Guest Post: YA Recommendations from Victoria Janssen

Today we have Victoria Janssen blogging about her recommendations for Young Adult books--classics and those that are destined to be classics. 


Victoria has three erotic romance novels out with Harlequin Spice (one with a sexy privateer, one with a naughty duchess, and one with sexy werewolf intrigue during WWI) and a variety of short stories available that were written under her other alter ego Elspeth Potter. 


Enjoy!

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As you’re probably going to guess from this list of my YA favorites, I can go on…and on…and on.  I broke it up into two parts:  destined to be classics, and classics.  All of these books are by women; I didn’t do that intentionally, but it’s true that I tend to read more female authors.  I also tend to strongly favor speculative fiction in my Young Adult reading, which you can also tell from my list.

***Destined to be Classics***

Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog, Ysabeau Wilce – I think everyone should read this book for the worldbuilding, for the language, for everything, really.  The world is an alternate California that is a client state of the Huitzals, nicknamed Birdies, who are alternate-world Aztecs.  Wilce puts language in a blender and comes up with something ornate and unique and new. There are adventures, and madness, and depression, and coping, and amusing things, and brave things.  But go read it and you’ll find out.

Libyrinth, Pearl North - The Libyrinth is a library in a post-apocalyptic society that’s being opposed by the illiterate Eradicants and the matriarchal empire of Ilysies.  The cool thing about this book is that there's no clear "good" and "bad." The Eradicants have reasons for what they do, and they are not at all monolithic, not even in their upper echelons. The Libyrarians think they are enlightened but are also constrained by fear. And Ilysies with its ruthlessly practical queen is a wild card that turns out to be very important as well. Actions in this book have real consequences, none of them simple. There are few easy decisions for the characters, and it has a lot of bated breath moments.  I really loved how the ending was brought about, as well.

Stormwitch, Susan Vaught - set in 1969 Mississippi, the heroine, Ruba, is an orphan who's grown up in Haiti with her maternal grandmother; but her Grandmother Ba has died, and she's just had to move to the States to live with her paternal grandmother Jones, where she finds it hard to deal with racism and the lack of freedom that comes with segregation.  Ruba struggles to assimilate her Haitian religion with the practices of the local church, a social and cultural center. At the same time, Ruba must decide if and how to use her magic against threats from the local Klan members and their children.  Through Grandmother Jones, Ruba also learns the history of the Civil Rights movement; seen through her eyes and her grandmother's, it becomes not a series of infodumped history lessons but a matter of immediate importance that shapes and changes Ruba's ways of thinking and fighting.  Really excellent, and the winner of several awards.

The Thief, Megan Whalen Turner – the narrative complexity of Turner’s series, which begins with this book, is extremely rewarding if you like to re-read, and if even if you don’t, there’s added joy in having something meta to chew on as you read about vivid characters in imaginary kingdoms who aren’t telling you everything.  The second book in the series, The Queen of Attolia, is one of the best books I’ve ever read, bar none, but definitely read it in its proper sequence.  If you love Turner, you’ll very likely love Wein, mentioned below.

Valiant, Holly Black – Black has recently moved on to a new series, which begins with the truly amazing White Cat, but I have a deep and powerful love for Valiant, which begins with its athlete heroine discovering her mother’s been having an affair with her own boyfriend.  As reasons go for running away and ending up a runner of fairy drugs go, that’s a pretty good one.  I love Black’s work for the realism and honesty of her teen characters, even in the most wildly fantastical settings.  Like New Jersey.  The hero of this one goes beyond Byronic into truly unique, and I love him dearly.

Elizabeth Wein – it’s hard to pick a single book by Wein that’s a favorite, but if you’re going to try one, I’d go with The Sunbird, the first in the series featuring Telemakos as the hero.  Wein has a unique take on Arthuriana; the first book in her series, The Winter Prince, takes place in Britain, but the characters soon move to the African kingdom of Aksum.  These are technically Middle Grade books, but believe me, there’s nothing fluffy or childish about them.  In The Sunbird, Telemakos becomes a pre-teen spy in a matter of truly national urgency; he undergoes terrible privations with incredible bravery; it’s a good thing these books are short, because they are very intense, and hard to put down once begun.  If you love Wein, you’ll very likely love Turner, mentioned above.

***Classics***

For this list, I’m trying to stay away from the obvious and mention a few that I don’t see very often on recommendation lists; I also aimed it a bit more at readers who like romance.

The Girl with the Silver Eyes, Willo Davis Roberts – this is one of those “girl finds out she is special” science fiction novels, but it’s a particularly wonderful one.  I read this from the library (I think) as a kid, and happened upon it again years later, as an adult, when I found out I still adored it.

A Company of Swans, Eva Ibbotson – This historical is my favorite Ibbotson because it begins in Edwardian England, and then moves to Brazil, and it’s all so magically wonderful and strange, not a fantasy but with the feel of one; there are romantic elements, as well.  Similar, but for a younger audience, is Ibbotson’s Journey to the River Sea.

The Changeover, Margaret Mahy – subtitled “A Supernatural Romance,” this book has an intense romance and a weird but very cool take on witchcraft, made more fascinating by its New Zealand setting.  Romance readers to whom I’ve recommended this book have inevitably loved it.

The Perilous Gard, Elizabeth Marie Pope – this is another one romance readers tend to love.  Set in the Elizabethan period, it has one of the best grim and mysterious heroes I’ve ever seen.

Fire and Hemlock, Diane Wynne Jones – I didn’t encounter Jones’ writing until I was in college, and this was the first of her books I read.  It still holds up today; a girl makes friends with a mysterious older man, a cellist, and…it’s not creepy like it sounds, it’s creepy because there’s Faerie, and it takes a while to comprehend everything that’s going on.  It’s just cool.  Go read it.

Finally, Rosemary Sutcliff.  She wrote a number of truly excellent historicals, many of them featuring male bonding that m/m fans might enjoy, but it’s hard to choose a single one to recommend.  I’ll go with one of my favorites of her Roman Britain books, The Silver Branch, a sort of sequel to The Eagle of the Ninth; I love it because one of the two heroes is a military surgeon.  If you like Elizabeth Wein, you might like Sutcliff.