Teens
Cherry Crush: The Chocolate Box Girls by Cathy Cassidy
When Cherry Costello told her teachers that she was leaving Glasgow and moving to live in a cliff-top house in Somerset where her father would make organic chocolates everyone thought that it was just another of her tall tales. But this one was true. Not only was Cherry moving to Somerset the Costellos, father and daughter, were going to live with his girlfriend and her four daughters. From it just being the two of them there would be seven altogether. How will Cherry cope? And how will the Tanberry family cope with two new members? Full review...
Half a Sister by Kelly McKain
When Hannah's parents begin to have whispered, but obviously heated discussions about something her immediate thought is that they're splitting up. There's quite a bit of that at school and Hannah would hate it to happen to her. But when it all comes out the reality is rather different. Sam has just discovered that he has a fifteen year old daughter living in Paris and that her mother has been in a serious car accident. Sam sees no alternative but to bring Ellie to live with them, but Charlotte is worried about how this will affect their daughter. When it's put to Hannah she has visions of long girly chats and swopping clothes and makeup and agrees without further thought. To begin with it's everything she hoped it would be but then a darker side of Ellie emerges and life turns into a nightmare for Hannah. Full review...
Kiss Me Deadly by Tricia Telep (Editor)
What do Peter Pan, werecats, vampires, teenage zombies, and unicorn hunters have in common? Possibly very little... but they all appear as central characters in stories in this often enchanting anthology of stories of supernatural romance. Full review...
The Double Life of Cassiel Roadnight by Jenny Valentine
Runaway Chap walks into a hostel off the street. He's in need of a meal and a bed for the night. As the workers question him, trying to get a history, they notice his resemblance to a poster of a boy who's been missing for two years. Chap isn't Cassiel Roadnight. Chap isn't anyone. But the temptation is there: become Cassiel. Get a family. Live in a home. Become someone. And so he takes the chance and the new identity. Full review...
Crescendo by Becca Fitzpatrick
We last saw Nora and Patch at the end of Hush, Hush - lovely title, that! - battered after a Nephilim conflict, but very much together. Patch is no longer fallen, has been given back guardian angel status and the threat to Nora is no more. You'd think everything would go swimmingly after that, wouldn't you? But you know and I know that falling in love with any kind of angel, fallen or otherwise, isn't conducive to a normal life. Full review...
Lost Dogs by Garrett Carr
Some extraordinary children are to be found in the Northern Irish port-town of Hardglass. One, Akeem, has in fact just arrived - a stowaway on a cargo ship. Elsewhere, friends Andrew and Ewan are waiting to see the result of Ewan's father's trial for being a weapons dealer. While their friend May is newly residing at a most unusual school, one whose pupils have talents to match her singular one of sensing and empathising with the thoughts of animals. It's a gang of people brought together in a natural, realistic way, with some fantastic factors to their lives that are only going to get heightened. For said weapons, allegedly going on their way to be decommissioned, will soon be on the same cargo boat Akeem has just left - and they're weapons from the darker side of horror... Full review...
A Trick of the Dark by B R Collins
What if you found a way to cheat death? What if it left you pain-free forever, both physically and emotionally? But what if it also meant you had to split your soul, and that left you unable to touch anyone ever again? After Zach and Annis are dragged to France for a family reconciliation events are set in motion that cannot be undone. Annis sees Zach killed by a the tumbling wall of an old ruined house, yet moments later he is standing, unharmed, in front of her. As she tries to help Zach, and appease her bitter, broken parents, she is dragged deeper and deeper into the horror of Zach's situation. Full review...
The Legacy by Gemma Malley
Longevity isn't working. The drug that prolongs life expectancy indefinitely appears to have reached its own life expectancy. A terrible virus is wreaking havoc across Britain and the sluggish immune systems of the Legals simply can't cope. Consumed by a desperate thirst, they're dying horrible deaths, leaving behind shrivelled and desiccated corpses. It's Richard Pinsent's worst nightmare. Not that Richard cares about people dying, of course. Full review...
Torment by Lauren Kate
Right, first things first. If you haven't read Fallen, go read it - or at least read a review to see whether it sounds like your cup of tea - because this review will inevitably contain significant spoilers for the earlier Lauren Kate novel. Full review...
