Archives de catégorie : Nos incontournables

THE SHADOWSPELL ACADEMY SERIES de Shannon Mayer & K.F. Breene

Hunger Games meets A Deadly Education in this collaboration between USA Today bestselling authors Shannon Mayer and K.F. Breene, in which a teen girl infiltrates a dangerous school for magic to search for her missing brother.

THE SHADOWSPELL ACADEMY SERIES (Books 1 to 6)
by Shannon Mayer & K.F. Breene
Skyhorse, 2019-2021
(via JABberwocky Literary Agency)

You Don’t Choose The Academy. The Academy Chooses You.
I had no idea how those words would change my life. Or how they’d changed my life already… Until the day the most dangerous man I’ve ever met waltzed onto my farm and left us a death sentence. In an invitation. My younger brother has been chosen for the prestigious, secret magical school hidden within the folds of our mundane world. A place so dangerous, they don’t guarantee you’ll make it out alive. If he doesn’t go our entire family will be killed. It’s the same invitation my older brother received three years ago—the same place he mysteriously died. The academy has already killed one sibling. I’ll be damned if they take another. I do the only thing an older sister can: chop off my hair, strap on two bras to flatten the girls, and take my brother’s place. Magic and monsters are real. Assassins are coming for me, and the dead are prone to rise. What’s a girl faking it as a boy supposed to do? That’s right—beat the academy at its own game. Or die trying.

Shadowspell Academy novels offer delicious cliffhangers that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the final book – SHADOWSPELL ACADEMY: YEAR OF THE CHAMELEON (Book 6).

THE CULLING TRIALS PART 1 (#1) – April 2019
THE CULLING TRIALS PART 2 (#2) – May 2019
THE CULLING TRIALS PART 3 (#3) – June 2019
THE YEAR OF THE CHAMELEON, PART 1 (#4) – February 2021
THE YEAR OF THE CHAMELEON PART 2 (#5) – March 2021
THE YEAR OF THE CHAMELEON PART 3 (#6) – May 2021

K.F. Breene is a Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Washington Post, and Amazon Charts bestselling author of paranormal romance, urban fantasy, and fantasy novels. With nearly three million books sold, when she’s not penning stories about magic and what goes bump in the night, she’s sipping wine and planning shenanigans. She lives in Northern California with her husband, two children, and out of work treadmill.

Shannon Mayer is the USA Today, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post bestselling author of urban fantasy, epic fantasy, and paranormal romance novels and series. She has sold more copies of her books than she can count on one hand—close to three million. She lives in the southwestern tip of Canada with her husband, son, and a menagerie of animals, many of which show up in her books as sassy side characters.

PETWIZARDS de Kirk Scroggs

Perfect for animal lovers and fans of Lumberjanes, here is a hilarious middle-grade graphic novel about a glam rock-loving boy named Finch with the not-so-secret ability to control animals, and his mission to save the school musical and win the heart of his crush.

PETWIZARDS
by Kirk Scroggs
Union Square Kids, August 2024
(via JABberwocky Literary Agency)

Finch Eaglehawk may seem like an average oddball with a taste for the dramatic and glam-rock musical numbers, but he has a secret. Finch is a PetWizard, with the ability to control the animal kingdom—well, the « et cetera » category of the animal kingdom. Though he loves his naked mole rats, bearded dragons, and boa constrictors, Finch yearns for more. With the help of his best friend, Aberdeen, a mysterious new kid named Erica, and an ancient PetMaster manual, Finch tries to learn how to own his powers and use them to help those in need, protect the vulnerable, and, most important, impress his crush, Ken Chu, the star of the upcoming school musical.

Kirk Scroggs is the author and illustrator of The Secret Spiral of Swamp Kid and We Found a Monster. He has been publishing illustrated middle-grade novels for over fifteen years. Kirk lives in Los Angeles with his husband, Steve, and an ungrateful cat.

BATTLEGROUND UKRAINE d’Adrian Karatnycky

A prominent foreign policy analyst details the power centers that shape modern Ukraine.

BATTLEGROUND UKRAINE
From Independence to the War with Russia
by Adrian Karatnycky
Yale University Press, June 2024
(via Liza Dawson Associates)

The first major English-language history of Ukraine from its emergence after the demise of the Soviet Union through the current Russian invasion.

In 1991, after seventy years of imperial Soviet rule, Ukraine became an independent country. Since 2022, it has been fighting for its survival by resisting an unprovoked, brutal, and ongoing invasion by Russia. At the center of its resistance is the resilience of a united people.

Adrian Karatnycky tells the history of how the Ukrainian state and nation gradually emerged through the tenures of the six presidents who have led Ukraine since the collapse of the USSR, including Volodymyr Zelensky, elected in 2019.

Karatnycky shows that despite the influence of corrupt oligarchs, pressures from Russia, and the legacies of Soviet rule, a disparate but inclusive Ukrainian nation has emerged that inspires the world as it defends the principle that states have the right to their national sovereignty.

