"Rory is an antihero for the ages. Like Shakespeare’s Richard III, she confides in her audience, telling us exactly the lengths she’ll go to to secure the leading role in Bosworth Academy’s senior musical, confessing without shame that she is charming and conniving and brutally ambitious, that we will watch and root for her even as she manipulates and endangers those around her. And we do. Perhaps it’s because we don’t want to believe that she’s as relentless as she claims. Rory is an underdog, after all, a scholarship kid teased for her weight. Surely there will be redemption? Surely our dread and patience will be rewarded? Intricately plotted with an ingenious narrative that blends multiple viewpoints with script excerpts and an original musical score, Lindsay Eagar’s whip-smart, precision-crafted, and gleefully compulsive page-turner taps into the dark side of high-school theater production. A diabolically good listen, it forces our complicity as we wince and cheer for an arresting drama queen who just can’t help going full-tilt nasty in the pursuit of her dream."
"“Yes, my angel, what a monster you are!”
Beaked. Feathered. Monstrous. Avita was born to be a star. Her circus tent sells out nightly, and every performance incites bloodcurdling screams. She’s the most lucrative act from Texas to Tacoma, the crown jewel of the Family Fortuna.
Avita feeds on the fear, the screams, the gasps. But when a handsome young artist is commissioned to create new posters of the performers, Avita is appalled by his rendering of Bird Girl. Is that truly all she is—a hideous monster, all sharp beak and razor teeth, obsidian eyes and ruffled feathers?
Avita’s ready to be more. But her father, Arturo Fortuna, proprietor and ringmaster of the Family Fortuna, won’t give up his most popular attraction without a fight.
And Avita’s not the only one clamoring to be released from Arturo’s manipulative cage. Her sister, her brother, and even her mother are all tired of sacrificing everything for Arturo’s ambitions and his craving for cash. Will their fragile family ties survive the tension of a circus showdown?
Delightful and disturbing, bawdy and breathtaking, horrific and heartfelt, this electric and exquisitely crafted story about a family like no other challenges our every notion of what it means to be different."
"From the author of Hour of the Bees comes another captivating story that deftly blurs the line between reality and magic — and will leave you wondering What if?
The Loch Ness Monster. The Frogman. Bigfoot. Twelve-year-old Miranda Cho used to believe in it all, used to love poring over every strange footprint, every stray hair, everything that proved that the world was full of wonders. But that was before her mother’s obsession with monsters cost Miranda her friends and her perfect school record, before Miranda found the stack of unopened bills and notices of foreclosure in the silverware drawer. Now the fact that her mom’s a cryptozoologist doesn’t seem wonderful — it’s embarrassing and irresponsible, and it could cost them everything. So Miranda agrees to go on one last creature hunt, determined to use all her scientific know-how to prove to her mother, once and for all, that Bigfoot isn’t real. Then her mom will have no choice but to grow up and get a real job — one that will pay the mortgage and allow Miranda to attend the leadership camp of her dreams. But when the trip goes horribly awry, will it be Miranda who’s forced to question everything she believes?"
"Can a clever young inventor uncover a ruthless pirate’s heart of gold? Thrilling sea adventure takes on a hint of steampunk in the second book by the author of the acclaimed Hour of the Bees.When her parents, the great marine scientists Dr. and Dr. Quail, are killed in a tragic accident, eleven-year-old Fidelia Quail is racked by grief—and guilt. It was a submarine of Fidelia’s invention that her parents were in when they died, and it was she who pressed them to stay out longer when the raging Undertow was looming. But Fidelia is forced out of her mourning when she’s kidnapped by Merrick the Monstrous, a pirate whose list of treasons stretches longer than a ribbon eel. Her task? Use her marine know-how to retrieve his treasure, lost on the ocean floor.But as Fidelia and the pirates close in on the prize, with the navy hot on their heels, she realizes that Merrick doesn’t expect to live long enough to enjoy his loot.Could something other than black-hearted greed be driving him? Will Fidelia be able to master the perils of the ocean without her parents—and piece together the mystery of Merrick the Monstrous before it’s too late?"
"What does it mean to be fully alive? Magic blends with reality in a stunning coming-of-age novel about a girl, a grandfather, wanderlust, and reclaiming your roots.Things are only impossible if you stop to think about them....While her friends are spending their summers having pool parties and sleepovers, twelve-year-old Carolina—Carol—is spending hers in the middle of the New Mexico desert, helping her parents move the grandfather she’s never met into a home for people with dementia. At first, Carol avoids prickly Grandpa Serge. But as the summer wears on and the heat bears down, Carol finds herself drawn to him, fascinated by the crazy stories he tells her about a healing tree, a green-glass lake, and the bees that will bring back the rain and end a hundred years of drought. As the thin line between magic and reality starts to blur, Carol must decide for herself what is possible—and what it means to be true to her roots. Readers who dream that there’s something more out there will be enchanted by this captivating novel of family, renewal, and discovering the wonder of the world."
