"I had the strangest sensation there was more to the story."

Have you ever wished for something to happen and then when it did, you had that creepy feeling, the one where part of you thinks that you willed it to happen? Now imagine that your wish is that the popular kids at school who are constantly picking on you would die. And then, Lucy, who is #1 on your list, goes missing. This is the set up for Todd Strasser's newest book, Wish You Were Dead.
Our protagonist is Madison, a well-off girl who is part of the popular crowd but also is involved with other kids. She is not one to make fun of other students. But she is one of the 2 drivers who dropped Lucy off at her house the night she disappeared. Madison tries to unravel the mystery of what happened to Lucy (and then other students in their clique).
Madison is getting clues from lots of people but will she be able to put them together in time to save her friends?

This book is due to be published on September 22, 2009.

"Something had been born here and it lived here still"

I love a good ghost story and the creep factor that goes along with it. When I was in Chicago for ALA, I snagged an ARC of The Birthing House by Christopher Ransom and looked forward to starting it.

Conrad Harrison is lost in many ways before the book even begins. But as he moves his wife, Joanna and their dogs from LA to Black Earth, his life starts to unravel in ways he could not predict or prevent. The former owners of this "birthing house," the Laskis, are strange and their unknown number of children are just not right. Laski brings Conrad a photo of the women of the house from years ago . . . and Conrad recognizes one of them. She startingly resembles his wife. After Joanna leaves for a work trip and Conrad gets sucked deeper and deeper into the house and those that still inhabit it, he loses track of what is real and what is dream. But is it really a dream at all?

You can watch the video trailer for the book, where the author explains what has inspired him to write it. He and his wife actually moved into a birthing house and after he had a nightmare, he decided to write the novel. Can we say creepy? If I had nightmares like this book, I might hesitate to go to sleep!

The Birthing House was just released on August 4, 2009.