I Was Jane Austen's Best Friend: A Secret Diary by Cora Harrison

Jenny Cooper, cousin to Jane Austen, records the occurrences of the Spring of 1791. When Jane become seriously ill at boarding school, Jenny risks going out at night unchaperoned to send a letter to Jane's mother. After being removed from the school, Jane and Jenny spend the Spring at Jane's family home, having a grand old time visiting and painting and playing piano and going to balls. Until! The one person who knows of Jenny's nighttime escapades come to town. Will he ruin her reputation? Or will it all end happily ever after?

I might have made it sound more dramatic than it really is.

Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry

So I'm 0-2 for the being judgy on the last books I've read and then been totally wrong. Isn't it so nice to be wrong? To think something's going to suck and then it doesn't suck at all? Delightful!

Benny Imura lives in a "safe" town. As safe as can be, since First Night, when the dead rose. Benny doesn't really remember a time before the zoms, although he does have a memory of First Night. That was when Benny's brother Tom grabbed him and ran away, leaving their mother to die. Benny resents Tom, and they've never gotten along since. Tom kills zombies for a living, and now that Benny is 15, he needs to find a job too. Tom offers to take Benny on as his apprentice, and eventually Benny agrees. Benny discovers that Tom isn't like the rest of the bounty hunters, and that his perception of the zoms isn't completely true. Benny also realizes that the zoms aren't the only monsters out there.

Girl, Stolen by April Henry

No connection to Girl, Interrupted.

Griffin was only thinking of how proud his father would be when he stole the fancy Escalade from the mall parking lot. Unfortunately for him, he didn't realize there was someone sleeping in the back. Now Griffin doesn't know what to do. He only meant to take a car, not kidnap a girl. The girl, Cheyenne, turns out not to only have pneumonia, but is blind. Griffin's father plans to get money from Cheyenne's father to give her back safely, but Griffin is beginning to wonder if giving Cheyenne back is part of the plan at all.

So I got all judgy on this early on because the back cover was so melodramatic. "How will Cheyenne survive this nightmare? She's not only sick - she's BLIND!" And then the beginning seemed so far-fetched. When the kid realized there was someone in the back of the car, and that she was blind, wouldn't he just bail? But as it went along I bought in more to the "in over your head" place it was going to and how one bad decision forces a whole bunch of other really bad decisions.

Guys Read: Funny Business edited by Jon Scieszka

Ten short stories geared toward middle school boys from ten fabulous authors such as Adam Rex, Eoin Cofler, Kate DiCamillo and Christopher Paul Curtis. The stories have a range of topics, from aliens to murderous turkeys, to ripping off your own wart with pliers and getting blood poisoning.

This is going to be a series, in a way. There's going to be a Guys Read: Nonfiction, and a Guys Read: Action/Adventure, and things like that. I think this is a great idea. Short stories are an excellent way to get kids (boys or girls) who might not love reading yet to try out different genres and also have a sense of completion. It can be overwhelming looking at a 200 page novel and thinking how long it's going to take to get all the way through it. Short stories are less intimidating, and can be lots of fun. Plus, if they really like one of the stories you can say, "You know, he's written these other books too, want to take a look at them?"

The Winds of Heaven by Judith Clarke

It's 1952, and Clementine admires her cousin Fan more than anyone else does in the world. Fan is beautiful and free spirited, the complete opposite of Clementine who is cautious and worries about everything. Clementine and Fan don't get to see each other very often though, Clementine lives in the city and Fan lives far, far way in the country. On the first visit Clementine can remember, she realizes while Fan might seem happy and free, her life is far from ideal.

Back at home, Clementine has her own life and problems to deal with, and although she writes to Fan at first, Fan never writes back. Clementine doesn't really hear anything about Fan again until her aunt writes to say that Fan is married, at 15, with a baby on the way.

School of Fear: Class is Not Dismissed by Gitty Daneshavari

Dear Gitty Daneshvari,

No.

Madeleine (fear of spiders), Theo (afraid something terrible is going to happen to his family), Lulu (fear of confined spaces), and Garrison (fear of water) are returning for a second summer at the School of Fear, quite against their wills. The children are convinced they've already been cured of their phobias, although that turns out not to be the case. They are joined by new student, Hyacinth (fear of being alone), as they...ummm, waste time for about 200 pages before trying to save their school from closing.

Monster High by Lisi Harrison

I went into this book with my mind already made up. For two reasons. 1.) It's by Lisi Harrison, author of the Clique and Alpha series. She kind of only does one thing. 2.) I was aware there was a line of dolls from Mattel called Monsters High so this was clearly a tie-in, and I'm judgey like that.

Frankie Stein is soooo excited to be going to high school! She's only 15 days old, but she is all set with spending the days in her father's lab. She wants to get out into the world! The only problem is, she must hide her true identify, because people get freaked out by monsters and all. Luckily for her, her high school is where all the other teenage monsters go (in disguise, of course). Melody and her family have just moved to town. Melody yearns for someone to accept her for who she is, not for her surgically created beautiful exterior (she got a nose job at her family's promoting). Although she might be beautiful outside, on the inside she's still that bumpy-nosed girl. Both Frankie and Melody struggle for acceptance, with a good old dose of Lisi Harrison style makeup and brand dropping and stealing other people's boyfriends. With monsters.

Up From the Blue by Susan Henderson

Tillie Harris goes into labor six weeks early, in her new apartment in a new city where she doesn't know anyone. And her husband is away on business. The only person Tillie can think of to call is her father, who she hasn't spoken to in years. As Tillie is in the emergency room, she thinks back to when she was 8, and how that single year formed her relationship with her father.

The year she was 8 the family moved to Washington, D.C. and her mother completely fell apart. Tillie recalls the helplessness and frustration she felt, as she struggled to understand what was happening around her.

