About Beautiful Darkness by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl:

Ethan Wate used to think of Gatlin, the small Southern town he had always called home, as a place where nothing ever changed. Then he met mysterious newcomer Lena Duchannes, who revealed a secret world that had been hidden in plain sight all along. A Gatlin that harbored ancient secrets beneath its moss-covered oaks and cracked sidewalks. A Gatlin where a curse has marked Lena’s family of powerful Supernaturals for generations. A Gatlin where impossible, magical, life-altering events happen.

Sometimes life-ending.

Together they can face anything Gatlin throws at them, but after suffering a tragic loss, Lena starts to pull away, keeping secrets that test their relationship. And now that Ethan’s eyes have been opened to the darker side of Gatlin, there’s no going back. Haunted by strange visions only he can see, Ethan is pulled deeper into his town’s tangled history and finds himself caught up in the dangerous network of underground passageways endlessly crisscrossing the South, where nothing is as it seems.

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October is here and that means new books from big name authors like Michael Connelly and John Grisham. Teens also have a lot to look forward to as many of the upcoming book releases this month are highly anticipated YA books. So check out the October books I think you’ll be interested in.

Crave: A Novel of the Fallen Angels by J.R. Ward
Available October 5, 2010 (Order on Amazon)

From the publisher:
Seven deadly sins. Seven souls that must be saved. One more no-holds- barred battle between a fallen angel with a hardened heart and a demon with everything to lose.

Isaac Rothe is a black ops soldier with a dark past and a grim future. The target of an assassin, he finds himself behind bars, his fate in the hands of his gorgeous public defender Grier Childe. His hot attraction to her can only lead to trouble-and that’s before Jim Heron tells him his soul is in danger. Caught up in a wicked game with the demon who shadows Jim, Isaac must decide whether the soldier in him can believe that true love is the ultimate weapon against evil.

The Reversal by Michael Connelly
Available October 5, 2010 (Order on Amazon)

From the publisher:
Longtime defense attorney Mickey Haller is recruited to change stripes and prosecute the high-profile retrial of a brutal child murder. After 24 years in prison, convicted killer Jason Jessup has been exonerated by new DNA evidence. Haller is convinced Jessup is guilty, and he takes the case on the condition that he gets to choose his investigator, LAPD Detective Harry Bosch.

Together, Bosch and Haller set off on a case fraught with political and personal danger. Opposing them is Jessup, now out on bail, a defense attorney who excels at manipulating the media, and a runaway eyewitness reluctant to testify after so many years.

With the odds and the evidence against them, Bosch and Haller must nail a sadistic killer once and for all. If Bosch is sure of anything, it is that Jason Jessup plans to kill again.

American Vampire Vol. 1 by Scott Snyder, Stephen King, and Rafael Albuquereque (Illustrator)
Available October 5, 2010 (Order on Amazon)

From the publisher:
This volume follows two stories: one written by Snyder and one written by King. Snyder’s story is set in 1920′s LA, we follow Pearl, a young woman who is turned into a vampire and sets out on a path of righteous revenge against the European Vampires who tortured and abused her. This story is paired with King’s story, a western about Skinner Sweet, the original American Vampire– a stronger, faster creature than any vampire ever seen before with rattlesnake fangs and powered by the sun.

Great House by Nicole Krauss
Available October 5, 2010 (Order on Amazon)

From the publisher:
A powerful, soaring novel about a stolen desk that contains the secrets, and becomes the obsession, of the lives it passes through. For twenty-five years, a reclusive American novelist has been writing at the desk she inherited from a young Chilean poet who disappeared at the hands of Pinochet’s secret police; one day a girl claiming to be the poet’s daughter arrives to take it away, sending the writer’s life reeling. Across the ocean, in the leafy suburbs of London, a man caring for his dying wife discovers, among her papers, a lock of hair that unravels a terrible secret. In Jerusalem, an antiques dealer slowly reassembles his father’s study, plundered by the Nazis in Budapest in 1944.

Connecting these stories is a desk of many drawers that exerts a power over those who possess it or have given it away. As the narrators of Great House make their confessions, the desk takes on more and more meaning, and comes finally to stand for all that has been taken from them, and all that binds them to what has disappeared.

Great House is a story haunted by questions: What do we pass on to our children and how do they absorb our dreams and losses? How do we respond to disappearance, destruction, and change?

Nicole Krauss has written a soaring, powerful novel about memory struggling to create a meaningful permanence in the face of inevitable loss.

