This week’s news post is a bit quiet but there aresome interesting developments concerning Agency pricing and Amazon may have found a way to sidestep Apple’s new rules on their apps.

First up, along with Anti-trust investigations about Agency pricing, a lawsuit has been filed that it was only a matter of time before one would be instigated. Law firm Hagens and Berman have filed a suit that major publishers such as Simon & Schuster, Penguin, Hachette, HarperCollins and Macmillan as well as Apple have conspired to boost up profits and to undermine Amazon as well breaking anti-trust laws. Whether this can be proven is another matter but I do think it is an interesting development.

This sorts of leads to the fact that Amazon has launched a HTML 5 Web App for their Kindle store which sides-step Apple’s new rules. Although this is available via Chrome, Safari and the Ipad, however this wont work via the iPhone or the iTouch.

Epic Fantasy author, Trudi Canavan has hit the one million sales mark for Orbit, which is a huge milestone for her. The followup for her new trilogy, Traitor’s Queen in The Traitor’s Spy series will be out early 2012.

THIS IS WONDERFUL! A few months ago, Maya Banks won an auction from Tessa Dare to create a trailer to help raise money for Operation Auction which was to help blogger, Fatin who tragically lost her husband earlier this year.

I now know what Trews means!

This week’s upcoming book covers are all YA and some of them look fantastic!

First up is Isle of Night which looks similar to the Vampire Academy series but it does look good!

IS LIFE OFFERING FEWER AND FEWER OPTIONS?THEN JOIN THE DEAD.
When Annelise left for college, it meant good riddance to her abusive father and stepmother—until a bureaucratic screw-up left her without a diploma, flat broke, and facing a future that seemed more elusive than ever. Then she met Ronan—tall, dark, and way too seductive for her own good. He promised Annelise a new life, if she had the courage to chance the unknown. One look at him and she certainly had the desire. Sure enough, accepting rides from strangers does yield surprises.
Whisked away to a mysterious island in the North Sea, Annelise is pitted against other female recruits in tests of skill, smarts, and strength. To win is to become a member of the Watchers, an elite and unique partnership—with vampires—that dispatches its teams on the most dangerous missions imaginable. It’s not exactly what Annelise had in mind for a new beginning but it’s livelier than the alternative. Because on the Isle of Night, to lose the challenge doesn’t just mean dishonor. It means death.
Let the games begin.

This book dinged my inner book radar and I am hearing great buzz about Shatter Me.

Juliette hasn’t touched anyone in exactly 264 days. The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette’s touch is fatal. As long as she doesn’t hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old-girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don’t fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.

The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war- and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she’s exactly what they need right now.

Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.

In this electrifying debut, Tahereh Mafi presents a world as riveting asThe Hunger Games and a superhero story as thrilling as The X-Men. Full of pulse-pounding romance, intoxicating villainy, and high-stakes choices, Shatter Me is a fresh and original dystopian novel—with a paranormal twist—that will leave readers anxiously awaiting its sequel.

Another one that has dinged my radar, Under the Never Sky.

Exiled from her home, the enclosed city of Reverie, Aria knows her chances of surviving in the outer wasteland—nicknamed The Death Shop—are slim. If the cannibals don’t get her, the violent, electrified energy storms eventually will. In this dystopia, even the very air she breathes could kill her. Then Aria meets an Outsider named Perry. He’s wild, dangerous—a savage. He’s also her only hope.

Perry needs Aria, too. She alone holds the key to his redemption. And their unlikely alliance will determine the fate of all who live under the never sky.

Debut author Veronica Rossi is accumulating fans from all over the globe—the book has already sold to more than twenty countries. It’s not surprising that foreign rights for this title have been flying off the shelf. It’s a tantalizing romance in any language.

Now this is what I call dystopian and a scary potential future, Article 5 which is set in a world under Martial Law.

New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC have been abandoned.
The Bill of Rights has been revoked, and replaced with the Moral Statutes.

There are no more police — instead, there are soldiers. There are no more fines for bad behavior — instead, there are arrests, trials, and maybe worse. People who get arrested don’t usually come back.

17-year-old Ember Miller is old enough to remember that things weren’t always this way. Living with her rebellious single mother, it’s hard to forget that people weren’t always arrested for reading the wrong books or staying out after dark. That life in the United States used to be different.

In the three years since the war ended, Ember has perfected the art of keeping a low profile. She knows how to get the things she needs, like food stamps and hand-me-down clothes, and how to pass the random home inspections by the Federal Bureau of Reformation. Her life is as close to peaceful as circumstances allow. That is, until her mother is arrested for noncompliance with Article 5 of the Moral Statutes. And what’s worse, one of the arresting officers is none other than Chase Jennings…the only boy Ember has ever loved.