|summary=The celebration of Alcatraz's thirteenth birthday is quite a muted one – he gets a thirteen-year old parcel of sand in the post, claimed to be his inheritance from his birth parents, and he burns down the kitchen in his foster home – the latest in a long line of disasters that have followed him in his short accident-prone life. Expecting to just be farmed out to more foster parents, instead he is the subject of a battle between an armed man and a strange old fellow claiming to be Alcatraz's grandfather. What's more the guy says Al's abilities in breaking things are a Talent with a capital T, and the sands – that were stolen overnight – are a great threat to the world in the hands of Librarians (with a capital L). Against all his own instincts, our anti-hero goes with the latter man, finding his destiny in freeing the western world from the evil Librarians, and telling us about it later as an adult in a most sardonic fashion.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444006681</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=James Craig
|title=The Circus: An Inspector Carlyle Novel
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Journalist Duncan Brown was found dead in the back of a rubbish truck. It was a prosaic introduction to a major scandal for Inspector John Carlyle and before long his slim resources were stretched even further when a teenager had a bomb attached to his neck and the neighbour who was about to complain about the loud music was shot dead on the doorstep. It might have seemed that it couldn't get much worse, but before long Carlyle found himself up against Trevor Miller, a former police officer who had become security officer to the Prime Minister. He and Carlyle went back a long way and none of the memories were good.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472100379</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Justin Huggler
|title=Burden of the Desert
|rating=5
|genre=Thrillers
|summary= Journalist Zoe Temple can't believe her luck when she's sent to Iraq to cover the birth of an emerging nation, not thinking that such luck can sometimes run out. Mahmoud earns his money driving journalists from story to story, sometimes only just escaping intact. However, the most dangerous thing he will ever do is fall in love. Rick Benes is one of the American soldiers on the news, his only ambition being to get his platoon home safely as Iraq's birth pangs are violent and unrelenting. And then there's Adel, a young Iraqi lad who never dreamt of violence; not until the day that Benes killed his family.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1479352047</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Graham Masterton
|title=White Bones
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Finding a dead body isn't an unusual occurrence for Detective Superintendent Katie Maguire of the Cork Gardai. But finding the bones of eleven bodies in a mass grave, each with marks that suggest the flesh was stripped from them and with evidence that they were used in a voodoo-like ritual is beyond the pale even by her usual standards. There is some respite when it appears that these bones have been dead bodies for more than 80 years, until another fresh set appear in roughly the same spot.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178185064X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Sarah Moore Fitzgerald
|title=Back to Blackbrick
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Cosmo thought he had enough problems, with his absent mother, ridiculous name, and status as 'loser kid' at school. But his Grandfather isn't the man he used to be - the man that Cosmo idolised. Sometimes, he can't remember what day it is, or where certain things go in the kitchen. And then other times, he can't remember who Cosmo is, or that Brian, Cosmo's brother, died. Cosmo does all he can to help him, but post-its on the cupboards and omega-3 oils aren't enough to keep doctors from coming to assess Grandfather and deciding he needs to be taken into full time care.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444006592</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=David McKee
|title=Elmer and Aunt Zelda
|rating=4
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=Elmer the patchwork elephant was reminded by his cousin Wilbur that they had promised to visit Aunt Zelda, who is getting old and a little bit deaf. Their visit is peppered with misheard words and misunderstandings but there’s an obvious affection between the two generations. Aunt Zelda is very proud of the two youngsters, and Elmer and Wilbur just love Zelda for what she is. There’s never hint of impatience or frustration, no matter how wrong Zelda hears what the two young elephants have to say. But - just in case Elmer was feeling at all superior - he finds when he gets home that he’s been rather forgetful too.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842707515</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Shani Boianjiu
|title=The People of Forever are not Afraid
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Yael, Lea and Avishag go through their final years at high school in a little Israeli town on the Lebanese border and then on to the inevitable: the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). Gender is immaterial, all Israeli citizens must serve at least two years and for these girls the moment arrives after graduation. Yael's posting seems futile as she guards a training base against marauding lads, sneaking across the border to pinch perfume from pockets rather than pose any real security threat. Lea's assignment on a border checkpoint searching the daily line of immigrant workers is riddled with routine. Avishag joins up with her own demons, her brother Dan having died after his national service. She knows how it happened but continues to struggle with why; something she must handle alone.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781090092</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Ole Konnecke
|title=Anton and the Battle
|rating=4
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=
Anyone who has spent any amount of time with small children will know of the 'well I'm taller than you!' arguments which seem to appear, all of a sudden, and carry on for years! Everything becomes a competition, and it's all about who is stronger or bigger or can eat more beans or can run the fastest or jump the highest or has the noisiest baby brother...This story captures the way these arguments begin, and escalate, as we meet Anton and his friend Luke and see them imagining bigger and bigger ways of being 'better' than each other!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1877579262</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Michel Van Zeveren
|title=That's Mine!