The Unidentified by Rae Mariz
Available October 5, 2010 (Order on Amazon)

From the publisher:
Fifteen-year-old Katey (aka Kid) goes to school in the Game—a mall converted into a “school” run by corporate sponsors. As the students play their way through the levels, they are also creating products and being used for market research by the sponsors, who are watching them 24/7 on video cameras.

Kid has a vague sense of unease but doesn’t question this existence until one day she witnesses a shocking anticorporate prank. She follows the clues to uncover the identities of the people behind it and discovers an anonymous group that calls itself the Unidentified. Intrigued by their counterculture ideas and enigmatic leader, Kid is drawn into the group. But when the Unidentified’s pranks and even Kid’s own identity are co-opted by the sponsors, Kid decides to do something bigger—something that could change the Game forever.

This funny, sharp, and thought-provoking novel heralds the arrival of a stunning new voice in teen fiction.

Beautiful Darkness by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
Available October 12, 2010 (Order on Amazon)

From the publisher:
Ethan Wate used to think of Gatlin, the small Southern town he had always called home, as a place where nothing ever changed. Then he met mysterious newcomer Lena Duchannes, who revealed a secret world that had been hidden in plain sight all along. A Gatlin that harbored ancient secrets beneath its moss-covered oaks and cracked sidewalks. A Gatlin where a curse has marked Lena’s family of powerful Supernaturals for generations. A Gatlin where impossible, magical, life-altering events happen.

Sometimes life-ending.

Together they can face anything Gatlin throws at them, but after suffering a tragic loss, Lena starts to pull away, keeping secrets that test their relationship. And now that Ethan’s eyes have been opened to the darker side of Gatlin, there’s no going back. Haunted by strange visions only he can see, Ethan is pulled deeper into his town’s tangled history and finds himself caught up in the dangerous network of underground passageways endlessly crisscrossing the South, where nothing is as it seems.

The Heroes of Olympus, Book One: The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan
Available October 12, 2010 (Order on Amazon)

From the publisher:
After saving Olympus from the evil Titan lord, Kronos, Percy and friends have rebuilt their beloved Camp Half-Blood, where the next generation of demigods must now prepare for a chilling prophecy of their own:

Seven half-bloods shall answer the call,
To storm or fire the world must fall.
An oath to keep with a final breath,
And foes bear arms to the Doors of Death.

Now, in a brand-new series from blockbuster best-selling author Rick Riordan, fans return to the world of Camp Half-Blood. Here, a new group of heroes will inherit a quest. But to survive the journey, they’ll need the help of some familiar demigods.

The Scorch Trials (Maze Runner Trilogy) by James Dashner
Available October 12, 2010 (Order on Amazon)

From the publisher:
Solving the Maze was supposed to be the end. No more puzzles. No more variables. And no more running. Thomas was sure that escape meant he and the Gladers would get their lives back. But no one really knew what sort of life they were going back to.
In the Maze, life was easy. They had food, and shelter, and safety . . . until Teresa triggered the end. In the world outside the Maze, however, the end was triggered long ago.
Burned by sun flares and baked by a new, brutal climate, the earth is a wasteland. Government has disintegrated—and with it, order—and now Cranks, people covered in festering wounds and driven to murderous insanity by the infectious disease known as the Flare, roam the crumbling cities hunting for their next victim . . . and meal.
The Gladers are far from finished with running. Instead of freedom, they find themselves faced with another trial. They must cross the Scorch, the most burned-out section of the world, and arrive at a safe haven in two weeks. And WICKED has made sure to adjust the variables and stack the odds against them.
Thomas can only wonder—does he hold the secret of freedom somewhere in his mind? Or will he forever be at the mercy of WICKED?

The Templar Salvation by Raymond Khoury
Available October 19, 2010 (Order on Amazon)

From the publisher:
At last, the book more than a million fans are waiting for: the sequel to The Last Templar.

With its iconic title and unmistakable cover, Raymond Khoury’s million-copy- selling The Last Templar remains one of the most memorable thriller publications of the last decade. Finally, after four long years, Khoury returns to the world of the Templars with The Templar Salvation, a sequel that’s every bit as eye-popping and as gripping as its predecessor.

