The Mystery of Hollow Places is a gorgeously written, stunningly original novel of love, loss, and identity, from debut author Rebecca Podos.
All Imogene Scott knows of her mother is the bedtime story her father told her as a child. It’s the story of how her parents met: he, a forensic pathologist; she, a mysterious woman who came to identify a body. A woman who left Imogene and her father when she was a baby, a woman who was always possessed of a powerful loneliness, a woman who many referred to as “troubled waters.”
Now Imogene is seventeen, and her father, a famous author of medical mysteries, has struck out in the middle of the night and hasn’t come back. Neither Imogene’s stepmother nor the police know where he could’ve gone, but Imogene is convinced he’s looking for her mother. And she decides it’s up to her to put to use the skills she’s gleaned from a lifetime of reading her father’s books to track down a woman she’s only known in stories in order to find him and, perhaps, the answer to the question she’s carried with her for her entire life.

The Mystery of Hollow Places

Teen & Young Adult

Podos, Rebecca

Literature & Fiction

Balzer + Bray

~Winner of the Lambda Literary Award for the best LGBT YA novel of 2017~
An unforgettable story of two girls navigating the unknowable waters of identity, millennial anxiety, and first love, from the acclaimed author of The Mystery of Hollow Places.
In Savannah Espinoza’s small New Mexico hometown, kids either flee after graduation or they’re trapped there forever. Vanni never planned to get stuck—but that was before her father was diagnosed with Huntington’s disease, leaving her and her mother to care for him.
Now she doesn’t have much of a plan at all: living at home, working as a performing mermaid at a second-rate water park, distracting herself with one boy after another.
That changes the day she meets Leigh. Disillusioned with small-town life and looking for something greater, Leigh is not a “nice girl.” She is unlike anyone Vanni has met, and a friend when Vanni desperately needs one. Soon enough, Leigh is much more than a friend.
But caring about another person threatens the walls Vanni has carefully constructed to protect herself and brings up the big questions she’s hidden from for so long.

Like Water

Rebecca Podos, Lambda Literary Award–winning author of Like Water, returns with a lush, dark, and unforgettable story of the power of the past to shape our futures—and the courage it takes to change them.
Ruby Chernyavsky has been told the stories since she was a child: The women in her family, once possessed of great magical abilities to remake lives and stave off death itself, were forced to flee their Russian home for America in order to escape the fearful men who sought to destroy them.
Such has it always been, Ruby’s been told, for powerful women. 
Today, these stories seem no more real to Ruby than folktales, except for the smallest bit of power left in their blood: when each of them comes of age, she will have a vision of who she will be when she dies—a destiny as inescapable as it is inevitable.
Ruby is no exception, and neither is her mother, although she ran from her fate years ago, abandoning Ruby and her sisters. It’s a fool’s errand, because they all know the truth: there is no escaping one’s Time.
Until Ruby’s great-aunt Polina passes away, and, for the first time, a Chernyavsky’s death does not match her vision. Suddenly, things Ruby never thought she’d be allowed to hope for—life, love, time—seem possible.
But as she and her cousin Cece begin to dig into the family’s history to find out whether they, too, can change their fates, they learn that nothing comes without a cost. Especially not hope.

The Wise and the Wicked

Rebecca Podos, Lambda Award-winning author of Like Water, returns with a contemporary Jewish fantasy of enduring love, unfathomable loss, and the power of stories to hold us together when it seems that nothing else can. 
Hannah’s whole life has been spent in motion. Her mother has kept her and her brother, Gabe, on the road for as long as she can remember, leaving a trail of rental homes and faded relationships behind them. No roots, no family but one another, and no explanations. 
All that changes on Hannah’s seventeenth birthday when she wakes up transformed, a pair of golden eyes with knife-slit pupils blinking back at her from the mirror—the first of many such impossible mutations. Promising that she knows someone who can help, her mother leaves Hannah and Gabe behind to find a cure. But as the days turn to weeks and their mother doesn’t return, they realize it’s up to them to find the truth. 
What they discover is a family they never knew and a history more tragic and fantastical than Hannah could have dreamed—one that stretches back to her grandmother’s childhood in Prague under the Nazi occupation, and beyond, into the realm of Jewish mysticism and legend. As the past comes crashing into the present, Hannah must hurry to unearth their family’s secrets in order to break the curse and save the people she loves most, as well as herself.\nFrom School Library Journal\nGr 9 Up-When Hannah wakes up on her 17th birthday with the eyes of a snake, her eccentric mother, Mali, promises she can fix Hannah's ailment, and then leaves without a trace. When time passes with Mali nowhere to be found and Hannah developing new animal-like physical traits, Hannah and her brother, Gabe, receive notice that their Jewish grandmother, Jitka, whom they have never met, has died. They head to the small town of Fox Hollows to meet their mom's family for the first time, hoping for answers. The siblings befriend Ari, a cool, confident, queer, Jewish local in town, whose grandmother was a beloved spiritual healer, to help investigate the disappearance of their mom and Hannah's ever-changing body. They uncover a haunting history, one that proves we as people are bound by the actions of our ancestors. Podos's book bridges three generations of young women and the burdens they can't escape. Present-day Hannah's coming-of-age story is in the forefront, but there are flashbacks to 1939 and 1990, when her grandmother and mother were teens, that shed light on Hannah's current situation. The story of Jitka narrowly escaping the Holocaust and Mali's traumatic first love story are revealed in detail. Letters are interwoven into the story, helping to drive the plot forward. The novel is seeped in traditional Jewish folktales of magic, golems, and demons, and authentically ties in Jewish ritual and holidays. VERDICT This is the queer Jewish YA fantasy novel readers need, featuring complex characters to adore and family secrets they'll want to uncover.-Danielle Winterα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

From Dust, a Flame

A delightful queer romantic fantasy full of friends-to-lovers chemistry, found family, rival family drama, and cozy garden magic from two acclaimed YA authors making their debut in the adult space. Yael Clauneck is the only scion of an obscenely wealthy banking family with its fingers in every pie in the realm. They're on the precipice of a predetermined life when they flee their own graduation party, galloping away in search of...well, they're not sure, but maybe the chance to feel like life can still be a grand adventure. Margot Greenwillow--talented plant witch, tea lover, and greenhouse owner--has never felt further from adventure in her life. She's been desperately trying to keep what remains of her family's magic remedies business afloat. So when her childhood friend and former crush, Yael, rides back into her life, she's shocked. But perhaps this could be a good thing. After all, Margot could use an assistant in the greenhouses. Yael has no experience or, honestly, practical skills, but they're delighted to accept. They can lay low for a while, flirting with Margot while they figure out what to do next. Meanwhile, Margot has plans of her own--but plans are notoriously unreliable things, unlikely to survive a swiftly blooming mutual attraction, not to mention the machinations of parents determined to get their heir back . . . no matter the cost.

Homegrown Magic

Pacton, Jamie

Genre Fiction

Del Rey

Furious

Page Street YA

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Books by Podos, Rebecca

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Podos, Rebecca. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Mystery of Hollow Places

The Mystery of Hollow Places

Like Water

The Wise and the Wicked

From Dust, a Flame

Homegrown Magic

Furious