Title: Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick (with a sequel expected for publication in 2012) Author: Joe Schreiber Genre: Young adult, action, spy-thriller The gist: With a title like "Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick" one might think this is a chick-lit sort of book, but one would be very wrong indeed. This book is exactly like if your mom made you take the geeky foreign exchange student to prom instead of allowing you to play in your own rock show...and then the exchange student turned out to be an assassin who dragged you along to take out five hits in New York City instead of actually going to …

Title: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer Author: Michelle Hodkin Genre: Paranormal mystery, romance, young adult The gist: A girl is potentially losing her mind because of a horrible accident and potentially losing her heart because of a hot rich boy from private school, all while having to solve the mystery of how her best friend and boyfriend died. Initial attraction: The book had a lot of buzz going at the Teen Author Carnival as well as at Book Expo America and it came with a free t-shirt. Cover art: I like how it’s black… and the font is very cool… but, and I may have mentioned this a time or …

Title: After Obsession Author: Carrie Jones and Steven E. Wedel Genre: Horror, paranormal romance, young adult The gist: "After Obsession" is like if you took Bella and Jacob from the Twilight series, made them awesome, and then threw them into "Poltergeist," but with kayaks and a river. Initial attraction: The only reason I wanted to read this book was because I had the pleasure of hearing Carrie Jones speak at the NYC Teen Author Carnival 2011 and she was so funny that I decided then and there to read her books--no matter how unappealing the covers or back cover summaries. Cover art: I am …

Title: The Shattering Author: Karen Healey Genre: Paranormal mystery, Young Adult The gist: If you put "The Craft," Justine Larbalestier, "The Stepford Wives," a Wicker Man and New Zealand into a blender and hit "frappe" you would get something delicious resembling "The Shattering." Initial attraction: I first heard about this book from Healey’s blog post where she revealed the New Zealand/Australian cover. I instantly needed the book even though I knew nothing about the plot at all. Normally I like a summary with a cover but I was still kicking myself for not having her debut book, a fantasy…

Title: A Dance With Dragons, book five in the Song of Ice and Fire series Author: George R. R. Martin Genre: Fantasy The gist: Martin takes high fantasy and smacks it around, much like if Tolkien, Stephen King and a serial killer were to write a book set in a realistically gritty medieval world with a plot loosely inspired by the War of the Roses. Cover art: The covers for "A Song of Ice and Fire" have all been fairly plain and iconic, which I think is the best route for such an epic story with the sort of grand scale that Martin reaches. "A Dance With Dragons" bests the previous four covers…

Title: Daughter of Smoke and Bone Author: Laini Taylor Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult The gist: Daughter of Smoke and Bone starts off with wishes in the shape of beads, then adds teeth collected by the devil with a furious intensity, and a blue-haired artist in Prague. Lightly whip it with urban fantasy that turns into a strange yet satisfying romance and then wrap it all up with lyrical prose, vivid imagery and creepy yet poetic ideas and then devour immediately. Cover art: The cover art is a bit better than adequate--the feathered mask brings to mind exotic settings like Prague and masquerade …

Title: Palimpsest Author: Catherynne M. Valente Genre: Romance, fantasy The gist: Palimpsest is like taking an impossible city made of ornate language, flowery prose, jewels, and heroin and then stuffing it into a dream-shape architecture that is also a communicable disease. Cover art: It’s fairly well-known that I am not a fan of covers featuring unidentifiable torsos, however in this case I don’t actually mind it so much because the focus is on the overlay of the map, which is made to look like a tattoo. This does fit the storyline well and while I would have preferred to see an illustrated…

Title: Fuzzy Nation Author: John Scalzi Genre: Science-fiction The gist: Fuzzy Nation is a modern ‘reboot’ and reimagining of ‘Little Fuzzy’ by H. Beam Piper from 1962. It offers the reader a snarky sci-fi look at intelligent life and corporate ethics through the lens of a morally ambiguous rogue who’s a bit of a jerk (just for fun) and makes a circus of legal courtroom procedures in the most amusing way. It also has velociraptors, because who doesn’t love the threat of a good velociraptor-maiming scene? Cover art: The cover is fairly typical of sci-fi but it works and captures the scene …

Title: Angel Burn Author: L.A. Weatherly Genre: Paranormal romance, young adult, urban fantasy The gist: It’s like Twilight but with stronger writing, and instead of vampires you get evil angels that feed psychically off of people’s auras. It’s got awesome cars, extremely attractive characters, lots of action, an angel assassin and a plot that would still be interesting without the romance aspect. Cover art: The U.S. edition has extremely attractive cover art and while I usually prefer illustrated covers, especially for fantasy, the hair being lit on the model in a halo-like fashion combined …

Title: Lips Touch Three Times Author: Written by Laini Taylor, illustrated by Jim Di Bartolo Genre: Young adult, fantasy, multicultural fairy tale re-telling Cover art: The cover is gorgeous, however it does nothing to indicate that the book contains exotic fantasy stories. Between the cover art and the title I would have pegged this as a romance, which would have been a tragic mistake! The cover’s beauty increases while reading the stories within, as one realizes that the girl portrayed on the cover could be from any of the three tales. Illustrations: I absolutely love illustrations used to …

