Low Red Moon by Ivy Devlin

Low Red Moon by Ivy Devlin is a YA novel with crossover appeal.  The cover is gorgeous and the story quickly draws you in.

The blurb:
Her parents are dead.  She can't remember what happened.  And now she's in love with the most dangerous creature in the forest.

The only thing Avery Hood can remember about the night her parents died is that she saw silver -- deadly silver moving inhumanly fast.  As much as she wants to remember who killed them, she can't and there's nothing left to do but try to piece her life back together.

Then Avery meets the new boy in school -- Ben, mysterious and beautiful, with whom she feels a connection like nothing she's ever experienced.  Ben is a werewolf, but Avery trusts him -- at first.  Then she sees that sometimes his eyes flash an inhuman silver.  And she learns that she's not the only one who can't remember the night her parents died.

Review:
Low Red Moon opens with the violent murder of Avery's family.  Avery has blocked out most of the details of the attack.  The first responders found Avery covered in blood -- trying to piece her parents' bodies back together.

With her home deemed officially  a crime scene closed off to her, Avery moves in with her grandmother, Renee, in a house in town.  Avery is slow to adjust:  she misses the home her parents built and their life in the middle of the woods.   The constants of her old life are gone from the solar panels to the walks in the dark and quiet woods.  Avery starts out awkward with Renee but as she comes to understand the her family history, things improve.  The interaction between Renee and Avery is one of the book's strengths.  Devlin captures the  nuances and tentativeness of their relationship.

My favorite part of the book is the love story between Avery and the mysterious new student Ben.  From the first time that Avery sees him to the excitement and elation when they discover their mutual attraction and their later heartbreak, Low Red Moon a captivating and engrossing story of young love. It's a book to share with teens and adults alike.

ISBN-10: 1599905108 - Hardcover $16.99
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Children's Books (September 14, 2010), 256 pages.
Review copy provided by the publisher.

About the Author:
Ivy Devlin is a debut author. Learn more about her at http://www.ivydevlin.com

Book Review of The Survivors Club: The Secrets and Science that Could Save Your Life by Ben Sherwood

The Survivors Club: The Secrets and Science that Could Save Your Life by Ben Sherwood

The blurb:
What are the secrets of the world's most effective survivors?  What do they know that we don't?

Each second of the day, one of us faces a crisis, whether it's a car accident, violent crime, serious illness, or financial trouble.  Who beats the odds and who surrenders?  And how can we become the kind of people who survive and thrive?  The fascinating, hopeful answers are in this book, revealed in gripping true stories, astonishing scientific research, and the author's own adventures inside elite survival schools and the government's airplane crash evacuation course. 

And through an exclusive, powerful, Internet-based test called the Survivor Profiler, you can discover your own survivor personality and top survivor strengths.  There is no escaping life's inevitable struggles.  But The Survivors Club can give you an edge when adversary strikes.

Review:
Ben Sherwood's The Survivors Club is a book that could help save your life.  Where is the safest seat on an airplane? What are the wrong (and right) things to do on an airplane?  Who lives and dies in the E.R.?  Why do some people live and others die?  Why do good things always happen to the same people?  Who bounces back and who doesn't?  Can fear save your life?  Sherwood explores the mind-sets and habits that impact our odds of surviving serious challenges and extreme adversity.  Through interviews with scientists, professionals, and survivors, he explores the different factors that influence our reactions and chances of survival.  As Sherwood points out the ways that each of us can improve our odds of survival, The Survivors Club encourages us to take ownership over our actions.

ISBN-10: 0446698857 - Trade Paperback $14.99
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing; Reprint edition (February 3, 2010), 400 pages.
Review copy provided by the publisher.

About the Author:
Award-winning journalist Ben Sherwood worked as executive producer of ABC's Good Morning America and senior broadcast producer of NBC Nightly News.  His bestselling novels, The Man Who Ate the 747 and The Life and Death of Charlie St. Cloud, were published around the world.  A graduate of Harvard College and a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University, he lives with his wife and son in Los Angeles. For more about his book and survivorship, visit www.TheSurvivorClub.org