Boys and Girls, check out this great post from The YALSA Hub about “Love+” books…. you know, a great big genre mash-up that isn’t just about love, or maybe is about love but you don’t realize it until you’re nearly finished (I’m looking at you, The Scorpio Races…).  So, here it is:

The first day of spring isn’t too long ago and with the arrival of spring comes love. Ah, love, ain’t it grand? There’s nothing better than a satisfying romance where the couple gets together and your heart grows three sizes in one day. But sometimes, don’t you want a little bit more with your love? Something a little bit … weirder than your run-of-the-mill Nicholas Sparks sob-fest? I do. I like my genres to be mixed and mashed together like a perfect equation: sure solving for xis the goal, but you can still appreciate the distinct parts along the way. So if you’re looking for some great YA romances that mix up their genres, here are some picks for you. Check out my equations:

Love + a go-getter reporter in the Nancy Drew vein + demons + a witchy best friend = Prom Dates from Hell by Rosemary Clement-Moore

I am of the opinion that Clement-Moore is one of the best writers of the paranormal genre out there today. All of her books are smart, funny, and have just the right amount of spooky. In this first book of her Maggie Quinn: Girl v. Evil series, our sarcastic heroine Maggie begins to suspect that something is not all together normal. The popular clique starts getting picked off one by one, and the evil, sulfurous smell pervading the school confirms Maggie’s fears: a demonic presence. With the help of a kind and believably interested college student, Justin, Maggie uses her paranormal girl sleuth skills on the case. Two equally hilarious and gently romantic sequels follow.

Love + shadow people + star-crossed lovers + Chicago + alternative histories = The Shadow Society by Marie Rutkowski

I love alternate history stories, but it’s not often that the alternate universe is placed parallel to our known, “normal” one. This is the case inThe Shadow Societywhen Darcy Jones, an orphan bounced around to various foster families, finds out she’s really a Shade. Shades are citizens of an alternate universe that was shattered into being during the events of the Great Chicago Fire. Conn, a mysterious and handsome stranger, saves her when she is most vulnerable, but can Darcy trust him? He knows the truth about her and promptly arrests her for being a terrorist. Here is a story of star-crossed lovers that is a lot more winning and believable than others.

Love, but in an understated way + Celtic mythology + horse racing = The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

While not a strictly swooning, will-they-or-won’t-they romance, there’s still an amazing amount of love in this book. On the fictional island of Thisby, every year horses come from the sea. People capture the horses, and if the horses don’t escape and eat them or someone else, the residents of the island ride them in a big stakes race around the island. Sean Kendrick is a talented horse trainer with his mount Corr, and Puck is a girl just trying to save her family’s house with her plucky pony. The two are drawn together slowly and subtly, but the end result leaves the reader satisfied and yet wanting more.

Love + Facebook + oh my gosh the ’90s counts as “historical fiction” now = The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler

In 1996, when Emma gets a new computer and a free AOL CD to connect to the Internet, she finds her own Facebook page. But Facebook (“Thefacebook” back then, remember that?) isn’t created until 2004. Emma becomes obsessed with it and finding a way to change her life and that of her friend, Josh. The book puts a contemporary spin on the age old question: what would do if you could see the future? The 1990s references may be lost on some younger readers, but those who remember constantly listening to the Dave Matthews Band and lightening our hair in the summer with Sun-In will get a kick out of it.

If those don’t strike your fancy, here are some other “Love plus …”
books you might enjoy:

• Love + graphic novels + paranormal beings of all kinds =My Boyfriend is a Monster series, written by various authors, published by Graphic Universe
• Love + fairy tale retellings + actual faeries + a heartrending LGBTQ angle =Ashby Malinda Lo
• Love + space travel + the creeping totalitarian dread of1984=Across the Universeseries by Beth Revis
• Love + secret, occult libraries + Mary Shelley + raising the dead =This Dark Endeavorby Kenneth Oppel
• Love + voodoo + ghost hunters + terror + a poor cursed girl =Anna Dressed in Bloodby Kendare Blake
• Love + bounty hunters + teenage samurais + zombies + villains that rival The Walking Dead‘s Governor in evilness = the Benny Imura series by Jonathan Maberry

– Anna Tschetter, currently reading Blood Red Road by Moira Young

Click the link above to listen to The Guardian’s podcast with Patrick Ness.

If you haven’t yet, you need to check out his Chaos Walking trilogy. The action will keep you at the edge of your seat and flipping through the pages like crazy!

Click here to find Patrick Ness’ books on our online catalog!

Check out this Entertainment Weekly interview with Kiera Cass, author ofThe Selection.

The Selection, the first in a planned trilogy, hit shelves last week. In the book, the Selection is a lottery in which girls from all castes are picked to compete for a chance to marry Prince Maxon. Enter 17-year-old America Singer who has no interest in entering the Selection, particularly because she’s already in love with her secret boyfriend, Aspen.

Aspen insists she enter for the chance at a better life, and in a whirlwind of events, she gets chosen and winds up at the castle competing for the prince’s heart. It’s The Bachelor meets Cinderella, and I couldn’t put it down. Nor could pick sides in the quintessential YA love triangle. Team Maxon or Team Aspen? I don’t know!

The second book is slated for next spring, and while author Kiera Cass was tight-lipped about what’s coming in book two, she did confirm that Maxon, America, and Aspen will make clear choices. Unfortunately, those love-triangle decisions won’t be revealed until the third, and final, book.