Young Adult Literature. It's been officially a thing now for a handful of years, offering up stories that appeal to young and old alike, featuring young protagonists in a variety of plots.

Paula Stokes is carving out her own place among the pantheon of YA authors, with two novels, LIARS INC and THE ART OF LAINEY from Harper Teen. I first met Paula in St. Louis, and was glad to get in touch with her on the release of LIARS INC to discuss the YA market and get some insights into her own process.

I was fortunate enough to be one of the early proofreaders on LIARS INC, what feels like so long ago. What was going on back then that provided the inspiration of Max's story?

This contest has ended. The winner is:  ANN F. of WAPPINGER FALLS, NY.

For fans of Gone Girl, I Hunt Killers, and TV's How to Get Away with Murder.

Max Cantrell has never been a big fan of the truth, so when the opportunity arises to sell forged permission slips and cover stories to his classmates, it sounds like a good way to make a little money and liven up a boring senior year. With the help of his friends Preston and Parvati, Max starts Liars, Inc. Suddenly everybody needs something and the cash starts pouring in. Who knew lying could be so lucrative?

When Preston wants his own cover story to go visit a girl he met online, Max doesn’t think twice about hooking him up. Until Preston never comes home. Then the evidence starts to pile up—terrifying clues that lead the cops to Preston’s body. Terrifying clues that point to Max as the murderer.

by Chris Delloiacono, Mike Maillaro and Jeff Ritter

This week!

• Elimination Chamber Predictions

• Women of NXT  Roundtable

• NXT Results

There's more than once in my life that I've engaged in the schadenfreude that comes with some personality's fall from grace. But in the case of the Duggar family and the recent cover-up scandal of sexual misconduct by a (then) 14-year-old Josh Duggar, I'm overcome with disappointment.

It's saddening, and not without its own "ick" factor, when one considers some of the victims were his sisters -- which may hardly be surprising given that they were fairly much the only girls with whom he had constant contact while going through puberty in a structure that proscribes any form of dating. Hormones are a hell of a chemical.

There's a certain mathematical elegance to the Wachowski's JUPITER ASCENDING. Given infinite space and infinite time, someone will be born somewhere with the exact same genetic sequence as someone who already existed. Multiply those infinite chances out, and that previous person might have been the Queen of the universe, who owned the Earth and willed it back to herself should she ever be genetically reassembled.

Of course, if the Queen of the Universe had children who covet the Earth because they're getting ready to harvest the people there to make their special water of life (the daughter is over 14 millennia old), then you might want to watch your royal back.

Last week was a very good week to be a Vampirella fan. Dynamite had three books out featuring Vampi, and all three were real good!

Warning! These reviews contain quite a few spoilers!

Vampirella #12

Written by: Nancy Collins
Penciled by: Patrick Berkenketter
Cover by: Mike Meyhew
Colored by: Dievei Ribeira
Lettered by: Rob Steen

Published by: Dynamite
Cover Price: $3.99

By Mike Maillaro and Mike Weaver

This week: A fond(?) farewell to Convergence.  90 reviews in 8 weeks!

Convergence #8

Okay, here’s the deal. I have been around a long time, and have seen many of the greatest musicians and bands from multiple genres live many times over. I have over 2000 LPs and 500 CD’s and listen to music dedicatedly every day. And I am also a bona-fide Laurie Berkner fan!

It started several years ago when my now teenage daughter was in single digits. We bought her many children’s music CDs from many artists, some with words, some without, and there was one artist in particular that rose to the top of her/our playlist: Laurie Berkner. Her music was/is so catchy, so upbeat, so tuneful that it didn’t matter if you were a kid or an adult, it sticks in your head and you can’t help but sing her songs to yourself. Then we’d see her videos on Nick Jr and that just let us enjoy her music all the more, because you could see just how much she enjoyed playing it.

USA Network just released the pilot of one of their new shows entitled Mr. Robot. The description intrigued me, despite never having heard of it before today. The blurb reads, “A cyber-security engineer by day and a vigilante hacker by night…” and is accompanied with a cool comic-esque image to boot. I’ll admit though I was initially a little weary due to the terrible title for a show. Mr. Robot. I feel like the title song should be song by Styx and it gives the impression of a slapstick comedy troupe. But, ok, USA, you have my interest since I’m always willing to give you the benefit of the doubt because of our past together.

Ripper Street: Season Three is set to hit the streets on DVD and BluRay on June 23^rd, and if you’re a fan of the Leman Street good guys you’ll mark this date down on the calendar! I was hooked on Ripper Street half-way through the first episode of season one and I haven’t stopped loving every episode since.

Season Three is 8 episodes in length, and starts out four years after Season 2 ended. It takes the events that ended in season two and progresses them outward to what we see they’ve become four years hence. Things have not been so cozy in the time that has elapsed.

Bennet Drake (Jerome Flynn) left Whitechapel and moved to Manchester to start over again and become the police officer/man he always wanted to be, foregoing violence to become a man of peace. Having risen quickly through the ranks, we see him here now as Inspector Drake.

