Waiting on Wednesday | Every Hidden Thing | Kenneth Oppel

Every Hidden Thing

Every Hidden Thing • Kenneth Oppel

Book cover Every Hidden Thing Kenneth Oppel

The hunt for a dinosaur skeleton buried in the Badlands, bitter rivalries, and a forbidden romance come together in this beautifully written new novel that’s Romeo and Juliet meets Indiana Jones.

Somewhere in the Badlands, embedded deep in centuries-buried rock and sand, lies the skeleton of a massive dinosaur, larger than anything the late nineteenth century world has ever seen. Some legends call it the Black Beauty, with its bones as black as ebony, but to seventeen-year-old Samuel Bolt it’s the “rex”, the king dinosaur that could put him and his struggling, temperamental archaeologist father in the history books (and conveniently make his father forget he’s been kicked out of school), if they can just quarry it out.

But Samuel and his father aren’t the only ones after the rex. For Rachel Cartland this find could be her ticket to a different life, one where her loves of science and adventure aren’t just relegated to books and sitting rooms. Because if she can’t prove herself on this expedition with her professor father, the only adventures she may have to look forward to are marriage or spinsterhood.

As their paths cross and the rivalry between their fathers becomes more intense, Samuel and Rachel are pushed closer together. And with both eyeing the same prize, their budding romance seems destined to fail. But as danger looms on the other side of the hills, causing everyone’s secrets to come to light, Samuel and Rachel are forced to make a decision. Can they join forces to find their quarry—and with it a new life together—or will old enmities and prejudices keep them from both the rex and each other?

GUYS. Guys. We need to talk about EVERY HIDDEN THING. I’m dying over this right now. Indiana Jones? Late nineteenth century? Dinosaurs? Romeo & Juliet? Jesus! What awesome thing ISN’T in this book?! I NEED IT. I haven’t read anything by Kenneth Oppel, but this is going to be the first one for me. I’m flailing right now. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that sounds like this one, and I. AM. STOKED.

EVERY HIDDEN THING comes out October 11, 2016 from Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Every Hidden Thing Kenneth Oppel

Waiting on Wednesday | The Progeny

The Progeny

The Progeny: Descendants of the Blood Countess #1 • Tosca Lee

Book cover The Progeny Tosca Lee

New York Times bestselling author Tosca Lee brings a modern twist to an ancient mystery surrounding the most notorious female serial killer of all time. A fast-paced thriller for fans of Ted Dekker’s The Books of Mortals, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, and BBC America’s hit series Orphan Black.

Emily Jacobs is the descendant of a serial killer. Now, she’s become the hunted.

She’s on a quest that will take her to the secret underground of Europe and the inner circles of three ancient orders—one determined to kill her, one devoted to keeping her alive, and one she must ultimately save.

Filled with adrenaline, romance, and reversals, The Progeny is the present-day saga of a 400-year-old war between the uncanny descendants of “Blood Countess” Elizabeth Bathory, the most prolific female serial killer of all time, and a secret society dedicated to erasing every one of her descendants. A story about the search for self filled with centuries-old intrigues against the backdrop of atrocity and hope.

I first saw this title at ALA and was like O_O. In truth, Elizabeth Bathory is Alyssa’s GIRL, but I’m completely fascinated by her, especially in the context of THE PROGENY. HELLOO, “secret underground” and “three ancient orders”! I DIE from these. I looove this generation-spanning mysteries. And legit? I am not put off one bit about that comparison to THE DA VINCI CODE because, call me whatever name you want, but I loved that book.

THE PROGENY: DESCENDANTS OF THE BLOOD COUNTESS #1 comes out May 24, 2016 from Howard Books

The Progeny Tosca Lee

Waiting on Wednesday | The Vanishing Throne

The Vanishing Throne

The Vanishing Throne: The Falconer #2 • Elizabeth May

Book Cover The Vanishing Throne Elizabeth May

The second book in the Falconer trilogy is packed with surprises and suspense.

