Book Recommendations

Miscellaneous

For some of these books, I either couldn't decide where to put them, or I didn't want to make a separate category for only one book. This page is subject to change.

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Embassy Row

Type: Trilogy

Level: YA

Author: Ally Carter

My rating: 5/5

Summary: Grace Blakely is absolutely certain of three things:

1. She is not crazy.
2. Her mother was murdered.
3. Someday she is going to find the killer and make him pay.

As certain as Grace is about these facts, nobody else believes her–so there's no one she can completely trust. Not her grandfather, a powerful ambassador. Not her new friends, who all live on Embassy Row. Not Alexei, the Russian boy next door who is keeping an eye on Grace for reasons she neither likes nor understands.

Everybody wants Grace to put on a pretty dress and a pretty smile, blocking out all her unpretty thoughts. But they can't control Grace–no more than Grace can control what she knows or what she needs to do.

Her past has come back to hunt her . . . and if she doesn't stop it, Grace isn't the only one who will get hurt. Because on Embassy Row, the countries of the world all stand like dominoes, and one wrong move can make them all fall down. 

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Heist Society

Type: Series

Level: YA

Author: Ally Carter

My rating: 5/5

Summary: When Katarina Bishop was three, her parents took her on a trip to the Louvre...to case it. For her seventh birthday, Katarina and her Uncle Eddie traveled to Austria...to steal the crown jewels. When Kat turned fifteen, she planned a con of her own—scamming her way into the best boarding school in the country, determined to leave the family business behind. Unfortunately, leaving "the life" for a normal life proves harder than she'd expected.

Soon, Kat's friend and former co-conspirator, Hale, appears out of nowhere to bring Kat back into the world she tried so hard to escape. But he has a good reason: a powerful mobster has been robbed of his priceless art collection and wants to retrieve it. Only a master thief could have pulled this job, and Kat's father isn't just on the suspect list, he is the list. Caught between Interpol and a far more deadly enemy, Kat's dad needs her help.

For Kat, there is only one solution: track down the paintings and steal them back. So what if it's a spectacularly impossible job? She's got two weeks, a teenage crew, and hopefully just enough talent to pull off the biggest heist in her family's history–and, with any luck, steal her life back along the way.

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Cat Royal

Type: Series

Level: late Middle School-early YA

Author: Julia Golding

My rating: 4/5

Summary: She lives in the Theater Royal on Drury Lane, a place filled with dramatic characters, theatrical spectacles, and now, a secret treasure—which Cat has been asked to protect. ... Follow Cat into the streets of London, as she faces danger and adventure, racing to be the first to discover the diamond of Drury Lane!

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Ruby Red

Type: Trilogy

Level: YA

Author:  Kerstin Gier

My rating: THE BEST time travel books you'll ever read

Summary: Sixteen-year-old Gwyneth Shepherd appears to be an average British teenager: going to school, detesting her uniform, and hanging out and watching movies with her best friend, Lesley. But there is more to Gwen's story than homework and boys. Gwen's family has a deep, dark secret, a secret originating from the 1500s, and around which a complete network of scientists, doctors and even a secret society has formed.

Certain people in Gwen's family carry a unique gene that actually tosses them back through time. Those with the gene usually start transporting around age 16. They don't have any control over when or where it will happen, and no idea of when or where they will end up. Then, after anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours, they will slip back to the present. And surprise! Gwen is the next in line with the special gene. Oh yeah, Gwen also sees and speaks to dead people, like she doesn't have enough on her mind already.

Everyone in on the secret expected Gwen's cousin, Charlotte, to be the gene carrier. In preparation, Charlotte spends years learning all there is to know about this phenomenon, plus receives important instructions and lessons on surviving certain challenges of the past, like fencing and waltzing. Gwen, on the other hand, learns only the bare necessities about the family secret, such as needing to escort Charlotte straight home when she starts showing signs of her first trip, like dizziness. But it turns out that Charlotte is the "normal" one, and Gwen is the one who zaps into the past. And she is completely unprepared.

And that's not all. Someone in the organization has gone rogue. Gwen's older cousin, Lucy, and another time traveler, Paul, have disappeared, and are suspected of conspiracy. Gwen isn't sure who to trust, especially when someone tries to kill her on one of her zips to the past. It appears the family has more secrets than they are willing to share, and Gwen is stuck right in the middle of the danger.

(sorry if that was kinda long)

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Imaginarium Geographica

Type: Series

Level: YA

Author: James A. Owen

My rating: 4/5

Summary: The unusual murder of an Oxford professor brings together three strangers in World War I London: John, a soldier and the professor's correspondence student; Jack, a young Oxford student; and Charles, an editor at the Oxford University Press. One rainy night they meet a curious man called Bert who tells them that they are the caretakers of the Imaginarium Geographica, an atlas of imaginary lands. 

Note: This series involves serious thinking and confusion, around the 4th book. It's time travel and the Butterfly Effect, after all ;)

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And there you have it! I am going to go back and add descriptions, I think. 

Enjoy,

  ⤮ Meels  

P.S. Should I do a chapter for must-read fanfictions?? Let me know what you think!!