From fantasy and steampunk, to mystery and thriller, to contemporary social issue and romance, the authors in this book have all written novels that feature strong girls as protagonists. These girls solve their problems using their brains, skills, reason, courage, and resiliency. In other words, they are kick ass girls, sometimes without literally kicking ass. They are heroines. This book contain short stories starring the heroines—or other characters—from the worlds depicted in our novels. They are the Kick Ass Girls of Fire and Ice YA Books. Don’t be afraid to be a kick ass girl. Read on! ~ Hucknall House by Alice J. Black Ruby finds herself out on another case with the other Hunters, but she gets more than she bargained for when she enters Hucknall House. Rose Grants a Wish by Emily S. Deibel Five years after returning from Cinderland, Rose is running the most respected seamstress shop in Havenshire. Little does she know her commitment to making dresses for anyone from any district will bring her an unusual client and one crazy afternoon. Beneath the Wildflowers by D. G. Driver Juniper Sawfeather's activist parents have taught her to care about the environment, and her father has told her many legends from their American Indian heritage. It takes the sighting of a brave gopher in a field of wildflowers beside her high school to jumpstart her experiences as a person sensitive to the magic hidden in nature that no one else can see. The Veil is Rent by Elisabeth Hamill The unforeseen consequences of magic continue when Telyn and her friends steal away the night before her handfasting to Mithrais to play music at a festival. Enjoy this sneak peek of the forthcoming book three in the Songmaker series! The Day I Lived For Me by Libby Heily Moya, like the other Models from Sortilege Falls, has the power to make people do whatever she wants, but she can’t control her parents. They’ve used her for years for their own gains, even going so far as to drug her to make her more compliant. But Moya and her boyfriend Adam have come up with a plan. Because I Was There by Christina Hoag A party goes badly awry on a summer night and seventeen-year-old Jade thinks she’s partially to blame. She tells no one what happened until she realizes that silence is what she is really guilty of. New World Coming by Mary Victoria Johnson Villain. Killer. Outsider. Queen. Rumours are spreading through London like wildfire; rumours that an exiled royal has returned to stage a new rebellion. From the slums to the country palaces, sides are being formed, alliances made and broken, and events set in motion that could have catastrophic consequences... The First Secret by Shelley R. Pickens The loss of innocence is never easy. But for a young girl who is cursed, it's downright terrifying. Aimee's childhood has already been a turbulent one. Still, an optimist at heart, it isn't until fate intervenes on her 12th birthday that she becomes aware of the evil this world harbours within the confines of the human mind. Witnessing a murder for the first time is scary. Reliving it through a killer’s eyes... absolutely horrifying. Girl in a Camp by Daisy White Fifteen-year-old Talia is struggling to survive the harsh reality of a refugee camp, and keep her younger brother out of trouble. When her mentor at school, Leda, suggests a way out, Talia is delighted, but she soon realises she has taken a very different path from her brother, and is forced to use all her courage to stay one step ahead.
Author
Christina Hoag was a former journalist for the Miami Herald and the Associated Press who's had her laptop searched by Colombian guerrillas and phone tapped in Venezuela, suspected of drug trafficking in Guyana, hid under a car to evade Guatemalan soldiers, an d posed as a nun to get inside a Caracas jail. She's interviewed gang members, bank robbers, gunmen, thieves and thugs in prisons, shantytowns and slums, not to forget billionaires and presidents, some of whom fall into the previous categories. Now she writes about such characters in her fiction. Her debut novel "Skin of Tattoos," a noir crime novel, was a finalist for the 2017 Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award for Suspense. Her YA thriller "Girl on the Brink" was named Suspense Magazine’s Best of 2016 YA. She also writes nonfiction, co-authoring Peace in the Hood: Working with Gang Members to End the Violence (Turner Publishing, 2014), a groundbreaking book on violence intervention used in several universities. She has had numerous short stories, creative nonfiction essays and poems published in literary journals including Shooter (UK), San Antonio Review, Round Table Literary Journal, Santa Barbara Literary Journal and Lunch Ticket, and won Honorable Mentions for essay and short story in the International Human Rights Arts Festival’s Literary Justice 2020 contest and for essay and novel excerpt in the Soul-Making Keats Writing Competition 2020. Fluent in Spanish and French, Christina grew up as an expat around the world. She lives in Los Angeles where she has taught creative writing at a maximum-security prison and to at-risk teen girls in South and East Los Angeles. She A regular speaker at writing conferences and groups, bookstores and libraries, she volunteers as a trained domestic violence support group facilitator and is a public speaker about DV.
