Friday Finds #24

What great books did you hear about / discover this past week?

Share with us your Friday Finds!

 

 

I haven't done Friday Finds in months (since the end of August). It's not that I didn't have new books that I've added on my tbr list, but I never posted them ;) Now, here are some of my Friday Finds, although not exactly new, but from these past few months!

 

 

Wish You Were Dead trilogy by Todd Strasser

 

 

 

Book 1: Wish You Were Dead

 

Str-S-d:

I'll begin with Lucy. She is definitely first on the list. You can't believe how it feels to be in the cafeteria and turn around and there she is staring at me like I'm some disgusting bug or vermin. Does she really think I WANT to be this way? I hate you, Lucy. I really hate you. You are my #1 pick. I wish you were dead.

The day after anonymous blogger Str-S-d wishes the popular girl would die, Lucy vanishes. The students of Soundview High are scared and worried. Especially frightened and wracked with guilt is Madison Archer, Lucy's friend and the last person to see her the night she disappeared.
As days pass with no sign of the missing girl, even the attention of Tyler, an attractive new student, is not enough to distract Madison from her growing sense of foreboding. When two more popular students disappear after their names are mentioned on Str-S-d's blog, the residents of Soundview panic.
Meanwhile, Madison receives anonymous notes warning that she could be next. Desperate to solve the mystery before anyone else disappears, Madison turns to Tyler, but can she trust him when it becomes clear that he knows more than he's sharing?
The clock is ticking. Madison must uncover the truth behind the mysterious disappearances . . . before her name appears in Str-S-d's blog.
 

In the spirit of stories like I Know What You Did Last Summer, Todd Strasser updates the teen thriller for the techno age with Wish You Were Dead, the first installment in a new 'thrill' -ogy.

 

 

 

Book 2: Blood On My Hands

 

Callie is at an October keg party in the woods, when she notices that her friend Katherine has gone missing. The kids spread out to look for her and Callie finds her, lying on a path, with a big, bloody fake knife in her. She reaches for the knife and raises it, only to discover, to her horror, that it is real. At that moment, another of the search party stumbles on them, and takes a photo of Callie holding the bloody knife. Now she is the suspect in a grisly murder. How can she prove her innocence - and find the true murderer? 

 

 

Book 3: Kill You Last  

 

To be published on September 13th, 2011!

 

 

 

John Cleaver trilogy by Dan Wells

 

 

 

 

 Book 1: I Am Not A Serial Killer

 

John works in his family’s mortuary and has an obsession with serial killers. He wants to be a good person, but fears he is a sociopath, and for years he has suppressed his dark side through a strict system of rules designed to mimic 'normal' behavior.

Then a demon begins stalking his small town and killing people one by one, and John is forced to give in to his darker nature in order to save them. As he struggles to understand the demon and find a way to kill it, his own mind begins to unravel until he fears he may never regain control. Faced with the reality that he is, perhaps, more monstrous than the monster he is fighting, John must make a final stand against the horrors of both the demon and himself.

 

Book 2: Mr. Monster

Book 3: I Don't Want to Kill You

 

 

  

The Small Hand by Susan Hill 

 

Returning home from a visit to a client late one summer's evening, antiquarian bookseller Adam Snow takes a wrong turning and stumbles across the derelict old White House. Compelled by curiosity, he approaches the door, and, standing before the entrance feels the unmistakable sensation of a small hand creeping into his own, 'as if a child had taken hold of it'. Intrigued by the encounter, he determines to learn more, and discovers that the owner's grandson had drowned tragically many years before. At first unperturbed by the odd experience, Snow begins to be plagued by haunting dreams, panic attacks, and more frequent visits from the small hand which become increasingly threatening and sinister...

