Snowed (The Bloodline of Yule Trilogy)

Book 1 in the Bloodline of Yule TrilogyFrom the multiple Bram Stoker Award-winning and Anthony Award-nominated author Maria AlexanderCharity Jones is a 16-year-old engineering genius who's much-bullied for being biracial and a skeptic at her conservative school in Oak County, California. Everything changes when Charity's social worker mother brings home a sweet teen runaway named Aidan to foster for the holidays. Matched in every way, Charity and Aidan quickly fall in love. But it seems he's not the only new arrival: Charity soon finds the brutally slain corpse of her worst bully and she gets hard, haunting evidence that the killer is stalking Oak County. As she and her Skeptics Club investigate this death and others, they find at every turn the mystery only grows darker and more deadly. One thing's for certain: there's a bloody battle coming this holiday season that will change their lives — and human history — forever.Will they be ready?

From Library Journal

Gr 8 Up-Charity, a biracial, robot-building math whiz, is an atheist who does not fit in at her new school in a conservative small town. After she forms the Skeptics Club, she deals with extreme bullying for her beliefs. Then, the ringleader of "Bullies for Jesus" is found brutally killed, apparently mauled by a wild beast. Charity and her new friends from Skeptics Club become "monster hunters" as they try to find out what happened. Meanwhile, Charity discovers that Aidan, a teenage runaway whom her family is fostering, is actually is the son of Santa Claus. Santa's true name, it turns out, is Krampus, and he and his creepy elves are coming to take Aidan home. The character motivations in this holiday horror offering are at times unclear. Charity's drug-dealing brother, Charles, has an inexplicable hatred toward Aidan, while Charity in return has no feelings for her brother and is all too happy for him to be arrested. In addition, the Christian characters sometimes veer into caricatures of homophobic bullies, while pop culture references are fun but could become dated. Still, the fantasy elements are fully imagined, and the unique premise may attract horror fans, who will appreciate the teens' creative solutions for fighting the villains. VERDICT An additional purchase for large libraries or those looking for horror with an original plot.-Allison McLean, Elkhart Public Library, IN

About the Author

Maria Alexander is a multiple award-winning author of both YA and adult fiction. Her short stories have appeared since 1999 in publications such as Chiaroscuro Magazine, Gothic.net and numerous acclaimed anthologies.  Her debut novel, Mr. Wicker, won the 2014 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. Publisher's Weekly called it, "(a) splendid, bittersweet ode to the ghosts of childhood," while Library Journal hailed it in a Starred Review as "a horror novel to anticipate." Her breakout YA novel, Snowed, was unleashed on November 2, 2016, by Raw Dog Screaming Press. It won the 2016 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel and was nominated for the 2017 Anthony Award for Best Children's/YA Novel in mystery writing.  When she's not stabbing people with a foil or cutting targets with a katana, she's being outrageously spooky or writing Doctor Who filk. She lives in Los Angeles with three ungrateful cats, a Jewish Christmas caroler, and a purse called Trog.

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