Under Cover #4

Time to check in and see what our detectives are reading lately!

 








Laura Ellen: I am in the middle of an advanced copy of UNDER THE NEVER SKY by Veronica Rossi. Oh my gosh is this one good! A cross between Uglies and The Hunger Games this is brilliantly told in alternating points-of-view and impossible to put down!

Elisa Ludwig: I'm finally reading The Giver by Lois Lowry. Long overdue, but I'm really engrossed in the story of Jonah as he learns his future occupation in this creepy futuristic world.

 
Talia Vance: I was lucky enough to get my hands on an advance copy of FRACTURE, a thriller from debut author Megan Miranda coming January 3, 2012.  Put this on your must read list, then block out a few hours and bring some hankies.  Be prepared to lose yourself in the gorgeous prose, wounded hearts and stark beauty of FRACTURE. You'll gasp for breath right along with Delaney as she falls through the ice,share the shock and pain of nearly dying, the heartbreak of surviving, and the hope of healing.  This is a tight, pacey read, yet still manages to fill its pages with emotional resonance.  A rare combination that will make you swoon.

W.H. Beck: I just finished . . . a mystery (shocker, huh?). City of Orphans by Avi is the story of newsboy Maks who lives in the tenements of New York City in 1893. On the crowded, gritty streets, he sells newspapers for a few cents a day--money his family desperately depends on. When his sister, a maid at the newly constructed Waldorf Hotel is accused of stealing a watch and is thrown in the Tombs, it is up to Maks to get her out. He teams up with Willa, a homeless girl who has secrets of her own. Together they dodge corrupt politicians, the Plug Ugly Gang, and a grumpy lawyer who may or may not have a heart of gold. A fast-paced mystery infused with its setting.

Lamar "L. R." Giles: Right now you'll find THE CHRONICLES OF HARRIS BURDICK on my nightstand. It's the follow up to the wildly popular MYSTERIES OF HARRIS BURDICK, a combination picture book/dare in which the eponymous Burdick supposedly left a number of fantastic illustrations, titles, and one-line descriptions with a publisher in hopes of securing a deal for his full stories. Burdick disappeared, and his samples live on as eternal writing prompts for children of all ages. And prompt they did...CHRONICLES include Burdick-based stories by popular writers like Stephen King, Walter Dean Myers, and Gregory Maguire. No one solves the mystery of what happened to Burdick (my guess is he died from some pseudonym related ailment), but this is one mystery where there's more fun in the question than the answer.