 

 

 

Green Rider by Kristen Britain  

(Green Rider series book #1)

 

On her long journey home from school after a fight which will surely lead to her expulsion, Karigan G'ladheon ponders her future as she trudges through the immense forest called Green Cloak. But her thoughts are interrupted by the clattering of hooves as a galloping horse bursts from the woods, the rider slumped over his mount's neck, impaled by two black-shafted arrows. As the young man lies dying on the road, he tells Karigan that he is a Green Rider, one of the legendary messengers of the king, and that he bears a "life and death" message for King Zachary. He begs Karigan to carry his message, warning her not to read it, and when she reluctantly agrees, he makes her swear on his sword to complete his mission "for love of country." As he bestows upon her the golden winged-horse brooch which is the symbol of his office, he whispers on his dying breath, "Beware the shadow man..."
Karigan's promise changes her life forever. Pursued by unknown assassins, following a path only her horse seems to know, and accompanied by the silent specter of the original messenger, she herself becomes a legendary Green Rider. Caught up in a world of deadly danger and complex magic, compelled by forces she cannot understand, Karigan is hounded by dark beings bent on seeing that the message, and its reluctant carrier, never reach their destination.

 

 

 

Shadowed Summer by Saundra Mitchell

 

Iris is ready for another hot, routine summer in her small Louisiana town, hanging around the Red Stripe grocery with her best friend, Collette, and traipsing through the cemetery telling each other spooky stories and pretending to cast spells. Except this summer, Iris doesn't have to make up a story. This summer, one falls right in her lap.
Years ago, before Iris was born, a local boy named Elijah Landry disappeared. All that remained of him were whispers and hushed gossip in the church pews. Until this summer. A ghost begins to haunt Iris, and she's certain it's the ghost of Elijah. What really happened to him? And why, of all people, has he chosen Iris to come back to?

 

 

 

Boot Camp by Todd Strasser

 

In the middle of the night Garrett is taken from his home to Harmony Lake, a boot camp for troubled teens.

Maybe some kids deserve to be sent there, but Garrett knows he doesn't. Subjected to brutal physical and psychological abuse, he tries to fight back, but the battle is futile. He won't be allowed to leave until he's admitted his "mistakes" and conformed to Harmony Lake's standards of behavior. And there's no way to fake it. Beaten, humiliated, and stripped of his pride, Garrett's spirit is slowly ebbing away. Then he hears whispers of an escape plot. It's incredibly risky -- if he's caught, the consequences will be unthinkable -- but it may be his only way out.

In this tense, riveting novel, award-winning YA author Todd Strasser reveals what really goes on in highly secretive -- and notoriously dangerous -- boot camps, a stealth prison system where any teenager under the age of eighteen can be imprisoned at his parents' whim.

  

 

 

The Shadow Project by Herbie Brennan

 

Danny Lipman is a thief . . . until one night he robs the wrong house. He inadvertently breaks into the headquarters of the Shadow Project, a secret government organization where teenage spies are trained to leave their bodies, using astral projection to travel around the world on deadly missions.

Danny is captured, but the Project leaders quickly realize he has a special gift. And when a key operative - the director's daughter, Opal - goes missing, he is offered a choice: join the Shadow Project or go to jail.

Danny joins and is quickly sent to investigate the Project's current target: a worldwide terrorist organization known as the Sword of Wrath. But as he gets deeper in, he discovers both the Project and the Sword of Wrath are far more than they seem. Danny and his fellow operatives are caught up in an ancient supernatural conflict and will have to learn how to survive in a world without boundaries of space or time, where the wrong choice could be their last.

 

 

 

The Battle for Gullywith by Susan Hill

 

A stone army, an enchanted castle, mysterious ancient powers - and some very clever tortoises - Olly finds there's more than meets the eye at Gullywith. When his family move to Gullywith Farm in the Lake District, Olly just can't imagine being happy in his new home. Gullywith is the coldest house in the world and no one has lived there for years. Then Olly meets KK and she tells him locals won't go near the place. It does seem to be jinxed - the roof falls in, walls collapse but even more strangely, Olly notices that there are stones at Gullywith that can move around of their own accord - stones with ancient markings on them. He feels sure that they are angry about something.KK takes Olly to see the mysterious Nonny Dreever to ask his advice and he tells them they must return the stones to Withern Mere. As they search for the answer to Gullywith's secret, Olly is drawn into a world of myth, magic and midnight adventure deep inside the surrounding hills. What is the ancient power that controls the stones and can anything be done to end their hold over Gullywith?