Children's Fantasy and Adventure

Try these books if you're looking for:
•    Fantasy
•    Adventure
•    Mystery
•    Mythical creatures and abnormal worlds
•    Suspense
•    Children’s fiction

The Luck Uglies

Paul Durham

JF DURHAM Luck Ug #1

Eleven-year-old Rye O'Chanter and her two friends delve into the secret lore of their village when mysterious creatures of legend reappear on the night of the Black Moon, leading them to the notorious secret society, the Luck Uglies.

The Last Dragonslayer

Jasper Fforde

JF FFORDE Kazam #1

Fifteen-year-old Jennifer Strange runs an agency for underemployed magicians in a world where magic is fading away, but when visions of the death of the world's last dragon begin, all signs point to Jennifer--and Big Magic.

Mark of the Dragonfly

Jaleigh Johnson

JF JOHNSON

Since her father's death in a factory in the Dragonfly territories, thirteen-year-old Piper has eked out a living as a scrapper in Merrow Kingdom, but the arrival of a mysterious girl sends her on a dangerous journey to distant lands.

Dark Life

Kat Falls

JF FALLS Dark Lif #1

When fifteen-year-old Ty, who has always lived on the ocean floor, joins Topside girl, Gemma, in the frontier's underworld to seek and stop outlaws who threaten his home, they learn that the government may pose an even greater threat.

White Mountains

John Christopher

JF CHRISTOPH Tripods #1

When fifteen-year-old Ty, who has always lived on the ocean floor, joins Topside girl, Gemma, in the frontier's underworld to seek and stop outlaws who threaten his home, they learn that the government may pose an even greater threat.

Dark Fiction

Try these books if you're looking for:

• dark fiction
• some dystopian
• reads like Gone Girl

The Good Girl 
Mary Kubica
MYSTERY KUBICA
In this tale of a kidnapping gone wrong, Mia, the black-sheep daughter of prominent Chicago judge James Dennett, impulsively decides to go home with Colin, a young man she meets in a bar. The one-night stand quickly turns into a nightmare when Colin forces her into his car in the middle of the night, and Mia learns he’s been sent to abduct her for ransom. But just before the drop-off point, Colin, for reasons unknown, decides not to hand her over to the man who has hired him and instead takes her to a remote cabin in Minnesota. Back at home, Mia’s mother, Eve, cannot understand why James doesn’t seem to take the news of his daughter’s disappearance as seriously as she does. Gabe, the detective assigned to the case, wonders the same thing. The narrative unfolds in four different perspectives—from Mia, Eve, Gabe, and Colin, in alternating chapters—which are also structured as “before” and “after.”

The Silent Wife 
A.S.A Harrison
MYSTERY HARRISON
Jodi has led a quietly ordered and opulent life with her partner, Todd, for the past 20 years. She considers herself to be a flexible and understanding better half, who reacts to Todd's indiscretions by cooking him his favorite meal to remind him of their stable home life. A psychiatrist, she perceives an insurmountable difference between herself and her clients, whom she thinks would benefit from accepting the low points of their lives along with the high ones. But the events that Todd is about to set in motion will test Jodi's limits to a harrowing degree and cause a secret that she buried long ago to resurface. Told in the alternating voices of Jodi and Todd, Harrison's novel is the story of what happens when the life we've worked so hard to achieve is exposed as an illusion.

Dear Daughter 
Elizabeth Little
F LITTLE
Former celebrity Janie Jenkins gets out of jail on a technicality after serving 10 years for killing her high-society mother. She doesn’t remember doing it, but she didn’t like her mother very much; still, once out of jail, she’s determined to determine what really happened. Janie is smart, but she has a smart mouth, too, which tends to put people off. Her attorney, Noah, is on her side, but she has a hard time telling him—or anyone else—the truth. Meanwhile, tabloid reporter Trace is after her, convinced she’s guilty and willing to put his money where his mouth is, offering a large reward for her whereabouts. Janie digs into her mother’s past, which leads her to Ardelle, South Dakota, a small town filled with small-town secrets and a cast of quirky, sketchy characters, including a suspicious police chief; but Janie keeps them all guessing. It seems that the more she finds out, the more she needs to know as the mystery continues to deepen.

