Vango: Between Sky and Earth by Timothee de Fombelle

Murder, forbidden islands, Zeppelins, Vango, is nonstop thrill ride. Set in pre-World War II Europe, we first meet Vango as he is about to become priest. But, the outdoor ceremony is interrupted as the police storm in looking to arrest Vango for murder. Before the police can grab him Vango is on the run, or more like on the climb. He scales the cathedral and then makes his way to safety. Soon, we find that Vango is on the run not just from the police, but from other agents as well. As a small child, Vango and his nanny washed up on the shore of a small Italian island. The nanny and Vango have no memory of their past or where they came from. All Vango knows is that he’s always felt followed, paranoid and now all his fears are coming true. As Vango is escaping, you read about a Zeppelin flying overhead, a girl wiping a tear from her eye the crowd as she spies a mysterious man she’s seen before. All of these pieces come together in this tale which, jumps between characters, time and locations to make a brilliant story full of twists, turns and mysteries.


The Epic Crush of Genie Lo by F. C. Lee

Super powers, hilarity, demon spawn and Chinese mythology make  The Epic Crush of Genie Lo an awesome book.  Genie is busting her butt trying to get into a great college and get out of the community she lives in outside of San Francisco.  Everything is going to plan until Quentin shows up and strange things start to happen, like demons arriving and the possibility of the whole city being destroyed.

Here’s the abridged version; turns out Quentin is actually the Monkey King and Genie is the Monkey King’s former all powerful weapon, the Ruyi Jingu Bang, reincarnated as a human.  Of course this takes Genie some time to wrap her head around.  Turns out being the Ruyi Jingu Bang also means she has awesome super powers. Since the Ruyi Jingu Bang, is incredibly powerful everyone is after Genie because they want to harness her power.  Genie has no interest in belonging to someone else.  Genie and Quentin begin to train together, because of those aforementioned demons.  There are over 100 demons that have escaped from hell and Genie and Quentin need to take them all down to save the day. Note – that is not a simple task.  While all that is going on Genie is still trying to manage her day to day life including applying for colleges, friendships, crushes and her divorced parents.  She has her hands full to say the least.


The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline

Frenchie is on the run.  Frenchie is one of the few Indigenous people of North America left and he is being hunted.   Civilization has been devastated by war, climate change and disease.   All but the Indigenous people have lost their ability to dream and because of that people have been slowly losing their minds.  People are desperate to find a cure and have turned to rounding up Indigenous people; testing them, torturing them and collecting their marrow in hope of a cure.   Frenchie and his small crew are heading north hoping to escape the recruiters, but with desperate people at every turn death is always lurking around the corner.


The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco

In another world where there are witches of all kinds; Tea finds that she is a rare bone witch, a witch that can raise creatures good and bad from the dead.  Tea is confronted with what she is, when she accidentally raises her brother from the dead.  Now her and her brother must head to an unfamiliar city, so Tea can train with another bone witch.  As Tea trains her skills grow quickly and the whole city become curious about her and her powers.  Tea realizes there’s a fine line between good and evil that her powers allow her to tread, but there forces out there wanting to pull her into the darkness.


Warcross by Marie Lu

Hacker and bounty hunter Emika Chen is short on cash and options.  When she hacks into the world championship game of Warcross, an online game everybody plays, she can’t pass up an opportunity to grab a power up equal to her monthly rent payment.   It was grand opportunity, but once she grabbed the power up the whole world, including Warcross founder Hideo Tanaka, knew she had hacked in.   Instead of finding the police banging on her door the next morning, she instead has a phone call from Hideo asking her to come to Tokyo for a meeting.   Turns out someone else is hacking into Warcross and Hideo needs Emika to track that person down.   As part of her cover Emika is drafted on to a Warcross team, and has to dig into her team mates personal lives.  As she digs Emika begins to realize that the Warcross plot goes far deeper and is more dangerous than she dreamed.


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