Active Voice

By Anne Ursu [LibraryThing – Goodreads]

Imaginative daydreamer Hazel doesn’t really fit in anywhere – except with her next door neighbor Jack, who’s been her best friend since practically forever. That is, until he suddenly stops talking to her. Her mother tries to convince her that this is just something that happens, but then Jack disappears, the prisoner of the Snow Queen. Only Hazel knows enough about fairy tales to follow him into the woods – but even she’s not prepared for everything she finds there.

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By Adam Rex [LibraryThing - Goodreads]

Scottish Play Doe (please just call him Scott) has always been a little weird, what with his migraines that make him see really strange things, but everything in his life gets a lot weirder when his family moves to Goodborough (home of the GoodCo Cereal Company) and one of his hallucinations steals his backpack. And then it turns out he hasn’t been hallucinating at all: he can see things no one else can, and oh yeah, that includes cereal mascots that might actually be faeries… and they’re all on the run from GoodCo itself.

With the help of his new friends Erno and Emily (who have their own weird connection to GoodCo), plus Mick the leprechaun, Harvey the rabbit man, and a suspiciously hairy housekeeper named Biggs, Scott has to figure out what’s really going on at GoodCo… and how to save the world from one seriously sinister cereal company.

(Mild spoilers within.)
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By Nova Ren Suma [LibraryThing - Goodreads]

Chloe’s older sister, Ruby, is the girl everyone looks to and longs for, who can’t be captured or caged. When a night with Ruby’s friends goes horribly wrong and Chloe discovers the dead body of her classmate London Hayes left floating in the reservoir, Chloe is sent away from town and away from Ruby. But Ruby will do anything to get her sister back, and when Chloe returns to town two years later, deadly surprises await. London might not be dead after all, Ruby is hiding deadly secrets, and something in the reservoir wants to find Chloe…

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By Karen Healey [LibraryThing – Goodreads]

Summerton is the most beautiful resort town in New Zealand, but since Keri’s older brother killed himself unexpectedly, she’s been even less enchanted with the town than usual. Then she talks to Janna and Sione, whose older brothers also killed themselves – without warning and without leaving a note. Sensing a pattern, the three of them start looking for a serial killer, but Summerton’s secrets may just be darker – and more supernatural – than they think.

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By Tamora Pierce [LibraryThing – Goodreads]

Beka Cooper has just buried her fiancé when she’s called in on a Hunt that threatens the royal family – and the safety of Tortall itself. Along with her partner Tunstall and her loyal scent hound Achoo, Beka must travel far outside of her comfort zone and untangle a conspiracy involving some of the most wealthy and powerful people in the kingdom – while she’s forced to question exactly who she can trust.

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By Michael Scott [LibraryThing – Goodreads]

Nicholas Flamel and his wife Perenelle have lived nearly seven hundred years, thanks to Nicholas’s possession of the Codex, a book full of magical secrets like the elixir of life, the spell to turn base metals to gold…and the key to bringing back the old gods and destroying the human race. When Nicholas is attacked by his almost-as-ancient enemy, Dr. John Dee, and the book and Perenelle are both taken, Nicholas knows he doesn’t have long before the human race is wiped out by Dee’s masters, the Dark Elders. All Nicholas has on his side are Josh and Sophie, ordinary 15-year-old twins who didn’t mean to get mixed up in all this. But Nicholas suspects they may be the twins prophesied in the Codex, who may save the world…or destroy it.

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Our Epic HP Reread may be on hiatus, but last Thursday the Center for Fiction hosted a panel discussion on young adult fantasy, “Before and After Harry Potter: YA and Fantasy,” and naturally I attended. The panelists were long-time Active Voice favorite Justine Larbalestier, Holly Black, Cassandra Clare, and Chris Moriarty. The panel was moderated by Delia Sherman.

I took as thorough a set of notes as I was able, given the mediocre quality of my pen and the fast pace of the conversation. So alas, a few names on lists of favorites and recommendations and whatnot may have been lost.

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By Keith Graves [LibraryThing – Goodreads]

Josephine is sure she’ll be bored when her parents move her to the tiny town of Awkward Falls, Manitoba, but that’s before she discovers her next-door neighbors: kid genius Thaddeus Hibble, his robot butler, and a zombie cat. But the deranged killer Fetid Stenchley, who killed Thaddeus’s grandfather, has escaped the insane asylum and is on his way to take out Thaddeus as well. Throw in an aging movie star, half a dozen enormous genetic monsters, and some dark secrets about the past, and Awkward Falls is turning out to be not so boring after all.

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Hey folks! Things are a tad bit busy in both Jess’s and my lives at the moment, so we’re putting a brief pause on the HP reread until we both have time to dive back into the books and give them the attention we’d like to. (Don’t worry, we definitely plan to continue a little bit down the line — Prisoner of Azkaban is both of our favorites, in fact, so we’re looking forward to it as soon as our schedules are cleared up a bit.)

By Janice Hardy [Librarything -- GoodReads]

In the final book in the Healing Wars trilogy, all Nya wants is to search for her missing sister — until she learns that her home city of Geveg has rebelled against the Duke. Now the Duke is bringing his whole army to Geveg to retake control, or destroy it entirely. Seeing no other choice, Nya takes off to warn her people, only to quickly become embroiled in the rebellion itself. But is she really a symbol of hope, or is she only a pawn? And can she manage to be a hero?

General spoilers for the series after the cut:

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