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Being different from everyone is never easy.  Lena Mattagascar has struggled with this situation her entire life. She was born with extremely long and narrow hands and feet.  Her digits each have an extra section giving her hands a long spider-like appearance.  Lena attempts to hide this abnormality by wearing gloves and keeping her feet hidden by long skirts. At an early age the family physician diagnosed her condition as “goblinism” and ever since then she has been anxious that she may, in fact, be a Peculiar. 

The Peculiars by Maureen Doyle McQuerry is a fun combination of fantasy and steampunk, self-discovery and adventure. On her 18th birthday, Lena decides to leave her home in the City to travel to Scree, a remote and sparsely populated wilderness region to the far north. It is rumored that Peculiars, the outcasts of society, reside there. Her quest is to find her father who abandoned the family when she was only 5. He was rumored to have been a Peculiar, and if this proves to be true it will confirm her worst fears. Lena has been told that Peculiars have no soul, have wild thoughts, and a temper. She worries her goblin genes will overtake her in her sleep and watches closely for changes in her behavior.

Is she or isn’t she, the question keeps presenting itself throughout the novel. Are her physical characteristics just an anomaly or signs of the dreaded genetic disease? Is being a goblin a physical condition or just a term for evil behavior? This unique story, with likable characters and stunning descriptions, is an adventure that will have you re-evaluating your own definition of acceptance and what it means to belong.

The eyes are often said to be the windows to the soul, but what if you could be on the inside looking out through those windows? And what if that person is a killer?

Slide by Jill Hathaway is named for the special “ability” that teenager Sylvia (Vee) possesses…when she is tired she can slide into someone else’s body if she touches something that they have touched. The trouble is that she cannot control it, so she spends much of her time trying not to touch things. This gets her wrongly labeled as OCD, narcoleptic, and just plain crazy. She hides the truth from her family (which is not difficult since her mother is dead, her father is a workaholic surgeon and her sister is a popular cheerleader who looks down on the rest of the school.) She also hides it from her best friend Rollins, who might be sympathetic but he has his own secrets to hide. But when Vee slides one night and finds herself standing over the dead body of her sister’s best friend with a bloody knife in her hand, she knows she has to gain control of her sliding and try to discover who the killer is.

Slide is a fast-paced mystery for those readers who like just a hint of the supernatural. Vee is a strong heroine who is remarkably well-grounded despite the trauma in her young life. Slide has received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly and is Hathaway’s first novel.

Embrace by Jessica Shirvington is an exciting new novel for older teens that will also appeal to adults who read paranormal romance. This is the first book in a series that is already very popular in Shirvington’s native Australia.

When Violet Eden turns 17, she receives a cryptic letter from her deceased mother that says that Violet will have to choose. Soon, Violet learns about a secret that will change her life forever.  She is a member of the Grigori, a race of part-human, part-angel warriors whose job is to hunt exiled angels who seek vengeance on Earth. Violet will have to choose—will she embrace and accept her life as a Grigori or turn her back on it?

Violet is also in the middle of a love triangle. Her friend and training partner, Lincoln, is her Grigori partner. He has known what she is since he met her, and Violet feels betrayed that he has kept the secret from her.  Soon after learning about her role as a Grigori, she also meets Phoenix, an exiled angel who she finds intriguing. Phoenix is honest about who and what he is, and it’s clear that there’s much more to Phoenix than meets the eye. Can Violet really trust him?

Embrace is engaging and filled with romance, intrigue, and action.  Violet is a tough heroine--think Buffy the Vampire Slayer taking on evil angels! The angel mythology in the story is unusual enough to engage the reader.