Blood on the Snow

You can think of As Red as Blood by Salla Simukka as Nordic crime fiction "lite" -- it's a young adult thriller in the (less gruesome) vein of works by authors like Jo Nesbø and Stieg Larsson.  This first in a trilogy introduces readers to 17 year-old Lumikki, an invisible outsider living on her own while attending high school in frigid Tampere.  When she discovers a stash of euros covered in blood, she's pulled into a dangerous mystery that takes her deep inside the Finnish criminal underworld.  Honed by a childhood trauma that is hinted at throughout the book, Lumikki possesses a unique skillset that makes her part detective, part action star -- she herself jokes that she is the secret lovechild of Lisbeth Salander and Hercule Poirot.  Fast moving, this title is enjoyable on its own, but is also an effective setup for the rest of the trilogy, as readers will want to know more about Lumikki and her own mysterious background.  HM

Fairy Tales Revisited

Even though this is a young adult book, it is a must read for adults!  In The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell by Chris Colfer you are reunited with all of the fairy tales that you knew as a child, from Snow White and the Evil Queen to the Little Mermaid and Red Riding Hood.  This is the tale of twins Alex and Connor Bailey who find themselves in the land of stories.  As they come face to face with well known fairy tale characters you learn about what happened to these characters AFTER their ‘stories’ end.  Do they all really live happily ever after?  There are lots of moral lessons sprinkled throughout the book, as there is in any good fairy tale, but the best part for me was being reunited with the stories I grew up with.  The tale of the twins predicaments keep you on the edge of your seat and while you think you know what’s going to happen next there are plenty of surprises.  I listened to this as an audiobook because it is read by the author and I love Chris Colfer’s voice (Kurt from Glee, in case you didn’t know).  SG

Teen-Adult Crossover Title

What if absolutely everything about your life was decided for you, from what you'll eat for lunch to when you'll draw your last breath? In Matched, the first book of Ally Condie's terrifying dystopian trilogy, nothing is left up to either chance or choice--and everyone accepts this way of life without question. Well, almost everyone. Matched centers around 17-year-old Cassia, who, at the beginning of the book, is enroute to her Matching Ceremony. Here, she will learn the identity of her future husband. To her happiness, she is matched with her best friend, Xander. Then she receives a second match to Ky, a boy who is considered to be an outcast and who is not even supposed to be in the matching pool. Not surprisingly, Cassia and Ky fall in love, and Cassia begins to question everything about her life she previously, and rather blindly, accepted without a second thought. She learns that her society's government may not the benign entity she always assumed it to be. She learns what happens to those who dare to be different. Comparable to Lowry's The Giver and Orwell's 1984, Matched is action-packed and filled with plot twists both disturbing and intriguing. Readers will be interested until the final page. Cassia's and Ky's adventures continue in Crossed, which will be released November 2011. Stay tuned!

Escape to... The Clearing

With The Clearing, author Heather Davis spins a short but (bitter)sweet story of relearning to live, love, trust, and stand on one's own: Hoping to escape an abusive relationship, high school senior Amy leaves her home and friends in Seattle and moves to a rural Washington town to live with her non-intrusive, but still loving Aunt Mae--who she barely knows. Unfortunately, the fresh start isn't everything Amy has hoped for. In trying to mask her deep emotional scars, Amy puts up walls and comes across as defensive and unfriendly to her peers. After a particularly depressing day, Amy escapes the confines of Mae's trailer and wanders off into the wilderness beyond. Here she finds a clearing that seems perpetually shrouded in mist--no matter the weather elsewhere. Beyond the mist, Amy finds the unexpected: Here she meets Henry, who is unlike any boy she has ever met. The friendship-to-love-relationship the two young people begin soothes Amy's deep wounds and helps her to again believe there is good in the world. The whole experience seems almost, well...magical to Amy. And it is. Still, something nags the back of Amy's mind whenever she and Henry are apart--like why are apple trees blooming in autumn?

What Amy eventually learns is that Henry and his family have been caught in the endless cycle of reliving the summer of 1944. Worried about his brother off fighting in WWII (and about to be shipped off to war himself), Henry, in a moment of desperation, wished for a miracle--and got it. Amy knows there are choices she and Henry must both make. Choices to move on with their lives. But these choices could separate them forever.

The Clearing is beautifully written. An ideal book for a quiet evening at home or a day at the beach.