Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead

Title: Vampire Academy

Author: Richelle Mead
Publisher: Razorbill

Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal

Publication: August 16, 2007

My Rating: 3/5

Only a true best friend can protect you from your immortal enemies...

Lissa Dragomir is a Moroi princess: a mortal vampire with a rare gift for harnessing the earth's magic. She must be protected at all times from Strigoi; the fiercest vampires - the ones who never die. The powerful blend of human and vampire blood that flows through Rose Hathaway, Lissa's best friend, makes her a dhampir. Rose is dedicated to a dangerous life of protecting Lissa from the Strigoi, who are hell-bent on making Lissa one of them.

After two years of freedom, Rose and Lissa are caught and dragged back to St. Vladimir's Academy, a school for vampire royalty and their guardians-to-be, hidden in the deep forests of Montana. But inside the iron gates, life is even more fraught with danger... and the Strigoi are always close by.

Rose and Lissa must navigate their dangerous world, confront the temptations of forbidden love, and never once let their guard down, lest the evil undead make Lissa one of them forever...

Girl Online by Zoe Sugg, Siobhan Curham

Title: Girl Online (Girl Online #1)

Author: Zoe Sugg, Siobhan Curham
Publisher: Atria / Keywords Press

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary

Publication: November 25, 2014

My Rating: 3/5

Source: Publisher on NetGalley

I had no idea GirlOnline would take off the way it has - I can't believe I now have 5432 followers, thanks so much! - and the thought of opening up to you all about this is terrifying, but here goes...

Penny has a secret.

Under the alias GirlOnline, she blogs about school dramas, boys, her mad, whirlwind family - and the panic attacks she's suffered from lately. When things go from bad to worse, her family whisks her away to New York, where she meets the gorgeous, guitar-strumming Noah. Suddenly Penny is falling in love - and capturing every moment of it on her blog.

But Noah has a secret too. One that threatens to ruin Penny's cover - and her closest friendship - forever.

From Gods by Mary Ting

Title: From Gods (Descendant Prophecies #1)

Author: Mary Ting

Genre: Young Adult, Mythology

Publication: October 2, 2013

My Rating: 3/5

Did you just see a flash of lightning across the sky on a clear sunny day? It’s not from Mother Nature. It is most likely from Mason Grand, swoon-worthy demigod, one of Zeus’s descendants.

Skylar Rome is supposed to be having the best summer ever before she heads off to college. Little did she know, her whole life was about to change while visiting her cousin. Nearly drowning at the beach due to unknown forces, one of the Grand brothers she’d just met, Mason, saves her life. Cool, collected, mysterious, and dangerously good-looking, Skylar is drawn to him from the start. Though she knows he is the type of guy good girls stayed away from, it seems he is always saving her life, and the attraction was inevitable.

Upon meeting the brothers, strange things begin to happen. When she accidentally kills one of the brothers, it throws her life into turmoil, as they search to find the answers. Implausibly, she gets caught up in a world of the decedents of ancient gods, all who have super powers. Not only is her discovery difficult to accept, evil beings are after her. Running out of time and running for her life, she must unravel a mystery. What do they want from her? Forced into a battle set into motion long before she was born, will she find the answers, or will she die trying?

A Thousand Salt Kisses by Josie Demuth

Title: A Thousand Salt Kisses (Salt Kisses #1)

Author: Josie Demuth
Publisher: Wise Ink

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy

Publication: June 28, 2016

My Rating: 2/5

Source: Publisher on NetGalley

Seventeen-year-old Crystal White is the new girl on Starfish Island. Dragged to the remote community by her environmental activist father, she is eager to find fun that doesn’t involve touching fish guts or listening to local folklore.

During a midnight swim with some new friends, Crystal is pulled out to sea by the waves. Convinced she’s going to drown, Crystal is rescued by Llyr, a handsome stranger. As she searches for him in the following weeks, she finds there may be more truth to the Starfish legends than she thought.

Over a sizzling roller-coaster summer, Llyr introduces Crystal to magic she’d only ever dreamed of. But as Crystal comes to love Starfish Island, it begins to drive her family apart. A nearby power plant is devastating local marine life, and her parents are stuck in the middle. As the magic and mundane parts of Crystal’s life converge, she finds herself risking everything to save Llyr, her family, and herself.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Title: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children #1)

Author: Ransom Riggs
Publisher: Quirk

Genre: Young Adult, Supernatural, Fantasy, Adventure

Publication: June 07, 2011

My Rating: 4/5

A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of curious photographs.

A horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a deserted island for good reason. And somehow—impossible though it seems—they may still be alive.

A spine-tingling fantasy illustrated with haunting vintage photography, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children will delight adults, teens, and anyone who relishes an adventure in the shadows.

Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

Title: Scarlet (The Lunar Chronicles #2)

Author: Marissa Meyer
Publisher: Feiwel and Friends

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Fairy Tale, Retelling

Published: February 5, 2013

My Rating: 4/5

Cinder, the cyborg mechanic, returns in the second thrilling installment of the bestselling Lunar Chronicles. She’s trying to break out of prison—even though if she succeeds, she’ll be the Commonwealth’s most wanted fugitive.

Halfway around the world, Scarlet Benoit’s grandmother is missing. It turns out there are many things Scarlet doesn’t know about her grandmother or the grave danger she has lived in her whole life. When Scarlet encounters Wolf, a street fighter who may have information as to her grandmother’s whereabouts, she is loath to trust this stranger, but is inexplicably drawn to him, and he to her. As Scarlet and Wolf unravel one mystery, they encounter another when they meet Cinder. Now, all of them must stay one step ahead of the vicious Lunar Queen Levana, who will do anything for the handsome Prince Kai to become her husband, her king, her prisoner.

The Crown by Kiera Cass

Title: The Crown (The Selection #5)

Author: Kiera Cass

Genre: Young Adult, Dystopian

Published: May 2016

My Rating: 2/5

When Eadlyn became the first princess of Illéa to hold her own Selection, she didn’t think she would fall in love with any of her thirty-five suitors. She spent the first few weeks of the competition counting down the days until she could send them all home. But as events at the palace force Eadlyn even further into the spotlight, she realizes that she might not be content remaining alone.

Eadlyn still isn’t sure she’ll find the fairytale ending her parents did twenty years ago. But sometimes the heart has a way of surprising you…and soon Eadlyn must make a choice that feels more impossible—and more important—than she ever imagined.

Tiger's Curse by Colleen Houck

Title: Tiger's Curse (The Tiger Saga #1)

Author: Colleen Houck
Publisher: Hodder

Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal, Mythology

Publication: January 11, 2011

My Rating: 3.5/5

Would you risk it all to change your destiny? The last thing Kelsey Hayes thought she'd be doing this summer was trying to break a 300-year-old Indian curse. With a mysterious white tiger named Ren. Halfway around the world. But that's exactly what happened. Face-to-face with dark forces, spellbinding magic, and mystical worlds where nothing is what it seems, Kelsey risks everything to piece together an ancient prophecy that could break the curse forever.

Matched by Allie Condie

Title: Matched (Matched #1)

Author: Allie Condie
Publisher: Dutton Books for Young Readers

Genre: Young Adult, Dystopian, Science Fiction

Publication: November 30, 2010

My Rating: 3/5

In the Society, officials decide. Who you love. Where you work. When you die.

Cassia has always trusted their choices. It’s hardly any price to pay for a long life, the perfect job, the ideal mate. So when her best friend appears on the Matching screen, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is the one…until she sees another face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black. Now Cassia is faced with impossible choices: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she’s known and a path no one else has ever dared follow—between perfection and passion.

Matched is a story for right now and storytelling with the resonance of a classic.

Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge

Title: Cruel Beauty (Cruel Beauty Universe #1)

Author: Rosamund Hodge
Publisher: Balzer + Bray

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Fairy Tale, Romance, Retelling, Mythology

Publication: January 1, 2014

My Rating: 3.5/5

Based on the classic fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, Cruel Beauty is a dazzling love story about our deepest desires and their power to change our destiny.

Since birth, Nyx has been betrothed to the evil ruler of her kingdom-all because of a foolish bargain struck by her father. And since birth, she has been in training to kill him.

With no choice but to fulfill her duty, Nyx resents her family for never trying to save her and hates herself for wanting to escape her fate. Still, on her seventeenth birthday, Nyx abandons everything she's ever known to marry the all-powerful, immortal Ignifex. Her plan? Seduce him, destroy his enchanted castle, and break the nine-hundred-year-old curse he put on her people.

But Ignifex is not at all what Nyx expected. The strangely charming lord beguiles her, and his castle—a shifting maze of magical rooms—enthralls her.

As Nyx searches for a way to free her homeland by uncovering Ignifex's secrets, she finds herself unwillingly drawn to him. Even if she could bring herself to love her sworn enemy, how can she refuse her duty to kill him? With time running out, Nyx must decide what is more important: the future of her kingdom, or the man she was never supposed to love.

Gotham Academy, Vol. 2: Calamity by Becky Cloonan, Brenden Fletcher, Karl Kerschl

Title: Gotham Academy, Vol. 2: Calamity

Author: Becky Cloonan, Brenden Fletcher, Karl Kerschl
Publisher: DC Comics

Genre: Comic, Action, Mystery, Paranormal, Young Adult

Publication: March 16, 2016

My Rating: 3/5

Source: Publisher on NetGalley

Olive has received information that her mother might be alive—and now, she and her friends must investigate! Of course werewolves, ghosts, and new student Damian Wayne won’t make it easy!

