Once upon a time, Paige Miller had big plans for her life.  She was going to rock her last year of high school basketball, accept a full-ride athletic scholarship to UConn, then aim for a career in the WNBA.  That was before everyone got sick, before she herself fell ill.  When she wakes up in her bedroom attached to an IV, Paige realizes she's been in a coma and that everything—not just her world, but the entire world—has changed completely.  Not only has her family been wiped out by the lethal flu, but there are few, if any, other people still alive.  Life is no longer about basketball.  Now it's about survival.

When Paige decides to venture out into the empty world, she's ecstatic to encounter another teenager.  Trey Dawson is also an athlete, also alone.  Although he has more answers than Paige, neither knows exactly what's going on.  As they navigate their way through their strange new reality, they make some shocking discoveries about what's happening and why.  Armed with this knowledge, they have a slim chance to save what's left of humanity.  Can they succeed against a threat that's much, much worse than a deadly virus?

I enjoyed Rae Carson's Gold Seer trilogy, so I was excited when I learned she had a new book coming out.  And a YA post-apocalyptic/dystopian novel at that.  Yes, please!  Although as it turns out, there's nothing super original or memorable about Any Sign of Life (available October 12, 2021), I still enjoyed the read.  It's tense, fast-paced, and exciting.  The characters are likable despite not being very complex or fleshed-out.  I definitely wanted them to be victorious, even if they didn't quite feel like real live people.  While I generally prefer realistic doomsday scenarios, this more sci-fi version still appeals.  I assume Any Sign of Life is the beginning of a series and, while I can't say I'm chomping at the bit for the next installment, I'm always here for an entertaining end-of-the-world novel.

(Readalikes:  Reminds me of Alone by Meghan E. Freeman and of the Partials series by Dan Wells)

As World War II comes to a close, a German teenager arrives in America, ostensibly to start a new life away from the chaos in her homeland.  In order to flee, Eva Gerst has made a deal with the devil.  She and her mute best friend have been allowed to leave the country only because Eva knows an important secret.  She holds the key to Project Bluebird, a horrifying concentration camp experiment, the results of which are so powerful that both the Americans and the Germans would do anything to control it.  Eva's determination to keep it away from them is just as strong, but it's not power she's seeking.  She desires only one thing—justice.  No matter what it takes, she will track down the escaped Nazi who designed the horrific experiment.  And then, she'll kill him.

In an alternating storyline, Inge von Emmerich is living in war-torn Germany a year earlier.  The daughter of a powerful Nazi couple, she's been thoroughly indoctrinated.  It's not until her eyes are opened to the atrocities being committed by the regime that she realizes just how wrong her family's view is—and how involved her father is in appalling acts against their Jewish countrymen.   

As the girls' stories collide, they will come together to take down a monster in a desperate race to settle a score, get justice, and not just clip Bluebird's wings, but destroy it forever. 

The Wrong Family by Tarryn Fisher is one of those books where the less you know going into it, the better.  So, I'm going to give you the publisher's plot summary instead of my own because not only is it spoiler-free, but it's also brilliantly written.  Here you go:

Even though there's nary a nip in the arid desert air here in Arizona, I'm more than ready for some cozy Fall reading.  So ready, in fact, that I already posted part one of this list last week.  Naturally, I always have more books in the queue, so I'm going to share ten more today that I'm hoping to read before 2021 comes to an end.

If you want to share your Fall TBR list (please do—I'm always looking for recs!), click on over to That Artsy Reader Girl to find out how to join in the TTT fun.

1.  Willodeen by Katherine Applegate—I'm a big Applegate fan, so I've been excited about this one, her newest.  It's about a lonely girl who's more comfortable with animals than humans.  When a handmade gift brings unexpected magic into her life, it changes everything for her and the precarious world in which she lives.  I'm about halfway through this short novel and I'm very much enjoying it.  No surprise there.  

2.  The Haunting Season by various authors—I just got a copy of this collection of spooky short stories by a variety of popular YA writers from the good folks at Pegasus Books.  This ghostly volume is going to make for great Halloween reading!  

3.  God Spare the Girls by Kelsey McKinney—This coming-of-age novel is about two sisters raised in a strict religious community headed up by their father.  When they discover that he's been lying to them, it breaks their world apart.  The sisters flee, but they will soon have to make a choice between family loyalty and forging their own paths.

4.  Across the Desert by Dusti Bowling (available October 12, 2021)—Bowling is a local author whose MG books I've been enjoying lately.  I just got approved for an e-ARC of this one, a survival story in which one girl sets out across the treacherous desert to rescue another, whose ultralight airplane has crashed.

5.  A View Most Glorious by Regina Scott (available October 5, 2021)—I discovered Scott's American Wonders series this year and am really loving it.  This third installment concerns a young woman who longs to do something more with her life than just marry well.  When her suffragette group suggests she climb Mt. Rainier to bring attention to their cause, she agrees to the difficult task despite having no mountaineering experience.  Will she succeed?  What will she gain in the process?  With a handsome mountain guide by her side, it's pretty much a given that she'll lose her heart...

6.  The Last House on the Street by Diane Chamberlain (available January 11, 2022)—I've got an e-ARC of this novel, the newest from an author I've liked in the past.  It's a dual-timeline story about a white woman in 1965 who defies her family's wishes by volunteering to help register Black voters and another woman, in 2010, who learns surprising secrets about the history her new neighborhood, which rumor says is haunted.

7.  The Saint of Lost Things by Christopher Castellani—Delaware is one of the last two states I need to complete the 2021 Literary Escapes Challenge.  This novel takes place in the state in 1953.  It's about the triumphs and sorrows of a vibrant Italian-American community.

8.  The Black God's Drums by P. Djèlí Clark—I chose this Alex Award-winning novel to fulfill the "Afrofuturist Book" prompt for the 2021 PopSugar Reading Challenge.  It takes place in an alternate New Orleans and stars a young woman who earns a coveted place on an airship by giving the captain sensitive information.  She soon finds herself on a dangerous mission, where her secret magic might just help her save the world as she knows it.

9.  Unmissing by Minka Kent (available February 15, 2022)— This thriller revolves around a couple who is creating a lovely life together.  When a late-night knock on their door reveals the husband's first wife, who has been missing and presumed dead for ten years, they're both shocked.  The couple takes in the woman, but something about her story just doesn't add up.  What really happened to her?

10.  The Warsaw Orphan by Kelly Rimmer—I haven't read a lot of World War II stories this year, but this is one I do want to get to soon.  It tells the inspired-by-a-true-story tale of a Polish woman who risks everything to help smuggle Jewish children out of the Warsaw ghetto.

There you go, ten more books I'm hoping to read before the year is out.  What do you think of my selections?  Have you read any of them?  What are your most anticipated reads for Fall?  I'd truly love to know.  Leave me a comment on this post and I will gladly return the favor on your blog.

Happy TTT!