the hotel can’t contain it. As they struggle to unravel the mystery and stay alive in the process, encountering secret rooms, enchanted objects and vicious mythical creatures, they question whom to trust.

The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel

THE MAGICIAN: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel, Book 2
Michael Scott
Delacorte Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780385733588
Ages 12-up
496 pages

• Read a Review & Excerpt
• Buy from Amazon.com

After fleeing Ojai, Nicholas, Sophie, Josh and Scatty emerge in Paris, the City of Lights. Perenell is still locked up back in Alcatraz and Paris is teeming with enemies. Nicollo Machiavelli, immortal author and celebrated art collector, is working for Dee. He’s after them, and time is running out for Nicholas and Perenell. For every day spent without the Book of Abraham the Mage, they age one year --- their magic becoming weaker and their bodies more frail. For Nicholas, the Prophesy is becoming more and more clear.

It’s time for Sophie to learn the second elemental magic: Fire Magic. And there’s only one man who can teach it to her: Nicholas’s old student, the Comte de Saint-Germain --- alchemist, magician and rock star. Josh and Sophie Newman are the world’s only hope --- if they don’t turn on each other first.

Sequel to THE LUXE

RUMORS: A Luxe Novel
Anna Godbersen
HarperTeen
ISBN: 9780061345692
Ages 14-up
432 pages

• Read a Review & Excerpt
• Buy from Amazon.com

After bidding goodbye to New York's brightest star, Elizabeth Holland, rumors continue to fly about her untimely demise. All eyes are on those closest to the dearly departed: her mischievous sister, Diana, now the family's only hope for redemption; Henry Schoonmaker, the flame Elizabeth never extinguished; the seductive Penelope Hayes, poised to claim all that her best friend left behind --- including Henry; even Elizabeth's scheming former maid, Lina Broud, who discovers that while money matters and breeding counts, gossip is the new currency. As old friends become rivals, Manhattan's most dazzling socialites find their futures threatened by whispers from the past.