6 New Covers (Caine, Dane, Hart, Hoover, Marr, Murdoch)

26th March 2013 Releases

Happy Release Day to:

Rinda Elliott
Dweller on the Threshold (Beri O’Dell, Book 1)
Samhain (US: 26th March 2013)
Beri O’Dell is working on the side investigating paranormal creatures because she wants to know what she is. She’s taller and stronger than most men, she astral projects with an annoyingly real instead of metaphysical cord, and she can peel through dimensional layers to see the creatures and spirits beyond. She once helped her foster sister, Detective Elsa Remington, track down killers in Jacksonville, Florida, but stopped when a nasty fire elemental turned her strength against her. Now, she finds herself pulled back when something steals Elsa’s soul and puts her into a coma. This thing has put a lot of people into comas and beings called Dweller Demons are coming through the bodies. With little time to spare, Beri battles Dweller Demons while searching for the truth. She has help in her spirit guides Fred and Phro, but others come along for the ride, including a pyro-nervous witch, and an androgynous necromancer. With all this on her hands, the last thing Beri needs is to fall in love with a centuries-old Minoan warrior – one who has something scary wrong with him. But unfortunately, Nikolos knows what creature she’s after because he battled it before on what is now known as Crete. It’s bad. Really, really bad. He calls it the Dweller on the Threshold.

Jill Hathaway
Impostor (Slide, Book 2)
HarperCollins Balzer + Bray (US & CA: 26th March 2013)
Buy (US) [Hardcover] Buy (US) [Kindle] Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
Vee Bell’s gift (or curse) of “sliding” – slipping into the mind of another person and experiencing life, briefly, through his or her eyes – has been somewhat under control since she unwillingly witnessed the horrific deaths of her classmates six months ago. But just as things are getting back to normal – and her relationship with her best friend, Rollins, is heating up – Vee has a bizarre experience: She loses consciousness and finds herself in a deserted area, at the edge of a cliff, staring down at the lifeless body of the boy who had taken advantage of her last year. As Vee finds herself in stranger and stranger situations with no memory of getting there, she begins to suspect that someone else she knows has the ability to slide. And this “slider” is using Vee to exact revenge.

Sophie Littlefield
Aftertime (Aftertime, Book 1)
Harlequin Luna (US: 26th March 2013)
Buy (US) [Paperback] Buy (US) [Kindle] Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
Awakening in a bleak landscape as scarred as her body, Cass Dollar vaguely recalls surviving something terrible. Wearing unfamiliar clothes and having no idea how many days – or weeks – have passed, she slowly realises the horrifying truth: Ruthie has vanished. And with her, nearly all of civilisation. Where once-lush hills carried cars and commerce, the roads today see only cannibalistic Beaters – people turned hungry for human flesh by a government experiment gone wrong. In a broken, barren California, Cass will undergo a harrowing quest to get her Ruthie back. Few people trust an outsider, let alone a woman who became a zombie and somehow turned back, but she finds help from an enigmatic outlaw, Smoke. Smoke is her saviour, and her safety. For the Beaters are out there. And the humans grip at survival with their trigger fingers. Especially when they learn that she and Ruthie have become the most feared, and desired, of weapons in a brave new world…

Emily Murdoch
If You Find Me
Macmillan St. Martin’s Griffin (US: 26th March 2013)
Review
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
A broken-down camper hidden deep in a national forest is the only home fifteen-year-old Carey can remember. The trees keep guard over her threadbare existence, with the one bright spot being Carey’s younger sister, Jenessa, who depends on Carey for her very survival. All they have is each other, as their mentally ill mother comes and goes with greater frequency. Until that one fateful day their mother disappears for good, and two strangers arrive. Suddenly, the girls are taken from the woods and thrust into a bright and perplexing new world of high school, clothes and boys. Now, Carey must face the truth of why her mother abducted her ten years ago, while haunted by a past that won’t let her go…a dark past that hides many a secret, including the reason Jenessa hasn’t spoken a word in over a year. Carey knows she must keep her sister close, and her secrets even closer, or risk watching her new life come crashing down.

Rachel Vincent
With All My Soul (Soul Screamers, Book 7)
Harlequin Teen (US: 26th March 2013)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
After not really surviving her junior year (does “undead” count as survival?), Kaylee Cavanaugh has vowed to take back her school from the hellions causing all the trouble. She’s going to find a way to turn the incarnations of Avarice, Envy and Vanity against one another in order to protect her friends and finish this war, once and forever. But then she meets Wrath and understands that she’s closer to the edge than she’s ever been. And when one more person close to her is taken, Kaylee realises she can’t save everyone she loves without risking everything she has…

Blythe Woolston
Black Helicopters
Candlewick (US: 26th March 2013)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)
Ever since Mabby died while picking beans in their garden – with the pock-a-pock of a helicopter overhead – four-year-old Valley knows what her job is: hide in the underground den with her brother, Bo, while Da is working, because Those People will kill them like coyotes. But now, with Da unexpectedly gone and no home to return to, a teenage Valley (now Valkyrie) and her big brother must bring their message to the outside world – a not-so-smart place where little boys wear their names on their backpacks and young men don’t pat down strangers before offering a lift.

March 2013 Releases

Done with February 2013 Releases? Here are March 2013 Releases. For future releases, check Reading Wishlist.

[REVIEW] If You Find Me – Emily Murdoch

Emily Murdoch
If You Find Me
Macmillan St. Martin’s Griffin (US: 26th March 2013); Hachette Orion Indigo (UK: 2nd May 2013)
Buy (US) Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)

I stumbled upon this book. Browsed through NetGalley, intrigued by the cover, liked the summary, requested it, and was mysteriously granted access. (My requests often get rejected, so it’s nice to be welcomed.)

Let’s face it: Emily Murdoch’s If You Find Me is a heartbreaker. With the narrator growing up in a Tennessee forest, basically raising her little sister while their meth addict mother is who knows where for how long – this story was bound to be nothing less than sad.

But the focus of the tale is life after the forest. Carey Blackburn had always been told that her father beat her and her mum, so she’s confused that he seems the nicest guy alive. Her selectively mute sister is speaking more and more. Her stepmother is wonderful, and her stepsister is difficult though she does love them.

So yes, it has a happy ending. All the sad stuff is in the past, so things only get better. Of course, Carey feels that she doesn’t deserve good things and happiness, because her mum poisoned her against it, saying that everything has its price – usually flesh. And my word, Carey is so precocious that she’s almost annoying. Almost. It’s a thin line, but the author keeps readers on the right side. Carey’s smart, into poetry, testing two grades above her age, a talented violinist, and quickly makes a new friend and a new boyfriend.

And I think that’s what stops this book from being a five-star read: the obstacles are in the past, not in the present. The worst is already over. And I don’t know much about farm life – and I don’t know what Carey’s father and Melissa do for livings – but how do they have enough money to afford completely new wardrobes and things for two new children?

If You Find Me best works if you feel it; not think it. But I’m desperate to read whatever else the mega-talented Emily Murdoch writes. Jodi Picoult fans would be wise to give this a go.