Feisty teenage thief Maeko and her maybe-more-than-friend Chaff have scraped out an existence in Victorian London's gritty streets, but after a near-disasterous heist leads her to a mysterious clockwork cat and two dead bodies, she's thrust into a murder mystery that may cost her everything she holds dear. Her only allies are Chaff, the cat, and Ash, the son of the only murder suspect, who offers her enough money to finally get off the streets if she'll help him find the real killer. What starts as a simple search ultimately reveals a conspiracy stretching across the entire city. And as Maeko and chaff discover feelings for each other neither was prepared to admit, she's forced to choose whether she'll stay with him or finally escape the life of a street rat. But with danger closing in around them, the only way any of them will get out of this alive is if all of them work together.
Urban fairy tales for the weird girl in all of us. Athena Villaverde is a brave new voice in the world of offbeat young adult fiction. Like a combination of Francesca Lia Block, Charles de Lint, Kathe Koja, Tim Burton, and Hayao Miyazaki, her stories are cute, kinky, edgy, magical, provocative, and strange, full of poetic imagery and vicious sexuality. Clockwork Girl is a collection of three short bizarro novellas that make a perfect introduction to her unique style. CATERPILLAR GIRL Cat Filigree is a caterpillar girl trapped in the ugly stages of metamorphosis, desperately waiting to be transformed into a butterfly. With her flaky skin and glazed eyes, she has become one of the least popular girls at her high school. Tormented daily by the popular lady bug girls and fig-beetle jocks, she hides away from the world, listening to Bauhaus records and reading Grant Morrison comics. She thinks she's doomed to be alone forever, until she meets Lilith- a beautiful, punk rock, corset-wearing spider girl whom Cat falls madly in love with. But there's a problem: because she's a spider girl, Lilith has the tendency to kill and eat her lovers. And butterflies happen to be her favorite food. CLOCKWORK GIRL Pichi was once a normal human girl. But now her skin is made of brass, her organs have been replaced by cogs and gears, and her heart must be wound up every day in order to stay alive. She is a clockwork girl. Like most children of poor families, she was sold to a toymaker, surgically transformed into a mechanical living doll, and given as a Christmas present to a rich little girl who was no longer satisfied with ordinary porcelain dolls. She has no memory of her past or even her real name. All she knows is that she's in love with her new owner and wants to be with her forever. But what she doesn't know is that little girls always outgrow their toys, eventually. BEEHIVE GIRL Her skin is made of honeycomb. She smells of baked oranges and is dripping with amber- colored honey. Living bees swarm around her like miniature lovers and crawl through her hair as she dances. She is Maya, the queen of the tango; the sexiest, most powerful dancer in town. Every man in the tango community longs to dance with Maya, but very few dare to try. You see, Maya's skin is a living beehive. And if a man attempts to dance with her who lacks the proper amount of talent and grace, he will get stung . . . perhaps even stung to death.
When seventeen-year-old orphaned shapechanger Tessa Gray is kidnapped by the villainous Mortmain in his final bid for power, the London Institute rallies to save her, but is beset by danger and betrayal at every turn.
National Book Award finalist Laura Ruby returns with the middle chapter in her epic alternate-history adventure—a journey that will test Tess, Theo, and Jaime and change their lives forever. It was only a few weeks ago that the Biedermann twins, Tess and Theo, along with their friend Jaime Cruz, followed the secrets of the Morningstarrs’ cipher further than anyone had in its century-and a-half history—and destroyed their beloved home in the process. But the Old York Cipher still isn’t solved. The demolition of 354 W. 73rd Street only revealed the next clue in the greatest mystery of the modern world, and if Tess, Theo, and Jaime want to discover what lies at the end of the puzzle laid into the buildings of New York by its brilliant, enigmatic architects, they will need to press on. But doing so could prove even more dangerous than they know. It is clear that the Morningstarr twins marshaled all the strange technology they had spent their lives creating in the construction of the Cipher, and that technology has its own plans for those who pursue it. It's also clear that Tess, Theo, and Jaime are not the only ones on the trail of the treasure. As enemies both known and unknown close in on them from all sides and the very foundations of the city seem to crumble around them, they will have to ask themselves how far they will go to change the unchangeable—and whether the price of knowing the secrets of the Morningstarrs is one they are willing to pay.