Aileana Kameron, the Falconer, disappeared through the portal that she was trying to close forever. Now she wakes up in the fae world, trapped and tortured by the evil Lonnrach. With the help of an unexpected ally, Aileana re-enters the human world, only to find everything irrevocably changed. Edinburgh has been destroyed, and the few human survivors are living in an uneasy truce with the fae, while both worlds are in danger of disappearing altogether. Aileana holds the key to saving both worlds, but in order to do so she must awaken her latent Falconer powers. And the price of doing that might be her life.

Rich with imaginative detail, action, fae lore, and romance, The Vanishing Throne is a thrilling sequel to The Falconer.

Guys, I enjoyed the CRAP out of THE FALCONER, with its historical fiction, Scotland, faeries, murder, romance, and a BADASS faerie-killing MC who likes building awesome steampunky things as a hobby. Aileana Kameron is excellent, and I can’t wait to see what happens in THE VANISHING THRONE. I’ve been so dying for it for such a long time. (Also, I love this cover.)

THE VANISHING THRONE comes out June 7, 2016 from Chronicle Books

The Vanishing Throne by Elizabeth May

Waiting on Wednesday | The Love That Split the World | Emily Henry

The Love That Split the World

The Love That Split the World • Emily Henry

Book cover The Love That Split the World Emily Henry

Natalie Cleary must risk her future and leap blindly into a vast unknown for the chance to build a new world with the boy she loves.

Natalie’s last summer in her small Kentucky hometown is off to a magical start…until she starts seeing the “wrong things.” They’re just momentary glimpses at first—her front door is red instead of its usual green, there’s a pre-school where the garden store should be. But then her whole town disappears for hours, fading away into rolling hills and grazing buffalo, and Nat knows something isn’t right.

That’s when she gets a visit from the kind but mysterious apparition she calls “Grandmother,” who tells her: “You have three months to save him.” The next night, under the stadium lights of the high school football field, she meets a beautiful boy named Beau, and it’s as if time just stops and nothing exists. Nothing, except Natalie and Beau.

Emily Henry’s stunning debut novel is Friday Night Lights meets The Time Traveler’s Wife, and perfectly captures those bittersweet months after high school, when we dream not only of the future, but of all the roads and paths we’ve left untaken.

So, this book SCREAMS at me. READ MEEEE! FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTSS!! THE TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE!! Every time I read this synopsis, I get excited. The apparitions and the way things in Natalie’s world change and Beau. The only thing that makes me anxious is the uncontrollable SOBBING that THE TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE elicited from me after I finished. Oh well. Preordered this one already because I can BARELY WAIT.

THE LOVE THAT SPLIT THE WORLD comes out January 26, 2016 from Razorbill

The Love That Split the World Emily Henry

Waiting on Wednesday | A Study in Charlotte | Brittany Cavallaro

A Study in Charlotte

A Study in Charlotte • Brittany Cavallaro

Book cover A Study in Charlotte Brittany Cavallaro

The last thing sixteen-year-old Jamie Watson–writer and great-great-grandson of the John Watson–wants is a rugby scholarship to Sherringford, a Connecticut prep school just an hour away from his estranged father. But that’s not the only complication: Sherringford is also home to Charlotte Holmes, the famous detective’s enigmatic, fiercely independent great-great-granddaughter, who’s inherited not just his genius but also his vices, volatile temperament, and expertly hidden vulnerability. Charlotte has been the object of his fascination for as long as he can remember–but from the moment they meet, there’s a tense energy between them, and they seem more destined to be rivals than anything else.

Then a Sherringford student dies under suspicious circumstances ripped straight from the most terrifying of the Holmes stories, and Jamie and Charlotte become the prime suspects. Convinced they’re being framed, they must race against the police to conduct their own investigation. As danger mounts, it becomes clear that nowhere is safe and the only people they can trust are each other.

Equal parts tender, thrilling, and hilarious, A Study in Charlotte is the first in a trilogy brimming with wit and edge-of-the-seat suspense.

WHOA GUYS. A new series that retells Sherlock Holmes. You know I’m always going to be excited about these. I’m digging the fact that Sherlock’s descendant is a girl, but I’m mostly really excited about this “tense energy” and the danger. Also, I love this cover. Like, so much. A STUDY IN CHARLOTTE is way high on my most-anticipated list for 2016, friends.