Constantinople, 1203: As the rapacious armies of the Fourth Crusade lay siege to the city, a secretive band of Templars infiltrate the imperial library. Their target: a cache of documents that must not be allowed to fall into the hands of the Doge of Venice. They escape with three heavy chests, filled with explosive secrets that these men will not live long enough to learn. Vatican City, present day: FBI agent Sean Reilly infiltrates the Pope’s massive Vatican Secret Archives of the Inquisition. No one but the Pope’s trusted secondi get in-but Reilly has earned the Vatican’s trust, a trust he has no choice but to violate. His love, Tess Chaykin, has been kidnapped; the key to her freedom lays in this underground tomb, in the form of a document known as the Fondo Templari, a secret history of the infamous Templars… With his trademark blend of incendiary history and edge-of-your-seat suspense, Raymond Khoury’s The Templar Salvation marks a triumphant return to the rich territory that launched his bestselling career.

Crescendo by Becca Fitzpatrick
Available October 19, 2010 (Order on Amazon)

From the publisher:
The sequel to the New York Times Best selling phenomenon, Hush, Hush!
Nora should have know her life was far from perfect. Despite starting a relationship with her guardian angel, Patch (who, title aside, can be described anything but angelic), and surviving an attempt on her life, things are not looking up. Patch is starting to pull away and Nora can’t figure out if it’s for her best interest or if his interest has shifted to her arch-enemy Marcie Millar. Not to mention that Nora is haunted by images of her father and she becomes obsessed with finding out what really happened to him that night he left for Portland and never came home.

The farther Nora delves into the mystery of her father’s death, the more she comes to question if her Nephilim blood line has something to do with it as well as why she seems to be in danger more than the average girl. Since Patch isn’t answering her questions and seems to be standing in her way, she has to start finding the answers on her own. Relying too heavily on the fact that she has a guardian angel puts Nora at risk again and again. But can she really count on Patch or is he hiding secrets darker than she can even imagine?

The Confession by John Grisham
Available October 26, 2010 (Order on Amazon)

From the publisher:
An innocent man is about to be executed.

Only a guilty man can save him.

For every innocent man sent to prison, there is a guilty one left on the outside. He doesn’t understand how the police and prosecutors got the wrong man, and he certainly doesn’t care. He just can’t believe his good luck. Time passes and he realizes that the mistake will not be corrected: the authorities believe in their case and are determined to get a conviction. He may even watch the trial of the person wrongly accused of his crime. He is relieved when the verdict is guilty. He laughs when the police and prosecutors congratulate themselves. He is content to allow an innocent person to go to prison, to serve hard time, even to be executed.

Travis Boyette is such a man. In 1998, in the small East Texas city of Sloan, he abducted, raped, and strangled a popular high school cheerleader. He buried her body so that it would never be found, then watched in amazement as police and prosecutors arrested and convicted Donté Drumm, a local football star, and marched him off to death row.

Now nine years have passed. Travis has just been paroled in Kansas for a different crime; Donté is four days away from his execution. Travis suffers from an inoperable brain tumor. For the first time in his miserable life, he decides to do what’s right and confess.

But how can a guilty man convince lawyers, judges, and politicians that they’re about to execute an innocent man?

Life by Keith Richards and James Fox
Available October 26, 2010 (Order on Amazon)

From the publisher:
The long-awaited autobiography of the guitarist, songwriter, singer, and founding member of the Rolling Stones. Ladies and gentleman: Keith Richards.

With The Rolling Stones, Keith Richards created the songs that roused the world, and he lived the original rock and roll life.

Now, at last, the man himself tells his story of life in the crossfire hurricane. Listening obsessively to Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters records, learning guitar and forming a band with Mick Jagger and Brian Jones. The Rolling Stones’s first fame and the notorious drug busts that led to his enduring image as an outlaw folk hero. Creating immortal riffs like the ones in “Jumping Jack Flash” and “Honky Tonk Women.” His relationship with Anita Pallenberg and the death of Brian Jones. Tax exile in France, wildfire tours of the U.S., isolation and addiction. Falling in love with Patti Hansen. Estrangement from Jagger and subsequent reconciliation. Marriage, family, solo albums and Xpensive Winos, and the road that goes on forever.

With his trademark disarming honesty, Keith Richard brings us the story of a life we have all longed to know more of, unfettered, fearless, and true.

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Beautiful Creatures authors Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl recently updated their website with the new book cover for Beautiful Darkness, book two in The Caster Chronicles. They say this is the final version, so disregard any previous covers you may have seen.

