The spirited and sassy eight-year-old Mandy Berr strives to look—and behave!—her best in this sweet and funny tale. Class Picture Day is fast approaching, and Mandy Berr is looking for the perfect accessory that will complete her special outfit. Her fancy-dancy sunglasses, sparkly scarf, and pink handbag are all up for consideration—but Mandy isn’t sure those will be good enough. As if picking out an appropriate look for her class picture wasn’t enough to worry about, the principal announces a contest for the entire school: whoever exhibits the best behavior in the lunchroom for two weeks gets to have a lunch with him in the mythical teacher’s lounge! Mandy is determined to win…but will her nemesis, Dennis, get in her way?

In the tradition of Pitch Perfect, two best friends battle it out for a capella group supremacy in this hilarious M!X novel. Wylie Tennyson and Jada Emmett have been best friends forever. They have done everything together for so long that when Jada decides to try out for their middle school’s spring musical production, it was only natural for Wylie to audition as well. After all, how fun would it be to be in the chorus together? The only problem is that Jada has her sights set on much more than the chorus—she’s going after one of the lead parts, and wants Wylie to step aside to give her a better shot. Taking a cue from her new favorite television show, Non-Instrumental, Wylie decides to start her middle school’s very first a cappella group. She wants to show Jada that it’s much better to be part of a team’s success than it is to stand under the spotlight alone. This is a great idea, in theory, until Wylie has trouble actually recruiting anyone to join her group. And it doesn’t help when Jada decides to form her own… Can Jada and Wylie find a way to fix things before their battle for vocal supremacy destroys their forever friendship for good?

A tween is forced to use her photography skills to track down a missing classmate during a class trip in New York City in this M!X novel from the author of The Bling Queen. After years of suffering through the most boring spring vacations ever, Avalon Kelly is ready for a week of adventure. On a hash-tagged whim, she entered the PhotoReady app’s spring break getaway contest to NYC—and won! But right away, this trip of a lifetime isn’t turning out as planned. Avalon’s best friend isn’t one of the PhotoReady winners, which means that not only will Avalon have to venture to the Big Apple by herself, but she’ll be assigned a stranger as a roommate. The perky and talkative Sofia seems pleasant enough, but snooty Kensington—who was placed in Room 609 at the last moment due to a mix-up—is a whole other story. Just when Avalon is about ready to abandon the trip entirely, one of the fellow contest winners, the cute and mysterious Tate, disappears from the group, and the Room 609 girls must band together, using the clues within their photographs, if they have any hope of tracking him down. Will the hunt for Tate and the view of New York City through her camera lens be enough to convince Avalon to stick it out for the full week?

A tween jewelry designer finds herself competing for an online fashion blog spot in this funny and sparkly M!X novel. Twelve-year-old Tess loves fashion, but she has a soft spot for accessories. In fact, Tess runs her own consulting firm for the kids at her school. If you need the finishing touch for middle school dances, special occasions like a thirteenth birthday or bat/bar mitzvah, Tess can make it happen. She loves reading The Miscellaneous Moxie, THE online fashion blog that’s as crazy about accessories as Tess is. So when the blog opens up a contest, calling all of their faithful readers to enter to win a chance at designing an accessory of their very own, Tess jumps at the chance to create something that will wow the judges. But things get more complicated when her former BFF turned frenemy, Kayte (who added the y to be “unique”), a self-proclaimed fashion plate, tries to encroach on Tess’s turf—and submits her own entries for the blog contest. In the midst of the Bling War, Tess discovers that a precious locket from her beloved grandmother, Mimi, is missing. Can Tess solve the mystery behind the missing necklace and get crowned the Bling Queen, too?

