You can hardly open a YA book these days without encountering some kind of monster. You've got your blood-sucking vampires, your slavering werewolves, your flesh-eating zombies, your mindless, murderous demons - even Tinkerbell's kin have been depicted as evil, child-stealing ogres. Still, no matter how nasty these fantastical beasts may be, they can never compare to monsters of the real, live, human variety. The kind we meet every day. The kind who are so open, honest and trustworthy that we don't notice the flash of their "fangs" until it's much, much too late.

In Stolen, a stunning debut from newcomer Lucy Christopher, 16-year-old Gemma Toombs meets this exact kind of devil in the Bangkok airport. The man seems so familiar that she allows him to prepare her a coffee - which he promptly drugs. When she finally wakes up, Gemma's a long way from Bangkok. A long way from anything, in fact. Isolated on a compound somewhere in the Australian Outback, Gemma's surrounded by nothing but desert. Her captor, the disturbingly gentle Ty, doesn't even bother tying her up. He knows she can't escape. There's nothing around for miles and miles, nowhere at all for Gemma to go.

As the weeks stretch on, Gemma comes to understand the wilderness and her sole companion in ways she never thought possible. Still, there's so much she doesn't know: Why has Ty chosen her, of all people, to kidnap? What does he really want from her? How does he know her family's secrets, the truths Gemma can't even admit to herself? And why is she suddenly feeling so much empathy for the man who has stolen her away from everything she knows? Can she escape? Does she even want to?

Written in the form of a letter from Gemma to Ty, Stolen grabs the reader right off the bat and just doesn't let go. It's not the frenzied, action-packed, race-against-time story I thought it would be, but more of a quietly sinister psychological thriller. The unique setting only adds to the tension, its terrible beauty coming alive in Christopher's skilled hands (the author was born in Wales, but raised in Australia). Not every detail of the plot rang true for me, but all in all, the story held me captive. I tore through it in one day, hardly daring to breathe until I knew exactly what happened to Gemma and Ty. Even then, Stolen wouldn't quite let me go - I'm still turning it all over in my head. I know one thing for sure, though: I want to read more Lucy Christopher. And soon.

(Readalikes: I can't think of any. Can you?)

Grade: B+

If this were a movie, it would be rated: PG-13 for language and tense, mature situations

To the FTC, with love: I received an ARC of Stolen from the generous folks at Scholastic. Thank you!

So, I should be writing a review of Whistling in the Dark, but I've got so many other things swirling around in my head that I had to get them out. Here goes:

- Like you, I've been seeing tons of posts about CSN Stores. The company, which sells a huge variety of products - lighting, bookshelves, home decor, furniture, etc. has been tremendously generous to bloggers. I was slightly bummed that I hadn't been contacted by them ... and then, voila! I got an email offering me the chance to review one of their products. How ecstatic am I? Very ecstatic! CSN has such a variety - how am I ever going to choose a product? When I do, you'll be the first ones to know. Stay tuned for my review. In the meantime, click on over and check out all the goodies at CSN.

2. Although I have been bungee jumping, thank you very much. My older brother owned a bungee jumping company when I was in high school, so my younger brother and I both jumped out of his hot air balloon. It was a rush.

3. I'm not very daring in the food department either, although a year spent in The Philippines as an exchange student did broaden my culinary horizons quite considerably. I've eaten delicacies like dog, pig's brain, monkey, goat and nimbalut (you don't want to know, trust me). Okay, the curious can read all about it here. It should be noted that these dishes are not eaten often by the average Filipino. They were prepared for me because I am a gullible American.

4. I cannot sneak up on people. I have weak ankles that pop constantly. This put me at a distinct disadvantage when dealing with three brothers.

5. The same brother who convinced me to jump out of a hot air balloon used to roll me up in blankets, cinch a belt around my waist and tickle my toes 'til I cried. I'm still traumatized.

6. Back to food - my husband thinks I'm weird because I like soft ice cream. Not machine-soft ice cream, but hard ice cream softened. I've been known to pop a carton in the microwave if it's too hard.

7. Phew! That was hard. I think I am officially the most boring person in the blogosphere!

- Hm, was that it? I swear there was something else I was going to tell you. Oh well. Happy Reading!

Nothing tickles my literary fancy quite like a good, old-fashioned family secrets novel. Especially one set in the South. Everything just seems more sinister when hidden behind soft drawls, magnolia-scented breezes and Tara-esque plantations, you know? I mean, you expect malevolence from broody northern climes and everyone knows how lawless things are out here in the west, but in the land of blushing belles and Southern gentleman - well, the appearance of evil is always surprising. Add in a spunky kid narrator, some quirky sidekicks and a nice, curvy plot, and voila! You've just created my absolute favorite kind of book. It's really no surprise, then, that I fell so hard for Lesley Kagen's spellbinding new novel, Tomorrow River.
Our heroine is Shenandoah "Shenny" Carmody, one of the the 11-year-old daughters of the most prominent man in town. Her family might as well be royalty in Rockbridge County, Virginia, for all their wealth and power. At least that's how things look from the outside. On closer inspection, one might notice what Shenny does - things are not exactly what they seem. The family's rambling mansion is looking decidedly grubby, the lady of the house is nowhere to be seen, His Honor's reeling in a manner unbefitting a man of his station, and his twins, well, something about the one is just a little off. An even closer look - assuming, of course, that prying eyes could get actually get anywhere near the property - would reveal that whatever is wrong over to the Carmody place is no small thing.
Ever since the disappearance of her mother, Shenny's been noticing things, things she'd never considered before. Things about her family. Troubling things. All she wants is for everything to go back to normal, the way it was when she spent her afternoons giggling with her sister in the treehouse, listening to her mother sing in the kitchen, and waiting breathlessly for nightfall, prime stargazing time for her and her daddy. But those carefree days are gone, vanished as surely as Evie Carmody. Shenny's twin, Woody, no longer giggles - she doesn't talk anymore, either. And His Honor? Well, when he's drunk (and when isn't he, these days?), he's disorderly. In the calmest, most terrifying way possible. The only way for Shenny to remedy the situation is to figure out what happened to her mother. Her own memories of that fateful night are sketchy, but someone has to know something. As she makes the rounds through her mother's motley collection of friends, Shenny comes to realize that the person most likely to know the truth is also the one least likely to say anything at all - her mute twin.
As desperate as Shenny is to find her mother, others are just as happy to shove the unpleasantness behind them. Evie Carmody was a Northerner, after all, a foreigner who didn't even know enough to stay away from "the help." Whatever happened to her - well, maybe it was for the best. There's the Carmody image to think of, after all. There's just one niggling question, the thing that bugs Shenny most of all, especially considering what she now knows about the Carmody clan: If her mother was going to leave, why oh why, did she leave her beloved girls behind?
I don't know about Kagen's other novels (although you better believe I'll be getting my hands on both Whistling in the Dark and Land of a Hundred Wonders just as soon as I'm able), but her latest blends all my favorite elements into one taut, riveting thriller. Intensity isn't all the book has going for it, though. Woven through all the mystery is a coming-of-age story that's both funny and surprisingly tender. Pitting the innocence of youth against an aged evil works to near perfection here, creating the kind of book that you will simply not be able to put down. You can try, but in the end, you'll cave and devour it in one sitting. I guarantee it.
(Readalikes: Whistling in the Dark by Lesley Kagen; Karen White's books, The Lost Hours and The Memory of Water come to mind.)
Grade: A
If this were a movie, it would be rated: PG-13 for violence, mature themes and sexual innuendo
To the FTC, with love: I received Tomorrow River from the generous folks at Dutton. Thank you!