Science Fiction/Fantasy coming from debut authors in 2009

I have never before taken part in any of the various blog organized book challenges, because I figure I am going to read just fine on my own. But this year I'm going to join the '09 Debut Authors Challenge, organized by The Story Siren. As I said a few posts ago, I want to focus on reading and reviewing MG and YA science fiction/fantasy books in 2009. So I perused the list of 2009 Debutantes here, and pulled together the following list of 18 forthcoming titles that looked interesting. I've copied the blurbs as they are given there.

Spring 2009:

Ellen Jensen Abbott WATERSMEET. Marshall Cavendish, April 2009
Fourteen-year-old Abisina flees the prejudice and hate of her village and heads north in search of her father, accompanied by the dwarf, Haret. On their journey they face mythic creatures, benevolent spirits, challenges to their survival, their own prejudices, and dreams that look like nightmares

Susan E. Connolly DAMSEL Mercier Press When Annie Brave's famous hero father goes missing, presumed eaten, she takes his manuscript "How to slay dragons - and other advice for the hero in training" and sets off to get him back--but can a damsel ever do the rescuing?

Deva Fagan FORTUNE'S FOLLY (Holt) A girl who survives by telling fake fortunes must make one of them come true to save her father's life--to succeed, she'll have to procure a wicked witch, recover a pair of enchanted slippers, and, worst of all, find a princess to marry the prince she's falling in love with herself.

Stacey Jay YOU ARE SO UNDEAD TO ME (Razorbill) A sixteen year old zombie settler must put the dead to rest and thwart a black coven's attempts to kill her before they harness enough renegade zombies to ruin Homecoming.

Saundra Mitchell SHADOWED SUMMER (Delacorte) 14 year old Iris Rhame conjures the ghost of a boy missing for decades and decides to solve his disappearance, never realizing that in a town as small as hers, every secret is a family secret.

Carrie Ryan THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH (Delacorte) In an isolated village generations after the zombie apocalypse, a 16-year-old struggles with the town's religious order until the village walls are breached and the only chance of survival is to escape into the forest beyond.

Michelle Zink PROPHECY OF THE SISTERS (Little Brown) After finding an ancient tome entitled the Librum Maleficii et Disordinae, or the Book of Chaos, in her dead father's library, sixteen-year-old Lia Milthorpe discovers she's the key to a legendary biblical prophecy.

Summer 2009

R. J. Anderson SPELL HUNTER HarperCollins A fierce young faery must save her people while fighting to keep secret her forbidden friendship with a human.

Cyn Balog FAIRY TALE Delacorte A teenage oracle whose boyfriend slowly turns into a fairy goes to great lengths in order to keep him human.

Sarah Rees Brennan THE DEMON'S LEXICON Simon & Schuster Two brothers are hunted throughout England by a powerful magician's circle after their mother steals a charm, and when the eldest is marked by a demon, the younger uses swords and dark arts in an effort to save him but unwittingly uncovers the darkest of secrets.

Sarah Cross DULL BOY Dutton A YA novel about teens with superpowers.

Mandy Hubbard PRADA AND PREJUDICE Razorbill A modern teen ends up in Regency England where she must learn to navigate high-society--and her growing attraction to the nineteen year old Duke of Harksbury.

Lisa Mantchev EYES LIKE STARS, the first book THE THÉÂTRE ILLUMINATA (Feiwel & Friends) Where real fairies fly on wires and pirates sail the painted seas, Beatrice Shakespeare Smith will have to take Center Stage so that the next curtain call won't be the last.

Aprilynne Pike WINGS HarperCollins An ordinary girl discovers she is a faerie sent to guard the gateway to Avalon in the mortal world, and when she is thrust into the midst of a centuries-old battle between faeries and trolls, she's torn between a mortal and a faerie love, as well as her loyalties to both worlds.

Cindy Pon SILVER PHOENIX Greenwillow/HarperCollins When Ai Ling leaves home to find her father, she has no inkling she begins the journey to complete a task promised by her former incarnation.

Fall 2009

Pam Bachorz CANDOR Egmont In a town where his father brainwashes everyone, Oscar Banks has found a way to secretly fight the subliminal Messages, but when he falls in love, he must choose whether to let Nia be lost to brainwashing—or to sacrifice himself.

Megan Crewe GIVE UP THE GHOST Holt A teen outcast who sees ghosts and uses the secrets they dig up to expose her fellow students' deceits must choose between revenge and compassion when the popular student council V.P. comes to her for supernatural help.

Teri Hall THE LINE Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. In the near future, an invisible barrier exists between the Unified States and "Away."

Jackson Pearce AS YOU WISH HarperCollins. High school student Viola Cohen inadvertently summons--then falls for--a young jinn after her boyfriend tells her a life-changing secret.

Malinda Lo ASH (Little, Brown) From the 2009 Debutants website:
"Pushed into indentured servitude in her stepmother's household, Ash is consumed with grief after the death of her father and mother. Her only joy comes from the brief, stolen walks she takes in the nearby woods with the dark and dangerous fairy Sidhean. Ash's single, unspoken hope is that someday he might steal her away, as fairies are said to do.

But when she meets Kaisa, the King's Huntress, her heart begins to change. Kaisa teaches Ash to ride and track, and as their friendship grows, Ash's desire for life and for love is reawakened."