michellehogmire

The veil between our waking and sleeping lives begins to fracture in The Slayer, the Seer, and the Dream Stealer, the first installment of Alan Frost’s new Dream Gate series, an energetic and inventive YA caper about a young physically disabled boy who becomes a hero in the Dreamworld. Matthew and his pals Amanda and Alex learn to lucid dream in order to fight the Ministry of Nightmares – an evil organization with the potential to destroy the real world. Sometimes Frost’s overly quick world-building can lead to confusion, but the gripping characters and high-stakes scenes of fantasy adventure […]

A pulse-pounding interplanetary adventure in the farthest reaches of space, Forgotten Evil is a gripping science fiction novella about balancing moral obligations with the corrupting force of power. Thirty-five-year-old Raith, a farmer who can only remember the past two years of his life, embarks on a daring rescue mission to save his kidnapped partner and ends up learning more than he bargained for about his shadowy past. Holland effortlessly balances tense action sequences with fast-paced dialogue, as Raith must wrestle with a dark voice in his head and decide where his loyalties lie, for an inventive work of visionary sci-fi, […]

Teenage drama and supernatural hijinks abound in Wicked Blood, Margot de Klerk’s hugely original work of YA fantasy about mysterious curses, tangled webs of betrayal, and infighting between different factions of paranormal creatures. Cynthia, an eighteen-year-old shapeshifter who can transform into animals, is searching for her evasive dark mage father in Berlin when she gets mixed up in an investigation about missing monsters, and embarks on an unexpected, passionate romance that could be more risk than its worth. Chock full of exceptional world-building, unique characters, and jaw-dropping secret identity twists, Wicked Blood is more inventive than many works of […]

An eloquent novel detailing the ins and outs of an English boarding school in the late 1950s, Susan Papas’ The Gold Dark Summer is a lushly descriptive work about the delights and dangers of forbidden first love. Sadie, a young scholarship student at Bracken Hill who lost her father in WWII, falls for a boy and must cope with the consequences, including the betrayal of friends. Papas’ poignant book vividly captures the magic and excitement of youth, where every change and new experience is a dramatic opportunity for personal growth and exploration, offering a look at adolescence from a historical […]

A despondent social worker fights to save the soul of a young boy with telekinetic abilities and dangerous powers in Jonah Frick’s Bradley, a wild, surrealist journey into the heart of government manipulation and corruption. After his adoptive parents’ mysterious death, 11-year-old Bradley Gaff is transported to a strange federal reform school called the Justice Center, where the staff has sinister intentions for his future. While sometimes the dialogue can be a little stiff, Frick’s brisk propulsive prose, imaginative time-traveling plot, and unexpected otherworldly twists will keep readers turning the pages, and feels like a movie in the making.

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A young Spinosaurus learns how to be brave in Atlas the Moroccan Dino: Faces his Fear, an inspiring and expertly crafted picture book about personal resilience and conquering doubts by Rakan Azize, with illustrations by Chrish Vindhy. Atlas fears the vast water and questions his swimming abilities when he’s invited to a fishing competition, but he gradually uncovers the importance of trusting his instincts and attempting difficult feats. Author Azize’s motivating, rhyming story combines perfectly with the expressively illustrated characters, spinning a yarn that will no doubt encourage readers to get out of their comfort zones and focus more […]