Young Adult (ages 14-18)

Material appropriate for young adults

Popular, A Memoir

A touchingly honest, candidly hysterical memoir from breakout teen author Maya Van Wagenen. Stuck at the bottom of the social ladder at “pretty much the lowest level of people at school who aren’t paid to be here,” Maya Van Wagenen decided to begin a unique social experiment: spend the school year following a 1950s popularity guide, written by former teen model Betty Cornell. Can curlers, girdles, Vaseline and a strand of pearls help Maya on her quest to be popular? The real-life results are painful, funny and include a wonderful and unexpected surprise-meeting and befriending Betty Cornell herself. Told with humor and grace, Maya’s journey offers readers of all ages a thoroughly contemporary example of kindness and self-confidence.

Book 3 (Order of Darkness): Fools’ Gold

Tasked to expose a coin counterfeiting scheme, Luca and Isolde, whose romantic attraction continues to grow, travel to Venice in 1454, where they meet an alchemist who plans to create the Philosopher’s Stone, a mystical substance said to be capable of turning base metals into gold and producing the elixir of life.

The Clockwork Scarab

In 1889 London young women are turning up dead, and Evaline Stoker, relative of Bram, and Mina Holmes, niece of Sherlock, are summoned to investigate the clue of the not-so-ancient Egyptian scarabs–but where does a time traveler fit in?

Incinerator

After the bloody deaths of his parents, Finn Maguire is determined to make a fresh start, running a boxing gym but when loan sharks target his business partner and his lawyer vanishes with his money, Finn is dragged into London’s underworld again, with only his fists and wits to keep him alive.

What We Hide

Told from multiple viewpoints, high school Junior Jenny of Philadelphia spends a semester at a Quaker boarding school in Sheffield, England, near where her brother is avoiding the Vietnam draft, and where everyone carries close-held secrets.

One Or Two Things I Learned About Love

Hildy has only had two-and-a-half dates in her whole life, and she isn’t counting the half. It’s starting to look as if she’s never going to have a third date, or be kissed, or know a boy who is more than just a friend. Then, on an ordinary day, she meets Connor of the meltthat-ice-cap smile — and a summer that was going to be ordinary as toast turns into Hildy’s summer of love. But love for Hildy is a little more complicated than the songs and movies have led her to believe. It’s not so much girl-meets-boy-and loses-her-heart as boy-meets-girland-loses-his-mind.