Book picks similar to
Deadly Delicious by K.L. Kincy


fantasy
middle-grade
historical-fiction
magic

The Reluctant Assassin


Eoin Colfer - 2013
    operation (Witness Anonymous Relocation Program). He and young FBI Agent Chevie Savano are forced to flee terrifying assassin-for-hire Albert Garrick, who pursues Riley through time and will not stop until he has hunted him down. Barely staying one step ahead, Riley and Chevie must stay alive and stop Garrick returning to his own time with knowledge and power that could change the world forever.

The Girl Who Ignored Ghosts


K.C. Tansley - 2015
    Not because she’s never seen one, but because she saw one too many. Refusing to believe is the only way to protect herself from the ghost that tried to steal her life. Kat’s disbelief keeps her safe until her junior year at McTernan Academy, when a research project for an eccentric teacher takes her to a tiny, private island off the coast of Connecticut. The site of a grisly mystery, the Isle of Acacia is no place for a girl who ignores ghosts, but the ghosts leave Kat little choice. Accompanied by her research partner, Evan Kingsley, she investigates the disappearance of Cassie Mallory and Sebastian Radcliffe on their wedding night in 1886. Evan’s scientific approach to everything leaves Kat on her own to confront a host of unbelievables: ancestral curses, powerful spells, and her strange connection to the ghosts that haunt Castle Creighton. But that’s all before Kat’s yanked through a magic portal and Evan follows her. When the two of them awaken 129 years in the past with their souls trapped inside the bodies of two wedding guests, everything changes. Together, Kat and Evan race to stop the wedding-night murders and find a way back to their own time—and their own bodies—before their souls slip away forever.

The Swallow: A Ghost Story


Charis Cotter - 2014
    Polly lives in a house bursting at the seams with people, while Rose is often left alone by her busy parents. Polly is a down-to-earth dreamer with a wild imagination and an obsession with ghosts; Rose is a quiet, ethereal waif with a sharp tongue. Despite their differences, both girls spend their days feeling invisible and seek solace in books and the cozy confines of their respective attics. But soon they discover they aren't alone--they're actually neighbors, sharing a wall. They develop an unlikely friendship, and Polly is ecstatic to learn that Rose can actually see and talk to ghosts. Maybe she will finally see one too! But is there more to Rose than it seems? Why does no one ever talk to her? And why does she look so... ghostly? When the girls find a tombstone with Rose's name on it in the cemetery and encounter an angry spirit in her house who seems intent on hurting Polly, they have to unravel the mystery of Rose and her strange family... before it's too late.

How to Flunk Magic


Elena Bryce - 2013
    Until all spell broke loose! Cool party? Check. Boy of my dreams? Check. First kiss? Not so fast.Because that’s when I discovered I was a witch. And not a very good one.Just ask Peter, the ghost I can now see haunting my bedroom, or the zombies I accidentally raised from their graves.And then there’s Fletch.GorgeousBroodyWerewolf!And he wants me to lift his curse.Am I ready for this? No.Do I hesitate? No.Does it go well? Big fat No!And now, instead of being at the party, I’m dancing naked on the town common with a coven of witches and my new familiar, in a race against time to put things right.Sounds crazy. Is crazy. But I kinda heart crazy… Author note: 2018 Edition. Previously released as Halloween Magic & Mayhem by Stella Wilkinson.

The Children of Green Knowe


Lucy M. Boston - 1954
    M. Boston's thrilling and chilling tales of Green Knowe, a haunted manor deep in an overgrown garden in the English countryside, have been entertaining readers for half a century.There are three children: Toby, who rides the majestic horse Feste; his mischievous little sister, Linnet; and their brother, Alexander, who plays the flute. The children warmly welcome Tolly to Green Knowe... even though they've been dead for centuries.But that's how everything is at Green Knowe. The ancient manor hides as many stories as it does dusty old rooms.And the master of the house is great-grandmother Oldknow, whose storytelling mixes present and past with the oldest magic in the world.

