Maya Smock, an aspiring author, grew up in an orphanage and foster homes. Used and abused, she entered adulthood early taking a job at a Las Vegas bookstore by day and writing her novel, “The Master Race,” at night. When Maya’s book was finished she met a literary agent at a Las Vegas convention….
Life II Have a few regrets? Wish you could make some changes in your life? Think back to one event in your timeline you remember with clarity. Now, step back into yourself during that specific event and live your life again with all of your present day knowledge. That is the premise of Scott Spotson’s…
Summer 2016 is right around the corner. What better way to enjoy a day at the beach than to bring a good book to soak up the sun? Here are 12 YA books on the SCBWI “Summer Reading List” by California writers. With each book you’ll find its category, author, brief description, and link to…
Jimmy Hankins and Mickey O’Hara, boys in their early teens, are abducted from the streets with many other children in their city, by a band of evil men planning on selling the children as sex slaves through the seedy channels of human trafficking. Then, like magic, Theresa Bordils and Melchior, Fairy King of Avalon, rescues…
Abandoned by his family, Killian is given one chance to find answers to his past in a strange new realm. The mysterious community protecting the realm promises to reveal what he seeks if he…
Seventeen-year-old Emma Garson is Lucas Walker’s devoted girlfriend. She expects their relationship to blossom into a life-long commitment with a picket fence and plenty of kids. Then, months before Lucas’ high school graduation, he is diagnosed with terminal cancer. When the boy finally becomes a shell of his former self—high school football star and most…
The Luna Chronicles consists of four major books—Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, and Winter. Author Marissa Meyer connects each book sequentially, so it’s important to start with Cinder and read your way through to the amazing climax in Winter. Each book is named after one of the primary female leading teens in the Luna Chronicles. First and…
Three years ago I had the pleasure of reviewing both of Marlene Dotterer’s Time Travel Journal novels, Shipbuilder and Bridgebuilders for Big Al’s Books and Pals. I enjoyed those time travel YA books so much, I want to resurrect the reviews for your reading pleasure. Enjoy. -Pop Shipbuilder Casey Wilson, a coed at Queen’s University in Belfast, Ireland,…
Pop evaluates a lot of books on his blog, so readers are starting to demand that he rate the books. On Amazon or Goodreads books are rated with one to five stars depending on the quality of the novel. Keeping that rating system in mind, Pop has decided on this following system for his blog. …
In celebration of Koren Thal’s 28th birthday, Solstice Publishing will release for publication Koolura and the Mayans on March 19, 2016. This novel is author Michael Thal’s third installment to the Koolura Series and his fifth published YA novel. In The Legend of Koolura, Koolura Akopyan received extraordinary psychic powers at birth from an alien…