Maggie

Delaney is a teenager growing up in Maine with her best friend Decker. While playing a county-wide game of hide and seek, Decker, her partner, wants to take a shortcut across the lake. Delaney is hesitant, but trusts his lead and starts to walk across anyway. You know where this is going, right?  Yes, she falls in, and remains submerged for eleven minutes until Decker has a chance to pull her out.  According to medicine, you are guaranteed dead after being underwater for a full 10 minutes. Only, Delaney is not dead. She is perfectly alive, with just a few slight problems. For instance, she can now tell when someone is going to die.   

Everyone at Saturn knows I'm a sucker for a good horse story, especially books based on true stories.  I had this one on preorder months before it came out, and in no way did it disappoint.  Dutch immigrant Harry de Leyer purchased Snowman moments before he was to be loaded onto a trailer destined for the slaughter house, all for a mere eighty dollars. Soon after he gets Snowman home, Harry discovers there is more to this horse than meets the eye.  One of the best aspects of this book was the black and white pictures of Snowman and Harry placed at appropriate places throughout the story, instead of a group of pictures in the middle.  My favorite picture is of Snowman, Harry on his back, jumping over his pasture mate, Lady.  This is a perfect Christmas gift for horse lovers and non-horse lovers alike!

A mystical island, carnivorous horses, and a race that results in death for many – this is what The Scorpio Races is all about. However, it also holds much more. It is a human story of two young adults, struggling to find their place in the world. Sean, the reigning champion of the Scorpio Races, and Puck, who is unwillingly thrust into the center of the chaos. This was a blindingly fast read that starts off great and keeps getting better. 

Prue McKeel is growing up in Oregon, right alongside the Impassable Wilderness. No one from Portland has ever ventured in or out, hence the name "Impassable". One day, while Prue is out for a walk with her little brother, a murderous group of crows swoops down and kidnaps him. Prue starts to panic when they fly into the Impassable Wilderness. She knows what she has to do. So begins the adventure of a lifetime for her and her friend Curtis, who offers to help. This was a great adventure read!

It’s a story that’s been told over and over…and over again. Someone dies, and is then stuck between life and death, or heaven and hell, or however the author sets it up. Most of these books have the same type of characters, the same plot line, and are all very predictable. However, Between was unpredictable and original.

On her 18th birthday, Elizabeth falls off her father’s yacht, plummeting to her death. In the morning, Elizabeth’s body is discovered…by Elizabeth. Only she’s dead, so she can’t run for help. As Liz struggles to find out what really happened the night of her 18th birthday, she runs into Alex, a former classmate who died about a year before. Together, they uncover the truth about each other’s deaths. Although Between started out slowly, it quickly gained momentum and became extremely difficult to put down.