Secrets Of Tamarind

It’s been four years since Maya, Simon, and Penny Nelson left the lost island of Tamarind. For Maya, the island is a nearly forgotten part of her childhood; for Penny, it’s a secret place she can’t remember, but longs to see; and for Simon, it’s an adventure waiting to happen. An evil group called the Red Coral Project is lurking around the Nelson’s home in Bermuda, and the children discover that the project has moved into Tamarind, and are desiccating it to ruin. Only the Nelson’s can save the island. In Tamarind, there is the mystery of the magical mineral ophalla that Red Coral is greedily mining, their old pirate ship, the Pamela Jane, and the secret of their friend Helix’s parentage. This time, it is up to Simon to put the clues together, and save his sisters from the island and the nefarious Red Coral Project—and defeat Red Coral before the magnificent island is put to ruin. Nadia Aguiar’s sequel to The Lost Island of Tamarind, crafts a vivid story reminiscent of such classics as Peter Pan, full of adventure, magic, and haunting beauty.

The Girl In Between

A homeless girl and her Ma, always hiding from the authorities, take shelter in an abandoned mill in the center of a big city, but when developers make plans to knock the mill down, everything changes, prompting the girl to wonder what kind of ghosts are haunting both the mill and her mother.

Shadowhouse Fall

In addition to the ordinary problems of a Puerto Rican teenager in Brooklyn, Sierra Santiago is working on developing her shadowshaping skills, and she is beginning to think she may need all the skill she can summon because it seems that when she channeled hundreds of spirits through herself in order to defeat Wick she woke up something very powerful and very unfriendly and put her family and friends at risk.

Lightfinder

Lightfinder is a YA fantasy novel about Aisling, a young Cree woman who sets out into the wilderness with her Kokum (grandmother), Aunty and two young men she barely knows. They have to find and rescue her runaway younger brother, Eric. Along the way she learns that the legends of her people might be real and that she has a growing power of her own.The story follows the paths of Aisling and Eric, siblings unwittingly thrust into a millennia old struggle for the future of life on earth. It deals with growing up, love and loss, and the choices life puts in our path. Love and confusion are in store, as are loss and pain. Things are not always what they seem and danger surrounds them at every turn.

A Properly Unhaunted Place

Rosa Ramona Díaz has just moved to the small, un-haunted town of Ingot the only ghost-free town in the world. She doesn’t want to be there. She doesn’t understand how her mother a librarian who specializes in ghost-appeasement could possibly want to live in a place with no ghosts. Frankly, she doesn’t understand why anyone would.

Akata Warrior

A year ago, Sunny Nwazue, an American-born Nigerian girl, was inducted into the secret Leopard Society. As she began to develop her magical powers, Sunny learned that she had been chosen to lead a dangerous mission to avert an apocalypse, brought about by the terrifying masquerade, Ekwensu. Now, stronger, feistier, and a bit older, Sunny is studying with her mentor Sugar Cream and struggling to unlock the secrets in her strange Nsibidi book.

Featured in WOW Review Volume X, Issue 3.

The Book Of Dust: La Belle Sauvage

Malcolm Polstead is the kind of boy who notices everything but is not much noticed himself. And so perhaps it was inevitable that he would become a spy…. Malcolm’s parents run an inn called the Trout, on the banks of the river Thames, and all of Oxford passes through its doors. Malcolm and his daemon, Asta, routinely overhear news and gossip, and the occasional scandal, but during a winter of unceasing rain, Malcolm catches wind of something new: intrigue. He finds a secret message inquiring about a dangerous substance called Dust—and the spy it was intended for finds him. When she asks Malcolm to keep his eyes open, he sees suspicious characters everywhere: the explorer Lord Asriel, clearly on the run; enforcement agents from the Magisterium; a gyptian named Coram with warnings just for Malcolm; and a beautiful woman with an evil monkey for a daemon. All are asking about the same thing: a girl—just a baby—named Lyra. Lyra is the kind of person who draws people in like magnets. And Malcolm will brave any danger, and make shocking sacrifices, to bring her safely through the storm.

The Book of Dust is a WOW Recommends: Book of the Month for February 2018.

The Library Of Fates

After losing everything when her father’s kingdom is brutally and suddenly taken over, sixteen-year-old Princess Amrita flees the royal palace with her companion, the seer and former slave Thala, and together they hope to find the legendary Library of All Things, where they can access the stories of their lives and their loved ones, change their future, and save the kingdom.

The Song From Somewhere Else

Frank thought her summer couldn’t get any worse–until big, weird, smelly Nick Underbridge rescues her from a bully, and she winds up at his house. Frank quickly realizes there’s more to Nick than meets the eye. When she’s at his house, she hears the strangest, most beautiful music, music which leads her to a mysterious, hidden door. Beyond the door are amazing creatures that she never even dreamed could be real. For the first time in forever, Frank feels happy . . . and she and Nick start to become friends. But Nick’s incredible secrets are also accompanied by great danger. Frank must figure out how to help her new friend, the same way that he has helped her.