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Hot New Releases & Popular Kids Stories It's important to keep up on the hot new releases and popular kids' books as we enter the gift giving season!

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Chasing Power, by Sarah Beth Durst, is a fast-paced novel that has readers skipping across Mayan temples and ancient churches following a lovable and feisty heroine.

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Conjured

by Sarah Beth Durst

Synopsis: Eve remembers nothing. No past, and not even any recent memories. Eve isn't even her real name – she has no idea who she really is. All she knows is that she's in the witness protection program, and that she can do magic. Any use of magic, though, causes incapacitating visions of a strange carnival, and a Magician and a Storyteller. Eve begins to suspect that the visions are actually memories, but who are the Magician and the Storyteller? And more important, who is Eve?

A magical serial killer is on the loose, and Eve may be the key to finding him, if only she can remember in time. As Eve tries to unravel the mystery of her life, it becomes increasingly difficult to know who she can trust. The Witsec agents? Patti, the library manager? Zach, the boy in the library that she wants to kiss? Or handsome, cocky Aidan, who has magic of his own? It seems that everyone has their own idea of what Eve should be doing. But in order to decide what to do, Eve must first figure out who she is.

Review: Conjured is an exquisitely crafted book that stands out for its tight writing, unique story, and intriguing character arc. Durst obviously spent time and care on the writing: every word is carefully chosen and rich with meaning, from smells, sounds and colors, to the use of point of view.

It must have been exceptionally difficult to write a character who is essentially a tabula rasa at the beginning, and do it in an engaging way, but Durst succeeded admirably. Eve is engaging, and the reader becomes her as her character journey unfolds. An important theme of this book is defining who you are for yourself, rather than allowing your past or other people to define who you are.

Conjured is mysterious, suspenseful, and oh so creepy. The descriptions are evocative and convey a strong sense of atmosphere, whether the deliciously comforting atmosphere in the library where Eve works, (obviously written by a book lover!) or the bizarre and creepy atmosphere in her visions.

Put this in the hands of anyone who enjoys the creepy, mysterious, and atmospheric books, or someone who is just looking for something a little bit different.


Get it from:

• Buy Local through IndieBound
• Amazon.com
• Barnes & Noble

FTC required disclosure: Review copy sent by the publisher to enable me to write this review. The bookstore links above are affiliate links, and I earn a very small percentage of any sales made through the links. Neither of these things influenced my review.

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The nominees for this year’s Nebula Awards have been revealed, and we’ve collected free samples of all the nominees below–the best science fiction books of 2012.

Many of these stories are available to read for free online. These are marked “COMPLETE” among the links.  Here’s more about the awards:

The Nebula Awards are voted on, and presented by, active members of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc. Founded as the Science Fiction Writers of America in 1965 by Damon Knight, the organization began with a charter membership of 78 writers; it now has over 1,500 members, among them many of the leading writers of science fiction and fantasy.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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Sarah Beth Durst has shared the Cover Stories for her novels Enchanted Ivy and Ice, and now she's here to tell her perspective on the scintillating cover of Drink, Slay, Love.

"Creating the cover for DRINK, SLAY, LOVE was a traumatic experience. The problem began when the vampire hired to pose as Pearl came to the photo shoot hungry. She drained three assistants before someone had the presence of mind to pass her the bottle of donated blood that you see on the cover. The photographer snapped shots of her as she sated the last of her hunger with the bottled blood. Though they'd originally planned for a panorama, he was forced to do a close-up due to the carnage that littered the studio behind her.

"Okay, that's not true. She only drank from two people and both survived..."

Read the rest of Sarah's Cover Story at melissacwalker.com.

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The rgz Street Team is a group of teens who bring YA reviews to our blog, led by Postergirl Miss Erin. Find out more.

Today, Priya reviews Enchanted Ivy by Sarah Beth Durst (you can read the Cover Story here!):

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Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

I'm very happy to be hosting Sarah Beth Durst to hail the arrival of her fourth amazing YA fantasy novel, ENCHANTED IVY (and you may remember that she was my very first Story Secrets post last January for ICE).

Sarah Beth and I go way back...all the way back to the SCBWI Conference in New York the year before I signed with my agent and sold Tell Me a Secret. She had just come out with her first book, Into the Wild, and I was almost finished writing the first draft of mine. It didn't take long to become fast friends!

Sarah Beth, welcome back to Story Secrets!

*****

Enchanted Ivy is about getting into college. You know, taking the campus tour, talking to the gargoyles, flirting with the were-tigers, riding the dragons... Essentially, it's about magic at Princeton. (read a first chapter excerpt here)

Holly Cupala: Hi, Sarah Beth! Tell us about Enchanted Ivy.

