FREAKSVILLE by Kitty Keswick

• Publication Season/Year: Winter 2010
• Publisher: Leap Books
• Release Date: January 8, 2010
• ISBN (hardcover): TBD
• ISBN (paperback): ISBN-13:978-1-61603-001-8

FREAKSVILLE

A group of teenagers, trapped in a haunted theater on the night of a full moon, discover that ghosts are the least of their worries…

Every woman in the Maxwell family has the gift of sight. A talent sixteen-year-old Kasey would gladly give up. All she wants is a normal life. Shopping and talking about boys with her best friend and long-time sidekick, Gillie Godshall, consume her days. Until Kasey has a vision about Josh Johnstone, the foreign exchange student from England. The vision leads her into new realms, a lead in a play, a haunted theater … and into the arms of Josh. Yet, both Kasey and Josh have secrets lurking in dark corners. Can Kasey’s new romance survive FREAKSVILLE?

ISLAND STING by Bonnie J. Doerr

• Publication Season/Year: Spring 2010
• Publisher: Leap Books
• Release Date: January 6, 2010
• ISBN (hardcover): TBD
• ISBN (paperback): 978-1-61603-002-5

Island Sting is a contemporary eco-mystery set in the Florida Keys. Though it is fiction, details about the natural environment and endangered species are authentic. It’s a tale of intrepid teens who change the effects of disappointment and heartache by taking positive action.

Kenzie Ryan has been forced to move from New York City to Nana’s cottage on an island in the Florida Keys. Talk about culture shock! She’s been torn away from her circle of lifetime friends at St. Joseph’s Academy for girls, her swim and softball teams, and her rapid-fire city life.

On her first day in the Keys, Kenzie rescues a drowning animal with the help of Angelo, a young Cuban-American local, whose rock-star face and savvy attitude are as exotic to Kenzie as her new environment. She learns the animal is an tiny endangered  Key deer that was chased into the canal by a poacher’s hound. But there’s more trouble on the island than the senseless slaughter of an endangered species: trap thefts threaten fishermen’s livelihoods; boaters destroy sea grass habitats; discarded garbage on land and sea kills wildlife. And Kenzie thought this place would be dull…

Kenzie and Angelo make a pact to expose the vicious deer killer and clean up the environment. They recruit a team, organize Keys Teens Care, plan an environmental cleanup crusade, and wage a dangerous undercover operation to solve the Key-deer-killer mystery. Though they work with a team to tackle their mission, each silently deals with traumatic loss. Throughout the investigation, Angelo and Kenzie experience a confusing magnetic attraction while struggling with cultural differences. But bit by bit they learn how much they have in common, and as Angelo and Kenzie work to protect the fragile tropical environment and its wildlife, both begin the slow process of healing.

Book Trailer

THE MONSTER VARIATIONS

• Publication Season/Year: Summer, 2009
• Publisher: Delacorte Press
• Release Date: August 11, 2009
• ISBN (hardcover): 9780385737333
• ISBN (paperback): TBD

Someone is killing boys in a small town. The murder weapon is a truck, and the only protection is a curfew enacted to keep kids off the streets. But it’s summer-and that alone is worth the risk of staying out late for James, Willie, and Reggie.

Willie, who lost his arm in the first hit-and-run attack, finds it hard to keep up with his two best friends as they leave childhood behind. All of them are changing, hounded by their parents, hunted by the killer, and haunted by the “monster,” a dead thing that guards the dangerous gateway between youth and manhood. But that’s not all: shadowing the boys everywhere is Mel Herman, the mysterious and brilliant bully whose dark secrets may hold the key to their survival. As the summer burns away, these forces collide, and it will take compassion, brains, and guts for the boys to overcome their demons-and not become monsters themselves.

In this chilling and poignant debut novel, Daniel Kraus deftly explores the choices boys grapple with and the revelations that occur as they become men.

ADVANCE PRAISE:

“Beneath the terror and the thrills, there is *truth* in this haunting tale. It pierced my heart straight through.” –Lauren Myracle, ttyl and Bliss

“Has shades of A Separate Peace, Lord of the Flies, and To Kill a Mockingbird, but is utterly unique from the very first line.” –Joshua Ferris, Then We Came to the End

Other

Seventeen-year-old Gwen hides a dangerous secret: she’s Other. Half-pooka, to be exact, thanks to the father she never met. Most Americans don’t exactly roll out the welcome mat for Others, especially not the small-town folks of Klikamuks, Washington. As if this isn’t bad enough, Gwen’s on the brink of revealing her true identity to her long-time boyfriend, Zack, but she’s scared he’ll lump her with the likes of bloodthirsty vampires and feral werewolves.

When a pack of werewolves chooses the national forest behind Gwen’s home as their new territory, the tensions in Klikamuks escalate–into murder. It soon becomes clear a serial killer is methodically slaying Others. The police turn a blind eye, leaving Gwen to find the killer before the killer finds her. As she hunts for clues, she uncovers more Others living nearby than she ever expected. Like Tavian, a sexy Japanese fox-spirit who rivals Zack and challenges her to embrace her Otherness. Gwen must struggle with her own conflicted identity, learn who she can trust, and–most importantly–stay alive.

Faery Rebels: Spell Hunter

• Publication Season/Year: Spring 2009
• Publisher: HarperCollins Children’s Books
• Release Date: April 28, 2009
• ISBN (hardcover): 978-0061554742
• ISBN (paperback): 978-0061554749

Youngest and boldest of all the faeries of the Oak, Knife fearlessly battles the savage crows and other predators who threaten her dying people. But when she strikes up a forbidden friendship with a human named Paul, she arouses the wrath of the powerful Faery Queen herself. With the help of some unexpected allies, Knife sets out to solve the mystery of the Oakenfolk’s missing magic – but she soon discovers that the truth may cost her everything…

Also available in the UK as KNIFE in January 2009.

PARIS PAN TAKES THE DARE

• Publication Season/Year: Summer 2009
• Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons
• Release Date: June 11, 2009
• ISBN (hardcover): 978-0399250439
• ISBN (paperback): TBD

Twelve-year-old Paris Pan’s life is a mess. She’s just moved to a tiny town in Nowheresville, Oklahoma; her family life is a comical disaster; her new friends are more like frenemies; and the boy she has a crush on is a dork. Things couldn’t possibly get worse, until she discovers that a girl mysteriously died years ago while taking a seventh-grade rite of passage–the Dare– right near Paris’s new house. So when Paris starts hearing strange noises coming from the creepy run-down shed in her backyard, she thinks they could be a message from the ghost of a girl. But while she has no plans to make contact with the great beyond, her two new friends have other thoughts. Everyone who’s anyone takes the Dare, and now it’s Paris’s turn.

FAITHFUL by Janet S. Fox

• Publication Season/Year: Spring, 2010
• Publisher: Puffin
• Release Date: May 13, 2010
• ISBN: 978-0-14-241413-2

Janet S. Fox’s debut novel for young adults, FAITHFUL, is a romance, mystery and adventure set in the Gilded Age. Ms. Fox’s heroine, Maggie Bennet, loses her mother in a tragic accident, and then is forced to accept her father’s desire to leave their high society life in Newport, RI, and move to the American west. They relocate to the Greater Yellowstone, where Maggie searches for herself and for love, while her courage and determination are tested in an astonishing and dangerous environment.

The planned sequel to FAITHFUL follows Maggie as she is forced to return to Newport and an arranged marriage; now she yearns for her newly adopted western home. Her attempt to return to Yellowstone is tumultuous, and this sequel evokes the epic spirit of turn-of-the-century America.