Book Description:

Hailed as “impossible to put down,” the Hex Hall series has both critics and teens cheering. With a winning combination of romance, action, magic and humor, this third volume will leave readers enchanted. 

Just as Sophie Mercer has come to accept her extraordinary magical powers as a demon, the Prodigium Council strips them away. Now Sophie is defenseless, alone, and at the mercy of her sworn enemies—the Brannicks, a family of warrior women who hunt down the Prodigium.  Or at least that’s what Sophie thinks, until she makes a surprising discovery. The Brannicks know an epic war is coming, and they believe Sophie is the only one powerful enough to stop the world from ending. But without her magic, Sophie isn’t as confident.

Sophie’s bound for one hell of a ride—can she get her powers back before it’s too late?

Author Biography:

Rachel Hawkins (www.rachel-hawkins.com) is the New York Times best-selling author of Demonglass and Hex Hall. She was a high school English teacher before becoming a full-time writer. She lives with her family in Alabama. To the best of her knowledge, Rachel is not a witch, though some of her former students may disagree.

Book Description:

From Amandaville to Zachariah, Amanda went in search of other people's stories only to find her own.  In this travel memoir, Amanda visits such Kentucky towns as, Blue Diamond and Do-Stop in alphabetical order, in search of a story.  The results are astonishing!

Author Biography:

Amanda Hervey is a work-at-home momma, wife and wannabe-gypsy.  She is the author of Kentucky Monthy magazine's popular travel memoir series, Kentucky A to Z, which will debut at the Southern Kentucky Book Fest.  She is currently writing her first novel, Mother Muse.  A graduate of Georgetown College, she lives in Lexington, Kentucky with her husband, Travis, daughter, Ada Grace, and dog Scout.

Book Description:

Dust off your dancing shoes. Babymouse and the gang are taking center stage in the feel-good book of the season! Will Babymouse get the lead in the school musical or will Felicia Furrypaws steal the show? Find out in Babymouse: The Musical ! Filled with highsteps and high jinks and starring the critically acclaimed, award-winning Babymouse as herself, this showstopper will have you tapping your toes and singing along!

Author Biography:

Matthew Holm is the co-creator of two critically-acclaimed and award-winning graphic novel series for children, Babymouse and Squish. Together with his sister, author Jennifer L. Holm, the pair created both graphic novel series, and raised the profile of the graphic novel in children’s literature, as well as proved how important graphic novels can be in getting children to learn to read. With a combined total of 1.6 million copies in print in all formats, both Babymouse and Squish have become staples on classroom and library shelves across the country, and have enticed even the most reluctant readers into reading for pleasure.

Matthew spent much of his childhood in Pennsylvania, where he grew up with three brothers and his sister, fellow author Jennifer L. Holm. Growing up, he hoped he might one day draw a daily newspaper comic strip. While in high school, Matt mentored under Pulitzer-prize-winning editorial cartoonist Tony Auth and in college, while studying English and Art at Penn State, he drew weekly editorial cartoons for the school newspaper. Matt spent eight years writing about kitchens (among other topics) for Country Living Magazine.  In addition to his job as an illustrator, Matt is also a professional graphic designer and the Consulting Creative Director for Hot Knife Design, Inc., of Boston, Mass. He lives in Portland, Ore., with his wife and dog.

Matthew enjoys speaking at schools, libraries, and conferences across the country, and has been doing this both solo, and jointly with his sister. His enthusiasm for his profession and the books he has created acts as a wonderful catalyst for discussion about the literary world and the role that graphic novels play in it, as well as entertains and encourages children to become lovers of reading.

Book Description:

This translation of Iraqi author Amal al-Jubouri contextualizes America's occupation of Iraq through the Qur'an's story of Hagar. Complementary pairs of poems portray life before and after the war. This work simultaneously mirrors Hagar's desperate running between Safa and Marwah, as we pace frantically between pre- and post-occupation Iraq—the poet begging in vain for poetry not to abandon her people. Barbara Hoffert for the Library Journal writes, “In spare, vivid, and poundingly heartfelt language, [al-Jubouri] shows us her country before the occupation by U.S. troops and afterward . . . these poems have a timeless, haunting quality, and they offer not just enormous pleasure but understanding." Jeremy Paden, for Asymptote Journal, “Howell, relying on Qaisi's fluency, and entrusting herself to al-Jubouri's vision, has written beautiful, moving, and passionate poems in English that try to welcome the stranger among us, letting the one our nation has called enemy speak in our own tongue."  With advanced praise from such poets as Nick Flynn, Carolyn Forché, Alicia Ostriker, and Gerald Stern, “Hagar” was chosen by the Library Journal as one of the most notable books in 2011 and a book to watch in 2012 by Memoriousmag.

Author Biography:

Rebecca Gayle Howell's poems and translations appear in such publications as Ninth Letter, Ecotone, 32 Poems, Indiana Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, and Poetry Daily. She is the recipient of the Jules Chametzky Prize in Literary Translation from The Massachusetts Review and a poetry fellowship from the Fine Arts Work Center. Also a documentarian, she works in photography, oral history, and essay; major projects include: "Overburden: A People and Place Mined" (Plundering Appalachia - Earth Aware Editions) and This is Home Now: Kentucky’s Holocaust Survivors Speak (U Press of Kentucky). A former director of The Women Writers Conference, she received her MFA from Drew University and currently teaches at Morehead State University. Her translation of Amal al-Jubouri's Hagar Before the Occupation/Hagar After the Occupation was chosen to inaugurate The Alice James Books Translation Series in 2011.