There's something about magical stories that will always, always, always speak to me. It doesn't matter if I'm 28 or 48…I think that a good fantasy novel will always have my heart, regardless of the age range for which it was written. I've seen a lot of intriguing novels preparing to hit the market lately, too, so you'd better believe I'm getting more and more excited!

Title: The Girl at Midnight
Author: Melissa Grey (Twitter)
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Publish Date: April 28, 2015
Genre: YA, Fantasy,
Pages: 368

Beneath the streets of New York City live the Avicen, an ancient race of people with feathers for hair and magic running through their veins. Age-old enchantments keep them hidden from humans. All but one. Echo is a runaway pickpocket who survives by selling stolen treasures on the black market, and the Avicen are the only family she's ever known.

Echo is clever and daring, and at times she can be brash, but above all else she's fiercely loyal. So when a centuries-old war crests on the borders of her home, she decides it's time to act.

Legend has it that there is a way to end the conflict once and for all: find the Firebird, a mythical entity believed to possess power the likes of which the world has never seen. It will be no easy task, but if life as a thief has taught Echo anything, it's how to hunt down what she wants...and how to take it.

But some jobs aren't as straightforward as they seem. And this one might just set the world on fir

Magic! Enchantments! Lost races and black markets! All of this sounds like an amazing recipe for success to me, and honestly, The Girl at Midnight sounds like it pretty much has my heart already. Echo sounds like the type of protagonist for whom I could really get onboard, and knowing that you have a heroine to root for is half the battle, right? I'm ready for this adventure, and I only wish it was releasing much sooner! What do you think, and what are you waiting on this week?

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly feature from Jill at Breaking the Spine.

Title: The Stone Girl
Author: Alyssa B. Sheinmel
Publisher: Random House Children's
Publish Date: August 28, 2012
Genre: YA, Contemporary
Pages: 224
Source: Publisher

She feels like a creature out of a fairy tale; a girl who discovers that her bones are really made out of stone, that her skin is really as thin as glass, that her hair is brittle as straw, that her tears have dried up so that she cries only salt. Maybe that’s why it doesn’t hurt when she presses hard enough to begin bleeding: it doesn’t hurt, because she’s not real anymore.

Sethie Weiss is hungry, a mean, angry kind of hunger that feels like a piece of glass in her belly. She’s managed to get down to 111 pounds and knows that with a little more hard work—a few more meals skipped, a few more snacks vomited away—she can force the number on the scale even lower. She will work on her body the same way she worked to get her perfect grades, to finish her college applications early, to get her first kiss from Shaw, the boy she loves, the boy who isn’t quite her boyfriend.

Sethie will not allow herself one slip, not one bad day, not one break in concentration. Her body is there for her to work on when everything and everyone else—her best friend, her schoolwork, and Shaw—are gone.

Sethie is broken, both in mind and body. Her illnesses consume her, and there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel anymore. It’s all just bleak, black and dark. Her depression consumes her mind, just as her eating disorder takes its toll on her withering body. Pushing her to seek complete validation and reliance on a boyfriend who doesn’t truly care for her, a friend who will never be a true friend and a semblance of control with controlling her eating, Sethie is on the verge of an abyss from which she can never return. Can she find comfort, solace and peace before she does too much damage and loses herself forever?

Most of my readers know that I have quite the penchant for issue-driven novels. I like when a contemporary book isn’t afraid to push the boundaries and take it to that next level, grasping the very core of humanity. The Stone Girl promised all of the above and more. Embracing a powerful topic that hundreds of thousands of people can relate to, we’re given a unique perspective that is both authentic and harrowing. Author Alyssa Sheinmel’s approach is powerful and disturbing as she gives us access to the life and downfall of a girl so desperate for internal and external approval that she very well might lose herself in the process.

There was so very much going for The Stone Girl, and I was really, really excited to read this one. Books regarding eating disorders hold a little place in my heart because they hit home. This one, however, took a decidedly different approach, which turned out to be a tricky downfall for me, unfortunately. The author utilized the very difficult to manage third person perspective, which unfortunately alienated me from Sethie as our main character. I think it was probably used to further illustrate that emotional disconnect, and I applaud the author for testing the waters and trying something new. Unfortunately, it made the story a bit flat for me. That’s not at all to say that Sethie’s journey wasn’t difficult or painful. Trust me, it was. Sethie is lost in a world of addiction – to control over her eating, manipulative people and validation in all the wrong places. I wanted to feel Sethie’s pain and feel with her. I wanted to want to reach into the novel and comfort her. I feel as though I never really got to know her though. I watched her from afar, but I could never actually empathize with her because it was so very detached. Nor did I find myself connecting with or feeling any emotion towards the secondary characters. The Stone Girl could very well succeed for a vast audience because it is raw, and the story is so withdrawn, but I just couldn’t actually feel it, and that made me struggle.

I do believe there will be a wide audience for The Stone Girl, but it just didn’t tug at my heartstrings enough to draw me in. I give it a 2.5 out of 5, and I’d recommend it to fans of YA, especially those who enjoy issue-driven contemporary fiction and third person perspective.