From Peter Swanson, the acclaimed author of Eight Perfect Murders, The Girl with a Clock for a Heart is an addictive, nonstop thriller—an ever-tightening coil of suspense that grips you right up to its electrifying end. On an ordinary Friday evening at his favorite Boston tavern, George Foss’s comfortable, predictable life is shattered when a beautiful woman sits down at the bar, a woman who vanished without a trace twenty years ago. Liana Dector isn’t just an ex-girlfriend, the first love George couldn’t quite forget. She’s also a dangerous enigma and quite possibly a cold-blooded killer wanted by the police. Suddenly, she’s back—and she needs George’s help. Ruthless men believe she stole some money ... and they will do whatever it takes to get it back. George knows Liana is trouble. But he can’t say no—he never could—so he makes a choice that will plunge him into a terrifying whirlpool of lies, secrets, betrayal, and murder from which there is no sure escape. Bold and masterful, full of malicious foreboding and subtle surprises,The Girl with a Clock for a Heart is the story of a man swept into a vortex of irresistible passion and murder when an old love mysteriously reappears.
'Historical fiction with a fantastical twist, done with verve and skill' IAN RANKIN 'An atmospheric and constantly surprising thriller' SUNDAY TIMES 'Kept me guessing until the end. An absolute masterpiece' JENNIFER SAINT 'A deliciously dark historical novel of thrilling originality' ESSIE FOX 'Spellbinding, gripping, immersive and deliciously gothic' ERIN KELLY 'Evocative, chilling, compelling' TAMMY COHEN 'Breathtakingly good' ABIR MUKHERJEE Paris, 1750. In the midst of an icy winter, as birds fall frozen from the sky, chambermaid Madeleine Chastel arrives at the home of the city's celebrated clockmaker and his clever, unworldly daughter. Madeleine is hiding a dark past, and a dangerous purpose: to discover the truth of the clockmaker's experiments and record his every move, in exchange for her own chance of freedom. For as children quietly vanish from the Parisian streets, rumours are swirling that the clockmaker's intricate mechanical creations, bejewelled birds and silver spiders, are more than they seem. And soon Madeleine fears that she has stumbled upon an even greater conspiracy. One which might reach to the very heart of Versailles... A intoxicating story of obsession, illusion and the price of freedom.
Three ordinary children are brought together by extraordinary events. . . Giuseppe is an orphaned street musician from Italy, who was sold by his uncle to work as a slave for an evil padrone in the U.S. But when a mysterious green violin enters his life he begins to imagine a life of freedom.Hannah is a soft-hearted, strong-willed girl from the tenements, who supports her family as a hotel maid when tragedy strikes and her father can no longer work. She learns about a hidden treasure, which she knows will save her family -- if she can find it.
High schooler Natalie Ng has always kept secret her talent for talking with cats, but when she learns--from a cat--that a celebrity has been replaced by an impostor, she and her friends investigate, becoming movie extras to get the scoop.
Finley Jayne and her super-powered friends travel to the United States to find their friend Jasper whose girlfriend Mei's life is in the hands of a man who wants back an item Jasper stole from him.
Book 1 of The Time Corps Chronicles Medical student Felicia Sanchez is only trying to help an injured man when she slips through a time rip and into 19th century New Orleans, one very different than the one she knows from history books. The only person who can get her home is Professor Seamus Connor, a former convict seeking a quiet life of obscurity. But even the "mad Irishman" knows that recreating a freak accident is next to impossible. With the help of a local street urchin, they discover that their problems run deeper than solely getting Felicia back to her own time. The three of them must unravel the secrets of a steam engine that operates upon a scientific impossibility and the mysteries of a grand cathedral at the center of town, where clockwork automatons perform for rapt audiences. But can a convict, a guttersnipe and an accidental time traveler prevent the destruction of a city and the death of thousands? Others are watching, and Felicia may not be the only time traveler in New Orleans.
