Top Ten Tuesday: 2015 YA Debuts

 

Top Ten Tuesday is a list created by the book loving crew at The Broke and the Bookish. Every Tuesday is a different topic and everyone is invited to join in the fun. So here we are! As part of the 2015 site revamp, the WriteOnSisters are taking up the Tuesday challenge.

Here is our first post: Top Ten Most Anticipated Debut Novels For 2015.

I’ve selected YA books since I read and review mostly YA. I’ve picked these based on blurbs. It’s hard to tell if I found any books featuring characters of diversity. I’m hoping at least a few of them will.

I’ve sorted my picks by release date and not by preference. There is a huge crop of new YA authors, and they all show tremendous promise. Selecting just ten books wasn’t easy. In fact I couldn’t and included a bonus 11th pick.

 

1. THE CONSPIRACY OF US, by Maggie Hall
When: January 13, 2015
Why: The armchair travel factor is huge with me – the better the location, the better I like it. This one had me at Istanbul back alleyways. That sounds both exotic and sleazy, a great combo.
What: Avery West’s family can shut down Prada when they want to shop in peace. She’s part of a powerful and dangerous secret society called the Circle. The Circle members believe Avery is the key to an ancient prophecy. Some want to use her as a pawn. Others want her dead. Avery must follow a trail of clues from the monuments of Paris to the back alleys of Istanbul. But as Avery learns the truth about herself, she exposes a stunning conspiracy the might plunge everyone into World War 3.

 

2. TUNNEL VISION, by Susan Adrian
When January 20, 2015
Why: A cool superpower! And I’m all for more male YA protagonists.
What: Jake Lukin just turned 18. He’s decent at tennis and Halo, and waiting to hear on his app to Stanford. But he’s also being followed by a creep with a gun, and there’s a DARPA agent waiting in his bedroom. His secret is blown. When Jake holds a personal object, like a pet rock or a ring, he has the ability to “tunnel” into the owner. He can sense where they are, like a human GPS, and can see, hear, and feel what they do. It’s an ability the government would do anything to possess: a perfect surveillance unit who could locate fugitives, spies, or terrorists with a single touch. Suddenly he’s juggling high school, tennis tryouts, flirting with Rachel Watkins, and work as a government asset, complete with 24-hour bodyguards.

 

3. SHUTTER, by Courtney Alameda
When: February 3, 2015
Why: Creep factor! I’m hungry for YA books that can create some shivers! Plus, I’m a fan of group dynamics, hearing about a “team” grabs my attention.
What: Micheline is a tetrachromat—a girl who sees the auras of the undead in a prismatic spectrum. With an analog SLR camera as her best weapon, Micheline exorcises ghosts by capturing their spiritual energy on film. She’s aided by her crew: Oliver, a techno-whiz and the boy who developed her camera’s technology; Jude, who can predict death; and Ryder, the boy Micheline has known and loved forever. When a ghost hunt goes wrong, Micheline and her team are infected with a curse known as a soulchain. Micheline learns that if she doesn’t exorcise her entity in seven days or less, she and her friends will die.

 

4. RED QUEEN, by Victoria Aveyard
When: February 10, 2015
Why: Politics, palace intrigue, and rebellion! Along with whiskers on kittens, these are a few of my favorite things.
What: Mare Barrow’s world is divided by blood—those with common Red blood serve the Silver-blooded elite who are gifted with superhuman “abilities.” Mare is a Red, scraping by as a thief. When Mare discovers she has an “ability” of her own, the king forces her to play the role of a lost Silver princess and betroths her to one of his own sons. As Mare is drawn further into the Silver world, she risks everything and uses her new position to help the Scarlet Guard—a growing Red rebellion. One wrong move can lead to her death, but in the dangerous game she plays, the only certainty is betrayal.

 

5. MOSQUITOLAND, by David Arnold
When: March 3, 2015
Why: Who doesn’t love a road trip? Mention quirky characters and a Greyhound bus trip and I’m intrigued.
What: Mim Malone lives in a medicated milieu with her dad and new stepmom. But when she learns her real mother is sick, Mim boards a Greyhound bus heading home. During the thousand-mile journey, Mim meets a cast of quirky fellow travelers and her life takes a few turns she never saw coming, Mim must confront her own demons, redefining her notions of love, loyalty, and what it means to be sane.

 

 

6. DUPLICITY, by N.K. Traver
When: March 17, 2015
Why: I’m hoping for lots of hacking and cool nerd talk before the magic and romance part kicks in.
What: In private, seventeen-year-old Brandon hacks bank accounts just for the thrill of it. In public, he looks like any other tattooed bad boy with a fast car and devil-may-care attitude. Two things shatter his carefully-built image: Emma, the kind, stubborn girl who insists on looking beneath the surface, and the small matter of his mirror reflection, which starts moving by itself.

 

 

7. WE ALL LOOKED UP, by Tommy Wallach
When: March 24, 2015
Why: A ticking clock, and I love those. This book has the prospect of both deep personal soul searching and epic public chaos. Bring it!
What: They always say that high school is the best time of your life, but for four seniors an asteroid on a collision course with Earth puts that notion to the test. As the four wait with the rest of humanity to see what damage an asteroid will cause, they must abandon all thoughts of the future and decide how they’re going to spend what remains of their present.

 

 

8. DENTON LITTLE’S DEATHDATE, by Lance Rubin
When: April 14, 2015
Why: Another ticking clock, with a male protagonist! (Insert happy dance here.) With all the action crammed into just 48 hours, it should be a fast and fun read.
What: In a world where everyone knows the day on which they will die, teen Denton has just two days left. When a strange man shows up at his funeral claiming to have known Denton’s long-deceased mother, and warning him to beware of some suspicious government characters. . . . Denton’s last days of life are filled with mysterious questions and precious little time to find the answers.

 

 

9. AN EMBER IN THE ASHES, by Sabaa Tahir
When: Apr 28, 2015
Why: Duel viewpoints, lavish world building and epic stakes. I’m in!
What: Set in a terrifyingly brutal Rome-like world, Laia goes undercover as a slave at the empire’s greatest military academy to save her bother. Elias is the academy’s finest soldier— and secretly, its most unwilling. When Laia and Elias’s paths cross at the academy, they find that their destinies are more intertwined than either could have imagined and that their choices will change the future of the empire itself.

 

 

 

10. LOCK & MORI, by Heather Petty
When: September 15, 2015
Why: What I really want is a historical female version of Holmes, it would explain so much about the Holmes/Watson relationship dynamic. But I’ll take a modern version with a female Moriarty in a pinch.
What: 16-year-old Miss James “Mori” Moriarty, is looking for an escape from her recent past and spiraling home life. She takes her classmate Sherlock Holmes up on his challenge to solve a murder mystery in Regent’s Park. The answers lead Holmes too close to all that Mori has been hiding.

Bonus Pick:
11. BECAUSE YOU’LL NEVER MEET ME, by Leah Thomas
When: June 2, 2015
Why: A male coming of age story with a couple of twists that make it sound like it might be a pretty good read. This is one I’ll be picking up for my son to read.
What: Ollie and Moritz are best friends, but they can never meet. Ollie has a life-threatening allergy to electricity, and Moritz’s weak heart requires a pacemaker. If they ever did meet, they could both die. Living as recluses from society, the boys develop a fierce bond. But when Moritz reveals the key to their shared, sinister past that began years ago in a mysterious German laboratory, their friendship faces a test neither one of them expected.