Reviews - Young Adult / New Adult

Dickensen Academy
Christine
Grabowski

FANTASY:  Autumn is overjoyed at her acceptance to the prestigious Dickensen Academy for her creative writing. Going to boarding school means she will get out from under her father’s forceful, and somewhat controlling, thumb and discover herself. She is led to believe the school focuses on the arts, which it does — but not in the way she has been thinking it would.

FANTASY:  Ever since Nora can remember she has been a kitchen maid under Greta and Peter, the people she considers her parents — knowing her mother has passed away and unsure of whom her father might be. When a girl from the main house makes a cruel comment to Nora about her father, she is devastated and cannot help but to seek his identity, effectively throwing her life into unfamiliar chaos.

PARANORMAL/MAGICAL REALISM:  Sage is used to receiving stares and questioning comments about the odd-shaped birthmark on her wrist, but after her mother’s death, it  darkens into a definitive tree shape.

Girl Warrior
Carmen
Peone

CONTEMPORARY:  Charnaye Toulou feels the pressures of life weighing on her shoulders more heavily than she thought possible. Her father has numerous medical bills and is in a wheelchair after a car accident that also traumatized her sister. The family ranch is in desperate need of repairs, and kids at school take every opportunity to bully her. But Char has a plan.

PARANORMAL:  Jude Gallagher has been taking care of herself ever since her father died and left her mother broken and Jude without his guidance. Hearing music in her head should be a clear sign that she’s lost it, but when her best friend Kane tells her how he really feels, taking the next step means secrets come out: some of which she’s not ready to face.

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