Welcome to Gotham Academy! Gotham City's most prestigious prep school is a very weird place. It's got a spooky campus, oddball teachers, and rich benefactors always dropping by... like that weirdo Bruce Wayne. But nothing is as strange as the students! Are these Gotham's newest heroes... or villains? The future is here at Gotham Academy.

GOTHAM ACADEDMY Vol. 2 digs deeper into the mysteries that surround the prestigious school and the characters that inhabit it.

Collects issues #7-12 and the sneak peek story from DC SNEAK PEEK: GOTHAM ACADEMY #1.

Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Title: Obsidian (Lux #1)

Author: Jennifer L. Armentrout
Publisher: Entangled Teen

Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal, Urban Fantasy

Publication: November 29, 2011

My Rating: 2/5

Starting over sucks.

When we moved to West Virginia right before my senior year, I’d pretty much resigned myself to thick accents, dodgy internet access, and a whole lot of boring… until I spotted my hot neighbor, with his looming height and eerie green eyes. Things were looking up.

And then he opened his mouth.

Daemon is infuriating. Arrogant. Stab-worthy. We do not get along. At all. But when a stranger attacks me and Daemon literally freezes time with a wave of his hand, well, something… unexpected happens.

The hot alien living next door marks me.

You heard me. Alien. Turns out Daemon and his sister have a galaxy of enemies wanting to steal their abilities, and Daemon’s touch has me lit up like the Vegas Strip. The only way I’m getting out of this alive is by sticking close to Daemon until my alien mojo fades.

If I don’t kill him first, that is.

Days of Throbbing Gristle by Kevin Cole

Title: Days of Throbbing Gristle

Author: Kevin Cole

Genre: Young Adult, Realistic Fiction, LGBTQIA

Publication: April 16, 2014

My Rating: 3/5

Source: Author

Does Heaven know you're miserable now?

It’s 1987. Sam Henry Hay, a 17-year-old exchange student from Sheffield, hops into Texas, USA, with one burning ambition: Manipulate his gullible host parents into funding his university, and leave his dead-end life in Yorkshire behind.

But is Sam manipulating America or America manipulating Sam? The clever lad schmoozes his way into many a bed and purse, yet can’t get rid of anyone. He executes careful plans, only to watch them disastrously fall apart. Worst of all, this once proud nihilist watches in horror as he reveals a conscience, in a world growing ever darker around him. 

Days of Throbbing Gristle is not your typical teenage tale. It’s a razor-slashing journey through a time and place that really was as bad as you’ve heard. For some, high school is the best time in their lives. For others, it’s a miracle they make it to the other side.

Henchgirl by Rita Stradling

Title: Henchgirl

Author: Rita Stradling

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy

Publication: January 12, 2016

My Rating: 4/5

Source: NetGalley

The children of dragons and humans, the dracons, control eighty percent of the world’s governments. Humans worldwide are either subservient or prey. On the small vacation island of Mabi, humans call for war.

Sixteen year old Dakota Kekoa lives a double life. By day, she pretends to be a human to infiltrate Mabi Academy, a 'human's only' high-school. At night, she works as a henchman for her draconic mafia family, utilizing her ability to steal and manipulate emotions.

When Dakota’s human friend is kidnapped, she takes on the mission to find her. This is not just any mission though; she is diving head first into the escalating conflict between humans and dracons. As more girls disappear and some are discovered dead, Dakota realizes her first honorable mission may also be her last.

Alice Takes Back Wonderland by David D. Hammons

Title: Alice Takes Back Wonderland

Author: David D. Hammons
Publisher: Curiosity Quills Press

Genre: Fantasy, Fairy Tale, Adventure, Action, Retelling, Young Adult

Publication: September 28, 2015

My Rating: 4/5

Source: Publisher on NetGalley

After ten years of being told she can’t tell the difference between real life and a fairy tale, Alice finally stops believing in Wonderland. So when the White Rabbit shows up at her house, Alice thinks she’s going crazy. Only when the White Rabbit kicks her down the rabbit hole does Alice realize that the magical land she visited as a child is real. But all is not well in Wonderland.

The Ace of Spades has taken over Wonderland and is systematically dismantling all that makes it wonderful. Plain is replacing wondrous, logical is replacing magical, and reason is destroying madness. Alice decides she must help the Mad Hatter and all those fighting to keep Wonderland wonderful. But how can she face such danger when she is just a girl?

