Sixteen-year-old Dru Anderson knows about things that go bump in the night. She has moved every couple of months with her widowed father who chases down poltergeists, scuttling night roach-like things, wulfen, and other denizens of the dark. Now living in the frigid northern Midwest all the training her father put her through to keep her safe seems inadequate after he returns home as a zombie she has to kill. Taking refuge in the local mall, the terrified Dru meets up with the interesting half-A...more Sixteen-year-old Dru Anderson knows about things that go bump in the night. She has moved every couple of months with her widowed father who chases down poltergeists, scuttling night roach-like things, wulfen, and other denizens of the dark. Now living in the frigid northern Midwest all the training her father put her through to keep her safe seems inadequate after he returns home as a zombie she has to kill. Taking refuge in the local mall, the terrified Dru meets up with the interesting half-Asian looking goth geek from her history class who has a hidden room where she can recuperate from the trauma but trouble follows hard and fast. Parallels can be drawn to Twilight with two possible love interests, one who is not quite a werewolf and the other not exactly a vampire. A major change though is that Dru is a kick-ass heroine who has skills, abilities, and a burgeoning talent. One of my teen readers had said this was the best book she had read this year and it is definitely going to the top of my list of year's best so far. This is a teen novel that I think adult readers of Patricia Briggs and Kim Harrison will also enjoy.

Flinn's Beastly is one of my favorite fairy tale re-imaginings and her issue driven books like Breathing Underwater, which I wish every judge dealing with dating or relationship violence would make every kid who appears in front of the bench read, are always good. However, I wasn't expecting a lot out of a re-imagining of Sleeping Beauty. This page turner starts with Talia, the over-protected Princess of Euphrasia, falling into a 300 year sleep after pricking her finger on a spindle. In the present day, Jack, a total slacker, whose well-to-do parents have sent him on a tour of Europe escapes his tour group and with his buddy Travis tries to find a beach but due to their boorish behavior are given bad directions that take them into Euphrasia where Jack kisses Talia awake. When her dad the king blows up about her irresponsibility in destroying the kingdom by putting it to sleep since she was foolish enough to touch a spindle she runs away back to Miami with Jack. Jack knows he is not her true love, his distant parents agree to allow her to sleep on an air mattress on the floor of the den for a week, and Jack's outsider little sister sort of befriends Talia. This combination of fish-out-of-water story, romance, and coming of age (for both Talia and Jack) is enchanting. I kept wondering how a happily ever after story set in contemporary times and featuring a girl just turned sixteen and a seventeen-year-old slacker could ever turn out well. Flinn is a wonder.

Bug Smoot, a mixed race El Pasoan, never knew her African American/White daddy and saw her Latina mother die in a fire. After that she lived with her Cadillac loving grandfather who died before she finished high school. Now Bug uses her inheritance, a vintage Cadillac, to deliver pizzas until the day she comes out of her apartment to discover the Caddy covered in eggy slime. Taking it to the car wash, where she meets hunky Pesto, she is shocked when creepy Mr. Beals appears in the seat next to her. Seems her granddaddy had made a deal with the devil and she had co-signed at the tender age of thirteen. Now, in 60 hours, the car and her soul will be repossessed. Fortunately Pesto works for an agency that fights evil and his mother has a few tricks of her own. This complex tale of love - romantic, filial, and for humanity and the fight of good versus evil involving car chases and basketball games will give readers lots to chew on and enjoy. This is one that the Morris committee is undoubtedly looking at as it is a superb first novel. I can't wait to see what Gill does next.