Sarah Beth Durst: Junior and senior year of high school, I was absolutely obsessed with the whole college application process. I saw college as this huge Life Turning Point (with all capital letters) that would determine the shape of the Rest of My Life, and I was desperate to do everything "right," i.e. choose the right school, write the right essay, etc.

Of course, after all of my neurotic obsessing, I choose my college because I liked the trees and wrote my essay about the trials and tribulations of having curly hair...


Find out more of Sarah Beth's secrets and enter to win ENCHANTED IVY here...

~Holly Cupala

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Ice by Sarah Beth Durst. Simon & Schuster / Margaret K. McElderry Books. 2009. Review copy supplied by publisher.

The Plot: Cassie loves her life at a remote Arctic research station with her father. It's an isolated life of cold, of snow, of science, just Cassie, her father, occasional visits from Gram and a variety of visiting researchers.

On her eighteenth birthday, science ends and fairy tales come true. Cassie discovers that her favorite childhood story -- the whimsical tragic story of her mother being the daughter of the North Wind, Cassie the promised bride of the Polar Bear King, and her mother held captive by trolls -- is true.

The polar bear has come for her.

The Good: Cassie is an interesting main character. She's stubborn and driven; close to the father that raised her; and so content with life at the research station that she doesn't even want to go to college. Rather, she wants to complete a remote degree so she never has to leave the only life she's ever known.

Her mother's fairy tale past and bargains change everything Cassie thought she knew. Her mother didn't die in a blizzard; rather, Gail truly was the adopted daughter of the North Wind who bargained away her unborn child to the Polar Bear King in order to escape the North Wind and live with Cassie's father. The North Wind found the family and angrily attacked the family, blowing Gail to the country of trolls where she has been captive ever since.

So in other words, Cassie's only parent has lied to her. Not only that, but Cassie's relationship with her father is closer than many teens because it's not just been the two of them; it's been the two of them in a research station that rarely houses more than a half dozen people. Cassie has modeled her future on continuing in her father's footsteps.

All that is shattered, not only because the Polar Bear King has claimed her for a bride, but also because her father lied.

This is a fairy tale, so of course Cassie and the Polar Bear fall in love. This is a fairy tale, so at times (times being at night, in the dark) Polar Bear is human.

But Cassie doesn't lose herself in Bear and their love. She returns home, having arranged her mother's rescue, only to realize that not only is her mother a stranger, but her father with her mother is almost a strange new person. Pre-Polar Bear, Cassie was a child who, like a child, imagined never leaving home. Now, with return of the mother, Cassie is forced out of her childhood and into an adulthood of her own. Cassie isn't a pinball, bouncing back between parents and Polar Bear husband. Cassie even finds a way to bring her own interest in science and research to Polar Bear's destiny as a collector of souls.

Of course, life is not that easy. It never is, whether you're the human bride of the collector of polar bear souls or not. So just when Cassie settles into a happy life with Polar Bear, disaster strikes. Remember how Cassie arranges her mother's rescue from trolls? Polar Bear rescued the mother, in return,

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Ever since deciding to become a writer at age ten, Sarah Beth Durst has found herself drawn to worlds of fantasy.“I love fairy tales,” says Durst, whose award-winning first novel, Into the Wild, and its sequel, Out of the Wild, grew out of that love. “The words 'Once upon a time...' can freeze me in my tracks faster than Elmo’s Song can mesmerize a toddler.”Just as her understanding and love of

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Reviews of two fantastic books!

Into the Wild Sarah Beth Durst

Being the daughter of a refugee from the Wild isn't easy. Julie's mom, Rapunzel, is nice and all, but she only hangs out with other refugees--escaped fairy tale characters. Julie feels like she doesn't belong anywhere, she's the only non-character who knows what's going on in town, but because she didn't escape the Wild, the characters don't truly accept her either. All Julie knows is that for some reason she and her mom are the ones to guard it, and her dad died in the escape.

But one day, the Wild gets loose and takes over town. It's not just that there are trees and vines growing everywhere, but once you're in the Wild, it wants you to be part of a story and it will force you in. Once you're in a story, there's no escape, you just live your days and then, when the story ends, you forget everything and start over again. FOREVER.

Only Julie can save her family and the town.

Really, really well done. I loved this. I'm a sucker for fairy-tale characters in new settings, but this one is above the cut. I loved Julie's adventure and how the familiar characters were more bit players and Julie got to take center stage as she worked to save the day. I also the loved how the Wild took normal townspeople and warped them to a fairy tale standard.

Out of the Wild Sarah Beth Durst

It hasn't been that long since Julie had to defeat the Wild. Northboro is still cleaning up the mess. Then, one day, the Wild spits out her dad, for no apparent reason. Prince Charming doesn't know our world and isn't willing to learn. Before Julie and her mother can explain everything to him, Sleeping Beauty is whisked off in a coach made from an apple and Zel and Gothel are turned into pumpkins. The Prince is off after Sleeping Beauty and Julie can only follow him and try to help. Unfortunately, he recreates fairy tale moment after fairy tale moment, causing the Wild to grow like never before. There is someone who wants the loose and is causing this to happen, but why?

