Here are our staff picks for anyone 15 and up who likes enticing stories. The books are packed with adventure, mystery and sometimes romance.
Join the Winter Reading Challenge starting January 27th to track your reading and enter to win great prizes!
- The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden. At the edge of the Russian wilderness, Vasilisa and her siblings spend winter nights around the fire listening to their nurse’s fairy tales and admonitions to honor the spirits that protect their home from evil. After their mother dies, the new stepmother forbids these rituals. And as evil circles nearer, Vasilisa calls on dangerous gifts she has concealed to protect her family. (Book one of the Winternight Triology)
- The Firekeeper’s Daughter – In this fast-paced and romantic thriller, Daunis, who is part Ojibwe, defers attending the University of Michigan to care for her mother and reluctantly becomes involved in the investigation of a series of drug-related deaths.
- Five Total Strangers by Natalie Richards. Stuck at the Philadelphia airport by an incoming blizzard results, Mira hitches a ride to Pittsburgh with a group of college kids who were on her initial flight. As the trip begins she discovers that her fellow travelers aren’t friends like she thought.
- The Grey Sisters by Jo Treggriari. Ariel is a teenage girl from a place called Avalon, where Big Daddy a leader and preacher has created a cultlike community, full of rules and traditions that differ from those in the modern world just a few miles away. D, Min, and Spider are friends from that modern world, seeking closure after their siblings Kat and Jonathan died in a plane crash near the Grey Sisters mountains. When the four girls, all on the run and wanting something they’re unsure they can have, meet, their dissimilar lives collide. And what they find hidden in the unforgiving mountain terrain will change everything
- The Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi. In a futuristic world, teenaged Nailer scavenges copper wiring from grounded oil tankers for a living, but when he finds a beached clipper ship with a girl in the wreckage, he has to decide if he should strip the ship for its wealth or rescue the girl.
- Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater. In all the years she has watched the wolves in the woods behind her house, Grace has been particularly drawn to an unusual yellow-eyed wolf who, in his turn, has been watching her with increasing intensity. Book one of a trilogy.
- Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglass. “When a murderous ghost begins to haunt sixteen-year-old Jake Livingston, high school soon becomes a different kind of survival game”–
- Wilder Girls by Rory Power. “Electric prose, compelling relationships, and visceral horror illuminate Power’s incisive debut about a group of young women under quarantine. A year and a half earlier, the Tox spread through Raxter Island off the coast of Maine, corrupting its inhabitants–flora and fauna alike.” — Publisher’s Weekly
Manga & Graphic Novels
Blankets by Craig Thompson. ” An undisputed classic, this beautiful memoir is about Thompson’s upbringing in a strict Christian household and his first experiences with love and acceptance. The emotional and poignant black-and-white illustrations bring to life the challenges of being an outsider, surviving a difficult childhood, and welcoming the joys of young love.” — Library Journal
Check, please! by Ngozi Ukazu. Manga, hockey and romance, yes please! Book one in a series.