I’ve got a huge num­ber of upcom­ing YA books this month for you guys to keep a look out for!

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The Serpent’s Shadow (Kane Chron­i­cles 3) by Rick Riodan

1st May 2012

He’s b-a-a-ack! Despite their best efforts, Carter and Sade Kane can’t seem to keep Apophis, the chaos snake, down. Now Apophis is threat­en­ing to plunge the world into eter­nal dark­ness, and the Kanes are faced with the impos­si­ble task of hav­ing to destroy him once and for all. Unfor­tu­nately, the magi­cians of the House of Life are on the brink of civil war, the gods are divided, and the young ini­ti­ates of Brook­lyn House stand almost alone against the forces of chaos.

To find the answer they need, the Kanes must rely on the mur­der­ous ghost of a pow­er­ful magi­cian who might be able to lead them to the serpent’s shadow… or might lead them to their deaths in the depths of the underworld…

Insur­gent (Diver­gent 2) by Veron­ica Roth

1st May 2012

One choice can trans­form you—or it can destroy you. But every choice has con­se­quences, and as unrest surges in the fac­tions all around her, Tris Prior must con­tinue try­ing to save those she loves—and herself—while grap­pling with haunt­ing ques­tions of grief and for­give­ness, iden­tity and loy­alty, pol­i­tics and love.

Tris’s ini­ti­a­tion day should have been marked by cel­e­bra­tion and vic­tory with her cho­sen fac­tion; instead, the day ended with unspeak­able hor­rors. War now looms as con­flict between the fac­tions and their ide­olo­gies grows. And in times of war, sides must be cho­sen, secrets will emerge, and choices will become even more irrevocable—and even more pow­er­ful. Trans­formed by her own deci­sions but also by haunt­ing grief and guilt, rad­i­cal new dis­cov­er­ies, and shift­ing rela­tion­ships, Tris must fully embrace her Diver­gence, even if she does not know what she may lose by doing so.

The Hero’s Guide to Your King­dom by Christo­pher Healy

1st May 2012

Enter a world where every­thing, even our clas­sic fairy tales, is not at all what it seems.

Prince Liam. Prince Fred­eric. Prince Dun­can. Prince Gus­tav. You’ve never head of them, have you? These are the princes who saved Sleep­ing Beauty, Cin­derella, Snow White, and Rapun­zel, respec­tively, and yet, thanks to those lousy bards who wrote the tales, you likely know them only as “Prince Charm­ing.” But all of this is about to change…

Rejected by their princesses and cast out of their cas­tles, Liam, Fred­eric, Dun­can, and Guz­tav stum­ble upon an evil plot that could endan­ger each of their king­doms. Now it’s up to them to tri­umph over their var­i­ous short­com­ings, take on trolls, ban­dits, drag­ons, witches, and other asso­ci­ated ter­rors to becom the heroes no one ever thought they could be.

The Last Princess by Galaxy Craze

1st May 2012

Hap­pily ever after is a thing of the past.

A series of nat­ural dis­as­ters has dec­i­mated the earth. Cut off from the rest of the world, Eng­land is a dark place. The sun rarely shines, food is scarce, and groups of crim­i­nals roam the woods, search­ing for prey. The peo­ple are grow­ing restless.

When a ruth­less rev­o­lu­tion­ary sets out to over­throw the crown, he makes the royal fam­ily his first tar­get. Blood is shed in Buck­ing­ham Palace, and only sixteen-year-old Princess Eliza man­ages to escape.

Deter­mined to kill the man who destroyed her fam­ily, Eliza joins the enemy forces in dis­guise. She has noth­ing left to live for but revenge, until she meets some­one who helps her remem­ber how to hope—and to love—once more. Now she must risk every­thing to ensure that she not become… The Last Princess.

Being Friends with Boys by Terra Elan McVoy

 

1st May 2012

Char­lotte and Oliver have been friends for­ever. She knows that he, Abe, and Trip con­sider her to be one of the guys, and she likes it that way. She likes being the friend who keeps them all together. Likes offer­ing a girl’s per­spec­tive on their love lives. Likes being the behind-the-scenes word­smith who writes all the lyrics for the boys’ band. Char has a house full of step­sis­ters and a past full of back­stab­bing (female) ex-best friends, so for her, being friends with boys is refresh­ingly drama-free…until it isn’t any more.

When a new boy enters the scene and makes Char feel like, well, a total girl…and two of her other friends have a falling out that may or may not be related to one of them decid­ing he pos­si­bly wants to be more than friends with Char…being friends with all these boys sud­denly becomes a lot more complicated.

 

 

Went­worth Hall by Abby Grahame

1st May 2012

Eighteen-year-old Mag­gie Dar­ling­ton has turned into an entirely dif­fer­ent per­son. The once spir­ited teen is now pas­sive and reserved. A change Lord and Lady Dar­ling­ton can’t help but be grate­ful for.

