Book picks similar to
The Frankincense Trail by Jody Kihara
fiction
reviewed
historical-fiction
fantasy
A Breath of Frost
Alyxandra Harvey - 2014
Now, beyond the manicured gardens and ballrooms of Regency London, an alluring underworld available only to those with power is revealed to the cousins. By claiming their power, the three cousins have accidentally opened the gates to the underworld. Now ghouls, hellhounds—and most terrifying of all, the spirits of dark witches known as the Greymalkin Sisters—are hunting and killing young debutante witches for their powers. And, somehow, Emma is connected to the murders…because she keeps finding the bodies. Can the cousins seal the gates before another witch is killed…or even worse, before their new gifts are stripped away?
The Wrap-Up List
Steven Arntson - 2013
Deaths—eight-foot-tall, silver-gray creatures—send a letter (“Dear So-and-So, your days are numbered”) to whomever is chosen for a departure, telling them to wrap up their lives and do the things they always wanted to do before they have to “depart.” When sixteen-year-old Gabriela receives her notice, she is, of course devastated. Will she kiss her crush Sylvester before it’s too late?Friendship, first love, and fantasy artfully mesh in this magically realistic world that ultimately celebrates life.
Knight School
Andrew Mayne - 2013
To win, they have to battle for control of the forest and obey a code of conduct to keep their war from spilling into the outside world.The woods between the schools are filled with dangers and dark secrets. Central among them is Venn Maddox, the youngest student to ever lead a clan in the game. Brilliant and manipulative, some think he’s a sociopath who may have killed to protect his own secrets.New kid, Marv Whitlock, already dealing with his own troubles, finds himself in the middle of the decade old conflict and has to use his wits to avoid being one more pawn.Bestselling author Andrew Mayne, brings you Knight School, an adventurous cross of Friday Night Lights and Game of Thrones.
Queen of Someday
Sherry D. Ficklin - 2014
In the heart of St. Petersburg, surviving means navigating the political, romantic, and religious demands of the bitter Empress Elizabeth and her handsome, but sadistic nephew, Peter. Determined to save her impoverished family—and herself—Sophie vows to do whatever is necessary to thrive in her new surroundings. But an attempt on her life and an unexpected attraction threatens to derail her plans.Alone in a new and dangerous world, learning who to trust and who to charm may mean the difference between becoming queen and being sent home in shame to marry her lecherous uncle. With traitors and murderers lurking around every corner, her very life hangs in the balance. Betrothed to one man but falling in love with another, Sophie will need to decide how much she’s willing to sacrifice in order to become the empress she is destined to be.In a battle for the soul of a nation, will love or destiny reign supreme?
Sapience: A Collection of Science Fiction Short Stories
Alexis Lantgen - 2019
In the near future, humanity builds a colony on Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter. They tunnel into the ice to explore the dark oceans beneath the moon's surface, searching for signs of extraterrestrial life. What they find will change them forever, setting humanity on a path to the stars. But the old conflicts and hatreds of Earth are not so easily escaped. Will human colonists on distant planets and moons create a paradise or a horrifying dystopia?
Deck Z: The Titanic: Unsinkable. Undead.
Chris Pauls - 2012
. . with the walking dead. This fast-paced thriller reimagines the historical events of the fateful Titanic voyage through the lens of zombie mayhem. Captain Edward Smith and his inner circle desperately try to contain a weaponized zombie virus smuggled on board with the 2,200 passengers sailing to New York. Faced with an exploding population of lumbering, flesh-hungry undead, Smith's team is forced into bloody hand-to-hand combat down the narrow halls of the huge steamer. In its few short days at sea, the majestic Titanic turns into a Victorian bloodbath, steaming at top speed toward a cold, blue iceberg. A creepy, tense page-turner, Deck Z will thrill zombie fans and Titanic buffs alike.
The Carnelian Fox
Kay MacLeod - 2019
At least, they didn’t until we created them.Maiyamon was once merely a game. Now it's a global reality. After dozens of hit monster collecting games raked in billions of credits per year, it was inevitable someone would create real ones. Unfortunately, it wasn’t so obvious how many people would dump them in the wild…Sam Wentworth grew up with nothing. She’s worked tirelessly just to get through college and earn her first monster. Bankrupt and exhausted, she sets her sights on fame and fortune in Maiyamon arenas. Instead, Sam’s caught between battling the rampaging elemental creatures abandoned by their owners and standing up to a toxic group intent on ending the game forever.With her flame fox cub, Finn, at her side, Sam sets out to build a team capable of protecting both innocent people’s lives and the creatures she loves. That’s the easy part.Monsters may fill the world, but it’s humans she fears the most…
Ruins of Camelot
G. Norman Lippert - 2011
Eighteen-year-old Princess Gabriella is the only one who understands the severity of the threat, but she is powerless to convince her father or her brave commoner husband, Darrick.With defeat all but certain, Gabriella sets out on a final, desperate quest. Her plan: to confront and defeat the madman, Merodach, before his armies can destroy everything she loves. Alone and on foot, she must cross the haunted magical wasteland known as the Tempest Barrens, where she is beset by mutant beasts, capricious magical creatures, and even the walking dead.In the end, wounded and hopeless, Gabriella finally confronts her nemesis and learns his final, horrible secret: He is not alone, and the forces he has allied with are far more powerful than anyone could have imagined.
