“Middletide”Sarah Crouch

Rated 5 stars ***** ARC. ebook. Atria (Simon & Schuster). To be published June 11, 2024.

The day Erin’s body was found hanging from a tree beside a lake on Elijah’s property was the day his life changed forever. After failing as a writer, with no income, Elijah decided to return to the small town where he’d grown up and live in his father’s cabin in the woods. There memories assailed him of Nikita, the only girl he’d ever loved and the promise he’d broken to return to her after he finished college.

Nikita had grown into a beautiful woman and had just lost her husband. Seeing each other was hard, but Elijah wanted more than she could give. When she couldn’t commit, he decided to date someone else. The newly single town doctor was beautiful but, soon after they started dating, Elijah realized she was the wrong woman for him. He would soon find out that the short time they dated would be the biggest regret of his life.

At first the storyline was hard to follow because it was told over multiple points of views through several different timeframes. Once I got used to the author’s style of writing, it was easier to understand Elijah’s timeline. This gripping, mystery thriller about a man falsely accused of murdering the beautiful and beloved doctor of his small town will keep readers on the edges of their seats as they try to figure out whodunit. 

Recommended for Adults.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in return for an honest review.

“Spitting gold” Carmella Lowkis

Rated 5 stars ***** ARC. ebook. Atria Books (Simon & Schuster). To be published May 14, 2024.

It was April of 1866 and, for the past two years, Sylvie thought her former life as a medium was behind her. She and her sister Charlotte had earned their living pretending to banish or raise ghosts for money, learning everything from their parents. After a con gone wrong cost them their business and almost landed them in prison, she married a rich older man who took her away from her drunken, abusive father and the life of poverty she’d led. Though she felt guilty about leaving Charlotte, she needed to save herself and agreed to his request that she leave the life of a medium behind her forever.

One rainy day Charlotte surprised her by showing up at her home begging for help as their father was dying, there was no money, and she needed Sylvie. A rich family was eager to dispel a ghost who had been haunting them and, if successful, the payout would help Charlotte and her father. Sylvie knew what her husband had forbidden her to do but her love for Charlotte overcame her reluctance. Unfortunately, she’d soon find out that ghosts, as well as the living, can be revengeful. The peaceful life she’d led for the past two years was about to forever change.

I LOVED this book! I voraciously read it from cover to cover, eager to see what would next befall the sisters. The author’s research into life in 1866 France for the rich and those living on the outskirts of acceptable society was eye-opening.

Highly recommended for Adults.

 I received a copy of this book from the publisher in return for an honest review.

“The secret library” Kekla Magoon

Rated 5 stars ***** ARC. ebook. Candlewick Press. (To be published May 7, 2024).

Delia is almost 12 years old and misses her grandfather terribly. After he died, her mother is more determined than ever that Delia learns to become a proper businesswoman to eventually take over the family business. Delia doesn’t want to sit behind a desk with boring business work. She wants to have adventures but, without her grandfather, feels stifled and lonely. At the reading of his will he left her a brown envelope that her mother promptly locked away for her 21st birthday. With cunning and skill Delia retrieves the envelope from her mother’s locked safe and finds a letter from him as well as a mysterious map.

The map takes her to an abandoned field which turns into a magnificent, secret library. Inside Delia is directed to shelves filled with secrets from people across the centuries. Whenever she chooses a book, she goes on adventures in different times and places where she learns about her family’s history. She sees her dad alive, years before her parents got married, and also gets to see a side of her mother that she’d never seen in the past.

As Delia learns more about her family’s past, she becomes troubled as well as elated and proud. Her family held onto a lot of secrets on their way to becoming the Peteharrngton’s. She’ll have to draw on that strength to become the girl she wants to be, in order to change her present into her past.

I absolutely LOVED this book. It would make an excellent Newbery winning title. That’s how good it is. Well done, Kekla. Well done.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in return for an honest review.

“A better world” Sarah Langan

Rated 5 stars ***** ARC. ebook. Atria Books (Simon & Schuster). Published April 9, 2024.

In a world set 70 years in the future, Earth’s resources have been destroyed by mankind’s many interferences. Air has become barely breathable, jobs and food are scarce, the weather doesn’t make sense, and people are constantly angry. Linda knows she and her husband can’t raise their fifteen-year-old twins much longer in this environment, so it seemed like a miracle when they were accepted to live in Plymouth Valley, a private, invitation-only company town where they will have a clean, healthy, and safe life. All they must do is follow the rules.

