In My Mailbox - 5/21/11

Credit goes to The Story Siren for creating and hosting the In My Mailbox feature.

Here are the new books I got this week. I will be going to BookExpo America (BEA) next week (so excited!), so next week's IMM will include all the books I get there.

For review:

Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

Juliette hasn't touched anyone in exactly 264 days. The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette's touch is fatal. As long as she doesn't hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old-girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don't fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.
The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war- and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she's exactly what they need right now.
Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.
In this electrifying debut, Tahereh Mafi presents a world as riveting as The Hunger Games and a superhero story as thrilling as The X-Men. Full of pulse-pounding romance, intoxicating villainy, and high-stakes choices, Shatter Me is a fresh and original dystopian novel—with a paranormal twist—that will leave readers anxiously awaiting its sequel.


Eve by Anna Carey

The year is 2032, sixteen years after a deadly virus—and the vaccine intended to protect against it—wiped out most of the earth’s population. The night before eighteen-year-old Eve’s graduation from her all-girls school she discovers what really happens to new graduates, and the horrifying fate that awaits her.
Fleeing the only home she’s ever known, Eve sets off on a long, treacherous journey, searching for a place she can survive. Along the way she encounters Caleb, a rough, rebellious boy living in the wild. Separated from men her whole life, Eve has been taught to fear them, but Caleb slowly wins her trust...and her heart. He promises to protect her, but when soldiers begin hunting them, Eve must choose between true love and her life.


The Poison Diaries: Nightshade by Maryrose Wood

Sixteen-year-old Jessamine Luxton is heartbroken. Her true love, Weed, the strange but intriguing young man who came into her life so suddenly, has disappeared. How could he have left her with no farewell, and no word since?
Jessamine may not know why Weed vanished, but she does suspect that her own father, Thomas, may have had something to do with it. Thomas, who was so obsessed with Weed’s secret knowledge of dangerous plants that he would do anything to learn it. This suspicion—and her experiences with poisons—have changed her. She is no longer innocent, and now she has her own intimate knowledge of the power of the plants.
So when Jessamine learns that Weed is alive and in danger, she will do whatever it takes to be reunited with him.
She is, after all, her father’s daughter....


Starcroseed by Josephine Angelini

How do you defy destiny?
Helen Hamilton has spent her entire sixteen years trying to hide how different she is—no easy task on an island as small and sheltered as Nantucket. And it's getting harder. Nightmares of a desperate desert journey have Helen waking parched, only to find her sheets damaged by dirt and dust. At school she's haunted by hallucinations of three women weeping tears of blood . . . and when Helen first crosses paths with Lucas Delos, she has no way of knowing they're destined to play the leading roles in a tragedy the Fates insist on repeating throughout history.
As Helen unlocks the secrets of her ancestry, she realizes that some myths are more than just legend. But even demigod powers might not be enough to defy the forces that are both drawing her and Lucas together—and trying to tear them apart.


Bought:

Cleopatra Confesses by Carolyn Meyer

It is the first century B.C. Cleopatra, the third of the pharaoh's six children, is the one that her father has chosen to be the next queen of Egypt. But when King Ptolemy is forced into exile, Cleopatra is left alone to fend for herself in a palace rife with intrigue and murder. Smart, courageous, ambitious and sensuously beautiful, she possesses the charm to cause two of history's most famous leaders to fall in love with her. But as her cruel sisters plot to steal the throne, Cleopatra realizes there is only one person on whom she can rely--herself.


Just a Girl by Jane Caro

Determined, passionate and headstrong, Elizabeth I shaped the destiny of a kingdom.
Her mother; Anne Boleyn, was executed by her father Henry VIII. From that moment on, Elizabeth competed with her two half-siblings for love and for Britain’s throne. In the gilded corridors of the royal palace, enemies she couldn’t see – as well as those bound to her by blood – plotted to destroy her.
Using her courage to survive and her wits to confound those who despised her, this young woman became one of the greatest monarchs the world has ever seen.
Even though she was just a girl, she had already lived a lifetime.


Our Australian Girl: A Friend for Grace by Sofie Laguna

Grace's journey continues in this, the second of four books about a convict girl who is given a second chance.
Grace is on board the Indispensable, being transported to New South Wales from London to start new her life as a convict servant. Even though she misses the horses on Fleet Street, she is happy to have her new friend Hannah with her, who makes even the most horrible situations magical. But when sickness sweeps the ship, who will survive? A dramatic and exciting insight into the trials of our convict ancestors, A Friend for Grace is a tale of bravery and friendship from a writer of immense talent.


Our Australian Girl: Letty and the Stranger's Lace by Alison Lloyd

Letty's journey continues in this, the second of exciting four books about a free-settler girl in a far-off land.
Letty and Lavinia have arrived in Sydney as free settlers. They've made the long ship's journey from England, but with no friends, no family, no jobs and only a hope chest between them, how will they survive so far from home? When Lavinia gets a job in the posh end of town, Letty is left alone, feeling sad and worthless. But a series of events leads her to a mysterious stranger who helps Letty realise that she is not as useless as she fears...


Our Australian Girl: Poppy at Sumerhill by Gabrielle Wang

Poppy at Summerhill is the second story in a set of four about the amazing journey of a young Chinese Aboriginal girl, who lives on a Christian mission in 1864. It is a story of bravery and love, as Poppy sets out to chase her brother after he escapes from the Mission in search of freedom and a better life.
In this second book, Poppy is taken in by caring homestead family, after a terrible accident leaves her injured. The family's aboriginal stockman, Tommy, awakens Poppy's Aboriginal roots and teaches her about their culture.


Our Australian Girl: Rose on Wheels by Sherryl Clark

Rose's journey continues in this, the second of four books about a Federation girl who's determined to do things her way.
Rose's Mother and Aunt Alice are fighting again, and Rose is caught in the middle. So when it looks as if Aunt Alice might leave, it's up to Rose to fix things! Will Rose ever be allowed to follow her own dreams and go to school? Will Aunt Alice really go to Adelaide, leaving Rose behind? And what is the matter with Edward? Rose on Wheels will have the hearts of young readers racing as they follow Rose's quest to be herself.