Happy Debut YA Book Birthdays

So yes, I did skip last week in order to celebrate the launch of a single title: ORIGIN.  But now I'm back and there seem to be loads of titles coming out today (September 11th).  Not all of them are debut authors either, so if you've been waiting for Sophie Jordan or Ellen Hopkin's next novels, today's your day.  But there are some great debut titles this week too, like these:

ANYTHING BUT ORDINARY by Lara Avery
Bryce remembers it like it was yesterday. The scent of chlorine. The blinding crack and flash of pain. Blood in the water.

When she wakes up in the hospital, all Bryce can think of is her disastrous Olympic diving trial. But everything is different now. Bryce still feels seventeen, so how can her little sister be seventeen, too? Life went on without her while Bryce lay in a coma for five years. Her best friend and boyfriend have just graduated from college. Her parents barely speak. And everything she once dreamed of doing—winning a gold medal, traveling the world, falling in love—seems beyond her reach.

But Bryce has changed too, in seemingly impossible ways.  She knows things she shouldn’t. Things that happened while she was asleep. Things that haven’t even happened yet. During one luminous summer, as she comes to understand that her dreams have changed forever, Bryce learns to see life for what it truly is: extraordinary.

PERSONAL EFFECTS by E.M. Kokie

After his older brother dies in Iraq, Matt makes a discovery that rocks his beliefs about strength, bravery, and honor in this page-turning debut.

Ever since his brother, T.J., was killed in Iraq, Matt feels like he’s been sleepwalking through life — failing classes, getting into fights, and avoiding his dad’s lectures about following in his brother’s footsteps. T.J.’s gone, but Matt can’t shake the feeling that if only he could get his hands on his brother’s stuff from Iraq, he’d be able to make sense of his death. But as Matt searches for answers about T.J.’s death, he faces a shocking revelation about T.J.’s life that suggests he may not have known T.J. as well as he thought. What he learns challenges him to stand up to his father, honor his brother’s memory, and take charge of his own life. With compassion, humor, and a compelling narrative voice, E. M. Kokie explores grief, social mores, and self-discovery in a provocative first novel.

DEAD CAT BOUNCE by Nic Bennett
One boy must stop the world's greatest financial conspiracy . . . .

Sixteen-year-old Jonah Lightbody is shocked when the world erupts in the greatest financial crisis it has ever seen . . . and the bank where he and his father work has blood on its balance sheet. The head trader claims that Jonah's father is to blame--the trades that caused the crash came from his computer. Now, Jonah will have to race to uncover the truth. But what Jonah doesn't realize is that he's just been catapulted to the center of a global conspiracy where money reigns, human lives are collateral, and anyone will sell you out if the payday is large enough.

Dead Cat Bounce has all the action of Anthony Horowitz's Alex Rider series combined with the seductiveness of Wall Street, the edge-of-your-seat pacing of The Bourne Identity, and the elaborate intrigue of Too Big to Fail. It's the story of Jonah Lightbody and he's on a mission to save the world no matter the price.

NERVE by Jeanne Ryan
A high-stakes online game of dares turns deadly

When Vee is picked to be a player in NERVE, an anonymous game of dares broadcast live online, she discovers that the game knows her. They tempt her with prizes taken from her ThisIsMe page and team her up with the perfect boy, sizzling-hot Ian. At first it's exhilarating--Vee and Ian's fans cheer them on to riskier dares with higher stakes. But the game takes a twisted turn when they're directed to a secret location with five other players for the Grand Prize round. Suddenly they're playing all or nothing, with their lives on the line. Just how far will Vee go before she loses NERVE?

Debut author Jeanne Ryan delivers an un-putdownable suspense thriller.

So what say you about this week's debut YA releases?