“BLACKMOORE: A PROPER ROMANCE,” by Julianne Donaldson, Shadow Mountain, Sept. 9, 2013, softcover, $15.99 (young adult)

A year ago, Julianne Donaldson introduced the world to a young woman who ends up in the middle of an unexpected adventure. “Edenbrooke” quickly became a must-read romance as fans of the Regency period rejoiced for something clean and new. Now, Julianne is back with another period piece, “Blackmoore,” that also celebrates a strong female lead and an unexpected romance.

Kate Worthington is 18, single, somewhat accomplished and in no mood to get married. All Kate wants to do is join her spinster aunt on her travels to exotic India — not exactly what Kate’s mother has in mind.

Kate isn’t about to give up on her dreams, though, and when given the opportunity to get out of marriage, Kate jumps at the chance. All she has to do is join her wealthy friends, Sylvia and Henry Delafield, at their Blackmoore estate for the summer and secure — and reject — three marriage proposals.

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“LONGING FOR HOME: A Proper Romance,” by Sarah M. Eden, Shadow Mountain, Aug. 5, 2013, Softcover, $15.99 (young adult)

Cracking the Cover is a blog dedicated to books for young readers. However, on occasion, I review books that I consider “cross-overs,” books not written for a teen market but that I would have read as a teen. Sarah Eden’s “Longing for Home” is one such book.

The book takes place in the 19th century and focuses on a strong woman with a tough past. Katie Macauley survived Ireland’s Great Famine, but her sister did not, and years later, Katie is still blaming herself for her family’s loss. Through the years, Katie has made her way from job to job and moved to America. Now, her hopes of earning money enough to return home again and plead for her family s forgiveness hinge on a position in Hope Springs, Wyoming Territory.

Katie’s life has been full of struggles and hardships, and it appears that streak is going to continue in her new home. Hope Springs is a town sharply divided — Americans on one side and Irish immigrants on the other — and Katie’s added presence upsets a precarious balance. Katie just wants to keep her head down and go about her job, but it appears her dreams of returning to Ireland are about to go up in Wyoming dust.

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© 2013, Cracking the Cover. All rights reserved.

Christine Brodien-Jones (Peter L. Jones)

Christine Brodien-Jones loves dreaming stuff up. That’s probably what makes her a successful writer, specifically a writer for young readers.

“I write for middle-grade readers because I remember so vividly when I was that age — climbing trees, reading under the covers with a flashlight, getting teased at school,” Christine told Cracking the Cover. “I remember, too, the excitement of reading books, the way they transported me to far-off worlds. So I write the kinds of books I loved reading at that age.”

Christine’s latest book, “The Glass Puzzle,” is the story of two cousins who discover a glass puzzle and unleash ancient forces are that threaten their town in sinister ways.

“The Glass Puzzle” has its in the 1950s classic movie “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” in which humans are taken over by aliens and nobody realizes what’s happening.

“When Zoé’s granddad takes her and her cousin Ian to see ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers,’ Zoé begins to understand why some people in Tenby are behaving so oddly,” Christine says of the plot. “Frightening winged creatures called Scravens are escaping through the glass puzzle and invading Tenby: one by one, they’re taking over the townspeople.”

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© 2013, Cracking the Cover. All rights reserved.

The ideas for Katie Williams’ books come from many places — things the author overhears, her past experiences, other authors’ novels and stories, purely from her imagination.

“My teacher Charlie Baxter gave me the most useful tip for generating story ideas: You close your eyes and allow an image to rise up in your mind. It can be anything; let’s say footprints in the snow. Then, you ask yourself questions about this image: Who left those footprints? Where were they headed? The story will come from your answers,” Katie told Cracking the Cover.

Katie used this technique with her latest novel, “Absent.” The book tells the story of 17-year-old Paige, who dies in a freak fall from the roof during physics class and finds her spirit bound to the grounds of her high school.

“I was curious about the idea of writing a story that took place in a confined space — I love boarding school stories and locked-room mysteries — and so I closed my eyes and saw an image of kids after hours in an empty high school” she said. “I asked myself: What are they doing there after school is closed for the day? And then I thought, Maybe they’re dead.”

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© 2013, Cracking the Cover. All rights reserved.

“THE SECRET INGREDIENT,” by Stewart Lewis, Delacorte Press, June 11, 2013, Hardcover, $17.99 (young adult)

Olivia is your average 16-year-old. School. Work. Friends. Family. But there’s more to her than that. Olivia loves to cook. She even creates a special dish once a week at dad Bell’s restaurant. She has a special gift with food — soothing Bell, Enrique, her other dad, brother Jeremy, and anyone else who needs it, with her inspired cooking.

Everything isn’t perfect, but Olivia and her family are happy. Except things are a little worse than Olivia first thought — Bell’s restaurant is in trouble, and the mortgage is way overdue. There’s only one thing Olivia can do, and that’s get a real, paying job.

It’s summer, and Olivia has her days full with work, cooking, watching out for her brother and discovering who she really is. As the days pass, Olivia realizes how much she misses having a mother in her life. She loves her dads, but there are just some things she needs a mom for.

Without her dads’ knowledge, Olivia sets out to find the woman who gave her life, tracking down her name and address and setting out on an adventure even she couldn’t imagine.

There’s a lot more to “The Secret Ingredient” than the synopsis above — an arrest, a romance, a movie executive — but who really wants to know everything that’s in a book before reading it?

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© 2013, Cracking the Cover. All rights reserved.