Steamsworn
Eric R. Asher
(The Steamborn Series #3)
Publication date: April 5th 2016
Genres: Steampunk, Young Adult

The world dies in war only to be reborn. It is the way of things, and always will be.

Forged in the Deadlands crucible, and armed with the knowledge of their true enemy, Jacob, Alice, and their allies bring the fight back to Ancora. They’ll liberate their homeland, or die trying.

The wounds cut deep in their darkest hour, but in the end, vengeance will light their path.

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Previous books in the series:

Author Bio:

Eric is a former bookseller, guitarist, and comic seller currently living in Saint Louis, Missouri. A lifelong enthusiast of books, music, toys, and games, he discovered a love for the written word after being dragged to the library by his parents at a young age. When he is not writing, you can usually find him reading, gaming, or buried beneath a small avalanche of Transformers.

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In the Hope of Memories
Olivia Rivers
Publication date: March 21st 2016
Genres: Contemporary, Young Adult

Hope is dying.

Hope Jackson has lived her short life to the fullest, but her four closest friends are dangling on the brink of disaster. Right before dying of a rare heart condition, Hope sets up a scavenger hunt across New York City using her graffiti art. The directions she leaves her friends are simple: Solve the clues hidden in her art, and they’ll solve the problems haunting their lives.

Hope is dead.

Two days after her heart fails, Hope’s friends are thrown together:

Aiden, her best friend, whose plans to attend college have been scattered by his OCD.
Kali, her foster sister, whose last ties to sanity are as razor-thin as her anorexic waistline.
Erik, her high school crush, whose success as an athlete is based on a lie with no end in sight.
And Sam, her online pen-pal, whose perfect life exploded into chaos in the aftermath of a school bombing.

Together, the four teens take to the streets of New York to complete Hope’s scavenger hunt and fulfill her dying wishes. But in order to unravel the clues hidden in Hope’s graffiti, her friends will need to confront their personal demons head on.

Hope is within reach.

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EXCERPT:

“Wait!” I slam my hand against the door to stop it from clicking shut, wincing as the splintered wood digs into me. “I’m looking for Hope. Hope Jackson. She said she’d be here.”

The dude shakes his head. “She’s dead.”

My heart stutters a fast and hard beat, like it does right when I get tackled on the field. “No. No, she’s not. She’s the exact opposite of dead. Today is her eighteenth birthday. Her birthday party is about to start right now.”

Official Reason Number Infinity it Sucks to Be Going Blind: When you can’t see right, you can’t stop a fist from colliding with your face. The dude’s knuckles crash into my jaw, and I yelp, more out of shock than pain. I’m about to pound my own fist into the freak when he starts talking again, this time in a tone that’s actually kind of pissed.

“She’s dead, you jerk! You really think it’s funny to joke about that?”

“I’m not joking!” I rub at my jaw with the back of my clenched hand. Part of me is itching to mess up this guy’s face, but a larger part is starting to panic. “You’re the one with the wrong info,” I say, silently praying I’m right. “Hope isn’t dead.”

The dude stares down at his hand and slowly curls and uncurls his fingers, like he can’t quite believe he just threw a punch. Then he whispers, “You’re not messing with me?”

“No! What kind of sick joke would that be? Like I said, I’m just trying to find her birthday party. I got an invite from her, I swear. It said to come here.”

“Oh.”

Apparently, this conversation isn’t weird enough for him, so he has to add in some awkward silence. Fan-freaking-tastic. Just when I’m starting to think he’s slipped into a coma, he says, “Sorry I punched your face.”

I take a deep breath. “Just tell me where her birthday party is, okay?”

“I told you, there is no party. Hope is dead.”

“Christ, are you seriously going to make me explain this again? She’s not dead. It’s her birthday today. As in the day when you celebrate a person being alive.”

“It would have been her birthday,” the dude says, slipping back into his strange monotone. “But now she’s dead.”

The seriousness in his voice makes my gut twist, and for a moment, I wonder if maybe he hurt Hope. My hand edges toward my pocket, but just as I’m considering grabbing my cell phone and dialing 9-1-1, I see a tear trickle down his cheek. It looks strange on his expressionless face, but another tear quickly follows, and then a third. He sniffs and turns away, wiping his right eye on the battered sleeve of his hoodie.

