friendship

Under the blazing sun, an elite troupe of dancers are trained to harness their magic. They are the queen?s most formidable assassins. Aasira has one of the rarest talents ? for she is a flame-wielder. Feared by all and envied by some, she uses her power to execute enemies of the crown. Aasira?s greatest wish is to serve her queen. But on the eve of her graduation, with tensions rising among the dancers and secrets stirring in the shifting sand dunes, she begins to question whether she was truly born to kill...

In The Falls of the Wyona by David Brendan Hopes, four friends growing up on the banks of a wild Appalachian river just after WWII discover, almost at the same time, the dangerous, alluring Falls and the perils of their own maturing hearts. Seen through the eyes of his best friend Arden, football hero Vince falls in love with the new kid, Glen. They have no context for their feelings, and the next few years of high school become a tense, though sometimes funny, artifice of concealment. The winner of Red Hen?s Quill Prize, The Falls of the Wyona is the first of three achieved (and several more projected) novels by this author imbued with the magical atmosphere of Appalachian culture.

"Winning the chance to resurrect her ex-best friend Annie LeBlanc from the dead for 30 days, Wilson Moss, ecstatic to have her back, discovers a loophole that may mean Annie can stay for good, but the only person who can help is someone who hates them both"--Provided by publisher.

"Queen Meilyr is dead, and a tenuous peace has settled over Evewyn. King Meilek's ascension has ended his sister's oppression of the shamanborn, marking a new start for the country where Sirscha, once a prisoner, has been elevated to a position as the King's Shadow. Yet, beneath the surface, tensions between shamanborn and other citizens remain high. Conflicts rage at Evewyn's borders. The Soulless still lurks in the darkness. And while some might call Sirscha a hero for allegedly killing the Queen, to many she's a monster--a soulrender just like the Soulless. Sometimes Sirscha even believes that herself. But Sirscha recognizes the Soulless as the world's common enemy, and she is determined to hunt him down to prevent yet another war. As the Soulless reemerges and both his power and the Dead Wood grow, Sirscha knows time is running short. She'll have to trust in her true friends--and her own power--if she hopes to end the Soulless's hold over the land for good. But when defeating him requires a sacrifice too terrible to conceive, Sirscha will have to decide how far she's willing to go to save Evewyn"--Provided by publisher.

Belly spends the summer she turns sixteen at the beach just like every other summer of her life, but this time things are very different.

"Ameena feels invisible. It's been that way since she started at her new school. But now there is another new girl in class. Ameena sees her brownness, her hijab, even though the other kids do not. Ameena wants to be her friend, but she can't seem to find the right words or do the right things. Until one day, they find them together"--Provided by publisher.

Feeling pulled between two cultures after a month with family in Pakistan, Amina shares her experiences with Wisconsin classmates through a class assignment and a songwriting project with new student Nico.

Twelve-year-old Parker must unravel a curse to save his family's beloved Maine motel.

"Bea Black has just moved to Little Spellshire with her dad, who accidentally enrolls her in the local witch school. Bea (who is very much NOT a witch) has to tackle complicated classes like potions and levitation, take care of the class frog, and most importantly of all, figure out how to keep her magic a secret from her dad and her best friend!"--OCLC.