At first, they struggled to adjust but soon became regulars with strange rituals practiced by residents. As Linda began to investigate these rituals, she soon realized Plymouth Valley’s yearly Winter Festival held a frightening significance for the town. Though she begged her family to leave, no one was allowed to leave. Linda will have to do all she can to save them from the horrors she suspects before it’s too late.

This seemingly omniscient view of Earth’s future is appallingly on track based on how Earth’s resources have been abused over the centuries. One can only hope towns like Plymouth Valley don’t come into being, or our future as humans is forever lost.

Highly recommended for Adults.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in return for an honest review.

“All boys aren’t blue” George M. Johnson

Rated 5 stars ***** First Square Fish (Farrar Straus Giroux, Macmillan). 2024. 304 p.

Open, raw, honest prose fills nonbinary George Johnson’s memoir through memories of growing up Black and Queer in a small New Jersey town. The love and support received from their parents, extended family members, and their beloved grandmother are also detailed. Reasons why they suppressed their identity as they sorted out what it meant to know they weren’t like other boys, as well as the oppression they felt as a member of the Black community, are also part of their story. Johnson wants teen readers who are Black and Queer to see themselves. As the title suggests, all boys are not the same because they are not all stereotypical blue. Some might be a little pink or an entirely different color and should be able to live freely.

Recommended for ages 15 and older.

I met George Johnson at a recent conference and was impressed because they are articulate, well-versed, a spitfire, and an advocate for their community. This is the #2 banned book in the United States due to its graphic content, but its message is important. Banning a book because it’s eyebrow raising content doesn’t measure up to a book banner’s point of view does a huge disservice to its intended audience. Erasing a book erases a reader’s identity, and no one deserves to be erased.

“The moonlit vine” Elizabeth Santiago

Rated 5 stars ***** Tu Books (Lee & Low Books). 2023. 360 p. (Includes “Author’s note,” “Anacaona and Caonabo ancestry,” “Key moments in Puerto Rican history,” “Inspiring Boriqueños,” and “References.”)

The native Arawak lived in Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Haiti, and Jamaica, before Columbus and his conquistadores arrived. There are several theories on how they became known as Taíno including that they shouted “tayno,” meaning “good people,” to an incoming Spanish ship. Over the next 25 years their population was severely decimated through disease, massacre, and slavery, reducing their numbers from millions to 32,000 by the year 1514. It had been thought the Taíno were extinct, but a 2018 National Geographic article explained they assimilated and aren’t extinct because their DNA is found in living people – including yours truly.

Knowing this background information made “The moonlit vine” especially interesting as I read about fourteen-year-old Taína’s quest to defend herself and her family from injustices in their neighborhood and schools. Taína comes from a long line of proud Taíno women, direct descendants of Anacaona, a powerful leader murdered by Spaniards soon after Columbus’ arrival on Haiti. Anacaona gave an amulet and zemi to her daughter for protection, with instructions for them to be passed on through time to women in her family who would remember the knowledge of their proud past as their future power.

Over the centuries these precious artifacts and memories of their heritage were passed on until Taína received them from her grandmother. Though fearful at first, she soon learned of the powerful strength of her ancestors in a life-or-death situation.

I absolutely LOVED this book! Taína’s story, as well as historical chapters of women who came after Anacaona, kept me riveted.

Highly recommended for ages 14 and older.

The night war” Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

Rated 5 stars ARC. Dial Books for Young Readers (Penguin Random House). To be published April 9, 2024. 281 p. (Includes “Author’s note.”)

Miriam and her parents lived in Germany until forced to flee to Paris after Kristallnacht when she was eight years old. After living in cramped quarters for four years, food supplies were dwindling, and her father was forced to go into hiding. Soon afterwards she was separated from her mother when the French police rounded up everyone and sent them to the Velodrome d’Hiver for deportation. During the confusion Miriam’s neighbor urged her to save her two-year-old daughter Nora and flee to Switzerland. Unsure of what to do, Miriam took Nora and tried to mingle with the onlookers. After being spotted by a German soldier, they were rescued by a young nun.

In time, Miriam was sent to a convent school and separated from Nora. To survive she needed to forget her Jewishness, but her failure to protect Nora and escape to Switzerland haunted her waking moments. After Sister Dominique took her to visit the nearby castle of Chenonceau, things changed when she became involved in the Resistance and met the ghost of Catherine de Medici.

With the addition of a ghost, young readers learn about France’s history as well as its role in World War II.

Recommended for ages 11-14.

“Dead girls walking” Sami Ellis

Rated 3 stars *** ARC. Amulet Books (ABRAMS). 362 p. To be published March 26, 2024.

