First Page Panda

The pandas are tuckered out after counting all the entries, but they’ve finally chosen a winner for our Rival giveaway! And that winner is:

Caroline Starr Rose!

Thanks so much to everyone who entered. Happy reading!

Prologue

Raven had spent too long on the hunt. He cocked his head, beady eyes fixed on the sweating girl. In this form, his vision was sharp, but he’d perched near enough that even with weak human sight he could have observed the curious weave of the girl’s black suit. The stark color wasn’t becoming, but something about this girl spoke to senses that went beyond a bird’s vision. She hadn’t the luminous dimensionality of his own people, yet she was rooted in her reality. It wasn’t much, but no human he’d encountered in this incarnation of the world had shown even that much promise. He’d already spent too long on the hunt. His time was running out. He had to try.

About the book:

Trees are dying. People are getting sick. Science offers no answers. Then fifteen-year-old Kelsa meets a boy who claims to be the mythological trickster spirit, Raven, and he tells her about an impending ecological disaster and that she must help him save the world. With magic.

Maybe he’s crazy.

Or maybe he’s telling her truths that others have forgotten, and if she fails him the world will die. Even though helping him means risking her own life.

What people are saying:

“…Bell adeptly explores the relationship between Kelsa and Raven. At first stormy and volatile, it slowly develops into a friendship based on trust. A satisfying conclusion is reached when what began as a journey to heal the Earth ends as a healing journey for Kelsa and her family.”—School Library Journal

“Plot drives this book from the start to the rousing climax and surprise resolution. Humor will engage readers’ interest while the ever-increasing suspense will keep it.”—Kirkus

Released: January 3, 2011

About the author:

Hilari has been called the poster child for persistence. The first novel of her novels to be published was the 5th she’d written–and when it was accepted she was working on novel 14. Trickster’s Girl is her 17th published novel and she plans for many more. You can visit her at hilaribell.com.

I’ll never forget that first glimpse of Winterhaven as we pulled up the long, curving drive-gray stones bathed in the lavender haze of dusk, looking like an old European university, all flying buttresses and stone spires reaching toward the sky. Leaves in every shade of the autumn spectrum–red, yellow, orange, brown-littered the ground at my feet, crunching beneath my boots as I stepped out of the car and looked around. This was it-my new home, my new life.

Typically, I had just been dumped there, as unceremoniously as had the luggage at my feet. My mom hadn’t even bothered to come along for the ride. Okay, technically Patsy is my stepmother, but since my real mom died when I was four and my dad married Patsy about, oh, two seconds later, she’s all I’ve got. She was always clear about her priorities, though–my dad, and her career, in that order.

Excerpt© 2011 Kristi Cook

About the book:

One month into her junior year, sixteen-year-old Violet McKenna transfers to the Winterhaven School in New York’s Hudson Valley, inexplicably drawn to the boarding school with high hopes. Leaving Atlanta behind, she’s looking forward to a fresh start–a new school, and new classmates who will not know her deepest, darkest secret, the one she’s tried to hide all her life–dark, foreboding visions of the future.

At Winterhaven, Violet finally feels like she belongs. She quickly finds a close group friends and discovers that they, too, have psychic ‘gifts’-as do all the students at Winterhaven. But as soon as she feels settled she discovers the most intriguing and alluring boy she has ever met, and things quickly go awry. As the attraction between them grows, intense visions of the boy’s death start to haunt her. In her premonitions the secret he is unwilling to share begins to reveal itself. And to Violet’s horror, she learns that their destinies are intertwined in a critical–and deadly–way.

What people are saying:

“Cook’s first YA novel reads like a blend of the Gemma Doyle trilogy, the Twilight saga, and Lois Duncan’s thrillers, and it will find a wide audience among female fans of gothic novels…” –Booklist

“Haven is a riveting, exhilarating and spectacular new story from a promising debut author that I couldn’t get enough of. Days after finishing the book, I still can’t get these characters out of my head. Haven is a book I will read again and again!” –BooksCompleteMe.com

“Seriously sexy… Hand this one to fans of Gray’s similarly themed Evernight and to all the girls who have broken the bindings on their Twilight books.” –Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

Released: February 22, 2011

About the author:

As a child, Kristi Cook took her nose out of a book only long enough to take a ballet class (or five) each week. Not much has changed since then, except she’s added motherhood to the mix and enjoys penning her own novels as much as reading everybody else’s. A transplanted southern gal, Kristi lives in New York City with her husband and two daughters. You can visit her at www.kristi-cook.com.