YA Books

The 2018 Los Angeles Times Festival of Books and SCWBI

ByMichael Thal March 17, 2018

Looking for an interesting book to read? On April 21-22 the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books will be presenting its 23rd annual event on the University of Southern California campus. Five hundred authors, celebrities, musicians, artists, and even chefs will be featured. Admission to the festival is free. There will be over 230 booths…

Are YA Relationships Worth the Effort?

ByMichael Thal March 9, 2018March 10, 2018

Ella Jones has rejected the values of her wealthy parents. She insists on attending public high school and holds down a waitressing job that starts at 4:00 AM. One morning, while opening up the Read Between the Beans coffee house, she meets a seventeen-year old homeless boy sleeping near the restaurant’s dumpster. The morning Ella…

The Frog Prince- A Classic Folktale Re-Told

ByMichael Thal February 27, 2018

Like most fairy tales before it, The Frog Prince, as told by Mike Klaassen, has simple two dimensional characters, an appealing setting, an element of magic, and a villain who challenges the protagonist, seventeen-year old Prince Gerit, son of King Egon of Krickenheim. Gerit is hunting for frogs to avoid weapons practice with his father’s…

My Freshman Year of Fabulous: Cover Reveal

ByMichael Thal February 24, 2018

Series: School Dayz Genre: YA Format: eBook When Avery Thornton needs to escape a first day of school disaster, she ducks into an equipment room to hide and meets someone else who’s also having a really bad day. Eli Fields just got demoted to third string on the football team, a sport he doesn’t even…

A YA Romance Novella

ByMichael Thal February 23, 2018

Pressley James finds her dream job—working as a social media marketer for Paws and Claws Animal Shelter. On her first day at work her new boss, Janet, informs her about Hayden and Jasper, warning, “…both are off limits!” Janet describes Hayden as “quite the looker,” and “the only full-time fella.” But he keeps to himself…

The Cat and the Spy

ByMichael Thal February 16, 2018

K.M. Shea re-tells the timeless fairy tale, Beauty and the Beast in a unique way. A witch curses a member of the royal household, Prince Severin, who has become a black-furred beast with the head of a cat. His teeth are too big for his mouth, his fingernails are claws, and he has the hind…

Thrilling YA Fantasy

ByMichael Thal February 6, 2018

Lizzie St. Laurent has several low wage jobs to help pay for her “luxury basement apartment.” Now that grandma has died from a stroke, Lizzie needs jobs over a college education to pay for food, clothes and the gas bill for her Mini Cooper. Late for the family meeting deciding the fate of Grandma’s belongings,…

Alice’s Wonderland of Hell

ByMichael Thal January 22, 2018

Alice the Player is the third novel in the Serenity House series by A.W. Exley. This series is a sequential one meaning the author has connected the plots of her novels chronologically so readers are best served beginning with book one. In this case that’s Ella the Slayer (read Pop’s review). Alice the Player picks…

A Nineteenth Century Romance Novella

ByMichael Thal January 4, 2018January 4, 2018

Sweethearts of Jubilee Springs is a series of books written by several different authors relating stories about the Arkansas Valley of central Colorado during the 19th century. The Christmas Outlaw by P.A. Estelle is one of the newest novellas to this series. Charlene arrives in Jubilee Springs Colorado on the same train as a batch…

A Cinderella Story Like No Other

ByMichael Thal January 2, 2018

Ella the Slayer isn’t your everyday fairytale adaptation of the Cinderella fantasy. Eleanor Cowie’s father is a knight and her deceased mother, who died when Ella turned ten, was a humble maid. Prior to fighting in the Great War (WWI), Eleanor’s father, Sir Jeffrey, married Elizabeth, the mother of two daughters, Louise and Charlotte. When…