Tessa’s life was normal back in 1870s New York, but the moment she steps off the boat in London, she’s kidnapped by two immensely creepy old ladies who force her to learn to use a power she never even knew she had – the power to shape-shift.  Tessa becomes a pawn in a deadly contest between the Shadowhunters on one side, and the Magister on the other – and both sides want to use her power to make sure they win.  Both are willing to sacrifice Tessa to get what they want.  Will she come out of the contest alive?  If you’re a fan of Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments trilogy, this is a pre-quel.  Grab it and go!

Reese blew it – he got busted for stealing and now he’s in juvie.  All around him, he sees how crummy life is behind bars, but he doesn’t know if he has the ability to avoid spending the rest of his life there.  Everyone around him has their own problems, and finally Reese, with the help of an old man with challenges of his own, comes to realize that he has to find his own strength to change his life around.

Finn is trapped in a rusting prison world, convinced that he came here from somewhere else.  Claudia is trapped by her father’s plan to force her into a marriage with a man she can’t stand.  They are literally worlds apart – but when both of them find a mysterious crystal key that allows them to communicate, both realize that they have a chance to escape from their prison … but there’s no guarantee that things will be better where they end up.  This is a very cool story for older readers who aren’t afraid of a thick book!

If you’ve been following Cammie Morgan, you know she attends an exclusive academy dedicated to training spies.  She knows that an evil gang of terrorists, called The Circle, is after her – even though a lot of other people don’t believe The Circle even exists.  After she’s kidnapped and given a mysterious message to “follow the pigeons”, Cammie still doesn’t know why The Circle wants her – OR if she can trust super-cute double agent Zach.  Check out all the titles in the Gallagher Girls series:  I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You; Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy; Don’t Judge a Girl by Her Cover; and this one: Only the Good Spy Young.  Good times!

There are a lot of people who don’t want to go into the family business, but you really can’t blame Kat Bishop – she comes from a family of art thieves, and just wants to find out what “normal” is all about.  But when her father is framed for stealing five masterpieces that he didn’t actually take (this time!), Kat realizes she’s the only one who can rescue him.  Assembling a team of skilled teenage accomplices, the hunt for the stolen art goes from country to country before a final, impossible break-in at one of the world’s most famous museums.  Glamorous and fun!

In Airhead, a top-secret operation transplants Em’s geek-brain into super-model Nikki Howard’s body and changes Em’s life forever.  In Being Nikki, Em finds out that being rich and famous can keep you away from the boy you like best on earth – and that it can cause people to try to kill you!  In Runaway, the final book in the series, Em figures out who’s trying to take over the world with evil technology, and keeps her arch-enemy from stealing her suddenly-hot, geeky boyfriend.  This is a fun (and exciting, and funny!) series…for girls!

In book one of The Missing Series, Found, Jonah and Katherine find out that he’s part of a group of history’s famous children, kidnapped by renegade time travelers.  In Book Two, Sent, they traveled with their friend Chip to medieval England to restore him to his rightful place as a prince.  This time, they run into Virginia Dare, the first English child born in America, who mysteriously disappeared with the rest of the Roanoke Colony in 1590.  Can they help Virginia find her place?  Can they figure out how to do it without changing history?  Or will the renegade time traveler who’s manipulating them cause a time ripple that could destroy life as it is now?  Find out when you read Sabotaged!

It’s 1962, and people are scared.  Franny and her classmates are used to air-raid drills, where they practice how to “duck and cover”, and when President Kennedy announces that missiles are being smuggled into Cuba, it feels like the end of the world is at hand.  But Franny has to go on living just the same, trying to deal with her “nearly perfect” (and annoying) younger brother,  her older sister who’s up to something dangerous, and her father’s work as a pilot on the plane flying into the face of danger.  This was a good story, made even cooler by all the black-and-white pictures and newspaper coverage from the time.  Check it out if you want to see what was different when your parents were growing up…and what was the same!

Surface dwellers tell lots of creepy stories about the pioneers who live deep under the sea.  Most of the stories aren’t true … most of them.  Ty has his own secrets to keep when he runs into Gemma, a “topsider” looking for her missing older brother. A gang of vicious undersea pirates will complicate their search, and when they actually find Gemma’s brother, an ugly surprise awaits them.  This futuristic story has as much action and adventure as an old-time Western!

Are you a Percy Jackson fan, of Lightning Thief fame?  Bummed that the series is over?  Then this book is for you!  Imagine that Camp Half Blood isn’t the only place where demigods are trained, and that the two camps don’t exactly get along.  What could convince the two groups to work together?  How about Hera, trapped by monsters who want to use her power to fuel their rise to fame?  And don’t forget Rachel’s prophecy at the end of The Last Olympian.  How will that be fulfilled?  Read the new series, “Heroes of Olympus”, starting with The Lost Hero, and find out!