Title: The Snow Queen’s Shadow, the fourth and final book in the Princess Series Author: Jim C. Hines Genre: Fantasy The gist: This is a princess book written to appeal to men as much as women, and is essentially what would happen if Charlie's Angels met the Disney princesses and had a lesbian love affair with them resulting in a child they abandoned to the Brothers Grimm--who smacked the poor dear around until marriageable age, at which point it turned into a book (because turning into a pumpkin is just silly). Cover art: Snow White has morphed into a Mariska Hargitay look-alike, which …

Title: Red Hood’s Revenge, the third book in the Princess Series Author: Jim C. Hines Genre: Fantasy The gist: The Princess Series is essentially what would happen if Charlie's Angels met the Disney princesses and had a lesbian love affair with them ending (somehow) in a child that they abandoned to the Brothers Grimm who smacked the poor dear around until marriageable age, at which point it turned into a book (because turning into a pumpkin is just silly). Red Hood’s Revenge also throws in Little Red Riding Hood-turned-assassin just for good measure. Hines is one of the few writers who can …

Title: Goliath (the conclusion to the Leviathan trilogy) (view the trailer) Author: Scott Westerfeld Genre: Steampunk alternate history The gist: The final installment in a cross-dressing love-triangle trilogy set smack-dab in the middle of an alternate World War I, in which it’s the Darwinists (the British and their allies) vs. the Clankers (Germany/Austria-Hungary and their allies) playing with fabricated creatures and walking machines. Cover art: I prefer the illustrated version of the characters within the book personally, but my real complaint with the cover is that the height of the …

Title: The Name of the Star: Shades of London Book 1 Author: Maureen Johnson Genre: Paranormal YA The gist: It’s everything we love and have come to expect from Johnson’s work, except with more murder and also ghosts. Cover art: The cover art catches the eye and has a creepy, ghost-y vibe, however after reading the book I am still unclear on exactly who the dude wearing the ruffles is. I’ve certainly had worse complaints about a cover though. Summary: The day Louisiana teenager Rory Deveaux arrives in London marks a memorable occasion. For Rory, it’s the start of a new life at boarding school…

Title: Welcome to Bordertown Author: Edited by Holly Black and Ellen Kushner Genre: YA urban fantasy shared world anthology The gist: Bordertown is like an urban fantasy that got caught in an '80s time-loop before getting hacked by modern youth. It has every style and every fashion from nature-y type elves to punk rock to iPhones and Internet, with lesbians and Indians and Hispanics and a wolf that uses sign language wrapped up in coffee and quests and rock concerts. It's messy and it's crazy and it's beautiful, and the tales all focus on runaways and misfits which populate the town and roll …

Title: The Secrets of the Cheese Syndicate Author: Donna St. Cyr Genre: Middle grade fantasy Cover art: While I am personally moved by a portrait of a wedge of Swiss cheese, it does fail to communicate the fantasy aspect of the story. The gist: While an over-appreciation for cheese in all its glorious forms does not generally fall into the same category as Greek mythology, I see no reason why it shouldn’t. Summary: Robert Montasio does not think his day can get any worse until his sister drinks a bizarre soda that causes her to start shrinking. Robert's only hope is a mysterious organization …

Title: Behemoth (book two in the Leviathan trilogy) (book trailer) Author: Scott Westerfeld Genre: Young adult steampunk alternate history The gist: A cross-dressing love-triangle set smack-dab in the middle of an alternate World War I where it’s the Darwinists (the British and their allies) vs. the Clankers (Germany/Austria-Hungary and their allies) playing with fabricated creatures and walking machines. Cover art: The spine of the cover matches Leviathan well enough, which is good because the actual cover feels incongruent with a photograph of a face juxtaposed into the beautiful steampunk …

Title: Trapped Author: Michael Northrop Genre: Young Adult, realistic fiction, reluctant reader The gist: A handful of students get trapped in their high school during the blizzard of the century. Cover art: The snowed-in school is a simple yet accurate cover for the book. It brings to mind the excitement of watching snow pile up from the window of someplace safe and warm. Summary: The day the blizzard started, no one knew that it was going to keep snowing for a week; that for those in its path, it would become not just a matter of keeping warm, but of staying alive. Scotty and his friends …

Title: "The Last Little Blue Envelope" (sequel to "13 Little Blue Envelopes") Author: Maureen Johnson Genre: Young adult, realistic fiction The gist: The desire to scream “Tell us what is in the last envelope already!” is tempered with great characters and a European adventure that you won’t want to end. Cover art: People familiar with Johnson’s previous works will probably have a first impression of something like “Oh good, she has a head this time,” but newcomers will probably just think, “Hey, there’s a girl with a suitcase on the cover.” Summary: Ginny Blackstone thought that the biggest …

Title: How to Say Goodbye in Robot Author: Natalie Standiford Genre: Young adult, realistic fiction The gist: "How to Say Goodbye in Robot" is exactly what happens when you take a realistic fiction and wrap it up with Icelandic hairdressers and late night radio shows, give it a pet hamster named after a Nazi war criminal, and then invite it to a party for people from the future. Cover art: I think I saw one of those in a museum once; it’s some sort of telephonic communication device, right? Hold on, let me look it up on my iPhone. Official Summary: New to town, Bea is expecting her new best …