12 Days of Mysteries: Day 12

It's our last day of 12 Days of Mysteries, our seasonal guide to great mysteries and thrillers for young readers: books we think would make great gifts. We're wrapping up by featuring SERIES books, for those who can't stop at just one!

First up: check out the highly prolific Caroline Lawrence! She has two fantastic series: THE ROMAN MYSTERIES (set in ancient history) and THE P.K. PINKERTON MYSTERIES (set in the Wild West!) The New York Times has raved about the PINKERTON MYSTERIES; check out this amazing review! (Then be sure to come right back here!)

There are two PINKERTON MYSTERIES so far:
THE CASE OF THE DEADLY DESPERADOES and
THE CASE OF THE GOOD-LOOKING CORPSE

And there are at least 17 (!!) ROMAN MYSTERIES! (You can click on the link here to see them all on GoodReads -- and all the pretty covers!)

Another series to check out: The KIKI STRIKES books by Kirsten Miller, which hits the sweet spot between MG/YA. (We've mentioned them before on the blog, but we're cross-posting here in case you didn't realize this is a entire series, with four books so far).

YA mystery fans should check out these series:

Ally Carter's HEIST SOCIETY and GALLAGHER GIRLS books.
Sara Shephard's PRETTY LITTLE LIARS.
Gabrielle Zevin's BIRTHRIGHT series (Great mob family to read about -- set in a future world where chocolate and coffee are illegal!)

12 Days of Mysteries: Day 8

It's Day 8 of our 12 Days of Mysteries! If you're still looking for gift ideas for the young mystery or thriller reader in your life (or maybe that's you!), we can help!

We hope you'll check out these three hot new YA mystery/thriller releases from 2013!

THE NATURALS, by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (released 11/5/13, Disney-Hyperion)

Seventeen-year-old Cassie is a natural at reading people. Piecing together the tiniest details, she can tell you who you are and what you want. But it’s not a skill that she’s ever taken seriously. That is, until the FBI come knocking: they’ve begun a classified program that uses exceptional teenagers to crack infamous cold cases, and they need Cassie. What Cassie doesn’t realize is that there’s more at risk than a few unsolved homicides— especially when she’s sent to live with a group of teens whose gifts are as unusual as her own.

Sarcastic, privileged Michael has a knack for reading emotions, which he uses to get inside Cassie’s head—and under her skin. Brooding Dean shares Cassie’s gift for profiling, but keeps her at arm’s length.

Soon, it becomes clear that no one in the Naturals program is what they seem. And when a new killer strikes, danger looms closer than Cassie could ever have imagined. Caught in a lethal game of cat and mouse with a killer, the Naturals are going to have to use all of their gifts just to survive.

GOLDEN, by Jessi Kirby (released 5/14/13, Simon & Schuster)

Seventeen-year-old Parker Frost has never taken the road less traveled. Valedictorian and quintessential good girl, she’s about to graduate high school without ever having kissed her crush or broken the rules. So when fate drops a clue in her lap—one that might be the key to unraveling a town mystery—she decides to take a chance.

Julianna Farnetti and Shane Cruz are remembered as the golden couple of Summit Lakes High—perfect in every way, meant to be together forever. But Julianna’s journal tells a different story—one of doubts about Shane and a forbidden romance with an older, artistic guy. These are the secrets that were swept away with her the night that Shane’s jeep plunged into an icy river, leaving behind a grieving town and no bodies to bury.

Reading Julianna’s journal gives Parker the courage to start to really live—and it also gives her reasons to question what really happened the night of the accident. Armed with clues from the past, Parker enlists the help of her best friend, Kat, and Trevor, her longtime crush, to track down some leads. The mystery ends up taking Parker places that she never could have imagined. And she soon finds that taking the road less traveled makes all the difference.

ONE CAME HOME, by Amy Timberlake (released January 8, 2013, Knopf)

In the town of Placid, Wisconsin, in 1871, Georgie Burkhardt is known for two things: her uncanny aim with a rifle and her habit of speaking her mind plainly.

But when Georgie blurts out something she shouldn't, her older sister Agatha flees, running off with a pack of "pigeoners" trailing the passenger pigeon migration. And when the sheriff returns to town with an unidentifiable body—wearing Agatha's blue-green ball gown—everyone assumes the worst. Except Georgie. Refusing to believe the facts that are laid down (and coffined) before her, Georgie sets out on a journey to find her sister. She will track every last clue and shred of evidence to bring Agatha home. Yet even with resolute determination and her trusty Springfield single-shot, Georgie is not prepared for what she faces on the western frontier.

12 Days of Mysteries: Day 7

Welcome back to 12 Days of Mysteries! It's Day 7, and on deck today we have suggestions for two YA mysteries that might be a little . . . incognito. That is, stories that might not be packaged as mysteries, yet they deal with crime or detective work in a way that's appealing to mystery fans.

Mary McCoy suggests OUT OF THE EASY, by Ruta Sepatys. "Some mystery elements and a whole lot of crime in this one, one of my faves of 2013," says Mary.

Until she was 11, Josie Moraine was raised in a Big Easy brothel by a house full of prostitutes - one of them her own mother. Since then, she's more or less raised herself, nurturing a dream of attending Smith College and crafting a plan to escape her city, her past, and her mother's reputation. However, when Josie's mother flees town with her gangster boyfriend on the heels of a murder, Josie finds herself sucked back into the underworld she's trying to escape. Set in 1950s New Orleans, Out of the Easy is a feast of a book: there's mystery, romance, scandal, crime, and a winning heroine who's got book smarts and street smarts to spare.

Diana Renn says, "I recently read  Just One Day,  by Gayle Forman, looking for a diversion from mystery and a tale of adventures abroad. There were adventures abroad, all right -- it's a really compelling story about a girl on a post-graduation tour of Europe, who meets a guy acting in a Shakespeare play and impulsively follows him to France for twenty-four hours. But it's there's also a healthy dose of mystery here. When the guy disappears after their one night together, Allyson spends the next year of her life -- at college and then back in Europe-- trying to find answers to her unresolved questions about those twenty four hours. She also tries to find the guy himself. Allyson turns into an amateur sleuth in her personal missing person case, roping in appealing sidekicks and making friends along the way. And kudos to Forman for making online sleuthing so interesting!"

Allyson Healey's life is exactly like her suitcase—packed, planned, ordered. Then on the last day of her three-week post-graduation European tour, she meets Willem. A free-spirited, roving actor, Willem is everything she’s not, and when he invites her to abandon her plans and come to Paris with him, Allyson says yes. This uncharacteristic decision leads to a day of risk and romance, liberation and intimacy: 24 hours that will transform Allyson’s life. A book about love, heartbreak, travel, identity, and the "accidents” of fate, Just One Day shows us how sometimes in order to get found, you first have to get lost. . . and how often the people we are seeking are much closer than we know.


Have you ever read a book that wasn't packaged as a mystery, but you secretly suspect that it is? We'd love to hear about it!