Castle in the Clouds by Kerstin Gier

 

(From Amazon)

Way up in the Swiss mountains, there's an old grand hotel steeped in tradition and faded splendor. Once a year, when the famous New Year's Eve Ball takes place and guests from all over the world arrive, excitement returns to the vast hallways.

Sophie, who works at the hotel as an intern, is busy making sure that everything goes according to plan. But unexpected problems keep arising, and some of the guests are not who they pretend to be. Very soon, Sophie finds herself right in the middle of a perilous adventure―and at risk of losing not only her job, but also her heart.

(My Review)

This book was a bit of an escape.  Spending the winter holidays in a snow-covered castle-hotel sounds like a dream (minus the job).  Sophie is making the best of her time working at the hotel, and manages to meet a handsome young man and become entwined in quite the adventure.  

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

 

(From Amazon)

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth's fate hinges on one girl. . . .

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She's a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister's illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai's, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world's future.

With high-stakes action and a smart, resourceful heroine, Cinder is a Cinderella retelling that is at once classic and strikingly original.

(My Review)

This Cinderella story of a young cyborg-girl meets boy (who happens to meet a prince)... I mean, what more could you ask for.  Oh, and there is a plague (cough...I think we can relate).   A great read that makes you look forward to reading the next in the series.

The Lunar Chronicles:

1. Cinder

2.  Scarlet

3.  Cress

4.  Winter

The Cousins by Karen M. McManus

 

(From Amazon)

Milly, Aubrey, and Jonah Story are cousins, but they barely know each another, and they've never even met their grandmother. Rich and reclusive, she disinherited their parents before they were born. So when they each receive a letter inviting them to work at her island resort for the summer, they're surprised . . . and curious.

Their parents are all clear on one point--not going is not an option. This could be the opportunity to get back into Grandmother's good graces. But when the cousins arrive on the island, it's immediately clear that she has different plans for them. And the longer they stay, the more they realize how mysterious--and dark--their family's past is.

The entire Story family has secrets. Whatever pulled them apart years ago isn't over--and this summer, the cousins will learn everything.

(My Review)

This book was great.  It was a page turner, and I couldn't put it down.  As the story unfolds, you learn it from each of the cousins' perspective.  Why did the grandmother disinherit her children??  Why has she suddenly summoned her grandchildren??  This is a great story that leaves you guessing until the very end.

The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

(From Amazon)

Avery Grambs has a plan for a better future: Survive high school, win a scholarship, and get out. But her fortunes change in an instant when billionaire Tobias Hawthorne dies and leaves Avery virtually his entire fortune. The catch? Avery has no idea why - or even who Tobias Hawthorne is. 

To receive her inheritance, Avery must move into sprawling, secret passage-filled Hawthorne House, where every room bears the old man's touch - and his love of puzzles, riddles, and codes. Unfortunately for Avery, Hawthorne House is also occupied by the family that Tobias Hawthorne just dispossessed. This includes the four Hawthorne grandsons: Dangerous, magnetic, brilliant boys who grew up with every expectation that one day, they would inherit billions. 

Heir apparent Grayson Hawthorne is convinced that Avery must be a con-woman, and he's determined to take her down. His brother, Jameson, views her as their grandfather's last hurrah: A twisted riddle, a puzzle to be solved. Caught in a world of wealth and privilege, with danger around every turn, Avery will have to play the game herself just to survive.

(My Review)

I LOVED this book!  What if you received a huge inheritance from someone you didn't know?  What if you had to go stay in a mansion (with the deceased's family) in order to receive the inheritance?  Who can you trust?  I couldn't put it down?

(From Amazon)

Avery Grambs has a plan for a better future: Survive high school, win a scholarship, and get out. But her fortunes change in an instant when billionaire Tobias Hawthorne dies and leaves Avery virtually his entire fortune. The catch? Avery has no idea why - or even who Tobias Hawthorne is. 

To receive her inheritance, Avery must move into sprawling, secret passage-filled Hawthorne House, where every room bears the old man's touch - and his love of puzzles, riddles, and codes. Unfortunately for Avery, Hawthorne House is also occupied by the family that Tobias Hawthorne just dispossessed. This includes the four Hawthorne grandsons: Dangerous, magnetic, brilliant boys who grew up with every expectation that one day, they would inherit billions. 

Heir apparent Grayson Hawthorne is convinced that Avery must be a con-woman, and he's determined to take her down. His brother, Jameson, views her as their grandfather's last hurrah: A twisted riddle, a puzzle to be solved. Caught in a world of wealth and privilege, with danger around every turn, Avery will have to play the game herself just to survive. 

(My Review)

I LOVED this Book!!!!  I couldn't put it down!!!  You receive an inheritance out of know-where.  You have to go live in a mansion to receive the inheritance, with the family of the deceased.  Do you think they are happy about you receiving this large portion of the estate???  Who can you trust?  I cannot wait for the next book to come out!  