“What happened?” I ask, my voice a cracked whisper. All sorts of scenarios rush through my head—Hope’s plane crashing on vacation, a car accident, getting caught in a wrong-place-wrong-time shooting…

“You don’t know?” the dude asks.

“No. Was it in the news?”

The smallest beginning of a frown tugs at his lips. “Of course not. Why would the news report about a stroke victim?”

“Stroke?” I repeat. “She had a stroke? What…why? What triggered it? She’s a health freak.”

He blinks slowly and then says again, “You don’t know?”

Author Bio:

Olivia Rivers is a hybrid author of Young Adult fiction. Her works include the independently published novels “Frost Fire” and “In the Hope of Memories,” along with the traditionally published novel “Tone Deaf” (Skyhorse 2016.) As a certified geek, she enjoys experimenting with new publishing technologies, and her online serials have received over 1,000,000 hits on Wattpad.com. When Olivia isn’t working as a writer, she’s a typical teen attending college in Northern California. Olivia is represented by Laurie McLean of Fuse Literary, and nothing thrills her more than hearing from readers.

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Pearl
Deirdre Riordan Hall
Published by: Skyscape
Publication date: March 1st 2016
Genres: Contemporary, Young Adult

Run fast and run far, unless you’re fearless. Unless you’re courageous. I’m not, but I’d like to be.

Pearl Jaeger is seventeen and homeless after drugs, poverty, and addiction unraveled the life she shared with JJ, her formerly glamorous rock star mother.

This moment of happiness is fleeting; someone will take it from me.

When tragedy brings a chance to start over at an elite boarding school, she doesn’t hesitate. Yet the only salvation comes from an art teacher as troubled as Pearl, and she faces the stark reality that what she thought she wanted isn’t straightforward.

I trace the outline of my reflection in a window. I am no more than a replica of my mother. This is not the self-portrait I want to paint.

Through the friendships she forms at school—especially with Grant, a boy who shows Pearl what it means to trust and forgive—she begins to see a path not defined by her past. But when confronted with the decision to be courageous or to take the easy way forged by her mother’s failures, which direction will Pearl choose?

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EXCERPT:

Chapter 2
Sweat and tears intermingle on my mother’s face, and a cut bleeds slowly from the side of her eye.

“Pearl, we gotta get out of here.”

I’ve heard this before. We’ve had to leave abruptly from other situations: lousy boyfriends, landlords she owed rent to, roommates she’d stolen from, and the police.

As the stream of blood reaches her T-shirt, she clutches her side. Her face crumples in agony. “I think I have a broken rib. He hit me with his guitar.”

Everything about this is wrong. I want to wish it all away—go somewhere simple, clean, and faraway, like Antarctica. I’d prefer the cold to the fevered flush of fear running through me. I get to my feet and grab a pair of stretch pants from the floor. I help her into them. As she leans on me, we slowly make our way to the door. In the hall, she falls against the door frame of the bathroom.

“Come on, Mom, let’s go.” She probably needs an ambulance, but who knows how much crack—and whatever else—she has in her system, so I dare not get the police involved. We’ve gone that route, and I don’t want to see her arrested again.

“Wait. Get my purse and some clothing. Pack me a bag. No, never mind. I’ll do it,” she says hoarsely. She gets to her hands and knees and crawls back to her room.

“Mom, come on, let’s just go. I can come back for whatever you need later.” I grip my hands together, my fingers blanching as I hold on tight.

“I have to get a few things,” she whimpers.

“I’ll get them. Tell me what you need,” I say insistently, my vision starting to blur.

She shakes her head, continuing. She wants to get the crack pipe and other drug paraphernalia she has hidden in her room. This scenario is uncomfortably familiar.

I shift from foot to foot. My stomach clenches with anxiety. What if Darren comes back?

Part of me fears what other damage he might do, but the bitter part is that if he comes back with drugs, she’ll do them instead of getting medical attention.

“Mom, let’s go.”

She must have used the bed to pull herself up and stand, because she emerges, staggering on her feet, dragging a duffel bag. “Why don’t you grab some clothes too?”

I scoot past her and stuff a couple of outfits, underwear, and Vogue into my backpack. I scrounged whatever I could this past month, saving every penny, even the ones I found on the ground, to get the latest issue, my lone extravagance. “Ready?” I say when I step back into the hall.

She nods. Step-by-step, we make our way down two of the three flights. She droops on the top of the last one.