Panic 
Lauren Oliver
YA F OLIVER
Heather and Dodge live in Carp, N.Y., a down-on-its-heels town where graduating seniors can participate in a secret annual game called Panic. Everyone contributes to the pot, with winner take all when the game begins. Players have died in the past, and Dodge’s older sister was paralyzed two years earlier; this year’s prize is $67,000. This is a purported return to realistic fiction for Oliver following her popular Delirium books, and it’s realistic in the way that Before I Fall was: in her setting and characters, if not the situations they face. The stakes of Panic are extraordinarily high; an early challenge has competitors crossing between two water towers on a narrow plank, and things only escalate.

Glow 
Amy Kathleen Ryan
YA F RYAN Sky Chas #1
With Earth no longer viable, two pioneer spaceships have been on the road for years—and have more than 40 to go before arriving at their goal. The two spaceships are complete habitats, raising crops and families to prepare for colonizing New Earth. On board, the families have grown, and the first generation is nearing marriageable age. Unbeknownst to those on the Empyrean, all the women on board the other spaceship, the New Horizon, are sterile. So the New Horizon stages an attack and kidnaps all the girls, from 16-year-old Waverly to the youngest toddler, to harvest their eggs. Ryan’s depiction of religion—the charismatic but evil Anne Mather, of the New Horizon, is clearly Christian—explores the differences that can exist between the content and implementation of faith. This one is also told in alternating narrators.

Mystery and Storytelling in One Package

Try these books if you're looking for:

• mystery, suspense, action
• good storytelling
• well-written stories

The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents 
Terry Pratchett
YA F Pratchet
A talking cat, intelligent rats, and a strange boy cooperate in a Pied Piper scam until they try to con the wrong town and are confronted by a deadly evil rat king.

The Kraken Project 
Douglas Preston
F Preston
When a NASA accident kills seven scientists and enables a self-modifying artificial intelligence to escape into the Internet, Wyman Ford and the AI's creator, Melissa Shepherd, struggle to keep the evolving program out of the hands of scheming Wall Street traders.

Some Serious YA Mystery and Adventure

Try these books if you're looking for:

• teen reads
• serious/dramatic books
• male characters
• reads like: The Black Reckoning (Books of Beginning); Nathan Fox's Dangerous Times; Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children; Hollow City; Confessions: The Private School Murders; Confessions of a Murder Suspect.

The Replacement 
By Brenda Yovanoff
YA F Yovanoff
Mackie Doyle is a Replacement, left in the crib of a human baby sixteen years before, and when creatures under the hill decide that they want him back, he must decide where he really belongs and what he really wants.

In the Shadow of the Blackbirds 
By Cat Winters
YA F WINTERS
In San Diego in 1918, as deadly influenza and World War I take their toll, sixteen-year-old Mary Shelley Black watches desperate mourners flock to seances and spirit photographers for comfort and, despite her scientific leanings, must consider if ghosts are real when her first love, killed in battle, returns.

Anna Dressed in Blood 
By Kendare Blake
YA F BLAKE
For three years, seventeen-year-old Cas Lowood has carried on his father's work of dispatching the murderous dead, traveling with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat, but everything changes when he meets Anna, a girl unlike any ghost he has faced before.

The Girl is Murder 
By Kathryn Miller Haines
YA F HAINES Iris And #1
In 1942 New York City, fifteen-year-old Iris grieves for her mother who committed suicide and for the loss of her life of privilege, and secretly helps her father with his detective business since he, having lost a leg at Pearl Harbor, struggles to make ends meet.

Long, Complex Books - and Make Them Downloadable

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Longer stories
• Complex plots
• Mysteries and thrillers
• Read like Kate Atkinson and Donna Tartt
• Downloadable audiobook

The Dinner (eBook and downloadable audio)
By Herman Koch
F KOCH
Meeting at an Amsterdam restaurant for dinner, two couples move from small talk to the wrenching shared challenge of their teenage sons' act of violence that has triggered a police investigation and revealed the extent to which each family will go to protect those they love.

The Luminaries (eBook)
By Eleanor Catoon
MYSTERY CATTON
A bold neo-Victorian murder mystery set in a remote gold-mining frontier town in 19th-century New Zealand. In 1866, a weary Englishman lands in a gold-mining frontier town on the coast of New Zealand to make his fortune and forever leave behind his family's shame. On arrival, he stumbles across a tense gathering of twelve local men who have met in secret to investigate what links three crimes that occurred on a single day, events in which each man finds himself implicated in some way.

Night Film (eBook and Downloadable Audiobook)
By Marisha Pessl
MYSTERY PESSL
When the daughter of a cult horror film director is found dead in an abandoned Manhattan warehouse, investigative journalist Scott McGrath, disbelieving the official suicide ruling, probes into the strange circumstances of the young woman's death.

