Teens
Silver by Chris Wooding
'Silver' has a large ant with silver circuits on the cover, and while there are no actual ants in this book, the illustration is very well suited. This books puts a unique twist on the ever popular zombie genre. Instead of living corpses, we have nanobots which can turn humans into machines. They possess a swarm intelligence similar to ants. This sounds far fetched but a great deal of progress has been made in research currently being conducted with just this in mind - to create nanobots with swarm intelligence - a phenomenon well known in the natural sciences in which a less intelligent organism is capable of highly intelligent behaviour through a hive mind. It would be impossible for scientists to control hundreds or thousands of nanobots independently - so the idea is to control a few and have these control the rest. Of course there would always be safeguards on this type of technology and there were safeguards in the book as well - they just didn't work. Full review...
The Chocolate Box Girls: Coco Caramel by Cathy Cassidy
Coco is the youngest of the Tanberry sisters but very much her own person. For her, life is about animals and she loves going to the stables for riding lessons even if she does overestimate her own abilities. She was hoping that she could pick up a job there a couple of evenings a week so that she could have extra lessons, but it went instead to form-mate Lawrie Marshall and they're not each other's biggest fans. Well, they're not until the pony which Coco has set her heart on is sold to someone who doesn't seem to have the animal's best interest at the front of his mind. Coco and Lawrie unite to save Caramel and another pony which is just about to foal - but how will they cope? Full review...
The Boy with Two Heads by Andy Mulligan
Richard is a nice kid. Dutiful, hardworking, rule-abiding, he makes both parents and teachers proud. But one day, everything changes. Richard wakes up with a painful lump on his neck. Rushed to hospital, his parents get some devastating news from the specialists. Richard is growing a second head. Yowzer. When the head - Rikki - emerges, Richard, his parents, his teachers and his friends, all do their best to cope. But Rikki isn't like Richard. He's spiteful. He's angry. He's rude. He says the most unsayable things and he causes a great deal of trouble. Full review...
Where You Are by Tammara Webber
Between The Lines saw seventeen year old Emma catapulted to fame as she made a film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice with heartthrob Reid Alexander and started to fall for him, only to end up with more sensible Graham, another cast member. Now School Pride is nearly ready to be released, and it's time for the cast to start the publicity blitz - which means Emma and Reid, as the stars. will be spending a lot of time together. Can Emma's new relationship with Graham stay strong despite this? Not if Reid, and Brooke - who's desperate to get her hands on Graham and become more than just his friend - have got anything to do with it. Full review...
ZOM-B Angels by Darren Shan
Ok. I'm going to do this for all books in this series except the first one. Before we begin. If you haven't read the first book in this series, DON'T read this review. It contains spoilers. Read my review of the first book, read the first book itself, then come back. If you don't, you'll be sorry... Full review...
The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey
As far as she knows, Cassie could be the last human on Earth. Surely, she's one of the last few. After the first four waves of the Others - mysterious aliens who appeared and quickly laid waste to humanity - it's impossible for her to trust anyone she meets. Can she ever find the strength to rescue her kid brother? Full review...
Deadlands by Lily Herne
I was hesitant to choose this book. I love a good dystopian future book. The problem is, I don't define very many of them as good. I have read far too many zombie books that really don't offer anything different, plenty of blood, gore, and damsels in distress, but not enough character development, or logical thought. Psychological horror can be ever so much more chilling than blood and guts, but it is also much more difficult to pull off. Sarah and Savannah Lotz, the mother and daughter team who have written this book under the pen name Lily Herne, have managed to do this perfectly. Full review...
Inferno (Chronicles of Nick) by Sherrilyn Kenyon
I'm tempted to say I have a love/hate relationship with the Chronicles of Nick series, but that's probably overstating both aspects of it. Call it a like/dislike relationship, perhaps - at its best - notably in much of the first book, Infinity and Infamous, it's a high-octane thrill ride which is hugely entertaining thanks to the sheer amount of larger than life characters and some very well-written dialogue. At other moments, as in Invincible, Kenyon's narration can make me grit my teeth and the books can have pacing issues. Full review...