Convergence #7 by Jeff King, Scott Lobdell, and Aaron Lopresti

Summary: On New-52 Earth, Telos’ world continues to push it’s way into our reality.  A being called the Great Oracle is watching and this is freaking him out.  He can usually see past, present, and future, but this is blocking his vision.  Telos’ world is causing all kinds of temporal and antimatter energy readings on New-52 Earth.  Superman orders the other heroes and villains gathered to watch this retreat.  Batman insists Superman should retreat too, but Superman goes to ask the Oracle who is going on.  He asks “how can we save everyone?”  Oracle answers, “You cannot.”

Meanwhile, on Telos’ world, heroes are fighting heroes as those loyal to Deimos fight those who refuse to serve him.  Nightwing and Telos arrive on the scene.  Deimos attacks Telos.  Heroes on both side realize that Deimos is vulnerable to Telos.

A-Force #1 by Marguerite Bennett, G. Willow Wilson, and Jorge Molina

Welcome back to Critical Blast’s weekly look at what new comics you should check out each week.   Just a warning, I make these picks pretty much a week BEFORE I actually get to read any of these comics, so if something is a stinker, I take no blame on that.  Let's get to it!  We're way behind this week (damn holiday weekend), so this one is going to be quick.

Comics Shipping This Week

We spend so much time talking about Secret Wars and Convergence, so I am starting off this week with the "other" summer crossovers.

It's been a week now since we bid adieu to the first season of CW's THE FLASH -- and we still can't stop talking about it! So rather than keep the discussion just around the Critical Blast virtual water cooler, we thought we should let our readers in on the conversation.

Have something to add? That's what the Disqus comments below are for. Please, throw your thoughts into the pot!

R.J. Carter: This is where it was all supposed to come together and make sense. And yet, I’m left with more questions than ever. Is Barry living in an alternate timeline ever since he stopped the tidal wave? Did he just disappear from that Central City? And if Eobard Thawne is out of the picture -- might we still see Harrison Wells in Season Two?

I’m a Jersey girl, through and through, born, raised and passionate. I defend my state like it’s my job. I love that we are right in-between everything. NYC is right there, a quick jaunt up the Turnpike leads to Philly, we have mountain, beaches, farms, and cities. Everything you could possible imagine within a few hours. But the issue that arises from being so close is sometimes we get left out. NYCC is a huge convention in the Javits Center and Wizard World Philly has been popular for all of my adult life, in fact it’s where my romance with my husband blossomed, but I digress. My point is the one thing New Jersey doesn’t have is our own BIG con. We have plenty of little shows, like Chiller Theater and Monster-Mania, that are great and attract some awesome celebrities, but they aren’t comic conventions. ACBC strives to make that right.

Amid a somewhat tamer St. Louis Comic Con this year, one of the highlights was the Behind the scenes with CW's The Flash with Liam McIntyre and Rick Cosnett panel. Rick (Eddie Thawne) and Liam (The Weather Wizard) were all smiles when they entered the room and immediately started joking with the crowd. Rick even sent Liam into the audience saying this was his panel, but Liam quickly returned to the microphone.

Liam started by asking Rick, "I hope you can talk a lot, because I can talk a lot." Rick continued on by asking who had seen the season finale to which most the hands in the room went up. Then he apologized to those who hadn’t because he was sure there would be spoilers.

And spoilers there were. (**SPOILER WARNING** if you haven't seen The Flash season finale you might want to stop reading until you have).

It's been said that every comic book is somebody's first comic book. I guess a corollary to that is that every superhero is somebody's favorite superhero.

Case in point: The Human Torch. This hotheaded member of the Fantastic Four started out as a teenaged, blonde-haired, blue-eyed Caucasian, just like his timid sister. And he's been that way pretty much since the 1960s, save for some very minor adjustments to his age.

I have been to all three of the Wizard World Comicons here in Saint Louis, and I have mixed emotions about this one. The second year was better than the previous. I know not every year can always be better and at best it is all subjective anyway. Still, since this was only the 3^rd time for the event here in St Louie, I was expecting it to be at least as good and as star studded as the others.

It seemed, though, as the year progressed leading up to this weekend, that the talent that was being signed, while good, was not up to the caliber of the previous two years. Again, I know this is all subjective but compared to who I saw was going to appear at the other WW Comicons throughout the country, the show here in Saint Louis was not getting those who I consider A-Listers. Maybe because this year it was being held on Memorial Day weekend and everyone had plans? I don’t know.

Elijah Wood’s career can best be described as…..mercurial. With credits ranging from the terrible The Bumblebee Flies Anyway all the way to the pinnacle of his career as the voice of Spyro in The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning, it can safely be said that the entertainment industry hasn’t typecast him. Doing the heavy lifting in television shows such as Adventures from the Book of Virtues, lending his voice to the part of Mumble in the video game “Happy Feet”, and of course, he is most well known for playing the title role in the coming-of-age movie North.

Imagine you created a comic book character with your best friend. Nobody saw it but you. And then your best friend dies.

Now imagine a few years later your comic book character starts to pop up on stickers and posters. And there's a web comic featuring your hero, in a story that's eerily close to real life events.

This is the situation May finds herself in when she returns to Seattle for the summer to stay with her father. Years before, she and Libby bonded over a character they created called Princess X, clad in a ball gown and red sneakers, and carrying a badass katana sword. May did the writing, Libby did the drawing. And then one night Libby was in the back seat of her car when her mother drove it off a bridge.