It’s 1912, and the Dar­ling­tons of Went­worth Hall have more than just the exten­sive grounds to main­tain. As one of Britain’s most elite fam­i­lies, they need to keep up appear­ances that things are as they have always been… even as their care­fully con­structed façade rapidly comes undone.

Mag­gie has a secret. And she’s not the only one… the hand­some groom Michael, the beau­ti­ful new French nanny Therese, the Dar­ling­tons’ teenage house­guests Teddy and Jes­sica, and even Maggie’s younger sis­ter Lila are all hid­ing some­thing. Pas­sion, betrayal, heartache, and whis­pered dec­la­ra­tions of love take place under the Dar­ling­tons’ mas­sive roof. And one of these secrets has the power to ruin the Dar­ling­tons forever.

When scan­dalous satires start appear­ing in the news­pa­per with details that closely mir­ror the lives of the Dar­ling­tons, every­one is look­ing over their shoul­der, wor­ry­ing their scan­dal will be next. Because at Went­worth Hall, noth­ing stays secret for long.

 

 

Body and Soul (The Ghost and the Goth 3) by Stacey Kade

 

1st May 2012

The Ghost: I’ve been trapped in the body of Lily “Ally” Turner for a month now. Talk about a fash­ion cri­sis on an epic scale. What wor­ries me more, though, is some­times I catch Will look­ing at me like he thinks I’m Lily…or that he wishes I were. With­out the good looks of my for­mer self, I don’t know who I am, or if who that is is good enough. I need out of this mess. Now.

Will and I have been look­ing for a solu­tion, one that would sep­a­rate me from Lily with­out killing her. But it’s not going well. Then, when it seems like things couldn’t get any worse, we run into Misty, my for­mer best friend and boyfriend-stealer extra­or­di­naire, who claims she’s being haunted…by me. Seriously?

I’m deter­mined to get to the bot­tom of who’s pre­tend­ing to be the spirit of Alona Dare (while I’m pre­tend­ing to be some­one else) and then get the heck out of this body. Or die trying…

 

The Goth: I’ll admit it. It’s really weird to look at Alona but see Lily. I do know the dif­fer­ence, though, con­trary to what Alona might be say­ing. And Alona is more than a pretty face to me, not that she would believe that.

Our one lead for some help in this messed up sit­u­a­tion might be a page torn from the yel­low pages-—the “Psy­chics” section-—I found in my dad’s stuff. One of the “fakes” seems a bit more real-—and odd-—than the oth­ers. Before I can inves­ti­gate fur­ther, though, Alona is off and chas­ing a ghost that’s prob­a­bly noth­ing more than a fig­ment of Misty’s guilty imag­i­na­tion. Now Lily’s fam­ily is freak­ing out because she didn’t come home, my mom is order­ing me to stay out of it, and some­thing is def­i­nitely wrong with the per­son for­merly known as Lily “Ally” Turner…

Slated by Teri Terry

3rd May 2012

Kyla’s mem­ory has been erased,
her per­son­al­ity wiped blank,
her mem­o­ries lost for ever.

She’s been Slated.

The gov­ern­ment claims she was a ter­ror­ist, and that they are giv­ing her a sec­ond chance — as long as she plays by their rules. But echoes of the past whis­per in Kyla’s mind. Some­one is lying to her, and noth­ing is as it seems. Who can she trust in her search for the truth?

In Honor by Jessi Kirby

8th May 2012

Hours after her brother’s mil­i­tary funeral, Honor opens the last let­ter Finn ever sent. In her grief, she inter­prets his note as a final request and spon­ta­neously decides to go to Cal­i­for­nia to ful­fill it.

Honor gets as far as the dri­ve­way before run­ning into Rusty, Finn’s best friend since third grade and his polar oppo­site. She hasn’t seen Rusty in ages, but it’s obvi­ous he is as arro­gant and stub­born as ever—not to men­tion drop-dead gor­geous. Despite Honor’s bet­ter judg­ment, the two set off together on a voy­age from Texas to Cal­i­for­nia. Along the way, they find small and some­times sur­pris­ing ways to ease their shared loss and honor Finn’s memory—but when shock­ing truths are revealed at the end of the road, will either of them be able to cope with the consequences?

The Hunt by Andrew Fukuda

8th May 2012

Don’t Sweat.  Don’t Laugh.  Don’t draw atten­tion to your­self.  And most of all, what­ever you do, do not fall in love with one of them.

Gene is dif­fer­ent from every­one else around him.  He can’t run with light­ning speed, sun­light doesn’t hurt him and he doesn’t have an unquench­able lust for blood.  Gene is a human, and he knows the rules.  Keep the truth a secret.  It’s the only way to stay alive in a world of night—a world where humans are con­sid­ered a del­i­cacy and hunted for their blood.