Alice must journey across the stars to unite an army. She discovers that fairy tales are real in the magical world beyond the rabbit hole. But they are not the fairy tales she knows. Fairy tales have dangers and adventures of their own, and Alice must overcome the trials of these old stories if she wants to unite the lands against Ace.

With the help of Peter Pan, Pinocchio, Snow White and heroes old and new, Alice may have the strength to take back Wonderland.

Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins

Title: Hex Hall (Hex Hall #1)

Author: Rachel Hawkins
Publisher: Hyperion

Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal, Fantasy, Supernatural

Publication: March 2, 2010

My Rating: 2/5

Three years ago, Sophie Mercer discovered that she was a witch. It's gotten her into a few scrapes. Her non-gifted mother has been as supportive as possible, consulting Sophie's estranged father—an elusive European warlock—only when necessary. But when Sophie attracts too much human attention for a prom-night spell gone horribly wrong, it's her dad who decides her punishment: exile to Hex Hall, an isolated reform school for wayward Prodigium, a.k.a. witches, faeries, and shapeshifters.

By the end of her first day among fellow freak-teens, Sophie has quite a scorecard: three powerful enemies who look like supermodels, a futile crush on a gorgeous warlock, a creepy tag-along ghost, and a new roommate who happens to be the most hated person and only vampire student on campus. Worse, Sophie soon learns that a mysterious predator has been attacking students, and her only friend is the number-one suspect.

Dragonborn by Maeghan Friday

Title: Dragonborn

Author: Maeghan Friday
Publisher: Less Than Three Press

Genre: Young Adult, LGBTQIA, Fantasy

Publication: November 18, 2015

My Rating: 3/5

Source: Publisher on NetGalley

Prince Ben and Princess Cecily are dragonborn. Since birth, the brother and sister have shared a body, shapeshifting from one form to the other each sunset. In exchange for this magic, they have been promised from birth to a mysterious dragon, who is set to collect on their twentieth birthday, which is now just weeks away.

With the help of two tutors, a bodyguard, and a foreign princess, they must find a way out of the betrothal, delving into their kingdom's history and learning to harness their magic – all the while challenging the kingdom's laws and restrictions on love.

Nightshade by Andrea Cremer

Title: Nightshade (Nightshade #1)

Author: Andrea Cremer

Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal, Urban Fantasy, Supernatural

Publication: October 19, 2010

My Rating: 2/5

Calla Tor has always known her destiny: After graduating from the Mountain School, she'll be the mate of sexy alpha wolf Ren Laroche and fight with him, side by side, ruling their pack and guarding sacred sites for the Keepers. But when she violates her masters' laws by saving a beautiful human boy out for a hike, Calla begins to question her fate, her existence, and the very essence of the world she has known. By following her heart, she might lose everything- including her own life. Is forbidden love worth the ultimate sacrifice?

City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare

Title: City of Ashes (The Mortal Instruments #2)

Author: Cassandra Clare

Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal, Urban Fantasy, Supernatural

Publication: March 25, 2008

My Rating: 4/5

Clary Fray just wishes that her life would go back to normal. But what's normal when you're a demon-slaying Shadowhunter, your mother is in a magically induced coma, and you can suddenly see Downworlders like werewolves, vampires, and faeries? If Clary left the world of the Shadowhunters behind, it would mean more time with her best friend, Simon, who's becoming more than a friend. But the Shadowhunting world isn't ready to let her go — especially her handsome, infuriating, newfound brother, Jace. And Clary's only chance to help her mother is to track down rogue Shadowhunter Valentine, who is probably insane, certainly evil — and also her father.

To complicate matters, someone in New York City is murdering Downworlder children. Is Valentine behind the killings — and if he is, what is he trying to do? When the second of the Mortal Instruments, the Soul-Sword, is stolen, the terrifying Inquisitor arrives to investigate and zooms right in on Jace. How can Clary stop Valentine if Jace is willing to betray everything he believes in to help their father?

The Heir by Kiera Cass

Title: The Heir (The Selection #4)

Author: Kiera Cass

Genre: Young Adult, Dystopian

Published: January 2015

My Rating: 3.5/5

Princess Eadlyn has grown up hearing endless stories about how her mother and father met. Twenty years ago, America Singer entered the Selection and won the heart of Prince Maxon—and they lived happily ever after. Eadlyn has always found their fairy-tale story romantic, but she has no interest in trying to repeat it. If it were up to her, she'd put off marriage for as long as possible.

But a princess's life is never entirely her own, and Eadlyn can't escape her very own Selection—no matter how fervently she protests. 

Eadlyn doesn't expect her story to end in romance. But as the competition begins, one entry may just capture Eadlyn's heart, showing her all the possibilities that lie in front of her . . . and proving that finding her own happily ever after isn't as impossible as she's always thought.