A STUDY IN CHARLOTTE comes out on March 1, 2016 from Katherine Tegen Books

A Study in Charlotte Brittany Cavallaro

Waiting on Wednesday | The Great Hunt | Wendy Higgins

Waiting on Wednesday

The Great Hunt • Wendy Higgins
Book cover The Great Hunt Wendy Higgins

Kill the beast. Win the girl.

A strange beast stirs fear in the kingdom of Lochlanach, terrorizing towns with its brutality and hunger. In an act of desperation, a proclamation is sent to all of Eurona—kill the creature and win the ultimate prize: the daughter of King Lochson’s hand in marriage.

Princess Aerity understands her duty to the kingdom though it pains her to imagine marrying a stranger. It would be foolish to set her sights on any particular man in the great hunt, but when a brooding local hunter, Paxton Seabolt, catches her attention, there’s no denying the unspoken lure between them…or his mysterious resentment.

Paxton is not keen on marriage. Nor does he care much for spoiled royals and their arcane laws. He’s determined to keep his focus on the task at hand—ridding the kingdom of the beast and protecting his family—yet Princess Aerity continues to challenge his notions with her unpredictability and charm. But as past secrets collide with present desires, dire choices threaten everything Paxton holds dear.

Inspired by the Grimm Brothers’ tale, “The Singing Bone,” New York Times bestselling author Wendy Higgins delivers a dark fantasy filled with rugged hunters, romantic tension, outlawed magic, and a princess willing to risk all to save her people.

GUYS. THIS BOOK THO. A retelling of a Grimm Brothers’ tale (albeit one I’ve never heard of) that sounds a little like Beauty and the Beast, although it’s possibly that “Kill the Beast” tagline, is promising enough. But look at that one line there: “…a dark fantasy filled with rugged hunters, romantic tension, outlawed magic, and a princess willing to risk all….” Umm…YES TO ALL OF THESE THINGS.

I’m so excited to read THE GREAT HUNT that I preordered it already. I can barely contain my grabby hands.

THE GREAT HUNT comes out March 8, 2016 from HarperTeen

The Great Hunt Wendy Higgins

Waiting on Wednesday | Into the Dim | Janet B. Taylor

Waiting on WednesdayInto the Dim • Janet B. Taylor

Book cover Into the Dim Janet B. Taylor

“Seventy-two hours, then we have to be back at the clearing. Sunrise on the third day.”

Being “the home-schooled girl” in a small town, Hope Walton’s crippling phobias and photographic memory don’t endear her to her dad’s perfectly blond, very Southern family. When her mother is killed in a natural disaster thousands of miles from home, Hope’s secluded world implodes. After being shipped off to an aunt she’s never met, Hope learns there’s more to her mother’s “death” than she ever dreamed. At her aunt’s manor, high in the Scottish Highlands, Hope begins to unravel the shocking truth about her family. Her mom isn’t just a brilliant academic. She’s a member of a secret society of time travelers, and is currently trapped in the twelfth century in the age of King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. To stage a rescue, the sheltered teen must join the Indiana Jones-wannabe team of time-jumpers, before her mother is lost for good. In a brutal, medieval world, Hope will discover more family secrets, and a mysterious boy who could be vital to setting her mother free…or the very key to Hope’s undoing.

Guys. SO MANY THINGS about INTO THE DIM. Scottish Highlands? Check. Time travel? Check. TWELFTH CENTURY ENGLAND CHECK. ELEANOR OF AQUITAINE CHECK OMG. Indiana Jones?!?! GUYS! I’m dying here! I NEED THIS. TODAY. I’m not crazy about the cover, I have to admit. But when the inside sounds as promising as this one does? No brainer.