|rating=4.5
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=I've come to look forward to picture books published by Gecko Press. They always seem to come up with something a bit different, and this book is no exception. This is the story of an egg, found by a small green frog who claims it for his own. But then snake says it's his egg, and eagle says it's his egg. Just whose egg is it?!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1877579270</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Fiona Gibson
|title=Pedigree Mum
|rating=4.5
|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=When Kerry Tambini moves to Shorling, she has high expectations that she and her family will live there happily forever. Within weeks though, her dreams are shattered after her husband Rob shocks her by an indiscretion that he can hardly remember. This indiscretion turns out to have a devastating consequence leaving Kerry with no option but to ask Rob to move out. This leaves her alone with the children in Shorling and pretty much friendless as she struggles to find anything in common with the snooty mums she meets at the school gate.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847562612</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Niel Bushnell
|title=Sorrowline
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Jack's mother was killed when he was a young boy and now, just before his thirteenth birthday, he learns that his father is leaving him too — for a spell in prison. And then things get seriously weird, because his long-dead grandfather appears to warn him that his life in in danger. The old man is closely followed by a bunch of murderous creatures called the Dustmen, and in order to escape them Jack is forced to flee back to 1940, using a sorrowline.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849395233</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Sally Rippin
|title=Angel Creek
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It is Christmas Eve and Jelly's family are gathered together to celebrate. It should have been a perfect night but for Jelly it is not because her family have recently moved to the other side of the city, far from all her friends, just as she is about to start at senior school. She is feeling so alone and miserable that nothing will brighten her mood and to avoid the festivities Jelly and her two cousins slip away in the darkness to the nearby creek.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405262087</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Marie-Louise Jensen
|title=Smuggler's Kiss
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Fifteen-year-old Isabelle has given up on life. Walking into the sea, she is ready to drown herself - until she changes her mind, too late. But instead of drowning, she's pulled from the waves by smugglers. While the crew aren't all happy that a couple of their men have jeopardized them by rescuing her, she quickly becomes useful to them and starts to get a thrill from helping to evade the Preventives. Can she be happy in her new life, or will her dark secret catch up with her?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192792806</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Chris Columbus and Ned Vizzini
|title=House of Secrets
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=
The Walker family used to have a big house in San Francisco, but after their father lost his job in mysterious circumstances, they were forced to move into the spooky Kristoff House, a strange place once occupied by a disturbed fantasy author. Soon after they move in, they realise that their arrival has set terrible events in motion, and children Cordelia, Brendan and Eleanor are forced to try and rescue their parents from a terrible fate.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007490143</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Phil Foglio and Kaja Foglio
|title=Girl Genius: Agatha H and the Airship City
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=Agatha Clay has had a bad day. Waking up late was just the beginning. She got mugged in a dark alley on her way to university and her precious locket was stolen. Things did not get any better when she arrived at the university. When demonstrating her latest mechanical design, it malfunctioned and exploded in front of her instructor. Then, without warning, the faculty had an impromptu inspection by Baron Wulfenbach, the ruthless dictator who controls most of the continent. By the time the day was through, the university had been reduced to a pile of rubble and her beloved mentor killed. And then,of course, she had ''those'' blinding headaches to deal with. But if today was bad, tomorrow is set to be even worse...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781166471</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Maudie Smith
|title=About Zooming Time, Opal Moonbaby!
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Martha feels lonely without her Best and Only Friend, Opal Moonbaby. That's obviously a rather unusual name but it's not the only thing about Opal which is unusual. She's an alien from Carnelia and she originally came to earth as part of a challenge. She had to make a human friend and despite the fact that Martha was determined that she would ''never'' have another friend, the relationship somehow worked. When we [[Opal Moonbaby by Maudie Smith|last saw her]] she was on her way back to Carnelia and Uncle Bixie. Martha was heartbroken to see her go - and I'll confess to being just a little bit upset myself. But don't worry - she's back!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444004794</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Shaun Hutson
|title=The Revenge of Frankenstein
|rating=4
|genre=Horror
|summary=Imprisoned and sentenced to death for the crimes he feels were caused by his creation and not his drive to bend the reach and morals of medical science, Doctor Frankenstein is given a way out of the guillotine's grasp, and gains a loyal adherent in the misshapen form of Carl. They move on to work together at a charitable hospital, which serves merely as a front for the Doctor's usual experiments, transplanting body organs, reviving corpses or bits thereof, and bringing new forms of life to the world. Cue yet another problematic creation, with an unfortunate way of leaving a trail of violence and vehemence, but with another innocent female to tender him, in this respectful and intelligent sequel.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099556235</amazonuk>
}}