“Ukraine’s battle is our battle, so understanding its post-independence history is vital if the battle is to be won. Adrian Karatnycky has done an outstanding job of telling that story, warts and all.” –Bill Emmott, former editor in chief, The Economist, and Chairman, International Institute for Strategic Studies

“An indispensable history of contemporary Ukraine by a writer who is himself one of the builders of contemporary Ukraine. The point of view is intimate. The insights are astute. The sympathy extends to all who labored, fought, and sacrificed for a liberal, democratic, and European Ukraine.” –David Frum, the Atlantic

“Adrian Karatnycky has a knowledge of Ukraine that comes not only with reading history but also with making it. A participant in many key events in Ukraine’s recent past, in this important book, he provides unique insights into the rise of independent Ukraine and explains why the country and its people keep fighting when others gave up.” –Serhii Plokhy, Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History, Harvard University

“ Truly invaluable. Adrian Karatnycky’s knowledge of and personal feel for Ukraine— its leaders and its people—come through on every page. Want to make yourself an expert on the problem that will define Europe’s future for decades to come? Read this book!” –Stephen Sestanovich, Davis Professor of International Affairs, Columbia University, Former US Ambassador-at-Large to the Newly Independent States of the Former USSR

Adrian Karatnycky is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. Through the council’s Ukraine program, as a labor union official, and as CEO of Freedom House, he has been deeply engaged in Ukraine for over three decades. He has written about Ukraine for leading newspapers and journals.

SILVER AND BLOOD de Jessie Mihalik

This enthralling Beauty and the Beast-inspired retelling is Naomi Novik’s Uprooted meets Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thrones and Roses, delivering all the high stakes and steamy intensity that make it every fantasy romance fan’s perfect next read.

SILVER AND BLOOD
Book 1
by Jessie Mihalik
Avon, 2025
(via Nancy Yost Literary)

When Riela, an untrained magic wielder, agrees to venture into the dark forest to kill the deadly beast that has been attacking her fellow villagers, she accepts the responsibility even though it likely means her death. The last thing she thought to encounter while battling one of the forest beasts was a powerful, scarred, and strikingly handsome mage.

Riela awakens in a magical castle complete with a gorgeous library, a strange wolf, and the surly man who saved her life. Riela soon learns Garrick is not a mortal mage at all—he’s a powerful Etheri sovereign who has been locked out of his kingdom in Lohka for nearly a century, and his powers are weakening.

Trapped in his castle and surrounded by the dangerous woods, Riela and Garrick fight a losing battle against the desire growing between them. But the more they discover about Riela’s magic, the more suspicious Garrick grows of her identity. As they unravel the secrets connecting Riela’s past to Lohka, the tenuous threads of trust between Riela and Garrick begin to fray because her life—or her death—might be the key to regaining everything he’s lost.

Jessie Mihalik writes romantic fantasy and science fiction packed with found family, action, adventure, and badass women.

THE ISLAND OF LAST THINGS d’Emma Sloley

A soaring, propulsive, and unforgettably poignant novel about two zookeepers at the last zoo in the world, in the vein of Téa Obreht and Charlotte McConaghy.

THE ISLAND OF LAST THINGS
by Emma Sloley
Flatiron Books, May 2025

Camille has always preferred animals to people. The wild has nearly disappeared, but as a zookeeper at the last zoo in the world, on Alcatraz Island, she spends her days caring for playful chimpanzees, gentle tree frogs, and a restless jaguar. Outside, resistance groups and brutal cartels fight to shape the world’s future, but Camille is safe within her routines. That is, until a new zookeeper, Sailor, arrives from Paris.

From their first meeting, Camille is drawn to brash, defiant Sailor, who seems to see something in Camille that no one has before. Together, they bond over their shared passion for their charges and dream up ways to improve their lives. When Sailor whispers the story of an idyllic, secret sanctuary, where wild animals roam free, Camille begins to imagine a new kind of life, with Sailor by her side.

Sailor knows all too well the dangers beyond Alcatraz, but she increasingly chafes at the zoo’s rigid rules. She hatches a reckless plan to smuggle one of the most prized animals off the island to freedom, and invites Camille to join her. The consequences if they fail would be catastrophic, and Sailor’s contacts at the sanctuary go dark just as the threats from the cartels grow more extreme. Camille must decide if she’s ready to risk everything for Sailor’s bold escape, to brave the promise of a better world.

Soaring and poignant, propulsive and fiercely hopeful, with a heart-stopping final twist, THE ISLAND OF LAST THINGS is an elegy for a disappearing world and a gorgeous vision for the future.

Emma Sloley is a two-time MacDowell fellow and Bread Loaf scholar. She is the author of the novels THE ISLAND OF LAST THINGS and Disaster’s Children, and her work has been published in Literary Hub, Catapult, Joyland, and many others.