Blood Crime by John Brindley
Joe is lying in hospital in a meningitis-induced coma. It's the last straw for his mother - Joe has been unable to cope ever since his father died, refusing to believe in a tragic laboratory accident and accusing his ex-research partner and her new boyfriend of murder. Before he became ill, Joe's state of mind had become dangerously unstable, and now it's up to his uncle Frank, a hospital consultant, to save him. But Joe isn't lying there insensible: he's fighting the greatest battle of his life - rushing through his veins and arteries evading the aggressive bacteria, rousing his body to fight back, and trying to work out what really happened to his father and whether his own illness has anything to do with it. Full review...
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: No. 1: Night of the Living Rerun; Coyote Moon; Portal Through Time by John Vornholt, Arthur Byron Cover and Alice Henderson
There is something really satisfying about a huge brick of a book: the prospect of settling down for hours and hours of reading pleasure is very tempting. And this book offers an even more tempting lure for Buffy fans, because it contains three whole stories, adding variety to the mix. It's absolutely ideal for a holiday read. Full review...
Bella Should Have Dumped Edward: Controversial Views on the Twilight Series by Michelle Pan
I'm sure die hard (Twi-hard) fans will love this book, since it gives them a little bit more about Bella and Edward and Jacob. All those things they've mulled over since the series ended are encapsulated in the topics raised here. Team Edward need not shake their heads in dismay at the book's title - it's controversial on purpose - and the question of who Bella should have ended up with is looked at from both points of view, along with other issues such as whether she should have become a vampire, the faithfulness of the films to the books and which character readers would most like to be. Full review...
Shade by Jeri Smith-Ready
Meet Aura. She was one of the first people in the world to be born after The Shift, beyond which every newborn was opened to the world of the ghosts, hearing and seeing them whether they liked to or not. Her boyfriend, Logan, who she wants to make love to for the first time on the night of his seventeenth birthday, suddenly dies first instead - making him one of the many ghosts Aura might be able to help. But is something of greater help buried in a school project, touching on standing stone circles, the solstices, the mysteries of her own family's past - and a new young man in her life? Full review...
Candor by Pam Bachorz
The children of Candor know how to behave and the children of Candor stick to those rules:
The great are never late.
Healthy breakfasts make for smart minds.
Academics are the key to success.
Always be courteous.
In Candor, everyone is happy. There is no crime. There are no tantrums. There is just respect and cooperation. It is a harmonious place that people from the outside desperately want to relocate to. Full review...
comin 2 gt u by Simon Packham
Sam Tennant is reasonably happy at school, generally gets on alright with people, and doesn't have much to worry about – until he's murdered in the first chapter of this novel. Oh, not really murdered – his character in a game he plays online is killed. But then, the two who kill him refer to him by his real name instead of his computer persona, and he realises that virtual life has just become very nasty indeed. Full review...
Jealousy (Strange Angels) by Lili St Crow
Dru Anderson has finally arrived at the Schola Prima – the main school for the training of wulfen and djamphir. She's supposed to be safe here. Supposed to be. Dru doesn't find life any easier. There's someone who wants her dead, and Dru has to work out who, and who else is loyal to them. Because loyalty is everything in the Order. Full review...
The Edge of Nowhere by John E Smelcer
Could you survive in the wilds of Alaska if you were washed overboard from a fishing boat during a storm and somehow, amazingly, managed to make it to dry land? This is the challenge facing Seth and his loyal dog, Tucker. They are out on Seth's father's fishing boat during a terrible storm and neither Seth's dad or his friend realise that the boy and dog have been washed overboard until they reach home and are found to be missing from the boat. A search party is sent out, but Seth is assumed drowned. Luckily, Seth and his dog manage to get to one of the tiny islands that run along the coast of Alaska, and after realising that no one is coming to help them they slowly make their way hundreds of miles over many months. Will they starve to death, or freeze, or be eaten by bears before they manage to make it home? Full review...