In the critically acclaimed Five Men Who Broke My Heart, Manhattan journalist Susan Shapiro revisited five self-destructive romances. In her hilarious, illuminating new memoir, Lighting Up, she rejects five self-destructive substances. This difficult quest for clean living starts with Shapiro’s shocking revelation that, at forty, her lengthiest, most emotionally satisfying relationship has been with cigarettes. A two-pack-a-day smoker since the age of thirteen, Susan Shapiro quickly discovers that it’s impossible to be a writer, a nonsmoker, sane, and slender in the same year. The last time she tried to quit, she gained twenty-three pounds, couldn’t concentrate on work, and wanted to kill herself and her husband, Aaron, a TV comedy writer who hates her penchant for puffing away. Yet just as she’s about to choose her vice over her marriage vows, she stumbles upon a secret weapon. Dr. Winters, “the James Bond of psychotherapy,” is a brilliant but unorthodox addiction specialist, a former chain-smoker himself. Working his weird magic on her psyche, he unravels the roots of her twenty-seven-year compulsion, the same dangerous dependency that has haunted her doctor father, her grandfather, and a pair of eccentric aunts from opposite sides of the family, along with Freud and nearly one in four Americans. Dr. Winters teaches her how to embrace suffering, then proclaims that her months of panic, depression, insecurity, vulnerability, and wild mood swings win her the award for “the worst nicotine withdrawal in the history of the world.” Shapiro finally does kick the habit–while losing weight and finding career and connubial bliss–only to discover that the second she’s let go of her long-term crutch, she’s already replaced it with another fixation. After banishing cigarettes, alcohol, dope, gum, and bread from her day-to-day existence, she conquers all her demons and survives deprivation overload. But relying religiously on Dr. Winters, she soon realizes that the only obsession she has left to quit is him. . . . Never has the battle to stem substance abuse been captured with such wit, sophisticated insight, and candor. Lighting Up is so compulsively readable, it’s addictive.

Murder Victims Are Telling Secrets in the Mortuary in Last Words, a Murder Mystery by Ines Saint Dayton, Ohio – Present Day When fortune-teller, Abuela Luci, informs her granddaughter, Angie, that “Many changes are coming your way,” no one is more skeptical than Angie herself. Addicted to telenovelas and proud of her Puerto Rican roots, Angie Gomez Gomez lives alone with her dog, Tito Bendito. While she ekes out a living sculpting busts of prominent people she seldom admires, Angie’s true passion is solving the decade-old mystery of her parents’ murder. But when the town mayor, and former client, dies, the family asks Angie to do the post-mortem makeup. With the support of Pappa, the funeral director, and his grandson, Anthony, Angie commences her work in the depths of the mortuary, where she’s startled to discover that she can hear the echo of the dead person’s last thoughts, and the mayor’s last words were: “Bonnie is dead.” After a few false starts and misadventures, the three of them use Angie’s newfound ability to solve the mayor’s murder without revealing to the police how they got the information. The funeral home starts offering discounts to murder victims’ families just so Angie can hear their last words and solve their murders, while Angie hopes her new ability leads to her parents’ murderer. With the police growing suspicious, Angie herself may be the next victim as someone doesn’t want their secrets told. Publisher’s Note: Readers who enjoy cozy mysteries with a touch of humor, romance, and the paranormal will appreciate the Angie Gomez Murder Mystery series. Stories contain mild profanity and no explicit sex and can be enjoyed by readers 13 and up. “Abuela and her card reading...a delicious piece of the story.” ~Andra Maguran The Angie Gomez Murder Mystery Series are best enjoyed in order: Last Words Word Games Words with Friends About the Author Ines Saint was born in Zaragoza, Spain, and grew up with one foot on an island of Puerto Rico and the other in the States. She’s bilingual and bicultural and has spent the last eighteen years raising her fun, inspiring boys and sharing her life with her husband/best friend/biggest fan. Her greatest joys are spending quality time with family and close friends, traveling, reading feel-good historical fiction, hiking, and snuggling next to her dog, Hobbit.

Eight-year-old Mandy Berr is spirited, sassy, and determined to shine—even if she’s not the center of attention! After learning the hard way that polka dot underwear and white pants are not the best combination, Mandy Berr has gotten over that fashion faux pas, and has (almost) recovered from not being named George Washington in the recent Presidential Pageant. But just when things seem like they might be back in her favor, her former nemesis, Natalie, manages to steal Mandy’s spotlight—again. A broken wrist for Natalie means a cool cast and the attention of Mandy’s classmates…even from Anya, Mandy’s BFF. Can Mandy figure out a way to get back into the center of attention, win back her best friend, AND snag a pair of fancy-dancy periwinkle sunglasses?