Shadowfell
Juliet Marillier - 2012
Eager to hide her own canny skill--a uniquely powerful ability to communicate with the fairy-like Good Folk--Neryn sets out for the legendary Shadowfell, a home and training ground for a secret rebel group determined to overthrow the evil King Keldec. During her dangerous journey, she receives aid from the Good Folk, who tell her she must pass a series of tests in order to recognize her full potential. She also finds help from a handsome young man, Flint, who rescues her from certain death--but whose motives in doing so remain unclear. Neryn struggles to trust her only allies. They both hint that she alone may be the key to Alban's release from Keldec's rule. Homeless, unsure of who to trust, and trapped in an empire determined to crush her, Neryn must make it to Shadowfell not only to save herself, but to save Alban.
A Great and Terrible Beauty
Libba Bray - 2003
(Ages 12+)It's 1895, and after the suicide of her mother, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle is shipped off from the life she knows in India to Spence, a proper boarding school in England. Lonely, guilt-ridden, and prone to visions of the future that have an uncomfortable habit of coming true, Gemma's reception there is a chilly one. To make things worse, she's been followed by a mysterious young Indian man, a man sent to watch her. But why? What is her destiny? And what will her entanglement with Spence's most powerful girls—and their foray into the spiritual world—lead to?
Etiquette & Espionage
Gail Carriger - 2013
It's quite another to learn to curtsy and throw a knife at the same time. Welcome to Finishing School.Fourteen-year-old Sophronia is a great trial to her poor mother. Sophronia is more interested in dismantling clocks and climbing trees than proper manners--and the family can only hope that company never sees her atrocious curtsy. Mrs. Temminnick is desperate for her daughter to become a proper lady. So she enrolls Sophronia in Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality. But Sophronia soon realizes the school is not quite what her mother might have hoped. At Mademoiselle Geraldine's, young ladies learn to finish...everything. Certainly, they learn the fine arts of dance, dress, and etiquette, but they also learn to deal out death, diversion, and espionage--in the politest possible ways, of course. Sophronia and her friends are in for a rousing first year's education.
The Revenant
Sonia Gensler - 2011
To escape a home she doesn't belong in anymore, she assumes the name of a former classmate and accepts a teaching job at the Cherokee Female Seminary.Nothing prepares her for what she finds there. Her pupils are the daughters of the Cherokee elite—educated and more wealthy than she, and the school is cloaked in mystery. A student drowned in the river last year, and the girls whisper that she was killed by a jealous lover. Willie's room is the very room the dead girl slept in. The students say her spirit haunts it.Willie doesn't believe in ghosts, but when strange things start happening at the school, she isn't sure anymore. She's also not sure what to make of a boy from the nearby boys' school who has taken an interest in her—his past is cloaked in secrets. Soon, even she has to admit that the revenant may be trying to tell her something. . . .
The Fool's Girl
Celia Rees - 2010
Her journey has been long and her adventures many, but it is not until she meets the playwright William Shakespeare that she gets to tell the entire story from beginning to end. Violetta and her comic companion, Feste, have come in search of an ancient holy relic that the evil Malvolio has stolen from their kingdom. But where will their remarkable quest--and their most unusual story--lead? In classic Celia Rees style, it is an engrossing journey, full of political intrigue, danger, and romance.This wholly original story is spun from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, and includes both folly and suspense that would make the Bard proud.
Rebel Mechanics
Shanna Swendson - 2015
history where the British control with magic and the colonists rebel by inventing.It’s 1888, and sixteen-year-old Verity Newton lands a job in New York as a governess to a wealthy leading family—but she quickly learns that the family has big secrets. Magisters have always ruled the colonies, but now an underground society of mechanics and engineers are developing non-magical sources of power via steam engines that they hope will help them gain freedom from British rule. The family Verity works for is magister—but it seems like the children's young guardian uncle is sympathetic to the rebel cause. As Verity falls for a charming rebel inventor and agrees to become a spy, she also becomes more and more enmeshed in the magister family’s life. She soon realizes she’s uniquely positioned to advance the cause—but to do so, she’ll have to reveal her own dangerous secret.
Dragon Speaker
Elana A. Mugdan - 2016
Despite this disability, the goddess Shivnath tasks her with saving the last living dragon. Desperate to prove her worth to a world that has told her she's worthless, Keriya accepts the mission.But darkness is stirring in the Empire of Allentria. An ancient and powerful warlord has broken free of his prison with one goal: to kill the dragon. Keriya has bitten off more than she can chew, and she must stay a step ahead of his forces if she wants to survive.On a journey that tests her courage at every turn, Keriya has to decide what she believes in and who she wants to be. She'd better decide fast, because she discovers that she's at the center of an age-old war...A war that will decide the fate of everything.Contains: Fantasy violence