In My P.O. Box!

This week was good, though not nearly as amazing as The Story Siren's! The Story Siren began this feature for the YA set.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan (DEBUT! Release: March 10)
In Mary's world there are simple truths. The Sisterhood always knows best. The Guardians will protect and serve. The Unconsecrated will never relent. And you must always mind the fence that surrounds the village; the fence that protects the village from the Forest of Hands and Teeth. But, slowly, Mary’s truths are failing her. She’s learning things she never wanted to know about the Sisterhood and its secrets, and the Guardians and their power, and about the Unconsecrated and their relentlessness. When the fence is breached and her world is thrown into chaos, she must choose between her village and her future—between the one she loves and the one who loves her. And she must face the truth about the Forest of Hands and Teeth. Could there be life outside a world surrounded in so much death?

I cannot wait for our review for this book to be posted!


Going Too Far by Jennifer Echols (Release: March 17)

All Meg has ever wanted is to get away. Away from high school. Away from her backwater town. Away from her parents who seem determined to keep her imprisoned in their dead-end lives. But one crazy evening involving a dare and forbidden railroad tracks, she goes way too far...and almost doesn't make it back.

John made a choice to stay. To enforce the rules. To serve and protect. He has nothing but contempt for what he sees as childish rebellion, and he wants to teach Meg a lesson she won't soon forget. But Meg pushes him to the limit by questioning everything he learned at the police academy. And when he pushes back, demanding to know why she won't be tied down, they will drive each other to the edge — and over....

Completely amazing. This one will score a great review for certain.


Breathing by Cheryl Herbsman (DEBUT! Release: April 16)
Savannah would be happy to spend the summer in her coastal Carolina town working at the library and lying in a hammock reading her beloved romance novels. But then she meets Jackson. Once they lock eyes, she’s convinced he’s the one—her true love, her soul mate, a boy different from all the rest. And at first it looks like Savannah is right. Jackson abides by her mama’s strict rules, and stays by her side during a hospitalization for severe asthma, which Savannah becomes convinced is only improving because Jackson is there. But when he’s called away to help his family—and seems uncertain about returning—Savannah has to learn to breathe on her own, both literally and figuratively.

This book reminds me of my grandmother's tea: obviously southern and incredibly sweet. I like that line. I'll have to include it in our review.


Reiffen's Choice by S.C. Butler (Thank you, Maria!)

Not until he came out of the trees did Reiffen realize this wasn’t a pasture like the ones back home. Halfway up the slope a circle of tall white stones rose ominously from the lush green of the grass, like the tips of some great and terrible claw buried deep beneath the meadow....

Reiffen, only twelve years old, is the true heir to the thrones of both Wayland and Banking. He and his friends Avender and Ferris live in a magical world of talking animals, dwarves, and shape-shifting bears but…he lives with the shame of knowing that no one will ever let him rule these kingdoms, that their crowns will bring him nothing but betrayal and sorrow…and that he is powerless. Reiffen will have only a short life of child’s innocence, a brief respite from the trial of impossible adult responsibility, the trial of attempting to finish a task he can never complete.

As he stepped between the slabs, he forced himself to look at the circle….The stones were tall and white and unlike any rock he had ever seen before….There were thirteen of them altogether, spaced irregularly around the circle. None had fallen, but only one or two stood straight. Mostly they leaned this way and that, left and right, forward and backward. Despite himself, he shuddered….

And then he was shown the nations of his world from the peak of a fortress drear and tempted with fame and fortune and his rightful place on the throne of great kingdoms—his kingdoms. He need only surrender his humanity; kill his loves and he would have his childhood fantasy.

He would be granted great Black knowledge, more furious than anything he had ever imagined. He could desire justice…but would have to kill everything he loved to get it. His prayers would be answered…if only he would sacrifice everything he held dear.

The earth inside the ring was blackened. Here and there the ground itself had heaved and crumbled, as if whatever had seared the grass had not been content with the burning, but had needed to rip up everything by the roots as well in some places, before trampling it all back underfoot. It was a dead, evil place. Even the smell was different, as if the very moisture of the air had been boiled away, leaving only dry dust in its place.

Reiffen’s Choice is the first book in a trilogy about innocence and struggle that can only be compared to Eragon and Eldest, The Once and Future King and Raymond E. Feist’s Magician. It will be an experience you will never forget.



So this week held a great variety. I'm going to go ahead and give you guys a heads up: March will be an incredible month for new books. And maybe April, as well.