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Candy Sky Tells a Lie, by Shanna P. Lowe

The heartwarming and hilarious tale of a thirteen-year-old notorious liar who is cursed by a witch to live in a world where all her lies come true.

Candice “Candy” Sky is a thirteen-year-old girl with a lying streak. She hides her poor grades from her parents, she fibs about having a famous cousin, and she claims that rising pop singer Elijah Nole is her boyfriend.

Unfortunately, after lying to her English teacher, a rumored witch, Candy is cursed to live in a world where all of her lies come true. At first, Candy has everything she has ever wanted—designer clothes, popularity, straight A’s, and Elijah Nole as her boyfriend!

However, Candy’s lies put her and those she cares about into many dangerous situations. What’s worse? In the “Cursed World,” Candy is her best friend’s bully.

Can Candy break the curse…or will she be forced to live with her lies forever?

Genre: Middle Grade Urban Fantasy

Why I Liked It: A fast read, it’s funny and relatable, and the MC learns an important lesson about the importance of truth.

Left Behind, by Tim LaHaye & Jerry B. Jenkins (Entire Series)

An airborne Boeing 747 is headed to London when, without any warning, passengers mysteriously disappear from their seats. Terror and chaos slowly spread not only through the plane, but also worldwide as unusual events continue to unfold. For those who have been left behind, the apocalypse has just begun.

The Full Series:

  1. Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days
  2. Tribulation Force: The Continuing Drama of Those Left Behind
  3. Nicolae: The Rise of Antichrist
  4. Soul Harvest: The World Takes Sides
  5. Apollyon: The Destroyer is Unleashed
  6. Assassins: Assignment: Jerusalem, Target: Antichrist
  7. The Indwelling: The Beast Takes Possession
  8. The Mark: The Beast Rules the World
  9. Desecration: Antichrist Takes the Throne
  10. The Remnant: On the Brink of Armageddon
  11. Armageddon: The Cosmic Battle of the Ages
  12. Glorious Appearing: The End of Days
  13. Kingdom Come: The Final Victory

Genre: Christian Fiction

Why I Liked It: All these novels grabbed me right from the start. They include a LOT of Christian teaching about end times, and show the real struggle people have with faith.

Dragon's Kiss, by E.A. Winters

Every month, the great black dragon comes.

Every month, a child is snatched.

That’s all the village of Kalma knows.

But Semra was one of those children, and she knows the truth: there is a dragonlord in the mountain, raising the children into his own personal syndicate of assassins.

When seventeen-year-old Semra learns they aren’t fighting evil but are in fact evil themselves, she risks everything to expose the dragonlord. As one young, nobody assassin against the king’s security and an army of her former colleagues bent on her destruction, Semra must uncover the truth and save the royal family before the dragonlord rips them apart and plunges the kingdom into war.

Genre: YA Epic Fantasy

Why I Liked It: I like dragons, I like the resistance to normalizing the morally gray or morally black (AKA the assassins in this book), and there was a twist in this that I did NOT see coming. Those are the best.

The Vine Witch, by Luanne G. Smith

A young witch emerges from a curse to find her world upended in this gripping fantasy set in turn-of-the-century France.

For centuries, the vineyards at Château Renard have depended on the talent of their vine witches, whose spells help create the world-renowned wine of the Chanceaux Valley. Then the skill of divining harvests fell into ruin when sorcière Elena Boureanu was blindsided by a curse. Now, after breaking the spell that confined her to the shallows of a marshland and weakened her magic, Elena is struggling to return to her former life. And the vineyard she was destined to inherit is now in the possession of a handsome stranger.

Vigneron Jean-Paul Martel naively favors science over superstition, and he certainly doesn’t endorse the locals’ belief in witches. But Elena knows a hex when she sees one, and the vineyard is covered in them. To stay on and help the vines recover, she’ll have to hide her true identity, along with her plans for revenge against whoever stole seven winters of her life. And she won’t rest until she can defy the evil powers that are still a threat to herself, Jean-Paul, and the ancient vine-witch legacy in the rolling hills of the Chanceaux Valley.

Genre: Historical / Fairy Tale Fantasy

Why I Liked It: It was a refreshing change from epic ground-up fantasy where there’s a blend of magic and modern… for the cusp of the Industrial Revolution. I found it so cute and quaint that I actually sent a copy to my best friend.