“Do you have any money?” she asks.

“No,” I answer honestly. I tried getting a job, but no luck. I com- plain that I have a young face, and well-meaning adults assure me that when I get older, I’ll be thankful. It doesn’t help me now. I inherited my mother’s youthful look, the one she had before drugs and alcohol took their toll. But I’m already taller than her, five seven to her five three, my father’s genes. I’m slender, but that probably has more to do with the scarcity of a hot meal than anything else. She occasionally reminds me I have my father’s gray eyes and his height, like my DNA insults her.

She mumbles something about going to the bank, but all she’ll find are overdraft fees and denied credit. I’m afraid to tell her.

“Go out to the street. See if you recognize anyone. Tell them I need to see them,” she orders me.

I bound down the stairs. It takes my eyes a moment to adjust as I emerge into the bright summer sun. I look up and down the sidewalk. A homeless guy perches on top of a newspaper box, and a kid rides by on a bike. Finding someone my mother knows is a sketchy task. I retreat inside.

“I didn’t see anyone.”

“Pearl, I need to get out of here.” Her cheek rests against the grimy wall, and the gash on the other side still bleeds, staining her yellow T-shirt crimson around the shoulder. “Go across the street to the apartment with the Christmas wreath on the door. Knock six times.” She lifts her knuckles and beats them, weakly, on the floor. “Ask for Pauline.”

The building across the street houses a pimp and an assortment of women who emerge, raccoon-like, around dusk. I’ve met Pauline, long limbed, with scars on her arms that she doesn’t try to hide. My mother has gone over there a few times and returned with fifty, and sometimes a hundred, bucks.

I knock as directed. Vinyl blinds part, and a pair of bloodshot eyes appear. The door opens a crack. I seize the opportunity.

“I’m looking for Pauline. My mom, across the street, needs to see her. It’s urgent.”

The door opens just enough to let me slip through into a dark foyer. Something like cinnamon hangs in the air, but mostly I smell cigarettes and defeat.

A woman about my mom’s age, wearing a silk robe, leads me back to the kitchen.

“Midge. Says she’s lookin’ for Pauline. Somethin’ about her mother across the street.”

A giant of a man sits at the kitchen table, playing solitaire. He looks up at me and licks his lips. “Whatcha looking for, sweetheart?”

I swallow hard. Leave it to my mother to put me in this situation. I draw a breath. “Janet, across the street, Pauline’s friend, she just needs her help real quick.” I sense that if I bring any word of trouble to the table, they’ll escort me to the door.

Midge looks at me full on, his eyes simultaneously hungry and concerned. Finally, he jerks his head toward the lady who answered the door. She gives me a sharp look before exiting.

“Pauline will be right with you,” he says gruffly before returning to his game.

With the toe of my boot, I trace the lines between the tiles on the floor like a maze, trying to find a way out of feeling vulnerable and helpless.

I hear Pauline’s smoky voice from down the hall before she appears. She greets me with her arms opened wide. Even though we’ve only met a few times, a long embrace is her customary greeting.

As we exit the shady building, Pauline asks, “You still collecting those magazines?”

I nod.

“I’ll be sure to save some for you. Sometimes the girls leave them in the house.”

I hope I’m not still hanging around here by the time the next issue comes out.

I jaywalk through traffic, filling Pauline in on what happened. I worry Darren may have returned.

When Pauline pushes open the door to the building, my mother is where I left her, but with her eyes closed. At first, I fear she fainted, but she’s probably been up at least twenty-four hours, if not longer. Pauline, gentle as ever, strokes my mother’s leg to wake her up. For a vague instant, I picture Pauline tending babies or the elderly. She doesn’t belong in this harsh life.

“Pauline,” my mom says, brightening.“Hiya, JJ, how ya doin’?” she coos softly.“Been better.”“Well, come on,” Pauline says, wrapping her arms underneath my mother’s to help her up.“Where we going?” Pauline asks, but before my mother answers,

Pauline suggests, “How about the Constance House up on Riverside?” I get the sense she’s done this before. Constance House is a battered women’s shelter—a place I doubt will abide my mother’s lifestyle—and as such, I expect Janet to protest, but apparently Pauline’s caring manner is all the convincing she needs.

“Pearl, you have a towel or something? She can’t go in a cab like this. She needs shoes too.”