The Diary of Piper Davis: The Fences Between Us by Kirby Larson

I was all sorts of excited when I saw that Dear America was going to be publishing more fictional diaries of girls from different time periods in America. I loved the Dear America series. I had practically all of them. And a couple of the boy equivalents, My America, which I don't think was as popular.

Piper Davis is the daughter of a minister in Seattle, Washington during 1941. Her father's congregation is all from Japantown, and while Piper spends Sundays with those of Japanese descent, her close friends are her school friends, who are all white, as she is.

Piper's beloved brother, Hank, has just joined the navy and has been stationed in Hawaii. You can probably see where this is going. On December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor is attacked, and although Piper's brother is unharmed, America is now involved in WWII, and everything changes.

People begin to turn on the Japanese citizens, even those who were born in America. Piper is conflicted, she's worried about her brother and would do anything to protect him, but it doesn't seem right to mistreat the Japanese-American people. When all people of Japanese descent are deported to camps, Piper's father decides to follow his congregation, taking Piper with him.

The Danger Box by Blue Balliett

Zoomy has never met his father or mother and has lived with his grandparents all his life. That's fine with Zoomy, he loves his grandparents and doesn't want anything to change. Zoomy hates change, sudden change can make him get stuck, unable to move until things are in order again. It helps to keeps lists of things, so Zoomy has all sorts of notebooks for his lists.

Then suddenly, Zoomy's father, Buckeye, turns up, in a stolen truck with a mysterious box in the back. Buckeye and Zoomy's grandfather have a fight, and Buckeye takes off, leaving the box. All that's in the box is a blanket and an old notebook. Zoomy studies the notebook, trying to figure out what would make it so special. With the help of his friend Lorrol, Zoomy embarks on some serious library research to figure out the secret of the notebook. But they don't have much time. A stranger is in town, and Zoomy is pretty sure he's looking for the notebook too.

Russian Winter by Daphne Kalotay

Nina Revskaya, once a famous ballet dancer, is auctioning off her equally famous jewelry collection. Supposedly it is to raise money for the arts, but Nina has more personal reasons for wanting to get rid of all her jewelry, although they are among the few things she still has left from Russia, since she defected in 1952. Drew Brooks is handling the jewelry's auction, and finds herself in the middle of a very strange story. Grigori Solodin, a 50 year old Russian professor, has a piece of amber jewelry that he thinks matches those that belong to Nina. He has tried to speak to Nina about this before, believing the piece of jewelry holds the key to his unknown parentage, but Nina has never allowed him to speak to her. Drew is trying to piece it all together, as she attempts to prove if Grigori's jewelry is indeed a missing piece to Nina's.

As the stories in the present are told, it is interspersed with the story of Nina's past in Russia, becoming a dancer, meeting her husband, and the danger of living in Russia. As more of the past is told, the present begins to make more sense. Nina may have made a horrible mistake.

Dark Song by Gail Giles

Guess what? I was wrong! This wasn't a supernatural romance! They sure had me fooled. I was taken in by the cover design and the tag line "She fell prey to the predator's heart." Which, really, could mean anything, but I was in such a supernatural place I automatically assumed it was, like, a werewolf or something. But no! It was just a regular old human predator!

Ames loves her life. She gets along great with her family, goes to a fancy private school, her family's well-off and gives her whatever she wants. She's never had a boyfriend, but she's not that interested right now. Things are pretty good. That all changes when Ames' father loses his job. And it wasn't just that he got laid off. He did something bad. Now family secrets are being revealed and Ames is starting to see her family isn't so perfect after all. But then neither is she.

Ames and her family are forced to leave their wealthy Colorado neighborhood and go all the way to Texas. There Ames meets Marc. Marc is a lot older than Ames, but he loves her. He wants to protect her and would never betray her. But Marc is not what he seems.

Halo by Alexandra Adornetto

Bethany is an angel who has been sent to Earth, along with her brother, Gabriel, and sister, Ivy, to fight the Dark Forces loose in the world. They have been assigned to the small town of Venus Cove, and in human form they begin their work, helping people to come together for good, and keeping a lookout for the Dark Forces at work. Bethany enrolls in high school and isn't there long before she finds Xavier and the two fall in love. Angels are supposed to care for humans, but not form Earthly attachments as Bethany has done. She and Xavier must fight the fact that at any time Bethany could be called back to heaven, as well as the Dark Forces emerging in an unlikely place.

The House of Dead Maids by Clare B. Dunkle

Tabby is taken from Ma Hutton's knitting school to serve as a maid at Seldom House, so she thinks. Upon her arrival, she finds there is little for her to do in the big, empty house. She has actually been chosen as a companion to a half wild child with no name. Things are very strange at Seldom House, and become even stranger as Tabby is haunted by the ghost of the maids before her. What happened to them? Is the same fate in store for Tabby?

The Eden Hunter by Skip Horack

Kau is a pygmy tribesmen who has been kidnapped from his home in Africa and sold into slavery, shortly before the war of 1812. After five years as a slave in Mississippi, Kau decides to make the run to freedom, aiming for Florida, still technically under Spanish rule. All Kau wants is to find a forest that reminds him of home, where he can live quietly the rest of his life. Along the way he runs into all kinds of people; Indians, free slaves, Black British soldiers. Although no one owns Kau any longer, no matter who he runs into, he always seems to be a slave in some way.

Low Red Moon by Ivy Devlin

Avery Hood can't remember how her parents died. All she can remember is silver moving at inhuman speed, and then they were dead. Now Avery is living in town with her grandmother who she hasn't spoken to in years. Other families who lived in the woods like Avery's family did are being killed as well. And there's this new boy at school, who Avery is inexplicably drawn to. Is he her true love, or is he responsible for the murders?