The Darkest Powers by Kelley Armstrong

After years of frequent moves following her mother's death, Chloe Saunders's life is finally settling down. She is attending art school, pursuing her dreams of becoming a director, making friends, meeting boys. Her biggest concern is that she's not developing as fast as her friends are. But when puberty does hit, it brings more than hormone surges. Chloe starts seeing ghosts-everywhere, demanding her attention. After she suffers a breakdown, her devoted aunt Lauren gets her into a highly recommended group home.

At first, Lyle House seems a pretty okay place, except for Chloe's small problem of fearing she might be facing a lifetime of mental illness. But as she gradually gets to know the other kids at the home-charming Simon and his ominous, unsmiling brother Derek, obnoxious Tori, and Rae, who has a "thing" for fire-Chloe begins to realize that there is something that binds them all together, and it isn't your usual "problem kid" behaviour. And together they discover that Lyle House is not your usual group home either...

I lifted the match higher. The thing raised its head. A skull stared at me, strips of blackened flesh and dirty encrusted hair hanging from it. Empty eye sockets turned my way. The jaw opened, teeth clacking as it tried to speak, uttering only that horrible, guttural groan.

If you had met me a few weeks ago, you probably would have described me as an average teenage girl-someone normal. Now my life has changed forever and I'm as far away from normal as it gets. A living science experiment-not only can I see ghosts, but I was genetically altered by a sinister organization called the Edison Group. What does that mean? For starters, I'm a teenage necromancer whose powers are out of control; I raise the dead without even trying. Trust me, that is not a power you want to have. Ever.

Now I'm running for my life with three of my supernatural friends-a charming sorcerer, a cynical werewolf, and a disgruntled witch-and we have to find someone who can help us before the Edison Group finds us first. Or die trying.

His snort said the feeling wasn't necessarily mutual. Maybe I should have been a little disappointed, but I was too relieved to care. At this moment, Derek's trademark scowl was better than any smile.

Only two weeks ago, life was all too predictable. But that was before I saw my first ghost. Now, along with my supernatural friends Tori, Derek, and Simon, I'm on the run from the Edison Group, which genetically altered us as part of their sinister experiment. We're hiding in a safe house that might not be as safe as it seems. We'll be gone soon anyway, back to rescue those we'd left behind and to take out the Edison Group . . . or so we hope.

Maya lives in a small medical-research town on Vancouver Island. How small? You can't find it on the map. It has less than two-hundred people, and her school has only sixty-eight students - for every grade from kindergarten to twelve. Now, strange things are happening in this claustrophobic town, and Maya's determined to get to the bottom of them. First, the captain of the swim team drowns mysteriously in the middle of a calm lake. A year later, mountain lions start appearing around Maya's home, and they won't go away. Her best friend, Daniel, starts getting negative vibes from certain people and things. It doesn't help that the new bad boy in town, Rafe, has a dangerous secret - and he's interested in one special part of Maya's anatomy: Her paw-print birthmark.

Check out some of the early reviews at Goodreads!

Image used is the UK cover of The Gathering.

I was incredibly fortunate to get to catch Kelley Armstrong when she swung by the Bay Area for the release of The Gathering. On top of getting that book signed, she quite graciously signed the stack of books I brought in from her Women of the Otherworld series (an adult urban fantasy series that forms the backbone of the mythology in her young adult series).



The book itself is amazing and Kelley is one sweet, fantastic, lovely lady.

Scheduled for release in April 2012, the cover for The Calling has been revealed by Kelley Armstrong.

Synopsis
Maya Delaney's paw-print birthmark is the sign of what she truly is-a skin-walker. She can run faster, climb higher, and see better than nearly anyone else. Experiencing intense connections with the animals that roam the woods outside her home, Maya knows it's only a matter of time before she's able to Shift and become one of them. And she believes there may be others in her small town with surprising talents.

Now, Maya and her friends have been forced to flee from their homes during a forest fire they suspect was deliberately set. Then they're kidnapped, and after a chilling helicopter crash, they find themselves in the Vancouver Island wilderness with nothing but their extraordinary abilities to help them get back home.