The Rising by Kelley Armstrong
Maya Delaney is on the run. Her idyllic life in Salmon Creek was an elaborate ruse run by the St. Clouds - a Mafia like family of supernaturals who want Maya and her friends because of their emerging powers, powers thought to be extinct before now. Maya is losing friends fast as they are recaptured. She'd do anything to get them back, but when making contact with a scientist who might have some answers doesn't play out how they hoped, Maya realises that she and her friends are on their own, and that confronting their enemies might be their only chance. Full review...
Dead To You by Lisa McMann
When Ethan was 7 years old, he was abducted from the street in front of his house. His parents and younger brother Blake were devastated, their lives torn apart. But now, 9 years later, a teenaged Ethan has returned, having escaped his new, often brutal life, to return to his old familiar one. Except it’s not familiar. His mind traumatised by years of neglect culminating with a spell living on the streets, Ethan remembers nothing about his life at home before the abduction. Full review...
Moon Bear by Gill Lewis
Tam's village in rural Laos must make way for a new highway. So Tam and his family move to a new village in the lowlands. They've been promised running water, electricity, and even a school. But the ground in the new village is scattered with bombs left over from America's war in Vietnam. And, while Tam and his father are preparing their field for the new rice crop, one explodes and everything changes again. Tam's father is dead and his mother and sisters won't be able to keep their house unless Tam goes to the city and earns money to send home. Full review...
Dead Boys' Club by Geoffrey Malone
Sam wakes up one morning at dawn. It's strangely quiet. Outside his hut, the village is absolutely silent. No cockerels are crowing. Something is horribly wrong. Stepping outside, Sam's worst fears are realised. A line of children, all armed with AK-47s, are rushing at him, yelling like crazy. It's God's Freedom Army. Full review...
Geekhood: Mission Improbable by Andy Robb
Despite his efforts with Sarah at the start of term, fourteen-year-old Archie is still as geeky and as clueless about girls as ever. Then he meets Clare, a sixteen-year-old who has relationship problems of her own, and they create a fake relationship to try and get their crushes to notice them. What could possibly go wrong? Full review...
Tide by Daniela Sacerdoti
After her parents' deaths at the hands of the demons they fought against, Sarah Midnight was left reeling again by the revelation towards the end of book 1 that her 'cousin' Harry Midnight was actually Harry's friend Sean Hannay. Unable to trust Sean following his lies, Sarah turns to Nicholas, new on the scene. But Nicholas has dark secrets of his own - has Sarah placed her faith in the wrong person? And will she find out the truth about the Midnight legacy before the demons attack again? Full review...
If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch
In the middle of the forest, Carey and Jenessa live with their mother in a tatty old camper van. Cut off from civilisation, they scrabble to take care of themselves and each other, in a setting where every day is a fight for physical and mental survival. They just about make it through, but the girls’ mother is a drug addict with a habit of disappearing, and she’s done just that. It’s been more than a month since they saw her. Maybe more than two. Then, one day, summoned by a letter sent by the girls’ mother, strangers appear in the woods, looking for Carey and Jenessa. They have come to take them away from the woods, and back to the real world. Full review...
Quicksilver by R J Anderson
Before I say anything else, I must warn you. Quicksilver is billed as a companion novel to Ultraviolet with the implication that you could read either first. You can't. You mustn't. So if you haven't read Ultraviolet, go no further.
Quicksilver picks up where Ultraviolet left off. But this time, synaesthete Alison is left behind and the story is told from the point of view of Tori Full review...
Firewallers by Simon Packham
After Jess's dad gets suspended from work, her mum takes her and her older sister out of school. Fleeing from publicity, they go to a remote Scottish island to join a community of people who shun modern technology. The longer they stay on the island, though, the stranger things seem to be. What's going on, and when will Jess see her dad again? Full review...
