Becoming Human


Amy Michelle Carpenter - 2020
    Carter doesn't believe in aliens. And he certainly doesn't defend his dad's claims that they exist, even if they aired on national television. But then, the girl he's falling for starts doing strange things, magical things, things that seem a bit out of this world.Kokab hungers to be a Perfect in a world where her emotions are her greatest flaw. But when her planet faces extinction, her sympathy makes her the perfect ambassador to persuade humans to accept her people. Failure means invasion, but success means she will never become a Perfect.Ags dreams of graduating from the Academy and becoming a guardian of Earth. Obsessed with all things human, she's eager to spend time on the unique planet. But when she uncovers an impending invasion, she's willing to lose everything, including herself, to stop it.

Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves


Meg Long - 2022
    A team of scientists offer to pay her way off her frozen planet on one condition: she gets them to the finish line of the planet’s infamous sled race. Though Sena always swore she’d never race after it claimed both her mothers’ lives, it’s now her only option. But the tundra is a treacherous place, and as the race unfolds and their lives are threatened at every turn, Sena starts to question her own abilities. She must discover whether she's strong enough to survive the wild – whether she and Iska together are strong enough to get them all out alive.A captivating debut about survival, found family, and the bond between a girl and a wolf that delivers a fresh twist on classic survival stories and frontier myths.

Plus One


Elizabeth Fama - 2014
    A family divided. A love that defies the law.Sol Le Coeur is a Smudge--a night dweller in an America rigidly divided between people who wake, live, and work during the hours of darkness and those known as Rays, who live and work during daylight. Impulsive, passionate, and brave, Sol concocts a plan to kidnap her newborn niece--a Ray--in order to bring the baby to visit her dying grandfather. Sol's violation of the day/night curfew is already a serious crime, but when her kidnap attempt goes awry, she stumbles on a government conspiracy to manipulate the Smudge population. Sol escapes the authorities with an unexpected ally: a Ray who gets in her way, a boy she might have hated if fate hadn't forced them on the run together--a boy the world now tells her she can't love.Set in a vivid alternate reality and peopled with complex, deeply human characters on both sides of the day/night divide, Elizabeth Fama's Plus One is a brilliantly imagined drama of individual liberty and civil rights, and a fast-paced romantic adventure story.

Feels Like Magic: A spellbinding wizard school book for kids and adults


Paul Johnson-Jovanovic - 2017
     Alfie Trotter is no ordinary boy. He can do things other children can’t. He can turn the telly over just by thinking it. He can make lights flicker on and off when he gets angry. He can make objects disappear, never to be seen again. He has no idea why he’s able to do such things. Then, one day, a boy from Alfie’s school notices him doing something amazing (jumping a ridiculous distance on his bike). He tells Alfie that he’s a wizard. Before long, Alfie finds himself enrolling at the Pendred Academy of Magic. Whist there, he learns of a plot by an evil wizard to steal a powerful wand, which is being stored in a safe at the academy. He also finds out that the academy grounds serve as a portal: a gateway to another world. And that’s when the real adventure begins … - books similar to Harry Potter - books like Harry Potter

Alienated


Melissa Landers - 2014
    Now Cara Sweeney is going to be sharing a bathroom with one of them. Handpicked to host the first-ever L’eihr exchange student, Cara thinks her future is set. Not only does she get a free ride to her dream college, she’ll have inside information about the mysterious L’eihrs that every journalist would kill for. Cara’s blog following is about to skyrocket.Still, Cara isn’t sure what to think when she meets Aelyx. Humans and L’eihrs have nearly identical DNA, but cold, infuriatingly brilliant Aelyx couldn’t seem more alien. She’s certain about one thing, though: no human boy is this good-looking.But when Cara's classmates get swept up by anti-L'eihr paranoia, Midtown High School suddenly isn't safe anymore. Threatening notes appear in Cara's locker, and a police officer has to escort her and Aelyx to class. Cara finds support in the last person she expected. She realizes that Aelyx isn’t just her only friend; she's fallen hard for him. But Aelyx has been hiding the truth about the purpose of his exchange, and its potentially deadly consequences. Soon Cara will be in for the fight of her life—not just for herself and the boy she loves, but for the future of her planet.

Sky Without Stars


Jessica Brody - 2019
    An officer. A guardian. Three strangers. One shared destiny . . .When the Last Days came, the planet of Laterre promised hope. But five hundred years later, it’s now a place where an extravagant elite class reigns supreme; where the clouds hide the stars and the poor starve in the streets; where a rebel group, long thought dead, is resurfacing.Whispers of revolution have begun—a revolution that hinges on three unlikely heroes…Chatine is a street-savvy thief who will do anything to escape the brutal Regime, including spying on Marcellus, the grandson of the most powerful man on the planet.Marcellus is an officer—and the son of a traitor. Groomed to command by his legendary grandfather, Marcellus begins to doubt the government he’s vowed to serve when he discovers a cryptic message that only one person, a girl named Alouette, can read.Alouette is living in an underground refuge, where she guards and protects the last surviving library on the planet. But a shocking murder will bring Alouette to the surface for the first time in twelve years…and plunge Laterre into chaos.All three have roles to play in a dangerous game of revolution—and together they will shape the future of a planet.Power, romance, and destiny collide in this sweeping reimagining of Victor Hugo’s masterpiece Les Misérables.