Karma Moon- Ghost Hunter by Melissa Savage

 (From Amazon)

Karma Moon is a firm believer in everything "woo-woo", as her dad calls it. So when she asked her trusty Magic Eight Ball if the call asking her dad to create a ghost-hunting docuseries was her dad's big break, it delivered: "No doubt about it." Because the universe never gets it wrong. Only people do. 

Karma and her best friend, Mags, join her dad's Totally Rad film crew at a famous haunted hotel in Colorado over her spring break. Their mission: find a ghost and get it on camera. If they succeed, the show will be a hit, they can pay rent on time, and just maybe, her mom will come back. 

Unfortunately, staying at a haunted hotel isn't a walk in the park for someone with a big case of the what-ifs. But her dad made Karma the head of research for the docuseries, so she, Mags, and a mysterious local boy named Nyx must investigate every strange happening in the historically creepy Stanley Hotel. Karma hopes that her what-ifs don't make her give up the ghost before they can find a starring spirit to help their show go viral - and possibly even get them a season two. 

With Melissa Savage's quirky cast of characters and spooky setting underlaid by a touching and relatable struggle against anxiety and grief over her fractured family, Karma Moon - Ghost Hunter is bound to charm and delight.

(My review)

I thought this book was adorable!  As a fan of Netflix docu-series, mysteries, ghost-stories, etc., I wasn't sure what to expect.  This was a middle school book, so it was a light read.  There was quite the cast of characters and a fun venture into the world of paranormal sluths.  The author also honored the horror genre by setting the book at the famous Stanley Hotel (aka The Shining by Stephen King) and also made parallels to Steven Spielberg's movie, Poltergeist.  I thought the book was well-written, and I couldn't stop reading.

The Orphan Collector by Ellen Marie Wiseman

 

-From Goodreads

In the fall of 1918, thirteen-year-old German immigrant Pia Lange longs to be far from Philadelphia’s overcrowded slums and the anti-immigrant sentiment that compelled her father to enlist in the U.S. Army. But as her city celebrates the end of war, an even more urgent threat arrives: the Spanish flu. Funeral crepe and quarantine signs appear on doors as victims drop dead in the streets and desperate survivors wear white masks to ward off illness. When food runs out in the cramped tenement she calls home, Pia must venture alone into the quarantined city in search of supplies, leaving her baby brothers behind.

Bernice Groves has become lost in grief and bitterness since her baby died from the Spanish flu. Watching Pia leave her brothers alone, Bernice makes a shocking, life-altering decision. It becomes her sinister mission to tear families apart when they’re at their most vulnerable, planning to transform the city’s orphans and immigrant children into what she feels are “true Americans.”

Waking in a makeshift hospital days after collapsing in the street, Pia is frantic to return home. Instead, she is taken to St. Vincent’s Orphan Asylum – the first step in a long and arduous journey. As Bernice plots to keep the truth hidden at any cost in the months and years that follow, Pia must confront her own shame and fear, risking everything to see justice – and love – triumph at last. Powerful, harrowing, and ultimately exultant, The Orphan Collector is a story of love, resilience, and the lengths we will go to protect those who need us most.

-My review

In a parallel to today's COVID-19 pandemic, Ellen Marie Wiseman takes you on a journey starting in the middle of the first wave of the 1918 Spanish flu.  It is easy to see the similarities Pia experienced in 1918, and those being experienced today.  The quickness of the death with the Spanish flu did tear families apart and have the potential for someone to take advantage of the those who are less advantaged, and those who are grieving.  I found this book to be a compelling lesson in the horror of that time in history.

Asylum by Madeleine Roux

 

-From Goodreads

For sixteen-year-old Dan Crawford, New Hampshire College Prep is more than a summer program—it's a lifeline. An outcast at his high school, Dan is excited to finally make some friends in his last summer before college. But when he arrives at the program, Dan learns that his dorm for the summer used to be a sanatorium, more commonly known as an asylum. And not just any asylum—a last resort for the criminally insane.

As Dan and his new friends, Abby and Jordan, explore the hidden recesses of their creepy summer home, they soon discover it's no coincidence that the three of them ended up here. Because the asylum holds the key to a terrifying past. And there are some secrets that refuse to stay buried.

Featuring found photos of unsettling history and real abandoned asylums and filled with chilling mystery and page-turning suspense, Madeleine Roux's teen debut, Asylum, is a horror story that treads the line between genius and insanity.

-My review

I recently read Asylum by Madeleine Roux.  I was intrigued as both a psychology teacher and a lover of mysteries.  I wanted to love it.  It was interesting read with engaging characters.  I thought it was compelling with the history of the psychiatric hospital (of course, as a psychology teacher, I found things that were not completely accurate.....I know, I know...FICTION).  It was still quite a page turner.  I'm not sure if I want to continue on to the sequel.  But, who am I kidding...I know I will.