young adult
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Orange Juice in Bishop’s Garden by Otessa Ghadar
You know that summer, right… the summer where EVERYTHING changed? Orange Juice in Bishop’s Garden (OJBG) is that summer. And Bishop’s Garden is the place where it all happens. It’s the summer of ’94 and naive and rebellious teens are engaging in all kinds of underage tomfoolery. Think grunge, Doc Martens, raves, the invincibility of youth, and epic first loves.
This book details the lives of a group of teenagers navigating high school and growing up in DC during the 1990’s. It’s all about teen magic– creating new and marvelous mischief with best friends, listening to mix-tapes and reading Sassy magazines, missing the last Metro, and getting stuck miles from payphones. Accompany the young heroine, Sarah, as she gets herself into idle summer misbehaving, love triangle betrayals, and friendship fallouts. This is a story about what her life is like before school’s truly over and she knows it’s all going to change for good. It’s about the friends she’ll never forget, those first mistakes, and her childish dreams not yet polluted by reality. She and her friends will engage in typical teen idolatry of hot musicians and renegades. They’ll set each other up and tear each other down. They’ll crash house parties and realize that sometimes in life, there are no ‘do-overs.’ They’ll steal cars, candies, and hearts. They’ll make you wish you were a teen again.
This book contains the full collection of scripts from season one of the oldest and longest running teen web series, “Orange Juice in Bishop’s Garden.” And it’s the prequel to the epic romance between two teen girls that has become known as “The Sarah & Gwen Experience.” The love story develops in season 2 and spans to season 6. It’s part recollection, part urban legend, and part pure fiction, and completely inspired by the author’s memories of growing up in DC and the enchantment of her youth. The author, Otessa Ghadar, captures teen life as it is lived–dramatic, filled with self-discovery, and the pain of growing up. Together, as a whole, the stories and the characters ring true. Read the book and you’ll realize you’ve either been– or known– one of these characters before.
Venture into Bishop’s Garden and remember what it feels like to have your whole life ahead of you! Best part is, when you’re done reading, you can meet the characters by watching the webseries adaptation online (www.ojinbg.com).
Bloods Gem by Gloria Conway
Daniel is a half breed vampire and shape shifter also known as an ill-suen. He’s charming and often a comical individual. However, in public or in the company of his elders Daniel comes across as polished and moderately vain. At the young age of eighteen Daniel started his training as an ill-suen. The training process consisted of fighting techniques and building immunity to human blood. This was to ensure his safe journey to finding his gem. His gem being the person whom he takes on as a life long mate. She was his key to immortality. If she dies before “unolding” then he dies too. Unolding is the process that secures the bond between ill-suen and gem. Daniels journey to his gem however never took place. He stumbled on his gem the night before his journey. Unfortunately, Daniel struggled with his desires for her blood. Soon Daniel had an epiphany, that he wanted to love and protect his gem Faith. Daniel and Faith started a relationship. They got to know each other on a deeper level as time passed, making their bond that much more intense. But, Daniel had not yet unold on Faith. Soon this relationship would be stressed by untested desires. Daniel struggles with his morbid thoughts of drinking Faiths blood. While Faith relentlessly lust over Daniel, who continues to deny her request for sexual interaction.
The Hunters and the Queen by Virginia Vayna
The main character, Jolán Vajnbirg, is developing into another being. She has a calling from the sky world. A battle is on the horizon.
While working on her studies at the Churchill Military Academy in Kinsburgh, England, Jolán Vajnbirg’s final year at the academy develops into a year of competition, aristocratic love, reincarnated spirits, and a calling from the sky world to help save earth from the death and destruction caused by the Order of the Hunters.
Jolán Vajnbirg is an often reserved, yet occasionally outspoken young woman living in Kinsburgh, England. She has a relatively easy life living in her quiet England town. She has a full-ride swimming scholarship to the Churchill Military Academy. She has a strong mind, she has an athletic body, and she has a loving family and caring friends. Even though her family has a modest income, Jolán makes the best of her situation and excels at anything she puts her focus towards.
As Jolán embarks upon her final year at the Churchill Military Academy, her life takes an unexpected turn. She has a quaint encounter with Colemund, the Prince of Gallia Belgica, and the two are literally a universal match created centuries ago. As Jolán begins the last year of her studies, she experiences many changes.
The sky world is steadily preparing Jolán for her future fate. Jolán will need her friends to help her battle the Order of the Hunters. The hunters have upset the universal balance of earth, and the hunters have upset the sky world.
Till Death and Beyond by Angie Skelhorn
Till Death and Beyond opens with a teenage girl named Zoe, inexperienced in witchcraft, in the woods on a Full Moon cast a spell for a love she feels is lost to her. The teenager new to magic, is careless of her words for her desire. The spirit of a maiden witch appears. At first the teenager is afraid of the ghostly figure, and then her curiosity calms her nerves.
The Spirit tells the tale how she and the love of her life were separated by ignorance. Zoe, the teenage girl experiments with magic to reunite the Spirit with her long lost love.
From Stardust To Babylon by Amanda Bruce @AmandaBruce5
A gripping love story with an extraordinary twist, From Stardust To Babylon chronicles a doomed teenage love affair that transforms into an unbreakable bond between a woman and the spirit of her former lover.
From the moment Simon and Amanda meet, they are struck by a shared sense of déjà vu. Head over heels in love, they try hard to make their relationship work, despite inner voices telling them their happiness isn’t meant for ‘this life’. After parting broken-hearted, Amanda eventually marries someone else but, in 2001, she learns via a telepathic messages that Simon has died. This heralds the start of a series of supernatural events that will bring them together again. Transgressing the normal boundaries of human existence, it is a story of love – a love that survived bodily death.
“Unputdownable. This is the most incredible love story I have ever read.” – Jan Vance.
