TIN STAR by Cecil Castellucci

Our hero starts this story having a really bad day.  She's getting the crap beat out of her and ditched onto the wrong vehicle headin' to the crappy side of town.
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Uh, spaceship headin' to the frackky side of the galaxy.  Anyway...
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Tula Bane's a human colonist and her world is the cosmos.  Being good at languages, she was supposed to be helping to colonize a world under the direction of Brother Blue.  Now, she finds herself at the end of Blue's boot.  Literally.  She was Brother Blue's golden girl, brought along to help hold on to human culture, isolated from contamination by...
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Isolated?
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Red Flag.  Sounds like the start of a cult to me.
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Brother Blue had made her feel special and her mother believed Brother Blue could do no wrong.
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Oh, yeah, sounds like a cultmeister to me.
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Well, Tula's got sincere plans and goals in life, so when she saw some precious cargo not getting loaded on their ship she took the initiative.
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Apparently, she hadn't gotten the memo about not thinking for yourself if you're in a cult.
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Next thing she knows Brother Blue's taken her aside and is beating the crap out of her.  Brother Blue doesn't want anyone on board who doesn't obey him without questioning, even when his orders make no sense.  Yep, total cultmeister.
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With a lie to her family, Brother Blue leaves Tula for dead.  And so The Prairie Rose flies away into space without her.
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Okay, so now Tula is alone and she quickly finds out that Brother Blue has to it that she is a nobody, which probably means her family thinks she's dead.  And then she's told they're dead, but is that true when so little else was?  She's gotta survive somehow and that's how she falls in with an insectoid alien named Heckleck.  And in the process of going to work for him as a messenger to survive, she starts to learn some valuable things, including what she's made of.
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She also learns to eat maggots.
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But, if she's an insignificant nobody, the galaxy is still moving on.  Politics and the ongoing struggle ends up bringing the new powers-that-be, the Imperium to Tula's God-forsaken space station just when she's wondering if the dead planet below is truly dead.
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The Imperium is full of fresh ideas and have grand plans for which they need lots of workers.  Finally, Tula has a ticket off that space station, but her new friend is less than thrilled and full of foreboding.  Nevertheless, Tula wants to find her family and she wants revenge.
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Tula doesn't go far.  Humans just aren't considered good workers. 
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Luckily, Tula sees the unknown as full of possibilities rather than as something to fear, perhaps because of Heckleck who quickly takes her back under his wing.  Er, appendage. 
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Soon after, humans come back into Tula's life and she's amazed by how alien they seem to her.  Along with them comes more intergalactic politics and dirty politics at that.  Seems Brother Blue's been attracting more attention. 
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Tragedy strikes and along with it comes a chance.  Tula has learned her lessons well and a cute human boy has new information about Brother Blue and life back on planet Earth. 
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Good book.  I didn't feel the depth of emotions I expected to from a young teenage girl stranded out in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of strangers she barely understands.  Nevertheless, it was like resettling an infamous cult out there among the stars and having an average young person take it on.
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Much love.

SPRING MOON by HRH Princess Sophie Audouin-Mamikonian

Indiana, whose mother had a fascination with that famous swashbuckling archaeologist, is a boy caught in a pack of wolves who might think he was delicious, except that he's related.  His mom was a TimeTracker, but he's shown no signs of becoming that or a werewolf.  Everyone in his family is bigger and stronger.  And they have better hair too. 

Oh, what's a boy to do?

Mom's no help.  She's been locked away in an insane asylum patrolled by vampires and fairies since supposedly killing his father.  Gosh, and I thought I had problems. 

Well, he can't whoop his furry cousins the old-fashioned way, so he invests in his brain and it pays off.  He runs into a Semi (half-werewolf, half-human) and manages not to get eaten, even though Axel (the semi, whose built like one by the way), should have no qualms in doing so.  You see, it's the Semis who have given real werewolves their bad name.  But, this one's a reasonable dude and Indy is able to talk him into being pals and, even more, into training him to fight, so he can hold his own at the family reunion.

Meanwhile, Indy grows the rest of the way up and graduates high school.  He's got his sights on college, but the pack are not eager to let a potential Timetracker/Werewolf out amongst humans.  Besides being able to see into the future, TimeTrackers also tend to just vanish, go invisible, whatever.  His formidable grandfather is not anxious to lose control over the boy.  Like Grandmas everywhere, his is able to turn the tide though.

But, the thrill of freedom is short-lived when your grandparents are the most powerful werewolves in the country and there's a psychopathic one on the loose to boot.  Oh, yeah, and human girls are off-limits, dude.

Isn't it just lovely when the grown-ups pass their war on down to the next generation?

Still, it's kinda cool to have a wolf as a bodyguard passing as a service dog when you saunter down the halls of University of Montana. 

If only Bella had played her cards right...

I struggled with how much to tell you all about this story.  You know, we reviewers worry about spoiling the ending for you.  Should I tell you if Indy turns out to be a Mama's Boy or not?  Or if you'll need to vacuum after he visits?  Or, does he turn out to be just a good ol' human boy? 

Nah, I'll let you figure that out.

This was an adventurous tale, but I must admit to wishing it had been written in Third Person instead of First Person Point of View.  I know First Person is the hot thing in YA now, but some stories just need to be told in a certain way to thoroughly enjoy the fullness of it.  This story was much bigger than I could see through Indy's eyes.  This is something I struggle with as a writer myself, so maybe that's why I picked up on it.

SPRING MOON was sent to me by Entangled Publishing   and was my very first ARC for this new blog.

My First ARC for My New Blog!

I've scored my first ARC for this blog!  I used to get them all the time, you know, even unrequested hardbacks, at Enduring Romance, but it takes time for a book reviewer to build, or rebuild, her reputation and audience.  Thank you, Entangled, for taking a chance on me!

My review of Spring Moon   will be up this Friday.  And, look, the hero is blond   ;)
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Later that same evening...

My second ARC!   http://jamiebrazil.com/