I run upstairs. Each step reminds me that Darren might be back any second. I grab a pair of flip-flops and look in the bathroom cabinet for a towel. There aren’t any clean, so I pull a worn pillowcase off the bed and race back down to meet them outside.

“Thatta girl. Thanks,” Pauline says as she helps my mother into the flip-flops. Janet’s eyes are nearly closed as she leans heavily against Pauline’s shoulder.

It’s times like these I’d also like to give myself over to Pauline’s capable hands, the hands of a mother, sister, caretaker. Instead, she hails a cab and hands me a twenty.

“Look after her, Pearl,” she says before I close the cab door. That’s what I’ve been trying to do, but how can she expect a kid to look after a grown woman when neither one knows how to take care of herself?

The cab drops us off on a side street in front of an anonymous brick building. A woman with tight curls confidently helps us inside. I flash to a magazine clipping of my mother holding her hand up to the camera as she emerged from a limo, back when the Shrapnels were big. It was rock star glitz and glamour. Now it’s just grit.

Author Bio:

During her teens, Deirdre Riordan Hall traveled throughout the United States and Europe, developing a love for stories and a desire to connect with worlds—imagined or real—on the page. She has written Sugar, To the Sea, Surfaced, and the Follow Your Bliss series. When not spending time with her family, writing, or traveling, Hall is at the beach, pretending to be a mermaid.

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The Prophecy of Shadows
Michelle Madow
(Elementals #1)
Published by: Dreamscape Publishing
Publication date: January 26th 2016
Genres: Urban Fantasy, Young Adult

Filled with magic, thrilling adventure, and sweet romance, Elementals is the first in a new series that fans of Percy Jackson and The Secret Circle will love!

When Nicole Cassidy moves from sunny Georgia to gloomy New England, the last thing she expects is to learn that her homeroom is a cover for a secret coven of witches. Even more surprisingly … she’s apparently a witch herself. Despite doubts about her newfound abilities, Nicole is welcomed into this ancient circle of witches and is bedazzled by their powers–and, to her dismay, by Blake–the school’s notorious bad- boy.

Girls who get close to Blake wind up hurt. His girlfriend Danielle will do anything to keep them away, even if she must resort to using dark magic. But the chemistry between Blake and Nicole is undeniable, and despite wanting to protect Nicole from Danielle’s wrath, he finds it impossible to keep his distance.

When the Olympian Comet shoots through the sky for the first time in three thousand years, Nicole, Blake, Danielle, and two others in their homeroom are gifted with mysterious powers. But the comet has another effect–it opens the portal to the prison world that has contained the Titans for centuries. After an ancient monster escapes and attacks Nicole and Blake, it’s up to them and the others to follow the clues from a cryptic prophecy so that they can save their town … and possibly the world.

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“Elementals is going to blow your mind!”
-Crossroad Reviews, ★★★★★

“Five glittery stars for being such a compelling read!”
-Andrea Heltsley, Goodreads Reviewer ★★★★★

“A perfect mixture of magic and mythology. An entrancing story of trust, friendship and well naughty boys. WITCHES are not the only thing walking the earth!”
– BenjaminOfTomes, BookTuber ★★★★★

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EXCERPT:

Everyone stared at me, and I looked to the front of the room, where a tall, lanky man in a tweed suit stood next to a blackboard covered with the morning announcements. His gray hair shined under the light, and his wrinkled skin and warm smile reminded me more of a grandfather than a teacher.

He cleared his throat and rolled a piece of chalk in his palm. “You must be Nicole Cassidy,” he said.

“Yeah.” I nodded and looked around at the other students. There were about thirty of them, and there seemed to be an invisible line going down the middle of the room, dividing them in half. The students near the door wore jeans and sweatshirts, but the ones closer to the wall looked like they were dressed for a fashion show instead of school.

“It’s nice to meet you Nicole.” The teacher sounded sincere, like he was meeting a new friend instead of a student. “Welcome to our homeroom. I’m Mr. Faulkner, but please call me Darius.” He turned to the chalkboard, lifted his hand, and waved it from one side to the other. “You probably weren’t expecting everything to look so normal, but we have to be careful. As I’m sure you know, we can’t risk letting anyone else know what goes on in here.”

Then the board shimmered—like sunlight glimmering off the ocean—and the morning announcements changed into different letters right in front of my eyes.