This is not a love story, Keren David
Kitty dreams of a beautiful life, but that’s impossible in suburban London where her family is haunted by her father’s unexpected death. So when her mum suggests moving to Amsterdam to try a new life, Kitty doesn’t take much persuading. Will this be her opportunity to make her life picture perfect? In Amsterdam she meets moody, unpredictable Ethan, and clever, troubled Theo. Two enigmatic boys, who each harbour their own secrets. In a beautiful city and far from home, Kitty finds herself falling in love for the first time. (Goodreads)
First lines:Love is not necessarily a good thing. You generally end up getting hurt, or hurting someone else. Or both. Like last night. I’m talking about emotional stuff, just to be clear. Maybe actual physical injury would be a lot easier. Not in a Fifty Shades kind of way, obviously. Just, well, if Kitty had punched me in the jaw last night, I wouldn’t feel so guilty.
The summer of chasing mermaids, Sarah Ockler
The youngest of six talented sisters, Elyse d’Abreau was destined for stardom—until a boating accident took everything from her. Now, the most beautiful singer in Tobago can’t sing. She can’t even speak. Seeking quiet solitude, Elyse accepts a friend’s invitation to Atargatis Cove. Named for the mythical first mermaid, the Oregon seaside town is everything Elyse’s home in the Caribbean isn’t: An ocean too cold for swimming, parties too tame for singing, and people too polite to pry—except for one. Christian Kane is a notorious playboy—insolent, arrogant, and completely charming. He’s also the only person in Atargatis Cove who doesn’t treat Elyse like a glass statue. He challenges her to express herself, and he admires the way she treats his younger brother Sebastian, who believes Elyse is the legendary mermaid come to life. When Christian needs a first mate for the Cove’s high-stakes Pirate Regatta, Elyse reluctantly stows her fear of the sea and climbs aboard. The ocean isn’t the only thing making waves, though—swept up in Christian’s seductive tide and entranced by the Cove’s charms, Elyse begins to wonder if a life of solitude isn’t what she needs. But changing course again means facing her past. It means finding her inner voice. And scariest of all, it means opening her heart to a boy who’s best known for breaking them. (Goodreads)
First lines: This is the part where I die. Don’t panic; it isn’t unexpected. The sea is prideful, after all, and Death never goes back on a deal. Granna always believed that the d”Abreau sisters were immortal, even after her daughter-in-law died delivering the last of us (me.) But among our six bodies, she said, there were only five souls. Twins were special. A single soul dwelling in two bodies.
Bomb, Sarah Mussi
When Genesis goes on a blind internet date, she just wants to get over her ex-boyfriend Naz. She just wants someone to like her again. But when Genesis wakes up the morning after the date, she can’t remember a thing. She doesn’t know where she is, or how she got there. And she can hardly move because she is strapped into some kind of body armour. Before she has time to figure it out, she receives an order through an earpiece stuck in her ear. And then a voice sounds in her head: ‘You have been chosen for an assignment. The vest you’re wearing is packed with high explosives. And with one mobile call we can detonate it.To her horror Genesis has become an agent of mass destruction, a walking weapon in the hands of a terrorist cell.
The countdown to detonation has begun: Genesis must re-examine everyone and everything she loves and make terrifying choices in the face of certain death.(Goodreads)
First lines: They held the girl face down. The man knelt on her legs. The teenage boy sat on her back.
“Pass the straps under her chest,” said the man.
The boy lifted her limp form, passed the webbed belts beneath her breasts.
“Careful. Don’t use the clip.” The man’s voice, sharp.
The boy hesitated.
The game of love and death, Martha Brockenbrough
For centuries Love and Death have chosen their players. They have set the rules, rolled the dice, and kept close, ready to influence, angling for supremacy. And Death has always won. Always.
Could there ever be one time, one place, one pair whose love would truly tip the balance? Meet Flora Saudade, an African-American girl who dreams of becoming the next Amelia Earhart by day and sings in the smoky jazz clubs of Seattle by night. Meet Henry Bishop, born a few blocks and a million worlds away, a white boy with his future assured—a wealthy adoptive family in the midst of the Great Depression, a college scholarship, and all the opportunities in the world seemingly available to him. The players have been chosen. The dice have been rolled. But when human beings make moves of their own, what happens next is anyone’s guess. (Goodreads)
First lines: The figure in the fine gray suit materialised in the nursery and stood over the sleeping infant, inhaling the sweet, milky night air. He could have taken any form, really: a sparrow, a snowy owl, even a common housefly. Although he often travelled the world on wings, for this work he always preferred a human guise.
Dime, E.R Frank
As a teen girl in Newark, New Jersey, lost in the foster care system, Dime just wants someone to care about her, to love her. A family. And that is exactly what she gets-a daddy and two “wifeys.” So what if she has to go out and earn some coins to keep her place? It seems a fair enough exchange for love. Dime never meant to become a prostitute. It happened so gradually, she pretty much didn’t realize it was happening until it was too late. But when a new “wifey” joins the family and Dime finds out that Daddy doesn’t love her the way she thought he did, will Dime have the strength to leave? And will Daddy let her? (Goodreads)
First lines: The problem is the note. It has to be perfect or else my entire plan will be ruined. It has to be so perfect that its reader will have no choice but to do the right thing, see it all the way through. I’ve been in a lot of dilemmas in my life, but never one as complicated as this. I’ve though up more versions of the note than I can count. There is so much that needs to be said.
