Delightful Discoveries #80

Delightful Discoveries are books that I have discovered recently... old, new, just released... from blogs, Goodreads, libraries, friends, or bookstores. 

Hold Me Like A Breath by Tiffany Schmidt 

  

Penelope Landlow has grown up with the knowledge that almost anything can be bought or sold—including body parts. She’s the daughter of one of the three crime families that control the black market for organ transplants.

Penelope’s surrounded by all the suffocating privilege and protection her family can provide, but they can't protect her from the autoimmune disorder that causes her to bruise so easily.

And in her family's line of work no one can be safe forever.

All Penelope has ever wanted is freedom and independence. But when she’s caught in the crossfire as rival families scramble for prominence, she learns that her wishes come with casualties, that betrayal hurts worse than bruises, that love is a risk worth taking . . . and maybe she’s not as fragile as everyone thinks.

The Creeping by Alexandra Sirowy 

Stella Cambren is the lucky one. When she was a kid, Stella and her friend Jeanie vanished while picking strawberries. Stella came back without any memory of what happened. Jeanie never did. 

Eleven years later, Stella is over it—mostly. She can’t remember a time when people didn’t look at her with a question in their eyes. But she has a summer full of cove days ahead of her, a best friend with a devil-may-care attitude, and a maybe-crush on a gorgeous, popular guy. All Stella wants is to have the best summer of her life. Jeanie’s fate is lost in the black hole of her mind. It’s nothing but the past.

That is, until the fresh corpse of a little girl is found, one with eerie similarities to Jeanie, and Stella’s memories start coming back in fits and starts. As Stella begins to uncover the truth about the day Jeanie vanished, she discovers a bread crumb trail of disappearances going back generations.

Stella thinks remembering what happened to Jeanie will save her. It won’t. 

She used to know better than to believe in what slinks through the shadows. Not anymore. 

And before the summer is over, Stella will learn that if you hunt for monsters, you’ll find them.

What  You Left Behind by Jessica Verdi

What You Left Behind is about a teen wrestling with the guilt that if he hadn't gotten his girlfriend pregnant, she wouldn't have postponed her chemo treatments – and would still be alive. But as Ryden struggles to be a good father and grieve his girlfriend's death, he uncovers secrets that will make him reconsider every relationship in his life.

The Brilliant Light of Amber Sunrise by Matthew Crow 

  
Francis is determined to forge his own way in school and life despite his loony, awkward, broken family...and noticeable lack of friends. Then he is diagnosed with leukemia. It wasn't part of his strategy, but there are moments when he can see the upside. After all, people are nice to you when you're sick.

While in the hospital, Francis meets Amber. She’s outspoken and sarcastic, and Francis falls for her almost immediately. Hard. Together, they take on the other cancer ward patients, overbearing mothers, and treatments with lively wit.

But Francis's recovery is taking a different path from Amber's. He's actually getting better. And although he knew who he was before cancer, before Amber, now he has no idea how to live—or how to let go…

Infected by Sophie Littlefield 

Carina’s senior year is spiraling downward. Fast. Both her mother and her uncle, the only two family members she’s ever known, are dead. Their deaths were accidents, unfortunate results of the highly confidential research they performed for a national security organization. Or so she’s been told.

She’s not buying it. 

After finding a unique code hidden beneath the stone in a ring her mother left to her, Carina goes straight to the only family she has left: her boyfriend, Tanner.

The people Carina loved kept dangerous secrets. Secrets that make her question the life she’s been living up to now. Her life is on the line, but more importantly, so is Tanner’s. And if she fails? He dies.