I received this book free of charge from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This, in no way, affected my opinion or review of this book.

In My Mailbox is an amazing weekly meme hosted by Kristi from The Story Siren that features the books we have received during the week. It's so much fun because we get to see what our fellow bloggers stumbled upon this week and add even more to our piles of books! Without further ado, this week I received the following books:

FOR REVIEW

The Merchant's Daughter by Melanie Dickerson (ARC) - Thank you, Zondervan

Fury's Fire by Lisa Papademetriou (ARC) - Thank you, Random House

BOUGHT

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill from Breaking the Spine, and specifically spotlights upcoming novels we can't wait to read. As always, there are some amazing upcoming books, but this week I'm particularly excited for...

Title: Dearly, Departed
Author: Lia Habel
Publisher: Del Rey Books
Published: October 18, 2011
Genre: YA, Steampunk, PNR
Pages: 544

Love conquers all, so they say. But can Cupid’s arrow pierce the hearts of the living and the dead—or rather, the undead? Can a proper young Victorian lady find true love in the arms of a dashing zombie?

The year is 2195. The place is New Victoria—a high-tech nation modeled on the manners, mores, and fashions of an antique era. A teenager in high society, Nora Dearly is far more interested in military history and her country’s political unrest than in tea parties and debutante balls. But after her beloved parents die, Nora is left at the mercy of her domineering aunt, a social-climbing spendthrift who has squandered the family fortune, and now plans to marry her niece off for money. For Nora, no fate could be more horrible—until she’s nearly kidnapped by an army of walking corpses.

But fate is just getting started with Nora. Catapulted from her world of drawing-room civility, she’s suddenly gunning down ravenous zombies alongside mysterious black-clad commandos and confronting “The Laz,” a fatal virus that raises the dead—and hell along with them. Hardly ideal circumstances. Then Nora meets Bram Griswold, a young soldier who is brave, handsome, noble . . . and dead.

Ummmm...yes. Steampunk? Zombies? Romance? Sold on all accounts! Dearly, Departed is a blend of a whole mess of my favourite things, plus it sounds so bloody original that I'd be sold on that alone. There's something about the blend of past and future in steampunk that totally speaks to me, and I haven't seen enough such books in the YA market lately. It doesn't hurt that that's one gorgeous cover, too. I'm such a cover slut. I'd apologise, but it would be entirely insincere. Anyway, despite the doozy of a page count, it sounds fabulous! What do you think, and what are you waiting on this week?

Title: Many Waters
Author: Madeleine L'Engle
Publisher: Laurel Leaf
Published: September 1, 1986 (1st Ed.)
Genre: YA, Fantasy, Sci-Fi
Pages: 336
Source: Personal Copy

A touch of computer keys, a blast of heat, and suddenly the Murry twins, Sandy and Dennys, are gasping in a shimmering desert land. 

If only the brothers had normal parents, not a scientist mother and a father who experiments with space and time travel. If only the Murry twins had noticed the note on the door of their mother's lab: 'EXPERIMENT IN PROGRESS. PLEASE KEEP OUT...

Many Waters is, in many ways, a retelling of the Biblical story of Noah’s Ark, with a science fiction twist. Following twins Sandy and Dennis in the aftermath of a mishap in their mother’s lab, the twins are sent back in time to world thousands of years before life as they know it. In a world divided between humans, Nephilim and Seraphim, Sandy and Dennis stick out like a sore thumb, and there’s a strong undercurrent of hate towards the twins, both seen as a threat and a useful ally, as they’re much taller than the people of the land they’ve found themselves in. To make matters worse, Noah is building an ark, and they know this story. Can they find their way home in time, and what happens to those left behind?

I have to admit – I really wasn’t a fan of the first few books in the Time series by Madeleine L’Engle. I just couldn’t get into the characters’ heads, and frankly, they bored me a good bit. Then, I found this book, the fourth in the series that isn’t completely chronological because the books stand alone. The premise fascinated me, as I’m very familiar with my Biblical tales (Catholic, party of one.) The prose is simple but sweet, with two twin boys as the MCs. It’s rich with history, embellished with touches of the supernatural and speeds steadily to an outcome I’m sure we all know all too well.

Sandy and Dennis were refreshing main characters. They kept true to a very boy-esque voice, which I find is missing in a lot of male MC books these days. The secondary characters like Adnarel, Yalith and Grandfather Lamech (and all the cute lil mammoths!) were fabulous, too, and I loved the cast of Nephilim and Seraphim, as well. I enjoyed that they shifted shapes into animals/beasts/insects very much like their own personalities. It was definitely the intricacies within Many Waters that drove it towards the climax, and the sweet touch of love that led to a sad, but beautiful climax was well-written and not overdone unlike a lot of YA romance these days. The themes of destiny, belief in things unseen and fate definitely weighed heavily, as well, making Many Waters even stronger.

I read Many Waters a long time ago, but I’ve kept it on my shelf and bough multiple copies as I wear it out through re-reading. I loved it back then, and I still do. I give it a firm 4.5 out of 5, and I’d recommend it to all YA fans, especially those who enjoy a touch of sci-fi and fantasy with religious undertones.