The Blackhope Enigma by Teresa Flavin
14-year old Sunni finds it bad enough that when she's trying to do some research on a famous Fausto Corvo painting in Blackhope Tower's Mariner's Chamber, she gets lumbered with her annoying stepbrother to look after. Add to that the presence of her classmate Blaise, a boy who's better at art than she is, and her day is looking depressing – and that's before Dean mysteriously vanishing when walking around the chamber's labyrinth. Full review...
Finding Sky by Joss Stirling
Sky is upset when her adopted parents decide to move her away from all her friends in London to a small town in America, but tries to make the best of it. She quickly makes some good friends, but one particular guy is strangely attractive, even though he doesn't seem to want to have anything to do with her. Their paths will cross, however, and they'll be thrown together by fate. Full review...
Fade (Wake Trilogy) by Lisa McMann
Janie's story continues. Still unable to control her abilities as a dream catcher, her latest case is proving difficult. Somebody is preying on the students at Fieldridge and the violent and haunting nightmares that Janie has no choice but to watch yield few answers. Being forced to keep her relationship with Cabel secret is putting a serious strain on the pair, and when Janie learns of the terrible consequences of her powers, she wonders if Cabe is just one more of the many sacrifices she'll have to make. Full review...
Tall Story by Candy Gourlay
Andi is a young teenager in the UK. She's not very tall, but she is brilliant at basketball. And she has finally been chosen to play for her school team.
Bernardo is an extremely tall teenager in the Philippines. He lives with his aunt and uncle, and keeps on growing. He is surrounded by superstition, since his name is the same as that of a legendary giant who supposedly protected his village during a major earthquake. Oddly enough, there have not been any earthquakes for some years... ever since Bernardo had his first dramatic growth spurt. Full review...
Claire de Lune by Christine Johnson
Claire was having the perfect sixteenth birthday. Okay, so most of the people probably only turned up for her swimming pool, her hands and ears were itching like crazy and everyone had to leave early because of the werewolf sighting in the forest nearby. But all Claire cared about was Matthew Engle, talking to her and flirting with her and promising to call her later. Then her mother takes her into the woods and reveals a dark and dangerous secret – she and Claire are werewolves. Everything Claire thought she knew about werewolves is wrong, but how can she continue to see Matthew, whose father is leading the hunt for them? Full review...
Withering Tights by Louise Rennison
After killing off Georgia Nicolson in a blaze of hedonism and vampires, it's time for Louise Rennison to start a new series, with a new teenage girl's first-person narrative. This time it's one Tallulah Casey, a lanky girl worried about her knees and underdeveloped cleavage, and off to stay at a posh drama performance workshop centre in the wilds of Yorkshire. Full review...
TimeRiders: Day of the Predator by Alex Scarrow
Liam, Maddy and Sal were each about to die when an old man appeared to them and invited them to choose another fate. And out of the heartbreak of their decisions to bid farewell to their old existence and their loved ones is born a secret team of time riders, dedicated to putting right the chaos caused by those who meddle with time. It is a decision they will sometimes regret. Full review...
Annexed by Sharon Dogar
There's been a bit of a kerfuffle over Annexed - the story of Peter van Pels, who shared the Amsterdam annexe with Anne Frank during World War II, who fell in love with the teenaged diarist, and who perished in a Nazi death camp called Munthausen in 1945. Sharon Dogar has been accused of sexing it up, disrespecting the too-recently deceased, and thrusting twenty-first century sexualised mores into a time where this sort of thing just didn't go on. So, on the one hand, I was very keen to read it and see what I thought. Full review...
The Medusa Project: The Rescue by Sophie McKenzie
It's a fascinating premise: four babies are implanted with a gene relating to psychic abilities, and as they grow up it becomes clear they have each reacted differently, and developed different skills. Then write four books (plus a short story for World Book Day) about their shared adventures, with each book focussing on one boy or girl in particular. In this book, Ed is the central character: he is able to read minds, but is forced to use his gift for evil in order to save his friends. A high-octane tale about four teens struggling to stay alive when it seems every adult on the planet is out to use them for their own ends. Full review...
