#AtoZChallenge Ellen Conford

Ellen Conford is an author who probably doesn't get as much attention anymore, but was one of my favorites when I was in middle grades and high school. I still remember reading A Royal Pain in the 6th grade, and creating a board game based on it. In fact, I just reread that book a couple of years ago. Dear Lovey Hart, I Am Desperate, If This Is Love, I'll Take Spaghetti, and Why Me? were other favorites.

Unfortunately, these books are now considered classics that are no longer necessarily being sold as new. I do know that you can often still find them at your local library, or even at a used bookstore. They're great fun to read.

 

For those looking for something new, Ellen Conford does have a younger series out right now, called the Jenny Archer series.

#AtoZChallenge YA Author Ann Brashares

When I think of YA reads, I always think of Ann Brashares. Her Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series is still one of my all-time favorites, that I have read more than once. I was sad when it ended, especially with the last book! I bawled through that one.

Ann has also written a few other titles. I did read 3 Willows and liked it, though it is probably more middle grade than young adult. I have also read The Last Summer (of You and Me), which was an adult novel. She has another adult novel available, called My Name is Memory.

Click on a book cover for more information about it, including other people's reviews. I have put the books in order of reader age, starting with those appropriate for the younger readers and ending with her adult books.

Which ones have you read? What did you think of them?

#AtoZChallenge YA Author Alicia Michaels

I love to find new authors to read. That's one of the reasons that I love doing book tours so much. It's also one of the driving forces behind including this blog in the 2013 A to Z Challenge. In the weeks leading up to the challenge, I asked followers on Twitter, Google+, and Facebook to share with me some of their favorite authors. I also looked through some of my favorites from old blog posts, and did some other research to come up with a list from A to Z to share with readers. 

For this first selection, I chose Alicia Michaels. She is one of the authors who belongs to the Anchor Group, one of my favorites for finding young adult fiction. I just downloaded 'The Bionics,' which is the first book in The Bionics series, and is free (as of this posting) on Amazon. I bought 'Daughter of the Red Dawn' during one of their big sales, but haven't yet read it. I am always willing to give Anchor Group authors a try!

I have included her book covers, along with the blurbs from Amazon. You can click on a book cover to be taken directly to Amazon to check out reviews from fellow readers and to purchase her books for yourself. Please let me know what you think of them!

All I ever wanted was to be a normal girl. I had dreams of joining the ranks of the Military Police and making my family proud. But the nuclear war that laid waste to our country destroyed any hope I had of being normal ever again. They took everything away from me, including my humanity. I am now half-human, half-machine, part of the never-ending freak show that is the Restoration Project.

They hate what they created and they fear us for being powerful.

And so they hunt us, destroying our lives so that they can bury what they built. What they don’t know is this: there is a Resistance out there and The Bionics aren’t going down without a fight.

**Due to coarse language and mild sexual innuendo, this story is not recommended for teens under the age of sixteen.**

We stand on the brink of a double rescue mission, a plan so foolhardy that even our bravest men are quaking inside with fear. Storm the capitol, free the prisoners, don’t get killed. It seems like a suicide mission, but not a single one of us has anything to lose.

In my past life, I was a scoundrel; a drug peddling street thug who cared nothing for anyone because I had no one to care for me. The nuclear blasts of 4006 reminded me of the value of life, and a girl with the saddest eyes I’ve ever gazed into gave me someone to care for. Now, as we embark on our most dangerous enterprise, I can only hope that we make it out alive and that those we have lost can be recovered.

Foolishness … fear … hope … These are the elements that threw our revolution into motion. As the momentum of the Resistance continues to build, we can only pray that hope continues grow larger than our fear.

**Due to coarse language and mild sexual innuendo, this book is not intended for teens under the age of sixteen**

In the year 1845, before the mystical land of Fallada was separated from the realm of men forever, the two worlds coexisted in harmony. Man could mingle freely in the world of the Elves and Faeries at will and peace reigned. In the hills of Shropshire, England, just miles from the gate separating the village of Ludlow from the world of mystical creatures, farmer’s daughter Zara Wells longs for answers. It is not only the golden hair that trail feet behind her, or the strange hue of her violet eyes that separates her from the other girls her village. There is something inside of her, something touched by magic that longs to know more about what lies on the other side of the gate. In Fallada, darkness has begun to spread. As the youngest and most beautiful girls of her village begin to disappear, Zara comes closer to discovering the true circumstances surrounding her birth. Little does she know, that the closer she comes to the answers she so desperately desires, the closer she will come to being ensnared in the dark queen’s web of growing treachery.

These are dark times in the land of Fallada, and I fear that they will only continue to grow darker. Only the return of those we’ve lost will even the score.

It will begin with first line of the prophecy, which foretells of a red sun over the desert sky…
--Adrah, Queen of the Fae

On the outside, seventeen year-old Selena McKinley is like any other teenage girl. Yet Selena has always felt as if she doesn’t belong and is counting the days to graduation and her freedom from the small town that makes her feel so out of place, when the arrival of a stranger turns her world upside down. Selena will learn just how different she is and the truth of where she comes from.

A lost princess, they call her, the catalyst for a war involving a world that Selena was taken from as a child. An evil queen obsessed with her own beauty with a plan to enslave the human race.…the notion seems so silly, yet Selena knows in her heart that it is true. Then there is Titus, the shape shifter whose blue eyes and claims of destiny hold her heart captive. Can Selena find the strength to do what she must while following her heart?

Who are some of your favorite YA authors who begin with the letter A? Or some of your favorite titles that start with A?