The sacred lies of Minnow Bly, Stephanie Oakes
The Kevinian cult has taken everything from seventeen-year-old Minnow: twelve years of her life, her family, her ability to trust. And when she rebelled, they took away her hands, too.
Now their Prophet has been murdered and their camp set aflame, and it’s clear that Minnow knows something—but she’s not talking. As she languishes in juvenile detention, she struggles to un-learn everything she has been taught to believe, adjusting to a life behind bars and recounting the events that led up to her incarceration. But when an FBI detective approaches her about making a deal, Minnow sees she can have the freedom she always dreamed of—if she’s willing to part with the terrible secrets of her past. (Goodreads)
First lines: I am a blood-soaked girl. Before me, a body. Pulped. My boots drenched with his blood. I search out his eyes, but they’re gone, hidden away behind pale lids.
The world within, Jane Eagland
Emily Brontë loves her sisters, responsible Charlotte and quiet Anne, and her brother, tempestuous Branwell. She loves the moors that stretch all around her home and the village of Haworth, and she loves wandering over them even in the worst of weather. Most of all, she loves the writing that she and her siblings share, creating imaginary kingdoms, vivid characters, and exciting adventures. But change comes to the family when their beloved father falls ill, and Emily’s happy, isolated world crumbles. Charlotte is sent away to school, where she meets new friends and new ideas. Branwell is growing up and becoming absorbed in his own concerns, with no time for little sisters. And even dependable Anne, in the end, lets Emily down. She is left alone to face her enemies—old insecurities from the past that haunt Emily, and threaten to overwhelm her. (Goodreads)
First lines: Though it is night, the sun cats an eerie light over these regions, forlorn indeed. The snow is so yielding that at every step I plunge up to my knees and can barely make any headway. A cry from behind freezes my blood.
Louis Lane: Fallout, Gwenda Bond
Lois Lane is starting a new life in Metropolis. An Army brat, Lois has lived all over—and seen all kinds of things. (Some of them defy explanation, like the near-disaster she witnessed in Kansas in the middle of one night.) But now her family is putting down roots in the big city, and Lois is determined to fit in. Stay quiet. Fly straight. As soon as she steps into her new high school, though, she can see it won’t be that easy. A group known as the Warheads is making life miserable for another girl at school. They’re messing with her mind, somehow, via the high-tech immersive videogame they all play. Not cool. Armed with her wit and her new snazzy job as a reporter, Lois has her sights set on solving this mystery. But sometimes it’s all a bit much. Thank goodness for her maybe-more-than-a friend, a guy she knows only by his screen name, SmallvilleGuy. (Goodreads)
First lines: “Remember the plan,” I muttered
I sped up as the school came into view, a telltale yellow bus lumbering away from the curb. The soles of my knee high boots clicked against the concrete sidewalk. Fit in. Don’t make waves. A small herd of stragglers were still dragging their feet toward the three-story, pristine brick structure of East Metropolis High. I made it before the first bell, then – barely.
Scarlett Undercover, Jennifer Latham
Meet Scarlett, a smart, sarcastic, kick-butt, Muslim American heroine, ready to take on crime in her hometown of Las Almas. When a new case finds the private eye caught up in a centuries-old battle of evil genies and ancient curses, Scarlett discovers that her own family secrets may have more to do with the situation than she thinks — and that cracking the case could lead to solving her father’s murder. (Goodreads)
First lines: The kid was cute. Her bare, knobby legs swung back and forth like pendulums between the chipped legs of my client chair. Plastic safety googles rested on her forehead, held tight by en elastic band that circle her head and pooched her bobbed brown hair up at the crown. She was thin. Delicate, even. But her eyes were clear and blue and smart.
“I think my brother killed someone.”
Out of control, Sarah Alderson
When 17 year old Liva witnesses a brutal murder she’s taken into police custody for her own protection. But when the police station is attacked and bullets start flying it becomes clear that Liva is not just a witness, she’s a target. Together with a car thief called Jay, Liva manages to escape the massacre but now the two of them are alone in New York, trying to outrun and outwit two killers who will stop at nothing to find them. (Goodreads)
First lines: The policeman is looking at me, his head tilted to one side, a deep line etched between his eyebrows. He taps his pen in a slow staccato rhythm on the edge of the desk.
“What were you doing on the roof?” he asks.
I take a breath and try to unknot my cramping fingers, which are stuffed in the front pocket of the NYPD sweater I’m wearing.
“I was getting some air,” I say.
The girl who soared over fairyland and cut the moon in two, Catherynne M. Valente
September misses Fairyland and her friends Ell, the Wyverary, and the boy Saturday. She longs to leave the routines of home, and embark on a new adventure. Little does she know that this time, she will be spirited away to the moon, reunited with her friends, and find herself faced with saving Fairyland from a moon-Yeti with great and mysterious powers. (Goodreads)
First lines: Once upon a time, a girl named September told a great number of lie. The trouble with lies is that they love company. Once you tell a single lie, that lie gets terribly excited and calls all its friends to visit. Soon you find yourself making room for them in every corner, turning down beds and lighting lamps to make them comfortable, feeding them and tidying them and mending them when they start to wear thin.
The Darwin Faeries, William Geradts, Richard Fairgay and Gonzalo Martinez (graphic novel)
Survival of the fittest doesn’t work unless there are a few accidents along the way. This is the story of one such accident, creating Charles Darwin’s legacy, and the Faeries that will stop at nothing to ensure it. (Goodreads)