Post-Twilight Reading

A long time ago, I wondered what to read after the Harry Potter series.
I read the His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman, read some Neil Gaiman and life went on..but there was that momentary flash of panic after book 7.

Considering the Twilight series was what finally made our Tween into a book lover, it became very important to find something new for her to read (along the same vein, pardon the pun) after she finished the Twilight series. (Though, she does re-read them constantly, too. I've lost count..maybe she's re-read New Moon about 5 times now?) So - thanks to the Book Fairy Wendy, and some resourceful hunting of our own..we found some books for our Tween that helped get her past that "panic" after she finished Twilight.

I keep passing this list along to folks--so I figured I'll stick it here to refer to.

Our list of "What to read when you've read Twilight and need a new series to fall in love with..." (in order of how much we loved them).
It starts out YA Lit, and the list AFTER it is a bit more adult. I'll note the ones you really DON'T want your Tween to read.

1. The Mortal Instruments Series (trilogy)
by Cassandra Clare
http://www.mortalinstruments.com/mortalseries.html

The first book is: City of Bones

We loved these books so much! And, we noticed them because Stephenie Meyer apparently read them and liked them enough to review the books and put her name on the cover.. (saying she loved them, too)

She's working on a new trilogy now:
The Infernal Devices: A companion series to The Mortal Instruments
You can track progress of publication at: http://www.theinfernaldevices.com/
Book One: The Clockwork Angel, Simon and Schuster, 2010
Book Two: The Clockwork Prince, Simon and Schuster, 2011
Book Three: The Clockwork Princess, Simon and Schuster, 2012

2. The House of Night Series by P.C. Cast and Kristen Cast.
There are 5 books in the series so far, and the next book is in the series is titled: "Tempted" (House of Night Book 6)and is coming out October 27,2009.

The first book in the series is: Marked

Info at: http://www.houseofnightseries.com/
Synopsis/info on book 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marked_(novel)

3. We read a couple of different series by LJ Smith.
We liked: The Vampire Diaries series, Nightworld 1, 2 and 3, The Secret Circle series.

It's also worth noting that this fall the Vampire Diaries are being made into a tv program on CW!

http://www.ljanesmith.net/booklist.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._J._Smith_(author)

4. The Summoning and The Awakening by Kelley Armstrong.
These are the first two books (available now) in a trilogy (The Darkets Powers trilogy) being written by Kelley Armstrong - who has published for adults, but these are for YA audiences. (So they're more thrilling and angsty, not so scary).

http://www.kelleyarmstrong.com/aDarkest.htm

5. Evermore, by Alyson Noël. (And a new release, a followup: Blue Moon by Alyson Noël was just released July 7.) Apparently, these books are part of the "Immortals" series.

http://www.alysonnoel.com/IMMORTALS/index_immortals.php

For the Grown-Ups:

I've really liked:

1. The Mercy Thompson Series by Patricia Briggs
(4 available, a 5th available in Feb 2010)

2. The Kate Daniels Series by Ilona Andrews
(3 available, 4th book coming in May 2010)

3. The Sookie Stackhouse Series by Charlaine Harris
There are 9 available now, and these are these books are the basis for the HBO show "True Blood". (The Southern Vampire Series) *WARNING - NOT for kids*

..and of course, "The Host" by Stephenie Meyer as well.