The Shadow of Black Wings


James Calbraith - 2012
    The Year of the Dragon is coming.In the midst of 19th century the world trembles before the might of the Dragon Throne’s ironclad navy and the dreaded Dragon Corps. A young dragon raider Bran joins a regiment of the Royal Marines, led by his estranged father, on a journey to the war-torn Orient.In the lands of Yamato, sealed behind the Divine Winds, conspiracy to overthrow its military dictator grows stronger. A timid shrine apprentice Nagomi is haunted by the visions of dark future. Her only friend Sato, a tomboy samurai, strives for the right to learn and teach the art of western magic.When Bran survives the sea disaster and gets separated from his bound-to–go-feral dragon, the paths of the East and West will cross in a way noone yet suspects...

Skeleton Man


Joseph Bruchac - 2001
    Where have her parents gone? Who is this spooky old man who's taken her to live with him, claiming to be her great-uncle? Why does he never eat, and why does he lock her in her room at night? What are her dreams of the Skeleton Man trying to tell her? There's one thing Molly does know. She needs to find some answers before it's too late.

The Lost Hero


Rick Riordan - 2010
    He doesn’t remember anything before waking up in a bus full of kids on a field trip. Apparently he has a girlfriend named Piper, and his best friend is a guy named Leo. They’re all students at the Wilderness School, a boarding school for “bad kids," as Leo puts it. What did Jason do to end up here? And where is here, exactly? Jason doesn't know anything—except that everything seems very wrong.PIPER HAS A SECRET. Her father has been missing for three days, ever since she had that terrifying nightmare about his being in trouble. Piper doesn’t understand her dream, or why her boyfriend suddenly doesn’t recognize her. When a freak storm hits during the school trip, unleashing strange creatures and whisking her, Jason, and Leo away to someplace called Camp Half-Blood, she has a feeling she’s going to find out, whether she wants to or not.LEO HAS A WAY WITH TOOLS. When he sees his cabin at Camp Half-Blood, filled with power tools and machine parts, he feels right at home. But there’s weird stuff, too—like the curse everyone keeps talking about, and some camper who's gone missing. Weirdest of all, his bunkmates insist that each of them—including Leo—is related to a god. Does this have anything to do with Jason's amnesia, or the fact that Leo keeps seeing ghosts?Join new and old friends from Camp Half-Blood in this thrilling first book in The Heroes of Olympus series. Best-selling author Rick Riordan has pumped up the action, humor, suspense, and mystery in an epic adventure that will leave readers panting for the next installment.

Nightmares!


Jason Segel - 2014
    And now waking up is even worse!Charlie Laird has several problems:1. His dad married a woman he is sure moonlights as a witch.2. He had to move into her purple mansion, which is not a place you want to find yourself after dark.3. He can’t remember the last time sleeping wasn’t a nightmarish prospect. Like even a nap.What Charlie doesn’t know is that his problems are about to get a whole lot more real. Nightmares can ruin a good night’s sleep, but when they start slipping out of your dreams and into the waking world—that’s a line that should never be crossed. And when your worst nightmares start to come true . . . well, that’s something only Charlie can face. And he’s going to need all the help he can get, or it might just be lights-out for Charlie Laird. For good.[This is the first book in a trilogy.]

Mayhem


Estelle Laure - 2020
    Mayhem Brayburn has always known there was something off about her and her mother, Roxy. Maybe it has to do with Roxy's constant physical pain, or maybe with Mayhem's own irresistible pull to water. Either way, she knows they aren't like everyone else. But when May's stepfather finally goes too far, Roxy and Mayhem flee to Santa Maria, California, the coastal beach town that holds the answers to all of Mayhem's questions about who her mother is, her estranged family, and the mysteries of her own self. There she meets the kids who live with her aunt, and it opens the door to the magic that runs through the female lineage in her family, the very magic Mayhem is next in line to inherit and which will change her life for good. But when she gets wrapped up in the search for the man who has been kidnapping girls from the beach, her life takes another dangerous turn and she is forced to face the price of vigilante justice and to ask herself whether revenge is worth the cost.From the acclaimed author of This Raging Light and But Then I Came Back, Estelle Laure offers a riveting and complex story with magical elements about a a family of women contending with what appears to be an irreversible destiny, taking control and saying when enough is enough.