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena (eBook and Downloadable Audiobook)
By Anthony Marra
F MARRA
This book is set in rural Chechnya during the region's war with Russia. Though events shift in time, the main focus is a five-day period in 2004, when an eight-year-old girl witnesses her father's abduction by Russian soldiers. Swearing to protect the girl, local doctor Akhmed (whose true passion is portraiture), brings her to a crumbling hospital, run by a hardened but dedicated surgeon, for safety. 

The Golem and the Jinni (eBook and Downloadable Audiobook)
By Helene Wecker
F WECKER
After her creator dies en route to America, Chava, a golem from a Polish shtetl, must navigate the streets of 1899 New York City by herself -- her only ally is a rabbi unsure whether to destroy her, or allow her to fulfill her destiny as the harbinger of destruction. Ahmad, a jinni from Syria's deserts has been released from his thousand-year-old glass bottle by a tinsmith but has little intention of remaining a metalworker, despite his uncanny talent for it. Chava and Ahmad meet and discover that they're soul mates, but a dangerous adversary threatens their future. This vibrant blend of myth, adventure, and romance will enchant fans of stories based on folklore.

The Prisoner of Heaven (eBook)
By Carlos Ruiz Zafon
F RUIZ ZAFON
In 1957 Barcelona, Daniel Sempere and his wife are celebrating Christmas with their new baby son when a mysterious stranger visits the Sempere bookshop and threatens to reveal a long-buried secret about the city's dark past.

State of Wonder (eBook)
By Ann Patchett
F PATCHETT
A researcher at a pharmaceutical company, Marina Singh journeys into the heart of the Amazonian delta to check on a field team that has been silent for two years--a dangerous assignment that forces Marina to confront the ghosts of her past.

Teen Paranormal Reads that Have It All

Try these books if you're looking for:

• teen reads
• paranormal/fantasy
• romance
• witty writing
• comedy
• daring 
• mystery
• read like Cassandra Clare, Lauren Kate, Alexandra Andorietto

Meridian 
By Amber Kizer
YA F KIZER Meridian #1
On her sixteenth birthday, Meridian Sozu is whisked off to her great-aunt's home in Revelation, Colorado, where she learns that she is a Fenestra, the half-human, half-angel link between the living and the dead, and must learn to help human souls to the afterlife before the dark forces reach them.

The Silver Kiss 
By Annette Curtis Klause
YA F KLAUSE
Simon, a mysterious and beautiful teenage boy, frightens Zoe in the dead of night when he comes to her house. Simon harbors a dark secret, while Zoe struggles with thoughts of her dying mother. Can Simon trust Zoe with his dark and terrible secret and will she help free him?

Beautiful Creatures 
By Kami Garcia
YA F GARCIA Caster #1
In a small South Carolina town, where it seems little has changed since the Civil War, sixteen-year-old Ethan is powerfully drawn to Lena, a new classmate with whom he shares a psychic connection and whose family hides a dark secret that may be revealed on her sixteenth birthday.

Embrace 
By Jessica Shirvington
YA F SHIRVING Violet E#1
Violet Eden's life is thrown into disorder on her seventeenth birthday when Lincoln, her training partner and the object of her affection, reveals to her that they are both half angels, until the mysterious exiled angel Phoenix enters her life.

Modern, Urban Lit

Try these books if you're looking for:

• chick lit
• urban lit
• modern settings
• some mystery

Still Life 
By Joy Fielding
F FIELDING
Casey Marshall had everything, a successful business, great husband, friends, until...a car smashes into hers. Waking up in a hospital unable to move or speak, she observes some curious things. Is it possible her "friends" are not whom they claim to be and maybe her accident was not actually an accident. Joy Fielding has the ability to create well defined relatable characters plus keep the plot twisting and the reader in suspense.

After All These Years 
By Susan Isaacs
MYSTERY ISAACS
Rosie Meyers, 47 is a high school English teacher. The day after her 25th wedding anniversary party, her husband announces that he is leaving her for another woman. Later Rosie finds him dead in the kitchen stabbed with a butcher knife. Rosie becomes prime suspect. In hopes of proving herself innocent, Rosie goes on the lam before police can arrest her. Friendships and characters are believable, especially the feisty and witty Rosie.

Crossing Places 
By Elly Griffiths
MYSTERY GRIFFITH Ruth Gal #1
Thirty-something forensic archeologist Dr. Ruth Galloway lives in remote Norfolk, England along with her 2 cats. When the bones of a child are found in a marsh, Galloway is called in to help. Are the bones from the decade old cold case that the Chief still gets taunting letters about or are they ancient bones? Outspoken Galloway gets drawn into the case when another child goes missing.

