Reviews written by Kristie Lowry, Promotions Manager

The date is September 5, 2017 and Mateo Torrez and Rufus Emeterio are both going to die. Thanks to an app called Last Friend, they find each other and commit to spend their day in the best way possible—whatever that means. THEY BOTH DIE AT THE END...

Seventeen-year-old Billie McCaffrey and her group, the Hexagon, are what every teenager wants: a tight-knit clan held together by history, laughter, tears, and fun. The four boys and two girls in the Hexagon all belong to the same church, and Billie’s father is that church’s youth minister. He and Billie...

Daisy is in an animal shelter and counting down the days until she may have to walk through the door to what she calls the Bad Side—so named because a dog walks through that door and is never seen again. By her reckoning, she has two more days before she’s...

Scott Wallace prefers to live life in a fog. Alcohol, drugs, and conspiracy theories fuel his existence, and his daughter, Katie, has had to be the responsible adult in their two-person family for far too long. At seventeen, Katie should be worried about things like prom and her grades, but...

L.E. Sterling’s TRUE NORTH is the second in her True Born trilogy. The series takes place on a dystopian Earth where Dominion is the home of Lucy and Margot Fox—Upper Circle twins who somehow hold the key to stopping the plague that has decimated the world’s population and caused a...

Matt can’t control much of anything in his life. His dad left when he was a baby. His sister—his primary ally in teenagedom—has run away. His mom is working long hours and struggling to keep her job. Kids at school pick on him because he’s gay. And the school has...

Z is so depressed she can barely find the energy to get out of bed each day. Sabrina has taken to numbing herself with drugs to deal with her brother’s death and her parents’ resulting pain and indifference. Justin can’t control his anger, and although that serves him well on...

Lily Rose Pruitt loves her grandparents, Bill and Violet, though she doesn’t see them as much as she would like because they work for a traveling circus. Bill is “Bill the Giant”—he’s 7’ 5” tall—and he’s also the trainer (or mahout) of Queenie Grace, an elephant. Violet is only 4’...

THE WAKING LAND by Callie Bates begins with five-year-old Elanna Valtai being taken hostage because it has been discovered that her father, Ruadan (the Duke of Caeris) is behind an attempted insurrection against King Antoine of Eren. King Antoine has promised to keep Elanna safe as his ward as long...

LOVE, LUCAS by Chantele Sedgwick tells the story of Oakley Nelson in the time after she loses her best friend and brother, Lucas. Oakley is struggling and completely lost after Lucas dies. Her parents are having an understandably tough time with his death, too, so Oakley is left to grieve...

HOUSE OF FURIES by Madeleine Roux is creepy, gory, and full of suspense. Louisa Ditton has escaped an intolerable boarding school to become a fortune teller and petty thief when she’s found by an old woman who offers her steady employment and a warm bed. Louisa accepts—thinking...

Julia Marks is an eleven-year-old girl starting her summer vacation without Ramon, the family dog who died unexpectedly of an apparent heart attack. Julia’s two best friends, Kaylee and Piper, both have plans that will take them out of town for the summer, and Julia has decided that her own...

Ben Carver is a perfectly normal high-achieving boy. He is a scholarship student at a fancy private school. He has a family that he loves. He’s on the baseball team. He has met a beautiful girl who likes him as much as he likes her. And he just won a...

Princess Cassandra has dresses, books, and servants, but she doesn’t have a best friend. Fortunately she has servants to send out to hunt for a best friend for her, and she asks for one in the form of a pet. A green pet to match her favorite green dress. ...

Fifteen-year-old Aki Simon is on a summer mission trip in Mexico with other members of her congregation—including her older brother and her dad (the youth group leader). She and her best friend, Lori, are the youngest of the group and only allowed along for the ride because adults in their...