Faery Swap


Susan Kaye Quinn - 2013
    Especially when they possess your body.2 minute book trailerWarrior faery princes can be very stubborn. Especially when they possess your body.Fourteen-year-old Finn just wants to keep his little sister out of Child Protective Services--an epic challenge with their parentally-missing-in-action dad moving them to England, near the famous Stonehenge rocks. Warrior faery Prince Zaneyr just wants to escape his father's reckless plan to repair the Rift--a catastrophe that ripped the faery realm from Earth 4,000 years ago and set it adrift in an alternate, timeless dimension. When Zaneyr tricks Finn into swapping places, Finn becomes a bodiless soul stuck in the Otherworld, and Zaneyr uses Finn's body to fight off his father's seekers on Earth. Between them, they have two souls and only one body... and both worlds to save before the dimensional window between them slams shut.Faery Swap is an action and druid-magic filled portal fantasy, told by both a runaway faery prince and the boy he's tricked into taking his place. This Prince and the Pauper meets Warrior Faeries tale is suitable for all ages.Includes 4 interior illustrations.NOTE TO TEACHERS: A 2 minute book trailer and a 9 minute Virtual Author Visit video brings Author and Rocket Scientist Susan Kaye Quinn (Ph.D. Engineering) into your classroom, sharing her background in science and engineering and talking about her book, Faery Swap. A downloadable Teacher's Guide includes discussion questions, activities, and a Knowledge Seekers card-based game designed to be played in the classroom - all aligned to Common Core reading, writing, and college readiness standards for Grades 3-6. (Virtual Author Visit can be found at Susan's website.

The Children of the King


Sonya Hartnett - 2012
    Cecily and Jeremy have been sent to live with their uncle Peregrine in the English countryside, safe from the war, along with a young refugee named May. But when Cecily and May find two mysterious boys hiding in the ruins of a nearby castle, an extraordinary adventure begins.

A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking


T. Kingfisher - 2020
    She can’t control lightning or speak to water. Her familiar is a sourdough starter and her magic only works on bread. She has a comfortable life in her aunt’s bakery making gingerbread men dance.But Mona’s life is turned upside down when she finds a dead body on the bakery floor. An assassin is stalking the streets of Mona’s city, preying on magic folk, and it appears that Mona is his next target. And in an embattled city suddenly bereft of wizards, the assassin may be the least of Mona’s worries…

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone


J.K. Rowling - 1997
    His parents are dead and he's stuck with his heartless relatives, who force him to live in a tiny closet under the stairs. But his fortune changes when he receives a letter that tells him the truth about himself: he's a wizard. A mysterious visitor rescues him from his relatives and takes him to his new home, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.After a lifetime of bottling up his magical powers, Harry finally feels like a normal kid. But even within the Wizarding community, he is special. He is the boy who lived: the only person to have ever survived a killing curse inflicted by the evil Lord Voldemort, who launched a brutal takeover of the Wizarding world, only to vanish after failing to kill Harry.Though Harry's first year at Hogwarts is the best of his life, not everything is perfect. There is a dangerous secret object hidden within the castle walls, and Harry believes it's his responsibility to prevent it from falling into evil hands. But doing so will bring him into contact with forces more terrifying than he ever could have imagined.Full of sympathetic characters, wildly imaginative situations, and countless exciting details, the first installment in the series assembles an unforgettable magical world and sets the stage for many high-stakes adventures to come.

The Clockwork Crow


Catherine Fisher - 2018
    The package contains a crotchety, mechanical talking crow, which Seren reluctantly brings to her new home. But when she gets there, the happy Christmas she had hoped for turns out to be an illusion--the young son of the house, Tomos, has been missing for almost a year, rumored to have been taken by the fairies. With the Crow's reluctant help and a little winter magic, Seren sets off on a perilous journey to bring Tomos home.