Coldest Winter Ever 
By Sister Souljah
F SOULJAH
This urban novel is the first for Hip-hop star Sister Souljah. Laced with the ruthlessness and tragedy that the drug world can bring, it tells a rough coming of age story about Winter Santiaga and her family.

Mystery & Adventurous Sci-Fi

Try these books if you're looking for:

• mystery
• adventure
• sci-fi
• crime
• reads like Stephen King, James Patterson, Stephen R. Donaldson, and J.K. Rowling

The Last Policeman 
By Ben H. Winters
MYST WINTERS Last Po #1
When the Earth is doomed by an imminent and unavoidable asteroid collision, New Hampshire homicide detective Hank Palace considers the worth of his job in a world destined to end in six months and investigates a suspicious suicide that nobody else cares about. This title is also available as an eBook on Overdrive.

Naked in Death 
By J. D. Robb
MYSTERY ROBB
Eve Dallas, a New York police lieutenant, is in over her head when she breaks the rules and falls in love with Roarke, an Irish billionaire and a suspect in her most recent case. Being a cop in the twenty-first century should not be as violent as being one in the twentieth was, since all guns are banned and have become collectors' items, but Lieutenant Eve Dallas is stunned to be called to a crime scene where the victim was killed by a gun. This title is also available as an eBook on Overdrive.

Steelheart 
By Brandon Sanderson
YA F SANDERSO Reckoner #1
At age eight, David watched as his father was killed by an Epic, a human with superhuman powers, and now, ten years later, he joins the Reckoners - the only people who are trying to kill the Epics and end their tyranny. This title is also available as an eBook on Overdrive.

Teen Boy Adventure Books

Try these books if you're looking for:

• adventure
• mystery
• reads like Rick Riordan and Margaret Peterson Haddix

Skulduggery Pleasant 
By Derek Landy
YA F LANDY Skuldugg #1
When twelve-year-old Stephanie inherits her weird uncle's estate, she must join forces with Skulduggery Pleasant, a skeleton mage, to save the world from the Faceless Ones. 

Stormbreaker 
By Anthony Horowitz
YA F HOROWITZ Alex Rid #1
After the death of the uncle who had been his guardian, fourteen-year-old Alex Rider is coerced to continue his uncle's dangerous work for Britain's intelligence agency, MI6.

Contemporary Mystery & Suspense Books

Try these books if you're looking for:

• contemporary fiction (set in contemporary settings)
• mystery novels
• suspense novels
• horror novels
• crime novels

Defending Jacob 
By William Landay
MYST LANDAY
Andy Barber has been an assistant district attorney in his suburban Massachusetts county for more than twenty years. He is respected in his community, tenacious in the courtroom, and happy at home with his wife, Laurie, and son, Jacob. But when a shocking crime shatters their New England town, Andy is blindsided by what happens next. His fourteen-year-old son is charged with the murder of a fellow student.

NOS4A2 
By Joe Hill
F HILL
When Charles Talent Manx, an unstoppable monster who transforms children into his own terrifying likeness, kidnaps her son, Victoria McQueen, the only person to ever escape his unmitigated evil, must engage in a life-and-death battle of wills to get her son back.

The English Girl 
By Daniel Silva
F SILVA
The wayward son of Israeli intelligence, Allon is plunged into a high stakes game of murder, espionage, and corruption after a beautiful young British woman vanishes on the island of Corsica, which threatens to destroy a prime minister's career.

Fun Fiction with Clean Language and Little Violence

Try these books if you're looking for:

• cleaner language
• little violence
• like authors Agatha Christie, Jessica Day George, & Jane Austen

Maisie Dobbs 
By Jacqueline Winspear
MYSTERY WINSPEAR Maisie #1
Maisie Dobbs entered domestic service in 1910 at thirteen, working for Lady Rowan Compton. When her remarkable intelligence is discovered by her employer, Maisie becomes the pupil of Maurice Blanche, a learned friend of the Comptons. In 1929, following an apprenticeship with Blanche, Maisie hangs out her shingle: M. Dobbs, Trade and Personal Investigations.

The Corinthian 
By Georgette Heyer
ROMANCE HEYER
When a man comes across a beautiful young woman climbing out of a window in a bid to escape, he finds the ideal opportunity to realize his own escape in this sparkling Regency romance with a decidedly Shakespearean twist.

