Posted in So Many Good Books, YA Novels

My Imaginary Mary

My Imaginary Mary (HarperCollins, 2022) by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, Jodi Meadows is another fun romp through an imagined history.

Mary Shelley (teen author of Frankenstein) and Ada Lovelace (world’s first computer programmer) meet and discover they are both fae–magical people. When they team up and make a living breathing automaton, they go on the run from a mad scientist trying to figure out their secrets.

Of course in real life these two never meet, but don’t let what actually happened spoil your enjoyment of this story.

Read about Cynthia and discover her other books here. Ditto for Brodi here. Tritto for Jodi here. The best selling authors have their own team website where they share the following descriptions of their other books:

“MY LADY JANE is Jane Grey meets LadyHawke. (Or The Princess Bride.)” My recommendation here.
“MY PLAIN JANE is Jane Eyre meets Ghostbusters.
MY CALAMITY JANE is the Wild West meets Teen Wolf.
MY CONTRARY MARY is Reign (the TV show) meet The Princess Bride. (Or LadyHawke.) Again, same world as My Lady Jane.

A new book will be coming in 2024: “MY SALTY MARY will be Pirates of the Caribbean meets The Little Mermaid.”

I need to catch up on the ones I haven’t read.

Posted in So Many Good Books, YA Novels

What Goes Up

whatgoesup.jpgWhat Goes Up (Bloomsbury, 2017) by Katie Kennedy is a scifi novel written in two viewpoints. I loved it!
Both Eddie and Rosa are applying to NASA’s Interworlds Agency tryouts. Only two out of 200 just done with their junior year students will make the cut. Two days of testing. And confirmation that there are aliens. The math and physics exams aren’t too unusual, but the idiosyncratic exams are something else. Rosa should make the cut–look at her background. But Eddie–he’s trouble.
The book has humor, danger, romance, friendship, sorrow, and more. Don’t miss it.
You can read Katie’s bio here. She also has another book out–Learning to Swear in America–another scifi. I need to get it.