Under the Green Hill

Meg and her siblings have been sent to the English countryside for the summer to stay with elderly relatives. The children are looking forward to exploring the ancient mansion and perhaps discovering a musty old attic or two filled with treasure, but never in their wildest dreams did they expect to find themselves in the middle of a fairy war. When Rowan pledges to fight for the beautiful fairy queen, Meg is desperate to save her brother. But the Midsummer War is far more than a battle between mythic creatures: Everything that lives depends on it. How can Meg choose between family and the fate of the very land itself?  

Warped

Tessa doesn’t believe in magic. Or Fate. But there’s something weird about the dusty unicorn tapestry she discovers in a box of old books. She finds the creature woven within it compelling and frightening. After the tapestry comes into her possession, Tessa experiences dreams of the past and scenes from a brutal hunt that she herself participated in. When she accidentally pulls a thread from the tapestry, Tessa releases a terrible centuries old secret. She also meets William de Chaucy, an irresistible 16th-century nobleman. His fate is as inextricably tied to the tapestry as Tessa’s own. Together, they must correct the wrongs of the past. But then the Fates step in, making a tangled mess of Tessa’s life. Now everyone she loves will be destroyed unless Tessa does their bidding and defeats a cruel and crafty ancient enemy.

The Fitzosbornes in Exile

Michelle Cooper combines the drama of pre-War Europe with the romance of debutante balls and gives us another compelling historical page turner. Sophia Fitzosborne and the royal family of Montmaray escaped their remote island home when the Germans attacked, and now find themselves in the lap of luxury. Sophie’s journal fills us in on the social whirl of London’s 1937 season, but even a princess in lovely new gowns finds it hard to fit in. Is there no other debutante who reads? And while the balls and house parties go on, newspaper headlines scream of war in Spain and threats from Germany. No one wants a second world war. Especially not the Montmaravians—with all Europe under attack, who will care about the fate of their tiny island kingdom? Will the Fitzosbornes ever be able to go home again? Could Montmaray be lost forever?

The Coven’s Daughter

It’s Spring again in the village of Montacute, and people want nothing more than to celebrate the season with maypole dances, festivals, and visits from the nobility. The festivities are dampened, though, when a young boy turns up dead outside the village. Then they learn that three other boys have also disappeared lately. To the parson, this tragedy is a perfect excuse to kick off the only thing guaranteed to get his spring-giddy parishioners back to church – a witch hunt. Cecily may have occasional visions, but that doesn’t make her a witch! Fatherless and without friends, Cess knows she’s lucky to be employed by a grand estate like Montacute House, even if it is as a poultry girl. On her thirteenth birthday, Cess finds a precious locket in one of her chicken coops, a strange discovery that’s quickly overshadowed by her best friend John’s disappearance two days later. The parson has already started planting rumors that the missing boys were bewitched, and the villagers think Cecily may be the culprit.  The only way Cess can prove her innocence is by finding John, but she’s soon embroiled in a plot that threatens her world and forces her to draw upon powers she never knew she possessed. Witchcraft, politics and religious ambition combine in this gripping and wonderfully realized novel set in the Somerset of the 1500s.

To Timbuktu

Casey and Steven met in Morocco, moved to China, then went all the way to Timbuktu. This illustrated travel memoir tells the story of their first two years out of college spent teaching English, making friends across language barriers, researching, painting, and learning to be themselves wherever they are.

Second Fiddle

The author of Heart of a Shepherd offers another sensitive portrayal of military families, this time stationed abroad, in the city of Berlin at that historic time just after the Wall came down.When 13-year-old Jody and her friends save a badly beaten Russian soldier from drowning, they put into motion a chain of events that will take them from Berlin to Paris and straight into danger. Jody must quickly learn to trust herself, because in the time directly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the border between friend and enemy is not as clear as it once was.Award-winning author of Heart of a Shepherd Rosanne Parry offers a fast-paced, coming-of-age story filled with adventure, music, friendship, and intrigue.

Ask Amy Green: Summer Secrets

Amy is trapped in family vacation hell, until she and Clover, her teenage aunt, get a chance to interview a hot U.S. movie star with a secret. Thirteen-year-old Amy’s dreamy boyfriend, Seth, is off to Rome, while she gets to spend two weeks on a tiny Irish island with a nagging mom and a neurotic aunt locked in a feud, not to mention a crazy stepdad and a surly cousin. Good thing Clover, teen advice columnist supreme, is there to keep Amy from going completely nuts! It doesn’t help Amy’s changeable mood that Seth keeps mentioning some girl in his e-mails, or that Amy feels an electric attraction to the mysterious young gardener next door. So when The Goss magazine unexpectedly sends Clover to glitzy Miami to write a revealing piece on a hot young actor (with Amy as her sidekick, of course) it couldn’t come at a better time.

The End of the World Club

With the end of the Mayan calendar fast approaching, fourteen-year-old Max Murphy and his friend Lola, the Maya girl who saved his life in the perilous jungle, race against time to outwit the twelve villainous Lords of Death, following the trail of the conquistadors into a forgotten land steeped in legend and superstition.

The Queen of Water

Born in an Andean village in Ecuador, Virginia lives with her large family in a small, earthen-walled dwelling. In her village of indígenas, it is not uncommon to work in the fields all day, even as a child, or to be called a longa tonta—stupid Indian—by members of the ruling class of mestizos, or Spanish descendants. When seven-year-old Virginia is taken from her village to be a servant to a mestizo couple, she has no idea what the future holds. In this poignant novel based on a true story, acclaimed author Laura Resau has collaborated with María Virginia Farinango to recount one girl’s unforgettable journey to self-discovery. Virginia’s story will speak to anyone who has ever struggled to find his or her place in the world. It will make you laugh and cry, and ultimately, it will fill you with hope.