I liked this one even better than the first. As Julie and her dad go on their cross-country adventure, they meet new fairy tale characters that we didn't see before. We also have the mystery of who is doing this and why, and what Julie can do to stop it, as well as the complex feelings of having her dad back, her dad who's more into saving random princesses than being Julie's dad.

Such a great couple of books! Fairy tale fans need to check them out!

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The July issue of Locus Magazine, a magazine about SF/fantasy publishing, focused on young adult fantasy fiction. It contains essays by Neil Gaiman; Holly Black; Sarah Beth Durst; Justine Larbalestier; Scott Westerfeld; Graham Joyce; and more.

How did I miss this? Well, I don’t frequent magazine stores. Still, this is exciting. I wonder if I can still get my hands on a copy. Maybe eBay? How about you–have you checked it out?

I just discovered this through Sarah Beth Durst’s blog which I discovered through Bookshelves of Doom

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by Sarah Beth Durst

I adored Into the Wild, so I was super excited to get my hands on its sequel. While Into the Wild is probably my favorite of the two, I'm happy to report that Out of the Wild is another tremendously fun, fairytale-filled book.

Out of the Wild reads more like an action-adventure story than its predecessor. Julie takes a crazy, magical journey across the country as the Wild becomes an even bigger threat than she could've imagined. This time things really take a toll on the fairytale world.

I liked how the characters had to grow and deal with all the new changes. Julie learns that you can't always go back to the way you used to be: sometimes you have to change your outlook and adapt to a new way of things. As always, all of the fairytale allusions, from the well-known stories to the lesser-known ones, were wonderful. I would recommend these books to any hardcore lover of fairytales and adventure.

See my book trailer for Into the Wild.
My interview with the author.

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I'm tuckered out from two straight days of attending the Tools of Change conference, plus I still haven't wrapped my head around the Anna Nicole Smith biographers suing their publisher, and the mythical basements of Terre Haute are echoing... Read the rest of this post

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Sarah Beth Durst, author of Cybils Fantasy and Science Fiction finalist Into the Wild, has an ongoing feature on her blog where she posts obscure fairy tales with humorous commentary. Last week she posted a hilarious version of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, Snow White and Rose Red. If you want a good laugh, check it out!

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This photo definitely shouldn't be construed as any sort of serious editorial comment on Herbie Brennan's bestselling Faerie Wars series, which concludes this week with the publication of Faerie Lord. "I don't know why the series isn't being widely... Read the rest of this post

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When I ran a poll around Brad Listi's book trailer, he wanted to make sure that everybody understood that his dog hadn't really been taken hostage, and that Walter was perfectly all right. And here's the proof, as the... Read the rest of this post

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This is Rufus, a three-year-old golden retriever belonging to Doug Lamy, an aspiring author in Washington State who's trying to convert the manuscript for his sailing memoir, Schooner Appreciate, into a screenplay. He adds that he's looking for an agent... Read the rest of this post

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Sophie may be one of the most photographed pets to appear in a GalleyCat post; Felicia Sullivan's posted dozens of pictures in her Flickr account. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you'll undoubtedly recognize Sullivan's name.... Read the rest of this post

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"Tala is the best editor ever," emails Carrie Jones, a member of YA literature's "Class of 2K7" who made her debut this spring with Tips on Having a Gay (ex)Boyfriend. [The sequel, Love (And Other Uses for Duct Tape),... Read the rest of this post

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Mary Aarons, the marketing and publicity director at Quayside Publishing Group, sent in this picture of her giant jack, Phoebe, getting ready to poke her nose into the latest NY Times Book Review. "She's on the comp list and gets... Read the rest of this post

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"Rats are as much fun as dogs and cats and very social," says Judy Gregerson, the author of Bad Girls Club. "They can also help with writing because they're good listeners and you can bounce things off of them when... Read the rest of this post

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This is Homer, the three year-old terrier of Nalini Jones, the author of the short story collection What You Call Winter, and Drew Patrick. According to Jones, "Homer lives in terror of demeaning yuletide antlers and of the new... Read the rest of this post

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On the left, Lesley Dormen, the author of The Best Place to Be, presents Eliza, whose hunting instincts aren't limited to fowl: She was forced to withdraw from the Guiding Eyes program when she couldn't suppress her appetite for... Read the rest of this post

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I make my little jest, but I'm sure Otis and Roxy are as happy to be with Gail Konop Baker and her family as the Bakers were to greet the new arrivals a few weeks ago. Especially after I... Read the rest of this post

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