The Star of Kazan 
By Eva Ibbotson
YA IBBOTSON
After twelve-year-old Annika, a foundling living in late nineteenth-century Vienna, inherits a trunk of costume jewelry, a woman claiming to be her aristocratic mother arrives and takes her to live in a strangely decrepit mansion in Germany.

Fantasy, Sci-Fi, & Mystery

Try these books if you're looking for:

• action
• mystery
• thriller
• fantasy 
• sci-fi
• similar to: Orson Scott Card, Julia Spencer Fleming, Diana Mott Davidson, Anne McCaffrey, David Baldacci, Michael Palmer
• NOT similar to: Jonathan Kellerman, J.R.R. Tolkien, Sandra Brown

The Expats 
By Chris Pavone
F PAVONE
"An international spy thriller about a former CIA agent who moves with her family to Luxembourg where everything is suspicious and nothing is as it seems"-- Provided by publisher.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder 
By Joanne Fluke
MYSTERY FLUKE Hannah #1
Cookie-baking sleuth Hannah Swenson must protect her reputation when a popular delivery man is found murdered behind her bakery with Hannah's cookies scattered around him.

Good Sci-Fi Reads

Try these books if you're looking for:

• science fiction, with perhaps an element of mystery
• read like Ender's Game and 2001: Space Odyssey

Ready Player One
By Ernest Cline
SCI-FI CLINE
In a bleak 2044, Wade Watts, an impoverished high school student lives primarily online alongside billions of others via a massive online game, OASIS, where players race to unravel the puzzles OASIS creator James Halliday built into the game before his death, with the winner taking control of the virtual world's parent company, as well as staggering wealth. When Wade stumbles on a clue taken from a 1980s video game, he's plunged into high-stakes conflict with a corporation dedicated to unraveling Halliday's riddles. Immersed in 80’s pop culture references, and written in the world of video games, this is the book every self-proclaimed geek dreams of finding on the shelves.

Neverwhere
By Neil Gaiman
SCI-FI GAIMAN
Richard Mayhew's life is forever changed after he rescues a young girl named Door and finds himself living in a city of monsters, saints, murderers, and angels, and he must help Door on her mission to save this strange underworld kingdom from destruction. With his classic dark sense of humor, Neil Gaiman creates a unique shadow world below the London underground.

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
By Robert Heinlein
SCI-FI HEINLEIN
Winner of the 1972 Hugo award, this book laid down the path for future science fiction. In the year 2076, the residents of the moon rebel, with the help of the legendary supercomputer ‘mike.’

Old Man’s War 
By John Scalzi
SCI-FI SCALZI
In this imaginative and original novel, the military recruits only retirees with experience and nothing to lose. With a cast of octogenarians, this novel balances hard scientific reasoning with light humor. The detailed and accurate science make this book hard science fiction.

Mysteries with Romance and Humor

Try these books if you're looking for:

• mystery
• romance
• humor
• similar to Stieg Larsson and James Patterson

Maybe This Time 
By Jennifer Crusie
ROMANCE CRUSIE
Andie's ex-husband, asks her to become the guardian of two orphans who have driven out three nannies already--and live in a haunted house! What follows is a hilarious adventure in exorcism, including a self-doubting parapsychologist, an annoyed medium, her Tarot-card reading mother, an avenging ex-mother-in-law, and, of course, her jealous fiance.

The Hypnotist 
By Lars Kepler
MYSTERY KEPLER Detectiv #1
Captivated by a triple homicide, Detective Inspector Joona Linna investigates the murder of a family as he searches for the oldest daughter who escaped the carnage but is reported missing. The only surviving witness is the intended victim -- the boy who watched his family be murdered after being stabbed over one hundred times. He is in no condition to be questioned and desperate for information, Linna enlists Dr. Erik Barks to hypnotize the boy so he can discover what he saw.

Gone Girl
By Gillian Flynn
MYSTERY FLYNN
When a woman goes missing on her fifth wedding anniversary, her diary reveals hidden turmoil in her marriage, while her husband, desperate to clear himself of suspicion, realizes that something more disturbing than murder may have occurred.

Before I Go to Sleep 
By S.J. Watson
FICTION WATSON
Without her husband's knowledge, Christine, whose memory is damaged by a long-ago accident, is treated by a neurologist who helps her to remember her former self through journal entries until inconsistencies begin to emerge, raising disturbing questions.

The Expats 
By Chris Pavone
FICTION PAVONE
An international spy thriller about a former CIA agent who moves with her family to Luxembourg where everything is suspicious and nothing is as it seems.