The Dark Divine by Bree Despain
Grace and Jude Divine have always been the poster-children for kindness and understanding. Their father is a pastor, a truly good man, and they’ve been brought up to set a good example to those around them. They seem to have everything they could want – until Daniel Kalbi returns to their lives. Three years ago, Jude’s friend Daniel left unexpectedly. Jude was found lying covered in his own blood – and no-one has ever told his younger sister Grace what happened. With the return of the boy she had a crush on for years, Grace needs to work out exactly what happened and how it’s linked to some attacks on people and animals which have just started – could this be a dangerous attraction for her? Full review...
Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis Complex by Eoin Colfer
Artemis Fowl is trying to save the world. No wonder Holly Short and Foaly think he's not himself. He might stand to make another huge fortune, but he's thinking about global warming, and technological cures for it. But he's also thinking about a lot of other things - in particular, the patterns of the number five. His mind seems stuck making him tap things in multiples of five times, and use sentences with five words in. But when his demonstration in Iceland goes wrong with a four-engined fairy space probe crashing, he certainly becomes something other than himself. Full review...
Wyrmeweald: Returner's Wealth by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell
If you could imagine the frontier world of the Wild West transported to the Highlands of Scotland, you would have the setting for this first book in a new trilogy by the creators of the Edge Chronicles. Micah, a poor farmhand, longs to make his fortune so he can marry the wealthy Seraphita, so he sets off for the Wyrmeweald, where riches beyond your wildest dreams can be had – if you survive. It is a harsh and unforgiving land, full of dangerous dragon-like creatures called wyrmes, but Micah soon learns that when it comes to violence and deceit, it is humans he needs to fear most. Full review...
Wicked: Resurrection by Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguie
The eagerly-awaited conclusion to Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguié's Wicked series is finally here. After over three years of wondering and waiting to find out how this enthralling supernatural series will end, readers can finally dive straight into the war between good and evil with Resurrection and discover the answers to the secrets that have been kept from them. Full review...
The Killer's Daughter by Vivian Oldaker
Emma has just moved to Wessex with her Dad and Jan, her Dad's girlfriend. But it's not just adjusting to a new school, a new country that Emma has to deal with. Emma's Dad was accused of murdering her famous Grandmother by pushing her off a cliff in Greece. No one wants to be her friend, and it's not long before she becomes the newest victim to bullies. Slashed swimming costumes, physical fights – being at her new school is difficult. Full review...
She's So Dead To Us by Kieran Scott
Ally Ryan had not expected to return to Orchard Hill – ever. Less than two years previously she and her family had moved out in a hurry when her father’s business dealings had caused serious financial problems in the local community. But her mother has a job in the local school and they move into a small house and try to rebuild their lives. Abby wasn’t exactly expecting a warm welcome but she was surprised when so many of her so called 'friends' cut her dead and it’s made obvious that she now lives on the wrong side of town. Full review...
Firebrand (Rebel Angels) by Gillian Philip
Seth lives in the land of the Sidhe, protected from the world of full-mortals by an ancient magical Veil. There's an uneasy but relatively settled peace, with only the occasional border fray to disturb their long lives. But things aren't easy for Seth - he's the unwanted second son of a Sidhe lord, his mother interested only in the corridors of power at the court of Kate NicNiven, and his father with eyes only for his older brother Conal. The inhabitants of his dun don't trust him, he's half-feral, and his only real tie is to Conal, who has taken him under his wing, and for whom Seth would gladly die. Full review...
The Dream Thief (Horatio Lyle) by Catherine Webb
When an orphan girl appears on Horatio Lyle's doorstep, half-dead and apparently poisoned, the genius inventor finds himself drawn into a conspiracy that reaches to the highest circles of London Society. Someone is kidnapping workhouse children and essentially turning them into zombies. Somone is stealing their dreams. With the help of his young ward, the street-urchin Tess, he sets out into the darkest parts of the city to stop them. Full review...
Prisoner of the Inquisition by Theresa Breslin
Don't read this book if you are of a delicate disposition and prone to nightmares. Within the first few pages a woman is burned at the stake, a man is unjustly accused and hanged, his young son only just escapes the same fate and a woman dies in childbirth. But this is no horror story, and none of the violence is gratuitous: this is quite simply the world of fifteenth century Spain. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella are fighting the Moors in Granada, Christopher Columbus is seeking royal funding for a voyage to prove the world is round, and the Inquisition is spreading terror and anguish throughout the land. And against this background of momentous events, we have the thrilling and beautiful account of the lives of two young people, bound together by hatred and love. Full review...
