Flux Winter 2010 Preview
Tortured love, no fangs required - ALBATROSS ♦ Dead teens are even more angsty - MY SO-CALLED DEATH ♦ The light beneath reveals dark within - LIGHT BENEATH FERNS ♦ Kicking ass and taking her name and number - CHOPPY SOCKY BLUES ♦ Gunpowder and magic, you say? - THE BUCCANEER'S APPRENTICE ♦ Crazy stuff always goes down the summer before senior year - EXIT STRATEGY ♦ Sorority girls know drama - THE ALPHA BET
Albatross by Josie Bloss
ISBN: 978-0-7387-1476-9
February 2010
“Taut and emotionally wrenching . . . I couldn't put it down. Josie Bloss is an author to watch.”
—Meg Cabot, author of The Princess Diaries and the Airhead series
Some say that Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series offers a romanticized view of what is really an unhealthy relationship—but what does a real-life unbalanced relationship look like from the inside? Albatross offers a reality-check and a unembellished glimpse into the complications of the heart.
Sixteen-year-old Tess Sweeney and her mother move to Grand River, Michigan from Chicago to escape her psychologically abusive father. Tess begins to repeat her mother’s mistakes by obsessing over Micah, a caustic tortured artist type who is already pursuing a beautiful girl named Daisy. Where Tess had been a model student, competitive swimmer, and talented French horn player back in Chicago, she now has no interest in doing anything that doesn’t directly involve Micah, and becomes mired in a manipulative, oppressive relationship with him.
With Albatross, Josie Bloss solidifies her status as a powerful voice in YA fiction.
Choppy Socky Blues by Ed Briant
ISBN: 978-0-7387-1897-2
April 2010Jason's dad is every kid's role model—a movie stuntman with a black belt and his own karate school. But to fourteen-year-old Jason, he's a top-ranking creep for chucking his family two years ago. Since then, Jason's done all he can to distance himself from his father, including giving up karate. But then he meets Tinga, a strong and smart girl who's testing for her blue belt in two weeks. When Jason sputters out that he's testing for the same rank, the lie sparks Tinga's interest. . . and leads Jason to his dad, the one person who can get him ready in time.
My So-Called Death by Stacey Jay
ISBN: 978-0-7387-1543-8
March 2010
One second sophomore Karen Vera's on top of the most fabulous cheer pyramid ever. The next, she's lying on the pavement with seriously unflattering cranial damage. Freakishly alive without a pulse, Karen learns that she's a genetically undead zombie.
Soon, Karen is sent off to DEAD High, a boarding school for the "death-challenged," and her non-life is suddenly an epic disaster. She's stuck with a greasy-haired, wannabe-Goth roommate who hates her guts. She's chowing down on animal brains every day to prevent rot (um, ew?). Even worse, someone is attacking students and harvesting their brains for a dark ritual . . . and it might be the hottest guy at DEAD High, the one who makes Karen's non-beating heart flutter!
As more brains are stolen—including her best friend's—Karen tracks down the brain snatcher to save her fellow students from certain zombie death.
Light Beneath Ferns by Anne Spollen
ISBN: 9780738715421
February 2010
Elizah Rayne is nothing like other fourteen-year-old girls. More interested in bird bones than people, she wraps herself in silence. Trying to escape the shadow of her gambler father, Elizah and her mother move into an old house that borders a cemetery. All her mother wants is for them to have "normal" lives. But that becomes impossible for Elizah when she finds a human jawbone by the river and meets Nathaniel, a strangely hypnotic and mysterious boy who draws Elizah into his world.
Only by forgetting everything she knows can Elizah understand the truth about Nathaniel—and discover an unimaginable secret.
The Buccaneer's Apprentice
by V. Briceland
ISBN: 9780738718958
April 2010
The next installment in the Cassaforte Chronicles! Check out Volume I: The Glass Maker's Daughter.
On his first sea voyage away from the magical city of Cassaforte, seventeen-year-old Nic Dattore awakens to find the vessel overrun by marauding pirates-and everyone else on board kidnapped or killed. After slaying the pirate who attacked him, Nic tosses a torch into a cache of gunpowder and blows up the ship.
Washed up on a deserted island, Nic and a motley crew of castaways decide to commandeer the pirate ship to get home. They battle pirates, assassins, and a cursed ship with a powerful secret while racing against time to save Cassaforte from a diabolical plot.
Exit Strategy by Ryan Potter
ISBN: 9780738715735
March 2010
Who are you supposed to look up to when it seems like every adult you know is more screwed up than yourself?
Looming above Zach Ramsey's hometown are the smoke stacks of the truck assembly plant, the greasy lifeblood of this Detroit suburb. Surrounded by drunks, broken marriages, and factory rats living in fear of the pink slip, Zach is getting the hell out of Blaine after graduation. But first, he's going to enjoy the summer before his senior year.
Rolling in cash from bootlegging booze, getting smashed with his best friend Tank, and falling in love for the first time, Zach's having a blast until he uncovers dark secrets that shake his faith in everyone—including Tank, whose 'roid rages betray a shocking habit.
The Alpha Bet by Stephanie Hale
ISBN: 9780738715742
April 2010
I was prepared to do just about anything to go from geek to Greek.
Some teenagers use drugs or sex to escape overbearing parents. I used books. All my life my mother has been hovering over me, afraid to let me experience ANYTHING. So I got really good grades, graduated from high school when I was sixteen, and escaped to a new life—my own life—at college.
To jump-start my social life, I decided to rush the Alphas, the most exclusive sorority on campus. And that's when things started to get complicated. One of the Alphas invoked the Alpha Bet, a super-secret set of alphabetical tasks that have to be completed for a sister's bid to become active. Now, completing the tasks of the Alpha Bet has taken over my life. And one of the tasks involves deceiving my roommate and only real friend, Jentry.
Can you spell B-E-T-R-A-Y-A-L?
