YALLFest returns to Charleston Nov. 8th and 9th

Five students walk into a classroom for detention. The teacher leaves the room, only to return and find that just four are still alive. All of the survivors have a motive: the dead student was planning to reveal the secrets of all four through his gossip app. Which of the four was it -- or could it have been someone else entirely? This is the basic premise of Karen M. McManus’s book, One of Us...

Tell me about your book. “It’s my first book, and it’s called Beast of the Frozen Sun. It’s a young adult fantasy that’s based on the Viking invasions of Ireland in like the 900s. So the main story is about a girl who has the ability to read people’s souls by touching them, and she runs across a guy who has come to invade and take over her village, but his ship sinks and he washes a...

She is one main character that you don’t want to mess with. Brash and quick-tempered, Brianna Jackson was difficult for me to like when I first started reading Angie Thomas’s On the Come Up. There were several moments where I was frustrated with her, watching her assume that people she loved were turning against her when they were simply trying to help her.  But as the story progresses, Brian...