[arcadata]

Here's some new discounted books from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for US Kindle (B&N hasn't price-matched yet though):

The Hard Kind of Promise by Gina Willner-Pardo ($1.63 at Amazon, still $5.59 at B&N) *For Gr 4-7 readers:

Product Description:

Sarah promised Marjorie when they were five years old that they would be best friends forever. But that was before seventh grade, when everything changed—everything except Marjorie. While Sarah wants to meet new people and try new things, Marjorie still likes doing the same things they always did. It seems the more time the two girls spend together, the more time Sarah wants to spend apart. How did a promise that was so easy to make become so hard to keep?

With beautifully drawn characters and vivid details, this incisive novel portrays middle school in all its complexity—both the promise of what is to come and the pain of what must be left behind.

About the Author
Gina Willner-Pardo is the author of 15 books, including Jason and the Losers and Figuring Out Frances, which won the Bank Street College of Education Josette Frank Award.

The Go-Between: A Novel of the Kennedy Years by Frederick Turner ($2.16 at Amazon, still $9.99 at B&N)

Product Description:

A faded newspaperman downs a double Maker’s Mark and contemplates life as a “ham-and-egger,” a hack. Then one day he finds the scoop of a lifetime in a Chicago basement: diaries belonging to the infamous Judith Campbell Exner. Right, that Judy, the game girl who waltzed into the midst of America’s most powerful politicians, entertainers, and criminals as they conspired to rule America.

When Frank Sinatra flew Judy to Hawaii for a weekend of partying, she could hardly have imagined where it would lead her: straight to the White House and the waiting arms of Jack Kennedy. And then came the day that JFK and his brother Bobby asked her to carry a black bag to Chicago, where she was to hand it off to the boss of bosses, Sam Giancana. As our Narrator pieces the notebooks into a coherent story, he finds mob connections, rigged primaries, assassination plots, and trysts—and begins to see beyond the tabloid fare to a real woman, adrift and defenseless in a dangerous world where the fates of nations are at stake. As one by one the men Judy loved betrayed her and disappeared, and as the FBI pursued her into a living hell, her diary entries disintegrate along with the beautiful, tough, sweet woman the Narrator has come to know. Who was Exner, after all? Just a gangster’s moll? Or a bighearted woman who believed the sky-high promises of the New Frontier—and paid the price?

About the Author
FREDERICK TURNER is the author of many works of nonfiction and two novels, and is the recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation.

The Konkans by Tony D'Souza ($2.17 at Amazon, still $9.99 at B&N)

Product Description:

Francisco D’Sai is a firstborn son of a firstborn son—all the way back to the beginning of a long line of proud Konkans, the “Jews of India,” who abandoned their Hindu traditions, knelt before Vasco da Gama’s sword and Saint Francis Xavier’s cross, and became Catholics.

In Chicago circa 1973, Francisco’s Konkan father, Lawrence, does his best to assimilate into American culture, drinking a lot and speaking little. But Francisco’s American, Peace Corps–veteran mother,Denise, and his uncle Sam (aka Samuel Erasmus D’Sai) are passionate raconteurs set on preserving the family’s Konkan heritage. Friends, allies, and eventually lovers, Sam and Denise feed Francisco’s imagination with proud visions of India and Konkan history.

Like his acclaimed debut Whiteman and like the works of Monica Ali or Jhumpa Lahiri,Tony D’Souza’s The Konkans is an absorbing portrait of assimilation filled with romance, comedy, masterly storytelling, and the truth of family life in any country.

The Hanging Woods by Scott Loring Sanders ($2.38 at Amazon, still $10.19 at B&N) *For Grade 10 Up readers

Product Description:

What Walter reads that day changes him. Not in any way someone would really notice. He still goes to school, hangs out with his friends Jimmy and Mothball, and tries to avoid the Troll, the town recluse. But something in him has changed. It's as if he can feel a part of him growing—the part that can stand by and watch a house burn down or the life flow out of a fox, without doing anything to stop either. He knows he could—should—do something to help. But some part of him keeps him glued in place, watching with fascination and curiosity. Maybe it would have been better if Walter had never found out the things he did. Maybe he didn't really want to know. But then again, maybe he did. Richly atmospheric, The Hanging Woods is at times disturbing, but it is always riveting. It's a tale of deception, delusion, and the dark places a troubled mind can go.

About the Author
Scott Loring Sanders's work has been published in both literary magazines and larger publications, including Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.

Growing Wings by Laurel Winter ($2.54 at Amazon, still $5.59 at B&N) *for Ages 10-14 readers

Product Description:

"Linnet waited with her eyes closed for the door to open and her mother to peek in. Waited for her to touch Linnet's shoulder blades lightly...Linnet knew that touch in her bones, as if it had happened every night of her life. An imprint, a memory of the skin itself."

So begins this startling first novel about an eleven-year-old girl who suddenly begins to grow wings -- wings with soft auburn feathers, which only at first can be hidden with long hair and loose clothes. Funny, sad, and hopeful, this remarkable story captures a girl's shock at feeling alone in life, as it follows her journey to answer a most important question: how can a girl with wings ever fit into the world?

Mind Games by Jeanne Marie Grunwell ($2.67 at Amazon, still $4.76 at B&N) *for Grade 5-8 readers

Product Description:

Six Clearview Middle School seventh-graders are $500 richer after buying a Maryland State Lottery ticket this week in order to test a scientific hypothesis.

Benjamin Lloyd, 12, whose father purchased the winning ticket, declined to discuss details of the students’ experiment, citing concerns of competition in the March 13 state science fair. . . . Mr. Ennis was as tight-lipped as his students regarding the nature of their experiment. “They plan to go public at the science fair. And that’s about all I can say. But,” he said, grinning, “I do predict a win.”

Thus reads an article in the Waverly Times, which is Exhibit Ain the Mad Science Club’s report to prove the existence of ESP. As told through the individual voices of a diverse cast of characters, Mind Games crackles with personality. Discoveries from the paranormal to the personal abound in this insightful exploration of friendship, science, ESP—and the lottery.

John the Revelator by Peter Murphy ($2.86 at Amazon, still $9.99 at B&N)

Product Description:

Already fast becoming a classic among coming-of-age tales, John the Revelator has garnered praise from Nick Laird, Colm Tóibín, Roddy Doyle, and John Boyne, and is a critical darling in the U.K.
This is the story of John Devine--stuck in a small town in the otherworldly landscape of southeastern Ireland, worried over by his single, chain-smoking, Bible-quoting mother, Lily, and spied on by the "neighborly" Mrs. Nagle. When Jamey Corboy, a self-styled Rimbaudian boy wonder, arrives in town, John's life suddenly seems full of possibility. His loneliness dissipates. He is taken up by mischief and discovery, hiding in the world beyond as Lily's mysterious illness worsens. But Jamey and John's nose for trouble may be their undoing, and soon John will be faced with a terrible moral dilemma.
Joining the ranks of the great novels of friendship and betrayal--A Separate Peace, A Prayer for Owen Meany, and Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha--John the Revelator grapples with the pull of the world and the hold of those we love.