Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. It is
a chance for everyone to share lists and get to know fellow bloggers.
This week’s topis is - Top Ten 2016 Debuts
Novels We Are Looking Forward To
- Tell me Three Things – Julie Buxbaum
Everything
about Jessie is wrong. At least, that’s what it feels like during her first
week at her new ultra-intimidating prep school in Los Angeles. Just when she’s
thinking about hightailing it back to Chicago—the closest place she has to
something like home—she gets an email from a person calling themselves
Somebody/Nobody (SN for short), offering to help her navigate the wilds of Wood
Valley High School. Is it an elaborate hoax? Or can she rely on SN for some
much-needed help?
The thing is, Jessie does need help. It’s been barely two years
since her mother’s death, and because her father eloped with a woman he met
online, Jessie has been forced to move across the country to live in LA with
her stepmonster and her pretentious teenage son.
In a leap of faith—or an act of complete
desperation—Jessie begins to rely on SN, and SN quickly becomes her lifeline
and closest ally. Jessie can’t help wanting to meet SN in person. But are some
mysteries better left unsolved?
15th April
- Unhooked
– Lisa Maxwell
For
as long as she can remember, Gwendolyn Allister has never had a place to call
home—all because her mother believes that monsters are hunting them. Now these
delusions have brought them to London, far from the life Gwen had finally
started to build for herself. The only saving grace is her best friend, Olivia,
who’s coming with them for the summer.
But when Gwen and Olivia are kidnapped by shadowy creatures and taken to a
world of flesh-eating sea hags and dangerous Fey, Gwen realizes her mom might
have been sane all along.
The world Gwen finds herself in is called Neverland, yet it’s nothing like the stories.
Here, good and evil lose their meaning and memories slip like water through her
fingers. As Gwen struggles to remember where she came from and find a way home,
she must choose between trusting the charming fairy-tale hero who says all the
right things and the roguish young pirate who promises to keep her safe.
With time running out and her enemies closing in, Gwen is forced to face the
truths she’s been hiding from all along. But will she be able to save Neverland
without losing herself?
2nd February
- Burning
Glass – Kathryn Purdie
Sonya
was born with the rare gift to feel what those around her feel—both physically
and emotionally—a gift she’s kept hidden from the empire for seventeen long
years. After a reckless mistake wipes out all the other girls with similar
abilities, Sonya is hauled off to the palace and forced to serve the emperor as
his sovereign Auraseer.
Tasked with sensing the intentions of would-be
assassins, Sonya is under constant pressure to protect the emperor. One
mistake, one small failure, will cost her own life and the lives of the few
people left in the world who still trust her.
But Sonya’s power is untamed and reckless, her
feelings easily usurped, and she sometimes can’t decipher when other people’s
impulses end and her own begin. In a palace full of warring emotions and
looming darkness, Sonya fears that the biggest danger to the empire may be
herself.
As she struggles to wrangle her abilities, Sonya
seeks refuge in her tenuous alliances with the volatile Emperor Valko and his
idealistic younger brother, Anton, the crown prince. But when threats of
revolution pit the two brothers against each other, Sonya must choose which
brother to trust—and which to betray.
1st March
- Into the
Dim – Janet B. Taylor
When
fragile, sixteen-year-old Hope Walton loses her mom to an earthquake overseas,
her secluded world crumbles. Agreeing to spend the summer in Scotland, Hope
discovers that her mother was more than a brilliant academic, but also a member
of a secret society of time travelers. Trapped in the twelfth century in the
age of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Hope has seventy-two hours to rescue her mother
and get back to their own time. Along the way, her path collides with that of a
mysterious boy who could be vital to her mission . . . or the key to Hope’s
undoing. Addictive, romantic, and rich with historical
detail, Into the Dim is a outlander for teens.
1st March
- Revenge
and the Wild – Michelle Modesto
The
two-bit town of Rogue City is a lawless place, full of dark magic and saloon
brawls, monsters and six-shooters. But it’s perfect for seventeen-year-old
Westie, the notorious adopted daughter of local inventor Nigel Butler.
Westie was only a child when she lost her arm and
her family to cannibals on the wagon trail. Nine years later, Westie may seem
fearsome with her foul-mouthed tough exterior and the powerful mechanical arm
built for her by Nigel, but the memory of her past still haunts her. She’s
determined to make the killers pay for their crimes—and there’s nothing to stop
her except her own reckless ways.
But Westie’s search ceases when a wealthy family
comes to town looking to invest in Nigel’s latest invention, a machine that can
harvest magic from gold—which Rogue City desperately needs as the magic wards
that surround the city start to fail. There’s only one problem: the investors
look exactly like the family who murdered Westie’s kin. With the help of
Nigel’s handsome but scarred young assistant, Alistair, Westie sets out to
prove their guilt. But if she’s not careful, her desire for revenge could cost
her the family she has now.
This thrilling novel is a remarkable tale of
danger and discovery, from debut author Michelle Modesto.
