"It's the 150th anniversary of the Quincy Academy, and to celebrate, Madame Puant wants the girls to perform a ballet that hasn't been put on since the '80s--when a dancer died during the production. Another tragedy took place the time before that--and the time before that. Is the ballet cursed? Ophelia's about to find out--she just became the lead in the newest production"--

Every time the Dario Quincy Academy has performed Giselle, the ballet's lead dancer has died. That's what the rumors say, anyway. But Ophelia doesn't believe in all that. She's determined to win the lead and beat the so-called curse. As Ophelia begins sneaking out at night to practice Giselle's moves, she meets a mysterious boy hiding in the shadows. He's got great moves, and his looks aren't bad either. After a series of secret meetings, Ophelia starts to feel drained of her strength. She even blacks out during dance class. Is she just pushing herself too hard? Or are the boy and the curse connected?

Winner of the Schneider Family Book Award! A debut novel for fans of The Fault in Our Stars that thoughtfully and humorously depicts teen Ricky Bloom's struggles with a recent chronic illness diagnosis. "Silverstein sheds a powerful light on disease and how managing it can bring out one’s inner warrior. A blistering coming-of-age tale that will propel readers into Ricky’s corner." -Booklist As if her parents' divorce and sister's departure for college weren't bad enough, fourteen-year-old Ricky Bloom has just been diagnosed with a life-changing chronic illness. Her days consist of cursing everyone out, skipping school--which has become a nightmare--daydreaming about her crush, Julio, and trying to keep her parents from realizing just how bad things are. But she can't keep her ruse up forever. Ricky's afraid, angry, alone, and one suspension away from repeating ninth grade when she realizes: she can't be held back. She'll do whatever it takes to move forward--even if it means changing the person she's become. Lured out of her funk by a quirky classmate, Oliver, who's been there too, Ricky's porcupine exterior begins to shed some spines. Maybe asking for help isn't the worst thing in the world. Maybe accepting circumstances doesn't mean giving up.

Five years ago, I had an audition for the ballet company of my dreams. Five years ago, my boyfriend purposely broke my toes and ruined my dreams. Two days later, I found out I'm a witch. I thought my ballet days were over. I just graduated from the academy to work as a federal agent with the Paranormal Investigation Bureau. I get called into the office for something that could change my life permanently. Meaning, I could die. That ballet company I never got to audition for is doing The Sugar Skull Girl. This ballet has never been seen on stage before. I don't have the full story, but rumors are that any time someone tries to attempt this ballet, things soon turn fatal. I've been told to strap my pointe shoes on and use my witch abilities to go undercover at the ballet company. I had my reservations about taking this job, even if it had once been a dream of mine to dance for The P. The artistic director is a horny Unseelie rake who makes casting decisions with his cock. The prima ballerina here needs to retire, but she's totally toxic about making sure no one upstages her. She has a club of mean girl ballet dancers willing to ruin careers just for the spotlight...or maybe just for fun. Not only do I have to survive gossip, hot male dancers who like to sniff around new ballerinas, and toxic prima ballerinas, I have to figure out what is going on with this ballet before we all die. I might not like these people, but I'm here to save their lives.

Madeleine's the newest arrival at the famed Dario Quincy Academy of Dance. She's worked hard to gain admission, and she's determined not to lose her scholarship. That means not asking too many questions when her antique necklace goes missing, and certainly not breaking curfew. So how does she find herself exploring the creepy tunnels that run underneath the school? As if rivals at dance practice weren't bad enough, Madeleine begins to suspect that there's an ancient evil on the academy grounds. And when Madeleine and her rivals join together, sneaking out at night to explore the school's depths, the evil might just follow them back upstairs.

Best Book of the Year NPR • Wall Street Journal • Boston Globe • Library Journal • CrimeReads • LitReactor • Air Mail Longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize A TODAY Show #ReadWithJenna Book Club Pick An Instant New York Times Bestseller New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Megan Abbott's exquisite new novel, “dark and juicy and tinged with horror” (The New York Times Books Review), set against the hothouse of a family-run ballet studio. With their long necks, sheer tights, and taut buns, Dara and Marie Durant have only known the course of a well-bred dancer. Not much changes when their parents face death in a tragic accident. As Dara and Marie take over their mother's duty of running the Durant School of Dance, along with Charlie, Dara's husband and once their mother's prized student, the sisters perfect a fine dance, circling around one another, six days a week, keeping the studio thriving. But when another eerily suspicious accident occurs, just at the onset of the school's annual performance of The Nutcracker—a season of tense competition, provoked anxiety, and wild exhilaration—an interloper arrives and threatens the sisters' delicate balance. With its uncanny insight and writing that haunts, The Turnout is Megan Abbott at the height of her game—a sharp and strange dissection of family ties and sexuality, femininity, and power, and a sinister tale that is both alarming and irresistible.

A reckoning with one of our most beloved art forms, whose past and present are shaped by gender, racial, and class inequities—and a look inside the fight for its future Every day, in dance studios all across America, legions of little children line up at the barre to take ballet class. This time in the studio shapes their lives, instilling lessons about gender, power, bodies, and their place in the world both in and outside of dance. In Turning Pointe, journalist Chloe Angyal captures the intense love for ballet that so many dancers feel, while also grappling with its devastating shortcomings: the power imbalance of an art form performed mostly by women, but dominated by men; the impossible standards of beauty and thinness; and the racism that keeps so many people of color out of ballet. As the rigid traditions of ballet grow increasingly out of step with the modern world, a new generation of dancers is confronting these issues head on, in the studio and on stage. For ballet to survive the twenty-first century and forge a path into a more socially just future, this reckoning is essential.

Unsure of how he escaped the prison known as Ivanov's Home for Orphaned Boys, Fritz finds himself the newest apprentice in the most powerful Wizard consortium, The Order. After uncovering clues to a decade-old murder, Fritz becomes the unwitting target of someone who wants him dead. To keep him from solving the mystery, they're willing to kill anyone-including Fritz's friends and family. Now Fritz is in a race against time to unravel the clues and unmask the murderer before the next kill. If he has any hopes of surviving, Fritz must unify his fellow group of dysfunctional apprentices and confront the most deadly enemy he's ever known. Drosselmeyer: Curse of the Rat King is book one of the action-packed Nutcracker Trilogy chronicling Drosselmeyer's rise to power and setting up the events in the Nutcracker Ballet.

"Madeline, a new student at the Quincy dance school, sneaks out after curfew with a group of other girls and discovers a network of hidden passages underneath the building. A series of disturbing coincidences begins to follow the girls afterward, and Madeline suspects that the school may be haunted"--

"The memoir of Michaela DePrince, who lived the first few years of her live in war-torn Sierra Leone until being adopted by an American Family. Now seventeen, she is one of the premiere ballerinas in the United States"--