Summer Hand Sales

Hand selling is a bookseller term for when we direct customers to a particular title that we like. In truth it is done automatically, when you work in a bookstore, you like books, and if a customer asks for recommendations you do your best to help them. Lately I found that I have been hand selling two titles that I haven't blogged about! They are both great new summer reads, one romance and one science fiction thriller.

First the romance:

The Half-Life of Planets by Emily Franklin & Brendan Halpin

This teen summer romance is written in the he said / she said format with the alternate authors writing alternate chapters from different characters point of view. I admit that this is one of my favorite formats for character driven books; it is easy to read and it keeps stories interesting where books written in straight linear formats often get bogged down somewhere in the middle. There is no bogging in The Half-Life of Planets.

Liana is an aspiring scientist from a well-off unhappy family. Hank is an aspiring musician from a not-so-well-off unhappy family. Oh, and Hank has Asperger's, a form of Autism that is not so severe that he cannot interact, but does interfere with his ability to relate to other teenagers, and it makes his musical aspirations seem more like obsessions. Actually it was his Asperger's that first drew Liana to Hank. She met him in a women's bathroom and thought he must be mature because he didn't seem embarrassed. Hank wasn't embarrassed, he wouldn't think that one would need to be embarrassed if they were found in a women's bathroom...

Liana knows Hank is different, but she doesn't know why, and for much of the book she doesn't know WHAT is wrong with him. It is an interesting plot device. The Half-Life of Planets is a classic teen romance, with a twist, and it is lots of fun!

Now for the Action:

Dark Life by Kat Falls

Much of the continents have fallen into the sea, forcing humanity to cram into cities that grow higher and higher. Space becomes valuable and unattainable, inspiring some to colonize the sea. These colonists live in fantastic undersea jelly houses and farm the ocean floor. But no one knows yet how living undersea will affect humans, or how to stop a gang of raiders from attacking the colonist's homesteads.

Ty, the first child raised undersea, is desperate to hide the powers he is developing. Gemma, a topsider, is searching for her only family, a long-lost brother who was last known to be an ocean miner. Together they try to outwit the raiders and save their families.

The adventure keeps you turning the pages, but in truth it is Kat Falls' utterly believable and super techno cool creation of an undersea wild-west-world that makes Dark Life fantastic!