From one of the most powerful writers in modern fiction comes a dystopian vision of a world where money reigns supreme, and nothing is so precious that it can't be bought.... The penalty for Dani Cumali's murder: ?84,000. Theo works in the Criminal Audit Office. He assesses each crime that crosses his desk and makes sure the correct debt to society is paid in full. These days, there's no need to go to prison - provided that you can afford to pay the penalty for the crime you've committed. If you're rich enough, you can get away with murder. But Dani's murder is different. When Theo finds her lifeless body, and a hired killer standing over her and calmly calling the police to confess, he can't let her death become just an entry on a balance sheet. Someone is responsible. And Theo is going to find them and make them pay. Perfect for fans of speculative fiction such as The Handmaid's Tale and Never Let Me... Views: 62
A hilarious memoir and a crash-investigator's report into how not to be a boy. Anson Cameron was born in the Victorian town of Shepparton in 1961, the son of a country lawyer and an English rose. Through the shoeless neighbourhoods and surrounding forests, sipping a Blue Heaven milkshake, shooting at anything that moves, and singing an Irish Rovers song, this boy wends his way smiling and lying and creating chaos in his wake. He joins a peeing club and becomes a tycoon of urine; assassinates the Cisco Kid; keeps a deaf man as an entertainment; starts a war between hags; electrocutes a friend's mother; and has a Bodgie clubbed by the police before he is seven. His war on schoolteachers means he is forced to cycle home from school dyed a different colour every day. At high school, with a maturing political outlook, he joins a gang of Anglos to fight a war on Wogs. There is hardly a trap of vanity into which he doesn't fall. With a wry narrator and a cast of rural originals,... Views: 62
New powers are rising in Birmisia. Far to the south, the strange lizardmen of Xiatooq are making themselves known. Closer to home, the new lizzie city Yessonarah finds itself rich in gold—gold the humans covet. As tensions rise, many in Port Dechantagne seem eager to teach the lizzies a lesson in humility. Fourteen year old Iolana Staff finds herself in the center of it all, as she is pulled between her conscience and the conventions of society. Unconcerned with the conflict between human and lizzie, sorceress Senta Bly prepares for her own war, unaware that events will pull her into a life and death confrontation with an old enemy.The Price of Magic is the latest in a series that chronicles a world of steam power and rifles, where magic has not yet been forgotten. A new colony in a distant lost world has grown from a tiny outpost to a center of civilization in a vast wilderness. The Price of Magic continues a story of adventure and magic, religion and prejudice, steam engines and... Views: 62
2017 IPPY Book Awards Winner!
A “remarkable” (Booklist Magazine) reimagining of Peter Pan.
After World War II, orphaned Kettle faces prejudice as a Japanese American but manages to scrape by and care for his makeshift family of homeless children. When he crosses paths with the privileged but traumatized Nora, both of their lives are forever changed...
Lauren Nicolle Taylor’s Nora & Kettle is a heart-wrenching historical fiction novel that will appeal to fans of books by John Green and Ned Vizzini, novels such as The Perks of Being a Wallflower, The Beginning of Everything, Eleanor & Park, The Book Thief, and classics like The Great Gatsby and The Catcher in the Rye.
**From School Library Journal
Gr 9 Up-Set in the 1950s, this book is told in the alternating voices of Nora, an upper-class teen struggling to protect her younger sister from their abusive father, and Kettle, a biracial homeless teen persecuted for being Japanese, caring for his makeshift homeless family. The two cross paths repeatedly without realizing until they meet late in the novel and discover they just might be the missing family they each didn't know they were searching for. This is a commendable attempt to present the persecution of Japanese Americans. However, the story's flaws outweigh its noble intentions. Both teen voices are expressed in the same adult tone, and the prose lacks the necessary sense of time and place. Many of the obstacles, such as Kettle's pursuit of work on the docks and Nora's ability to quickly adapt to hard physical labor after living a privileged existence, are easily resolved. VERDICT Pass on this historical fiction title for Kevin C. Pyle's Take What You Can Carry (Macmillan, 2012) or Jeanne Houston's Farewell to Manzanar (HMH, 2002).-Hillary St. George, Los Angeles Public Libraryα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review
World War II is over, but community feelings toward Japanese Americans still run high, and two very different teens are struggling to live in the aftermath. Seventeen-year-old Kettle has been an orphan living on the streets for years, working the docks when he can and trying to care for other street children alongside his brother, Kin. Nora, on the other hand, is the daughter of a wealthy, big-name civil rights lawyer, but that does not protect her from his violent beatings behind closed doors. Existing side by side without knowing it, Kettle and Nora's paths cross one night, and suddenly everything changes. Lyrically written, this powerful and at times painful read captures the reader and does not let go. Told in alternating chapters from the two characters' perspectives, their respective narratives cross and intertwine, drawing Nora and Kettle closer until they finally unite. Parallels to Peter Pan and Wendy provide motif and depth without overwhelming the reader. Firmly rooted in the history of internment camps and racial prejudice, this remarkable novel educates subtly while focusing on themes of home, acceptance, courage, and the danger of secrets. -- Melissa Moore
(Booklist Starred Review) Views: 62
The great war cannot be stopped. The tyrant Geder Palliako had led his nation to war, but every victory has called forth another conflict. Now the greater war spreads out before him, and he is bent on bringing peace. No matter how many people he has to kill to do it. Cithrin bel Sarcour, rogue banker of the Medean Bank, has returned to the fold. Her apprenticeship has placed her in the path of war, but the greater dangers are the ones in her past and in her soul. Widowed and disgraced at the heart of the Empire, Clara Kalliam has become a loyal traitor, defending her nation against itself. And in the shadows of the world, Captain Marcus Wester tracks an ancient secret that will change the war in ways not even he can forsee. Return to the critically acclaimed epic by master storyteller Daniel Abraham, The Dagger and the Coin. Views: 62
Area 51 was the most secret place in America. But it was only one piece in a puzzle that stretched from Egypt's Pyramids to the mysterious face on Mars… Part of a plan begun 5,000 years ago by those who had been here before. And are coming back. When scientist Lisa Duncan and Special Forces officer Mike Turcotte uncovered the stunning truth about Area 51-a "training area" on Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada-they opened up a Pandora's box kept hidden from the American public for fifty years. What they uncovered explained decades of UFO sightings-and the most baffling mysteries of history from the Great Pyramid to Easter Island. But these findings were only the beginning. Now a signal had come in from outer space: our first contact with extraterrestrials. The message said they were coming. It didn't say they had been here before… and left something behind. But what waited deep within the Rift Valley of Ethiopia and inside an ancient Chinese tomb would determine Earth's fate. The dawning of a new age. Or the destruction of us all… Robert Doherty is a pseudonym for a bestselling writer of military suspense thrillers. He is also the author of Area 51 and The Rock , and is currently working on a third novel in the Area 51 series, entitled Area 51: The Mission. Views: 62
Find the Key! Open the Doorway! Enter the Other World!Keagan finds a key . . .It opens a doorway . . .He steps through . . .Into a weird world of clones who are obsessed with perfection. But this world isn't as perfect as it seems. Keagan is determined to return home - all he has to do is find a way out of the city, survive the Dumping Ground and outsmart a bunch of rogue clones! Will Keagan escape Perfect World? Views: 62