Temple grew up with a serial killer father and a mother who disappeared after she heard her screaming. He taught her to play baseball and climb trees but would never tell her what happened to her mother. He taught her what a dead body looks and smells like, and what the symbols looked like that he carved deep into the bones of his victims. She spent years half starved, living in a leaf filled tub in a filthy home, listening to the screams of those he murdered. At the age of twelve, she called the police, and he was sent to prison while she spent years coping with the infamy of being his daughter.

On a recent prison trip her father convinced her he’d killed her mother and buried her at their former home. Since the woods where she’d lived were not accessible Temple volunteered to be a camp counselor for LGBTQIA+ African American girls obsessed with horror. The horror camp was in the woods near her former home, where she was sure she’d find her mother’s body and satisfy the wound in her soul.

Instead, Temple found herself involved in a ritual of death that resulted in the murder of more people than her father had killed. The murderer is still busy killing new victims since the horror camp offers it new blood. It’s up to Temple to stop its murder spree, but time is running out for her and the rest of the girls.

I had never read a book like this as it seemed to be filled with every trope available for the horror genre including spooky woods, rundown homes, serial killers, ghosts, zombie-like bodies, blood, gore, and more. If horror is your thing, “Dead girls walking” is right up your alley. Since it’s not my thing I’ll stay alive and keep walking.

Recommended for horror fans aged 16 and older.

“Uprising” Jennifer A. Nielsen

Rated 5 stars ***** ARC. Scholastic Press (Scholastic). 356 p. (Includes period photographs, and “Author’s note.”) To be published March 5, 2024.

Lidia Janina Durr Zakrzewski was born in Poland and, when Germany invaded Poland in 1939 to start World War II, she was 15 years old. She had always been a strong-willed child, her father’s favorite, and the bane of her mother’s existence. When he left home to fight for Poland, she was devastated. Within a short time the Nazis took away their house, her beloved piano, and the money her father had left them to survive. Lidia, her older brother, and her mother struggled to put food on the table and to keep a roof over their heads.

After Poland fell, the mistreatment of Jews became something Lidia saw on a regular basis. Forced to move to a squalid neighborhood, the bedroom window of their apartment overlooked the Warsaw Ghetto. There, she noticed Jews starving and being sent to concentration camps. Lidia did her best to sneak food into the Ghetto, knowing that being caught would mean instant death.

Lidia’s anger against the occupation of her country stoked a fire in her to join the Polish resistance. Her brother was a member but, despite his objections, she joined. She survived harrowing near-death experiences, multiple injuries, battles, and more in her determination to free Poland. “Uprising” is her story.

Lidia might be an unknown name to many but, after reading Nielsen’s carefully researched book and viewing the period photographs, she will not stay unknown. Lidia’s story deserves to be told, as her bravery saved the lives of hundreds of innocent people.

Highly recommended for ages 15 and older.

“Heroes: A novel of Pearl Harbor” Alan Gratz

Rated 5 stars ***** ARC. Scholastic Press (Scholastic). 219 p. (Includes “The Arsenal of Democracy” comic, “Author’s note,” “About the story,” “Asian Americans in Comics”, and “The Legacy of Pearl Harbor.”) To be published February 6, 2024).

Thirteen-year-old Frank and his best friend Stanley shared a love for comic books, where they lived on the Pearl Harbor base in Hawaii where their dads worked. Frank was the writer, while Stanley made the storyline come alive with amazing drawings. At his father’s last posting Frank had a bad experience, which made him afraid of everything. Before he could do anything, he spent minutes thinking of things that could go wrong and forgot how to live his life. Fear coated everything he did.

Everything was peaceful until the morning of December 7, 1941, when hundreds of Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor. The boys had been on the Utah, visiting his sister’s boyfriend Brooks, when the attack began. The Utah was hit, and they had to abandon ship, but Frank was petrified with fear. Brooks had to shake him out of it and helped him escape, then disappeared. When he was found dead Frank blamed himself.

As he and Stanley frantically tried to reunite with their families Frank realized his best friend was now seen as the enemy because his mother was Japanese. Though Stanley was born in the United States everyone only saw his face and didn’t care that he was Japanese American. With America now at war, if Frank wanted to keep their friendship in the strange new world which they were both now part of, he would have to grow a backbone and overcome his fear of being afraid of everything.

Middle school readers will learn not only about the Pearl Harbor attack but what it was like to be Japanese American during a time of anti-Japanese sentiment in Hawaii and the rest of the country. Alan Gratz does an excellent job with his research and end notes to help his young readers learn more about this troubled period of history.

Highly recommended for ages 12 and older.