2nd February
- Thief of
Lies – Brenda Drake
Gia
Kearns would rather fight with boys than kiss them. That is, until Arik, a
leather clad hottie in the Boston Athenaeum, suddenly disappears. While
examining the book of world libraries he abandoned, Gia unwittingly speaks the
key that sucks her and her friends into a photograph and transports them into a
Paris library, where Arik and his Sentinels—magical knights charged with
protecting humans from the creatures traveling across the gateway books—rescue
them from a demonic hound.
Jumping into some of the world's most beautiful
libraries would be a dream come true for Gia, if she weren’t busy resisting her
heart or dodging an exiled wizard seeking revenge on both the Mystik and human
worlds. Add a French flirt obsessed with Arik and a fling with a young wizard,
and Gia must choose between her heart and her head, between Arik's world and
her own, before both are destroyed.
5th January
- After the
Woods – Kim Savage
Would
you risk your life to save your best friend?
Julia did. When a paroled predator attacked Liv in
the woods, Julia fought back and got caught. Liv ran, leaving Julia in the
woods for a terrifying 48 hours that she remembers only in flashbacks. One year
later, Liv seems bent on self-destruction, starving herself, doing drugs, and
hooking up with a violent new boyfriend. A dead girl turns up in those same
woods, and Julia’s memories resurface alongside clues unearthed by an ambitious
reporter that link the girl to Julia’s abductor. As the devastating truth
becomes clear, Julia realizes that after the woods was just the beginning.
Kirkus calls After the Woods "A riveting
exploration of what it's like when the enemy is much closer than you suspect.
23rd February
- Please Don’t
Tell – Laura Tims
Joy
killed Adam Gordon—at least, that’s what she thinks. The night of the party is
hazy at best. But she knows what Adam did to her twin sister, Grace, and she
knows he had to pay for it.
What Joy doesn’t expect is that someone else saw what happened. And one night a
note is shoved through her open window, threatening Joy that all will be
revealed. Now the anonymous blackmailer starts using Joy to expose the secrets
of their placid hometown. And as the demands escalate, Joy must somehow uncover
the blackmailer’s identity before Joy is forced to make a terrible choice.
In this darkly compelling narrative, debut author Laura Tims explores the
complicated relationship between two sisters, and what one will do for the
other. It’s a story that will keep readers turning pages and questioning their
own sense of right and wrong.
24th May
- A Criminal
Magic – Lee Kelly
THE
NIGHT CIRCUS meets PEAKY BLINDERS in Lee Kelly's new magical realism, crossover
novel.
Magic is powerful, dangerous and addictive - and
after passage of the 18th Amendment, it is finally illegal.
It's 1926 in Washington, DC, and while
Anti-Sorcery activists have achieved the Prohibition of sorcery, the city's
magic underworld is booming. Sorcerers cast illusions to aid mobsters' crime
sprees. Smugglers funnel magic contraband in from overseas. Gangs have
established secret performance venues where patrons can lose themselves in
magic, and take a mind-bending, intoxicating elixir known as the sorcerer's
shine.
Joan Kendrick, a young sorcerer from Norfolk County,
Virginia accepts an offer to work for DC's most notorious crime syndicate, the
Shaw Gang, when her family's home is repossessed. Alex Danfrey, a first-year
Federal Prohibition Unit trainee with a complicated past and talents of his
own, becomes tapped to go undercover and infiltrate the Shaws.
Through different paths, Joan and Alex tread deep
into the violent, dangerous world of criminal magic - and when their paths
cross at the Shaws' performance venue, despite their orders, and despite
themselves, Joan and Alex become enchanted with one another. But when gang
alliances begin to shift, the two sorcerers are forced to question their
ultimate allegiances and motivations. And soon, Joan and Alex find themselves
pitted against each other in a treacherous, heady game of cat-and-mouse.
A CRIMINAL MAGIC casts a spell of magic, high
stakes and intrigue against the backdrop of a very different Roaring Twenties.
2nd February
- A Shadow
Bright and Burning – Jessica Cluess
Henrietta
Howel can burst into flames. Forced to reveal her power to save a friend, she's
shocked when instead of being executed, she's named the first female sorcerer
in hundreds of years and invited to train as one of Her Majesty's royal
sorcerers.
Thrust into the glamour of Victorian London,
Henrietta is declared the prophesied one, the girl who will defeat the
Ancients, bloodthirsty demons terrorizing humanity. She also meets her fellow
sorcerer trainees, handsome young men eager to test her power and her heart.
One will challenge her. One will fight for her. One will betray her.
But Henrietta doubts that she's the chosen one. As
she plays a dangerous game of deception, she discovers that the sorcerers have
their own secrets to protect. With battle looming, how much will she risk to
save the city--and the one she loves?
Exhilarating and gripping, Jessica Cluess's
spellbinding fantasy introduces Henrietta Howel, a powerful, unforgettable
heroine, and an entertaining world filled with magic, monsters, and mayhem.
20th September
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