New YA Book Releases: August 20, 2013

Here’s a look at some of today’s new YA releases:

My Totally Awkward Supernatural Crush by Laura Toffler-Corrie

 Jenna Bloom is just your typical middle school kid. That is, until her family takes her to her least favorite restaurant, Cowboy Clem’s, for her fourteenth birthday. There she meets Cowpoke Luke, who looks like an angel with his smooth golden skin and large hazel eyes. Oh wait – he actually is an angle. A hunky one with sandy blond hair at that. Jenna can’t believe that Luke could actually be interested in her, and yet here he is! Unfortunately, things become complicated when Jenna discovers that Luke has a demonic foe named Adam, and she finds herself right in the middle of a big showdown between the two a the local community theater’s performance of Fiddler on the Roof.
This lively romantic parody is the perfect blend of friendship, growing up, and falling in love with someone-or something-you’d least expect.

VIII by H. M. Castor

 VIII is the story of Hal: a young, handsome, gifted warrior, who believes he has been chosen to lead his people. But he is plagued by the ghosts of his family’s violent past and once he rises to power, he turns to murder and rapacious cruelty. He is Henry VIII.

H.M. Castor does for Henry what Hilary Mantel did for Thomas Cromwell – VIII is Wolf Hall for the teen and cross-over market.

Flicker & Burn by T. M. Goeglein

Sara Jane Rispoli is still searching for her missing family, but instead of fighting off a turncoat uncle and crooked cops, this time she finds herself on the run from creepy beings with red, pulsing eyes and pale white skin chasing her through the streets in ice cream trucks; they can only be described as Ice Cream Creatures. They’re terrifying and hell bent on killing her, but they’re also a link to her family, a clue to where they might be and who has them. While she battles these new pursuers, she’s also discovering more about her own cold fury and more about the Chicago Outfit, how the past misdeeds–old murders and vendettas–might just be connected to her present and the disappearance of her family. But connecting the dots is tough and time-consuming and may finally be the undoing of her relationship with the handsome Max–who’s now her boyfriend. But for his own safety, Sara Jane may have to end this relationship before it even really starts. Her pursuers who’ve shown her her mother’s amputated finger and the head of the Chicago Outfit who’s just whistled her in for a sit-down make a romance unthinkable. The only thing that matters is finding her family and keeping everyone she loves alive.

Asylum by Madeleine Roux

Asylum is a thrilling and creepy photo-novel perfect for fans of the New York Times bestseller Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.

For sixteen-year-old Dan Crawford, New Hampshire College Prep is more than a summer program—it’s a lifeline. An outcast at his high school, Dan is excited to finally make some friends in his last summer before college. But when he arrives at the program, Dan learns that his dorm for the summer used to be a sanatorium, more commonly known as an asylum. And not just any asylum—a last resort for the criminally insane.

As Dan and his new friends, Abby and Jordan, explore the hidden recesses of their creepy summer home, they soon discover it’s no coincidence that the three of them ended up here. Because the asylum holds the key to a terrifying past. And there are some secrets that refuse to stay buried.

Featuring found photos of unsettling history and real abandoned asylums and filled with chilling mystery and page-turning suspense, Madeleine Roux’s teen debut, Asylum, is a horror story that treads the line between genius and insanity.

For the comments: Which new releases are you most excited about?