In My Mailbox #1

This idea is hosted by Kristi at The Story Siren.

Happy New Year!  2010 is looking to be another great book year.  I can't wait to start reading all the new releases this year.  I even went book shopping this past weekend to look for some of the books on my 2010 Debut Author Challege list.  However, the bookstore at the local mall is closing so they didn't have any new releases.  Instead they were having a 50% off sale.  So, I ended up getting a few books that I have been wanting for awhile and two that I didn't know I wanted until I read the flap summaries.

From the library:

The Summoning by Kelley Armstrong (HarperCollins, 2008)

Bought:

The Awakening by Kelley Armstrong (HarperCollins, April 2009)

Give up the Ghost by Megan Crewe (Henry Holt and Co, Sept 2009)

The Maze Runner by James Dashner (Delacorte Press, Oct 2009)

Willow by Julia Hoban (Dial Books, April 2009)

Ash by Malinda Lo (Little, Brown, Sept, 2009)

A few books you may not know a lot about:

Willow by Julia Hoban (Dial Books, April 2009)

Seven months ago on a rainy March night, Willow's parents drank too much wine at dinner and asked her to drive them home. But they never made it - Willow lost control of the car, and both of her parents were killed.

Now seventeen, Willow is living with her older brother, who can barely speak to her. She has left behind hew old home, friends, and school. But Willow has found a way to survive, to numb the new reality of her life: She is secretly cutting herself.

And then she meets Guy, a boy as sensitive and complicated as she is. When Guy discovers Willow's secret, he pulls her out of the solitary world she's created for herself, and into a difficult, intense, and potentially life-changing relationship.

Told in an extraordinary fresh voice, "Willow" is an unforgettable novel about one girl's struggle to cope with tragedy, and one boy's refusal to give up on her.

Willow is not the type of book that I normally read (lately I've been reading a lot of fantasy).  But it was lying on the YA table next to The Maze Runner, so I picked it up.  After reading through the flap summary, I read through the first few pages.  I was hooked, I wanted to know the rest of the story.
 
 

Give Up the Ghost by Megan Crewe (Henry Holt and Co, Sept 2009)
 
Cass McKenna much prefers ghosts over “breathers.” Ghosts are uncomplicated and dependable, and they know the dirt on everybody…and Cass loves dirt. She’s on a mission to expose the dirty secrets of the poseurs in her school.

But when the vice president of the student council discovers her secret, Cass’s whole scheme hangs in the balance. Tim wants her to help him contact his recently deceased mother, and Cass reluctantly agrees.

As Cass becomes increasingly entwined in Tim’s life, she’s surprised to realize he’s not so bad—and he needs help more desperately than anyone else suspects. Maybe it’s time to give the living another chance….

Ash by Malinda Lo (Little, Brown, Sept, 2009)

In the wake of her father's death, Ash is left at the mercy of her cruel stepmother. Consumed with grief, her only joy comes by the light of the dying hearth fire, rereading the fairy tales her mother once told her. In her dreams, someday the fairies will steal her away, as they are said to do. When she meets the dark and dangerous fairy Sidhean, she believes that her wish may be granted.

The day that Ash meets Kaisa, the King's Huntress, her heart begins to change. Instead of chasing fairies, Ash learns to hunt with Kaisa. Though their friendship is as delicate as a new bloom, it reawakens Ash's capacity for love-and her desire to live. But Sidhean has already claimed Ash for his own, and she must make a choice between fairy tale dreams and true love.

Entrancing, empowering, and romantic, Ash is about the connection between life and love, and solitude and death, where transformation can come from even the deepest grief.

Megan Crewe and Malinda Lo are both 2009 debut authors, in fact they are part of the 2009 Debutants.  The 2009 Debs are a group of 46 authors whose first books came out in 2009.  I have been trying to read as many of their books as possible and was excited to see both Give up the Ghost and Ash on the YA table. 

What will you be reading this week?