When he’s cho­sen for a once in a life­time oppor­tu­nity to hunt the last remain­ing humans, Gene’s care­fully con­structed life begins to crum­ble around him.  He’s thrust into the path of a girl who makes him feel things he never thought possible—and into a ruth­less pack of hunters whose sus­pi­cions about his true nature are grow­ing. Now that Gene has finally found some­thing worth fight­ing for, his need to sur­vive is stronger than ever—but is it worth the cost of his humanity?

Pil­grims Don’t Wear Pink by Stephanie Kate Strohm

8th May 2012

A story of crushes, corsets, and conspiracy

Libby Kelt­ing had always felt her­self born out of time. No won­der the his­tor­i­cal romance-reading, Jane Austen-adaptation-watching, all-around his­tory nerd jumped at the chance to intern at Cam­den Har­bor, Maine’s Old­est Liv­ing His­tory Museum. But at Cam­den Har­bor Libby’s just plain out of place, no mat­ter how cute she looks in a corset. Her cat-loving coworker wants her dead, the too-smart-for-his-own-good local reporter keeps push­ing her but­tons, her gor­geous sailor may be more ship­wreck than dream­boat — plus Cam­den Harbor’s haunted. Over the course of one unfor­get­table sum­mer, Libby learns that boys, like ghosts, aren’t always what they seem.

 

 

Enchanted by Alethea Kontis

8th May 2012

It isn’t easy being the rather over­looked and unhappy youngest sib­ling to sis­ters named for the other six days of the week. Sunday’s only com­fort is writ­ing sto­ries, although what she writes has a ter­ri­ble ten­dency to come true.

When Sun­day meets an enchanted frog who asks about her sto­ries, the two become friends. Soon that friend­ship deep­ens into some­thing mag­i­cal. One night Sun­day kisses her frog good­bye and leaves, not real­iz­ing that her love has trans­formed him back into Rum­bold, the crown prince of Arilland—and a man Sunday’s fam­ily despises.

The prince returns to his cas­tle, intent on mak­ing Sun­day fall in love with him as the man he is, not the frog he was. But Sun­day is not so easy to woo. How can she feel such a strange, strong attrac­tion for this prince she barely knows? And what twisted secrets lie hid­den in his past — and hers?

 

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Ladies in Wait­ing by Laura L. Sullivan

8th May 2012

Eliza dreams of being a play­wright for the king’s the­ater, where she will be admired for her witty turns of phrase rather than her father’s wealth. Beth is beau­ti­ful as the day but poor as a church mouse, so she must marry well, despite her love for her child­hood sweet­heart. Zabby comes to Eng­land to fur­ther her sci­en­tific studies—and ends up sav­ing the life of King Charles II. Soon her friend­ship with him becomes a dan­ger­ous, impos­si­ble obses­sion. Though she knows she should stay away from the young, hand­some king, Charles has a new bride, Queen Cather­ine, and a queen needs ladies in wait­ing. And so Zabby, Beth, and Eliza, three Eliz­a­beths from very dif­fer­ent walks of life, find them­selves at the cen­ter of the most scandal-filled court that Eng­land has ever seen.

First Comes Love by Katie Kacvinsky

8th May 2012

Like his name, Gray is dark and stormy. Dylan, a girl always search­ing for what’s next, seem­ingly unable to set­tle down, is the exact oppo­site: full of light and life. On the out­side, they seem like an unlikely cou­ple. But looks can be deceiv­ing and besides, oppo­sites attract.

What starts as friend­ship, turns into admi­ra­tion, respect and car­ing, until finally these two lone souls find they are truly in love with each other.

But stay­ing in love is not as easy as falling in love. If Dylan and Gray want their love to last, they’re going to have to work at it. And learn that some­times love means hav­ing to say you’re sorry.

A Breath of Eyre by Eve Marie Mont

14th May 2012

Emma Townsend has always believed in stories—the ones she reads vora­ciously, and the ones she cre­ates in her head. Per­haps it’s because she feels like an out­sider at her exclu­sive prep school, or because her step­mother doesn’t come close to fill­ing the void left by her mother’s death. And her only roman­tic prospect—apart from a crush on her Eng­lish teacher—is Gray New­man, a long-time friend who just adds to Emma’s con­fu­sion. But escape soon arrives in an old leather-bound copy of Jane Eyre…

Read­ing of Jane’s iso­la­tion sparks a deep sense of kin­ship. Then fate takes things a leap fur­ther when a light­ning storm cat­a­pults Emma right into Jane’s body and her nineteenth-century world. As gov­erness at Thorn­field, Emma has a sense of belong­ing she’s never known—and an attrac­tion to the brood­ing Mr. Rochester. Now, mov­ing between her two real­i­ties and uncov­er­ing secrets in both, Emma must decide whether her des­tiny lies in the pages of Jane’s story, or in the unwrit­ten chap­ters of her own…