INTO THE DIM comes out March 2016 from HMH Books for Young Readers

Into the Dim Janet B. Taylor

Waiting on Wednesday | All the Birds in the Sky | Charlie Jane Anders

Waiting on WednesdayAll the Birds in the Sky • Charlie Jane Anders

Book cover All the Birds in the Sky Charlie Jane Anders

From the editor-in-chief of io9.com, a stunning novel about the end of the world–and the beginning of our future
Childhood friends Patricia Delfine and Laurence Armstead didn’t expect to see each other again, after parting ways under mysterious circumstances during high school. After all, the development of magical powers and the invention of a two-second time machine could hardly fail to alarm one’s peers and families.

But now they’re both adults, living in the hipster mecca San Francisco, and the planet is falling apart around them. Laurence is an engineering genius who’s working with a group that aims to avert catastrophic breakdown through technological intervention into the changing global climate. Patricia is a graduate of Eltisley Maze, the hidden academy for the world’s magically gifted, and works with a small band of other magicians to secretly repair the world’s ever-growing ailments. Little do they realize that something bigger than either of them, something begun years ago in their youth, is determined to bring them together–to either save the world, or plunge it into a new dark ages.

A deeply magical, darkly funny examination of life, love, and the apocalypse.

I’ve already preordered ALL THE BIRDS IN THE SKY, guys, because it sounds SO. FREAKING. GOOD. I don’t always chomp at the bit for apocalyptic fiction, YA or otherwise. Other things usually make me nerd out a little harder. But the cover is so arresting and the plot sounds so legit that I couldn’t resist.

ALL THE BIRDS IN THE SKY comes out January 26, 2016 from Tor Books

All the Birds in the Sky Charlie Jane Anders

Waiting on Wednesday | Revenge and the Wild | Michelle Modesto

Waiting on Wednesday

Revenge and the Wild • Michelle Modesto

Book cover 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.

STAHHHP. Is this a fantasy steampunk Western? DOES THE SYNOPSIS SAY WAGON TRAIL?! Someone send me smelling salts. Please. PLEASE. I can’t. REVENGE AND THE WILD sounds amazing. Westie sounds like a complete BAMF, with her mechanical arm and her foul mouth. The magic and the gold angle sounds really interesting. I just need this book, guys.

REVENGE AND THE WILD comes out February 2, 2016 from Balzer + Bray

Revenge and the Wild Michelle Modesto

 

Waiting on Wednesday | Blackhearts | Nicole Castroman

Waiting on Wednesday

Blackhearts • Nicole Castroman

Book cover Blackhearts Nicole Castroman

Blackbeard the pirate was known for striking fear in the hearts of the bravest of sailors. But once he was just a young man who dreamed of leaving his rigid life behind to chase adventure in faraway lands. Nothing could stop him—until he met the one girl who would change everything. This is their story.

Edward “Teach” Drummond, son of one of Bristol’s richest merchants, has just returned from a year-long journey on the high seas to find his life in shambles. Betrothed to a girl he doesn’t love and sick of the high society he was born into, Teach dreams only of returning to the vast ocean he’d begun to call home. There’s just one problem: convincing his father to let him leave and never come back.

Following her parents’ deaths, Anne Barrett is left penniless and soon to be homeless. Though she’s barely worked a day in her life, Anne is forced to take a job as a maid in the home of Master Drummond. Lonely days stretch into weeks, and Anne longs for escape. How will she ever realize her dream of sailing to Curaçao—where her mother was born—when she’s stuck in England?

From the moment Teach and Anne meet, they set the world ablaze. Drawn to each other, they’re trapped by society and their own circumstances. Faced with an impossible choice, they must decide to chase their dreams and go, or follow their hearts and stay.

I swear, friends, I had no idea that this cover was just released today until I looked at Twitter late in the afternoon, but YAY PIRATES. I am dyinggg over the prospect of being able to read about the infamous Blackbeard before he became infamous. There’s nothing about BLACKHEARTS that doesn’t appeal to me: the time period, the setting, the plot. Loving it all.

I will admit to being SUPER nervous about the end of this book already because, well, Blackbeard eventually became that nasty pirate. And, like, I don’t know this Anne person. Sooo…fingers crossed that this one doesn’t have a heart-breaking ending, guys.

BLACKHEARTS comes out on February 9, 2016 from Simon Pulse

Blackhearts Nicole Castroman