The Burning Mountain by LJ Adlington
In AD79, Gaius Justinius Aquila is drenched in grey ash, trying desperately to help the citizens of Herculaneum as Vesuvius erupts around them. In 1943, German paratrooper Peter Schafer finds himself in Naples. Peter has a secret - he's underage, having run away to sign up. Within the year, Peter will find himself defending Monte Cassino against a huge Allied bombardment. Throughout his time in Italy, Peter will have many encounters with Vittoria, an impoverished Neapolitan who steals to keep herself and a ragbag bunch of orphans alive. Full review...
Blood Feud (Drake Chronicles) by Alyxandra Harvey
Isabeau St. Croix has no care for politics and royalty, and would really rather not spend her time among the newly royal Drake family, attempting to negotiate peace between them and the Hounds, her vampire clan. The Hounds are not well thought of among vampires, who fear their dual fangs and strange rituals. But the Drakes are like no vampires Isabeau has ever met, and they aren't like royalty either. Full review...
Zelah Green: One More Little Problem by Vanessa Curtis
We first met Zelah when her OCD got so bad she was sent off to a live-in centre for treatment. She's at home now, with the OCD still around but not totally debilitating. She's still jumping on the stairs - but not so many jumps and not so often. She's still scrubbing her face, but it isn't quite red raw. You'd call her overly fastidious rather than ill. And her therapist is pleased with her progress. But then... Full review...
The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams
Thirteen-year-old Kyra has one father, three mothers, and twenty siblings - yes, twenty - with another two on the way. She lives on a polygamist compound run by Prophet Childs. His father had been Prophet before him, but since his father's death and Prophet Childs' accession, things have taken a turn for the worse. A fence has gone up around the compound. Adolescent boys are driven off, and the Prophet seems to be choosing younger and younger girls to marry older and older men. And now, it's Kyra's turn. Prophet Childs announces that she is to marry her sixty-year-old uncle. And her father is afraid to refuse him. Full review...
By Midnight by Mia James
April Dunne doesn't really consider herself to be a genius, and her family certainly aren't rich - so how did she get accepted by the ultra-prestigious Ravenwood school when her family moved from Scotland to Highgate? She can't work it out but has other problems to worry about, in any case, such as the two local murders and the way people at her school get angry when she tries to take their photograph. On the plus side, there's a seriously stunning boy she's drawn to straight away, Gabriel Swift, and she thinks he likes her, although his behaviour is weird at times. Full review...
Secret Hour (Midnighters) by Scott Westerfeld
If you do have to move into a small American town, make sure it isn't Bixby, Oklahoma. Jessica does, and finds it perhaps more trouble than it's worth. She quickly bonds with some of the more goth-seeming kids at her high school, but it's the night-time activities that intrigue her. She thinks she's in a dream when she walks through a dazzling forest of raindrops, suspended in a moment of frozen time - that moment being exactly midnight. But wouldn't you know? - her goth-seeming friends are active at midnight too - and so are some very dangerous creatures of the terrible kind... Full review...
I am Number Four by Pittacus Lore
Meet John Smith. By all appearances he is the usual fifteen year old American kid, except for the fact he and his 'father' shift location every few months. John is certainly not his real name, but has to face up to reality - school bullies, hot girls and in fact any friends being unattainable with such a peripatetic lifestyle. 'Dad' stays at home, scanning the internet and all news sources, in order to protect the pair - for they are among the remaining dozen or so inhabitants of Lorien, living in hidden exile on Earth, but hunted by their enemies from yet another alien race. Can the fact they are permanently pursued grant them any peace - especially when 'John' is about to undergo some rather prominent alien-style puberty? Full review...
Dark Secrets 2 by Elizabeth Chandler
Those of you who read my review of the first Dark Secrets bind-up will know I absolutely loved that book. This is a similar proposition – two average-sized teen novels packaged together in a very good value volume. Both are set in Wisteria, Maryland. Both feature teenage girls looking for closure on past events, with dark secrets buried in their past – and both are guaranteed to capture the imagination of their target audience of teen girls, and of a fair few other readers besides. Full review...