It’s beautiful, isn’t it? I liked Beautiful Creatures (read my review here), so I’m anxious to read Beautiful Darkness because I think it could really make or break the series. Beautiful Darkness hits bookstores on October 12, 2010. Here’s the publisher’s summary:

Ethan Wate used to think of Gatlin, the small Southern town he had always called home, as a place where nothing ever changed. Then he met mysterious newcomer Lena Duchannes, who revealed a secret world that had been hidden in plain sight all along. A Gatlin that harbored ancient secrets beneath its moss-covered oaks and cracked sidewalks. A Gatlin where a curse has marked Lena’s family of powerful supernaturals for generations. A Gatlin where impossible, magical, life-altering events happen.

Sometimes life-ending.

Together they can face anything Gatlin throws at them, but after suffering a tragic loss, Lena starts to pull away, keeping secrets that test their relationship. And now that Ethan’s eyes have been opened to the darker side of Gatlin, there’s no going back. Haunted by strange visions only he can see, Ethan is pulled deeper into his town’s tangled history and finds himself caught up in the dangerous network of underground passageways endlessly crisscrossing the South, where nothing is as it seems.

Even before Beautiful Creatures was published in December, the book was getting a ton of buzz and plenty of comparisons to Twilight. The fact that authors Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl have already landed a movie deal grabbed people’s attention as well. These days, almost every YA book with paranormal themes is billed as “the next Twilight,” but I think Beautiful Creatures is one of the few books that live up to the hype. Star crossed lovers, an atmospheric setting, and interesting mythology combine to form a great read.

The story is about Ethan Wate, a popular basketball player who has lived in Gatlin, South Carolina his entire life, and Lena Duchannes, the mysterious new girl in school. Lena moved to town to live with her uncle, Macon Ravenwood, who never leaves his house and whom the locals think is crazy (Boo Radley references abound). Thanks to her uncle’s reputation and the nature of small towns, Lena becomes social kryptonite at school. Despite warnings from almost everyone to stay away from her, Ethan is drawn to Lena because she’s the girl who has been haunting his dreams for months. The story is told from Ethan’s perspective, making it different from most YA fiction. I don’t want to give too much away about what is going on with Lena, but she is powerful and it’s very cool.

Beautiful Creatures does a lot of things really well, but where it really excels is in the creation of an original magical world. In that sense, the book stands on its own and never feels stale. There’s a real sense of place thanks to the gothic, Southern setting and details like Civil War reenactments (excuse me, The War of Northern Aggression), southern belles, and long family histories. The authors capture what it’s like to grow up in a small town and I think a lot of people can relate to that, even if they’re not from the South.

It may be due to my age, but my favorite characters in Beautiful Creatures were the adults. Macon Ravenwood, the ultimate Southern gentleman, especially stood out as an intriguing character. I also loved Marian Ashcroft, the unfortunately named town librarian and lover of all things literary. As for Ethan and Lena, I thought they were endearing but occasionally annoying (much like real teenagers). Lena is spunkier than certain other YA heroines, but she is also a bit of a drama queen that is fond of moping in her bedroom. Their story reminded me of how much being a teenager could suck, but I think teen readers will identify with their angst.

Where the book falters, in my opinion, is the ending. After reading 500 pages of build up to Lena 16th birthday, my expectations were ridiculously high by the time the day finally arrived. Unfortunately, the ending seemed to be more about setting up the sequel than providing resolution to the central conflict, so I felt a little cheated.

Overall, I really enjoyed Beautiful Creatures and I highly recommend it to fans of YA paranormal romance. I especially recommend it to Twilight fans, with the warning that they might not find Ethan and Lena’s love story quite as compelling as that of Edward and Bella. Beautiful Creatures is the first in a planned 5 book series by Garcia and Stohl, and, like I mentioned earlier, the movie rights have already been sold.

Quotes from Beautiful Creatures:

There were only two kinds of people in our town. “The stupid and the stuck,” my father had affectionately classified our neighbors.

“You know what your mamma used to say. Any book is a Good Book, and wherever they keep the Good Book safe is also the House a the Lord.” – Amma

“I’m just the librarian. I can only give you the books. I can’t give you the answers.” -Marian the librarian

“Mortals. I envy you. You think you can change things. Stop the universe. Undo what was done long before you came along. You are such beautiful creatures.” – Macon Ravenwood

Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars | Publisher: Little, Brown | Pages: 576 | Source: Purchased | Buy on Amazon