Bookseller: A cinematic novel that perfectly blends funny and emotional. Some friendships are larger than life.
Feb 122019
Feb 082019
Kirkus: Yoon Ha Lee’s first foray into the field is an absolute winner (not that I should have expected anything different, given the author’s awesome track record with the Ninefox Gambit books). Dragon Pearl is everything that I want in a sci-fi adventure story (for a reader of any age): it’s smart, fast-paced, and balanced nuanced world building with solid characterizations and exciting capers spanning different planets, space ships (and space ship battles), and supernatural twists. I especially loved the world building and the different look at what science fiction with space ships and gate jumps can be when rooted in a Korean pantheon that runs on magic and luck, and whose characters eat gimchi in outer space.
Feb 072019
School Library Journal: A brain aneurysm killed July Cooper, but it can’t destroy her bond with Dino DeLuca. July rises from the dead at the funeral home owned by Dino’s family, and though the two teens had been on the outs for the past year, they are drawn together as they attempt to conceal July’s reanimation. What ensues is messy. July’s body is slowly rotting, and the two trade barbed words while untangling why their friendship ended after Dino met his boyfriend, Rafi. Once again, Hutchinson defies genres. This isn’t a ghost story, and July isn’t a zombie, as she frequently points out. But she can’t eat, she has no heartbeat, and until she’s finally laid to rest, nobody else can die. This inventive take on the life-after-death narrative ponders profound truths. It’s the ones who love us the most who can inflict the deepest wounds and hold us back, but even bitter fights can’t extinguish some connections. Like typical adolescents, uncertain Dino and snarky July seem wise beyond their years one moment and maddeningly immature the next, and their journeys to self-discovery will resonate with readers. VERDICT A grotesque, mordantly funny, and tender look at friendship, for fans of Aaron Starmer’s Spontaneous and Adam Silvera’s They Both Die at the End
Feb 062019
Publishers Weekly: Bensen has created some larger-than-life characters, but the true star of the tale is Junction itself. The author’s creativity gambols across the planet along with his characters, and the journey is as much about the weird creatures as it is about the human drama.
Feb 052019
Kirkus: Her arduous journey toward transfiguration—while also dissecting her strained relationships with both parents—makes this a valuable addition to the contemporary realistic fiction genre. The message that being kinder does not mean compromising who you are, but rather unveiling the better and more authentic version of one’s self, is admirable. A refreshing mean-girl transformation story akin to 10 Things I Hate About You.
Feb 012019
Kirkus: Bear, then, offers plenty of big, bold, fascinating ideas in a narrative that culminates in a double showdown with a dazzling array of said thoughtful beings…. Impressive at the core. Readers who relished the Jacob’s Ladder trilogy will certainly enjoy this one.
Jan 312019
World English Audio rights Anna Kashina’s SHADOWBLADE, to Michael Olah at Dreamscape Media, by Katie Shea Boutillier, for Jennie Goloboy.
Jan 312019
French rights to New York Times bestselling author Anne Bishop’s WILD COUNTRY, a novel of the Others, to Bragelonne, by Robin Batet at the Anna Jarota Agency in association with Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.
French rights to Hugo and Nebula award-winning author Nnedi Okorafor’s AKATA WITCH, to L’école des Loisirs, by Robin Batet at Anna Jarota Agency on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Donald Maass.
German rights to Robert McCammon’s BOY’S LIFE, to Luzifer, by Kathrin Nehm at Thomas Schlueck Agency on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Cameron McClure.
Catalan rights to Cassandra’s Khaw’s British Fantasy Award-nominated HAMMERS ON BONE, a Persons Non Grata novella, to Mai Més, by Amaiur Fernández at International Editors Co. for Michael Curry
German rights to Micaiah Johnson’s THE SPACE BETWEEN WORLDS, to Droeme, by Kathrin Nehm at Thomas Schlueck Agency on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Cameron McClure.
French rights to C.L. Polk’s WITCHMARK, to MxM Bookmark by Robin Batet at Anna Jarota Agency on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Caitlin McDonald.
Jan 302019
AudioFile: Narrator Yetide Badaki’s dynamic voice returns with this story of Sunny, an Igbo and American albino girl with the juju needed to save humanity. Badaki enlivens Sunny’s character with a bright American accent and gives her friends varied Nigerian- and American-sounding voices. Continuing on from AKATA WITCH, Sunny, Chichi, Orlu, and Sasha are growing as scholars, pushing the boundaries of the rules governing the magical Leopard People and coming full circle to challenge Sunny’s prophetic dream of the apocalypse at the start of series.
Jan 292019
Horn Book Magazine: Thirteen-year-old Min is feisty and clever, and she has a powerful secret: she’s a gumiho, a fox spirit disguised as a human. Min can shape-shift and use Charm (fox magic) to alter others’ perceptions and emotions. She enthusiastically wields these powers when she ditches her “dismal life” on the barren planet Jinju in order to track down her brother Jun, a Thousand Worlds Space Forces cadet who’s gone AWOL. Min’s epic adventure leads to run-ins with spaceport security guards, gamblers, and ghosts. She impersonates a dead cadet on a starship battle cruiser and encounters the legendary Dragon Pearl, a mystical orb that creates life. Lee has a knack for world-building. His richly detailed, cohesive, original vision is a lively mash-up of outer-space sci-fi and Korean culture and folklore: starships have gi, an energy flow; pirates fly in groups of four because it’s a number that signifies death; characters, both supernatural and human, eat gimchi and play the board game baduk; Min befriends a dragon cadet who can summon the weather—sometimes inadvertently—and a dokkaebi (Korean goblin) who carries a magical spork. The dokkaebi is also a nonbinary character, who’s referred to with gender-neutral pronouns—a small detail that’s woven in matter-of-factly and just as smoothly as all the other strands in this engaging space opera.