 

 

Pretty Amy by Lisa Burstein

 

15th May 2012

Amy is fine liv­ing in the shad­ows of beau­ti­ful Lila and uber-cool Cassie, because at least she’s some­what beau­ti­ful and uber-cool by asso­ci­a­tion. But when their dates stand them up for prom, and the girls take mat­ters into their own hands—earning them a night in jail out­fit­ted in satin, stilet­tos, and Spanx—Amy dis­cov­ers even a prom spent in hand­cuffs might be bet­ter than the humil­i­at­ing “reha­bil­i­ta­tion tech­niques” now fill­ing up her sum­mer. Worse, with Lila and Cassie parentally banned, Amy feels like she has nothing—like she is nothing.

Nav­i­gat­ing unlikely alliances with her new coworker, two very dif­fer­ent boys, and pos­si­bly even her par­ents, Amy strug­gles to decide if it’s worth being a best friend when it makes you a pub­lic enemy. Bring­ing read­ers along on an often hilar­i­ous and heart­warm­ing jour­ney, Amy finds that maybe get­ting a life only hap­pens once you think your life is over.

The Gath­er­ing Dark (aka Shadow and Bone) by Leigh Bardugo

17th may 2012

The Shadow Fold, a swathe of impen­e­tra­ble dark­ness, crawl­ing with mon­sters that feast on human flesh, is slowly destroy­ing the once-great nation of Ravka.

Alina, a pale, lonely orphan, dis­cov­ers a unique power that thrusts her into the lav­ish world of the kingdom’s mag­i­cal elite—the Grisha. Could she be the key to unrav­el­ling the dark fab­ric of the Shadow Fold and set­ting Ravka free?

The Dark­ling, a crea­ture of seduc­tive charm and ter­ri­fy­ing power, leader of the Grisha. If Alina is to ful­fil her des­tiny, she must dis­cover how to unlock her gift and face up to her dan­ger­ous attrac­tion to him.

But what of Mal, Alina’s child­hood best friend? As Alina con­tem­plates her daz­zling new future, why can’t she ever quite for­get him?

The Whis­per­ing House by Rebecca Wade

22nd May 2012

When the Price fam­ily moves into Cowleigh Lodge while their home is being repaired, fourteen-year-old Han­nah dis­cov­ers that the ghost of a girl who died there at age eleven wants help unrav­el­ing the mys­tery of her 1877 death.

Of Posei­don by Anna Banks

22nd May 2012

Galen is the prince of the Syrena, sent to land to find a girl he’s heard can com­mu­ni­cate with fish. Emma is on vaca­tion at the beach. When she runs into Galen—literally, ouch!—both teens sense a con­nec­tion. But it will take sev­eral encoun­ters, includ­ing a deadly one with a shark, for Galen to be con­vinced of Emma’s gifts. Now, if he can only con­vince Emma that she holds the key to his kingdom …

Changeling by Philippa Gregory

24th May 2012

Italy, 1453. Seventeen-year-old Luca Vero is bril­liant, gorgeous—and accused of heresy. Cast out of his reli­gious order for using the new sci­ence to ques­tion old super­sti­tious beliefs, Luca is recruited into a secret sect: The Order of the Dragon, com­mis­sioned by Pope Nicholas V to inves­ti­gate evil and dan­ger in its many forms, and strange occur­rences across Europe, in this year—the end of days.

Isolde is a seventeen-year-old girl shut up in a nun­nery so she can’t inherit any of her father’s estate. As the nuns walk in their sleep and see strange visions, Isolde is accused of witchcraft—and Luca is sent to inves­ti­gate her, but finds him­self plot­ting her escape.

Despite their vows, despite them­selves, love grows between Luca and Isolde as they travel across Europe with their faith­ful com­pan­ions, Freize and Ishraq. The four young peo­ple encounter were­wolves, alchemists, witches, and death-dancers as they head toward a real-life his­tor­i­cal fig­ure who holds the bound­aries of Chris­ten­dom and the secrets of the Order of the Dragon.

Dark­ness Before Dawn by J.A. London

29th May 2012

This elec­tri­fy­ing new tril­ogy blends the best of para­nor­mal and dystopian sto­ry­telling in a world where the war is over. And the vam­pires won.

Humans hud­dle in their walled cities, sup­ply­ing blood in exchange for safety. But not even that is guar­an­teed. Dawn has lost her entire fam­ily and now reluc­tantly serves as the del­e­gate to Lord Valen­tine, the most pow­er­ful vam­pire for miles. It isn’t until she meets Vic­tor, Valentine’s son, that she real­izes not all vam­pires are monsters.…