Aetherbound


E.K. Johnston - 2021
    K. Johnston's latest is story of survival and self-determination.Pendt Harland's family sees her as a waste of food on their long-haul space cruiser when her genes reveal an undesirable mutation. But if she plays her cards right she might have a chance to do much more than survive. During a space-station layover, Pendt escapes and forms a lucky bond with the Brannick twins, the teenage heirs of the powerful family that owns the station. Against all odds, the trio hatches a long-shot scheme to take over the station and thwart the destinies they never wished for.

Flawed


Cecelia Ahern - 2016
    She’s a model daughter and sister, she’s well-liked by her classmates and teachers, and she’s dating the impossibly charming Art Crevan.But then Celestine encounters a situation where she makes an instinctive decision. She breaks a rule and now faces life-changing repercussions. She could be imprisoned. She could be branded. She could be found flawed.In her breathtaking young adult debut, bestselling author Cecelia Ahern depicts a society where perfection is paramount and flaws lead to punishment. And where one young woman decides to take a stand that could cost her everything.

The Evaporation of Sofi Snow


Mary Weber - 2017
    Alien. In a system where Earth's corporations rule in place of governments and the humanoid race orbiting the moon are allies, her only constant has been her younger brother, Shilo. As an online gamer, Sofi battles behind the scenes of Earth's Fantasy Fighting arena where Shilo is forced to compete in a mix of real and virtual blood sport. But when a bomb takes out a quarter of the arena, Sofi's the only one who believes Shilo survived. She has dreams of him. And she's convinced he's been taken to the ice-planet.Except no one but ambassadors are allowed there.For Miguel, Earth's charming young playboy, the games are of a different sort. As Ambassador to the Delonese, his career has been built on trading secrets and seduction. Until the Fantasy Fight's bomb goes off. Now the tables have turned and he's a target for blackmail. The game is simple: Help the blackmailers, or lose more than anyone can fathom, or Earth can afford.

The Similars


Rebecca Hanover - 2019
    Who are these six clones? What are the odds that all of them would be Darkwood students? Who is the madman who broke the law to create them? Emma couldn't care less. Her best friend, Oliver, died over the summer and all she can think about is how to get through her junior year without him. Then she comes face-to-heartbreaking-face with Levi—Oliver's exact DNA replica and one of the Similars.Emma wants nothing to do with the Similars, but she keeps getting pulled deeper and deeper into their clique, uncovering dark truths about the clones and her prestigious school along the way. But no one can be trusted…not even the boy she is falling for who has Oliver's face.

Grounded


G.P. Ching - 2012
    Science made me complicated.Book 1 in the Grounded TrilogyMy name is Lydia Troyer. Growing up in Hemlock Hollow, my life has always been simple. Things in my community haven’t changed much in over three hundred years, since the time my Amish ancestors came to what is now the Green Republic. I milk my cow by hand, make fresh bread every morning, and hope to be courted by Jeremiah, a boy I’ve known since childhood.When my father falls ill, the English doctor says a hospital outside the wall can heal him. Jeremiah convinces me to go on rumspringa, to experience the outside world as an Englisher in order to be closer to my father during his recovery. Others have gone before me. They claim it’s an adventure. But adventure turns to horror as an ordinary light switch thrusts me into a new world, and revelations about my personal history make me question everything I believe.All my life I’ve worked to be simple. I can’t pretend anymore. Nothing about me is simple.

The Ballad of John MacLea


A.J. MacKenzie - 2019
    Tasked with routing out enemy agents and thwarting an elaborate espionage ring, which includes beautiful American double agent Josephine Lafitte, MacLea’s mission is betrayed. Now, trapped in a dramatic showdown aboard a captured American warship headed for the breach at Niagara Falls, battle-hardened MacLea finds himself fighting not just for freedom, but for his life.

The Rule of Three


Eric Walters - 2014
    At sixteen-year-old Adam Daley's high school, the problem first seems to be a typical electrical outage, until students discover that cell phones are down, municipal utilities are failing, and a few computer-free cars like Adam's are the only vehicles that function. Driving home, Adam encounters a storm tide of anger and fear as the region becomes paralyzed. Soon—as resources dwindle, crises mount, and chaos descends—he will see his suburban neighborhood band together for protection. And Adam will understand that having a police captain for a mother and a retired government spy living next door are not just the facts of his life but the keys to his survival, in The Rule of Three by Eric Walters.

A Stranger in the Citadel


Tobias S. Buckell - 2021
    Buckell.“You shall not suffer a librarian to live.”Growing up in Ninetha, Lilith has known this law all her life. The city’s every need is provided for by a god-machine called the cornucopia, which can produce food, clothing, anything in response to a thought. The gods provided this bounty on one condition: that humanity give up reading and writing. Then, a librarian, an actual seeker of forbidden written knowledge, walks through the gates of the citadel, his very presence unraveling the life Lilith has known. She learns her father, the Lord Musketeer himself, has been harboring a secret - one that turns Ninetha against Lilith’s family. Forced to flee, forced to throw in her lot with the librarian, Lilith uncovers even greater secrets - about the lie her life has been, and about the very nature of their world.

A Christmas at Pasidian Palace


S.L. Morgan - 2016
    With peace in their lands, Levi and Reece have been living a life of serenity and peace, raising their three young children at Oxley Manor. Everything seems perfect and well until Levi realizes something: a holiday he knows his wife as always loved on her home planet of Earth has never been celebrated in his realm. In fact, Reece hasn't had the privilege of enjoying her favorite holiday in over six years, and Levi vows to change that. But can he? With his sister's wedding at hand, his own daughter professing her love for another as well, and wanting to have a new holiday introduced to Pemdas...Levi is determined to find a way to make all of this work no matter the sacrifices he must make.