Book Recommendations

Sorry for the short post this week, but I'm knee-deep in revisions on a manuscript that my agent is waiting for. So instead of sharing my writing journey wisdom (or lack thereof in my case :) ), I thought I'd tell you about a couple of incredible books that just came out that I recommend buying.

Please know that these are MY opinions about these books, and in no way represent the opinions of any of the other contributors to the DNA Writers blog.

INVINCIBLE SUMMER by Hannah Moskowitz

BN.com Synopsis:

Noah’s happier than I’ve seen him in months. So I’d be an awful brother to get in the way of that. It’s not like I have some relationship with Melinda. It was just a kiss. Am I going to ruin Noah’s happiness because of a kiss?


Across four sun-kissed, drama-drenched summers at his family’s beach house, Chase is falling in love, falling in lust, and trying to keep his life from falling apart. But some girls are addictive....

Why I recommend it:

Hannah manages to capture that fleeting feeling of summer, that feeling of never wanting the summer to end, that feeling of the sand between your toes, the hot sun on your skin and the smell of sunscreen in the air. I could almost hear the waves crashing on to the beach. And set against that amazing backdrop Hannah weaves the lives of Chase, Noah and their family into a tense, tangled, heart-wrenching mess. I ended up reading IS straight through because I couldn't put the book down. It was THAT good. Do yourself a favor and go buy this book. And some kleenex. You might need it. I sure did.

WITHER by Lauren DeStefano

BN.com Synopsis:

By age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. She can thank modern science for this genetic time bomb. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males with a lifespan of 25 years, and females with a lifespan of 20 years. Geneticists are seeking a miracle antidote to restore the human race, desperate orphans crowd the population, crime and poverty have skyrocketed, and young girls are being kidnapped and sold as polygamous brides to bear more children.

When Rhine is kidnapped and sold as a bride, she vows to do all she can to escape. Her husband, Linden, is hopelessly in love with her, and Rhine can’t bring herself to hate him as much as she’d like to. He opens her to a magical world of wealth and illusion she never thought existed, and it almost makes it possible to ignore the clock ticking away her short life. But Rhine quickly learns that not everything in her new husband’s strange world is what it seems. Her father-in-law, an eccentric doctor bent on finding the antidote, is hoarding corpses in the basement. Her fellow sister wives are to be trusted one day and feared the next, and Rhine is desperate to communicate to her twin brother that she is safe and alive. Will Rhine be able to escape--before her time runs out?

Why I Recommend It:

This book is absolutely amazing. I'm a sucker for anything dystopian, so when I got the chance to read WITHER, I jumped at the chance. The cover alone is what sold me. Like IS, I read WITHER in one sitting, which is saying a lot, because this book is really long. But it didn't feel long reading it, as the pace was perfect. I didn't want to put it down, so I didn't. (And I ended up with a reading hangover the next morning because I stayed up until two a.m. reading it!). I CAN NOT WAIT for book two to come out.

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  Shelley Watters writes romance for young adults and adults. She lives in Arizona with her husband, two kids and two dogs. She loves listening to music, reading good books and letting her imagination go wild as she creates new worlds and torments her characters in delicious ways. She is an active member of the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. She is represented by Mark McVeigh of the McVeigh Agency.