ACID by Emma Pass
The UK is now the IRB - Independent Republic of Britain. It's no longer run by elected politicians, who were completely discredited after a catastrophic financial crash. Instead, the IRB is a police state, led by ACID, a fearsomely authoritarian organisation. Marriage has been abandoned in favour of life partnering - the state tells you who to live with and whether or not you can have a child. Contact with the outside world is forbidden. Society is divided, with a tiny wealthy elite and a huge mass of an underclass living in poverty and shortage. Full review...
Heroic by Phil Earle
Jammy and Sonny McGann are brothers from the notorious Ghost estate. They and their friends are always there for each other - and with the drugs and violence that dominate the place where they live, they need to be. In particular, Sonny needs his older brother to keep an eye out for him and make the plans for their group. Then Jammy and his mate Tommo join the army and go off to Afghanistan, and Sonny's left to hold the fort at home. With his brother no longer there to look after him, can Sonny keep it together? And when Jammy returns, how will things change? Full review...
After Tomorrow by Gillian Cross
We were looking at a long line of people trudging down a country road. They were loaded with bundles and backpacks and babies and they all looked miserable and exhausted. Refugees, I thought automatically. But they weren't. They were people like us.
After Armageddon Monday - the collapse of all the major banks in the UK - life has become increasingly difficult for Matt and his family. Money is worthless. Food is the main currency. People who have it are resented and hated. They're named and shamed on hoarder websites and subject to violent raids by those who don't. Matt's family has more food than most because they have an allotment and have set up a trading network. But the raiders don't care about how they got their food. They just want it. Full review...
Follow Me Down by Tanya Byrne
Adamma Okomma, daughter of a Nigerian diplomat, isn't keen on moving to boarding school, even the exclusive Crofton College in Wiltshire. However, after arriving there, she quickly makes friends with the beautiful but unpredictable Scarlett. What seems like a beautiful friendship, though, is torn apart when both girls fall for the same guy. After Scarlett goes missing, can Adamma put their problems behind her? Full review...
The Maleficent Seven by Derek Landy
The arrival of Darquesse, the sorcerer destined to destroy the civilised world, is on the horizon. For most people, the obliteration of billions of lives might be something to worry about. In times gone by, Tanith Low would've been on the forefront of the side of good, fighting to protect the world from Darquesse. But now that she has a Remnant bonded to her soul, her conscience has been erased and she has become one of the worst of the bad guys, and all she wants to do is to usher in the end of the world. There are four weapons with the power to kill gods, scattered around the world, and two teams desperately hunting them down. Tanith Low leads a group of dangerous villainous misfits determined to find the weapons and destroy them, and it is up to Dexter Vex, good friend of Skulduggery Pleasant, along with a team of renegade sorcerers, to find these weapons before the others. Full review...
LIGHT by Michael Grant
The dome has become transparent. The teens, and kids, in the FAYZ, are still trapped inside, but now they can see out - and their parents, and others, can see in. With interviews taking place by primitive methods, the outside world are starting to find out just how violent life has been, and this is just adding to the worries of Sam, Astrid, and the rest. How will the world receive them when they get out - or rather, if they get out? The gaiaphage, having taken human form as Caleb and Diane's rapidly-maturing daughter, is as evil as ever, and with Drake as its servant, is destroying anyone in his path. Can those left alive inside the FAYZ survive? Full review...
The Secret of Ella and Micha by Jessica Sorensen
Ella and Micha haven’t seen each other for months, quite unusual for a couple who have been best friends forever. Ella’s been away at college, in Vegas, but Micha didn’t know this as she upped and left without so much as a wave goodbye, so he’s been trying to track her down. But, just as he does so, she shows up back home anyway as it’s summer break and she’s back at her dad’s, the house she grew up in, the house next door to Micha. Full review...
The Hit by Melvin Burgess
Manchester. About thirty years from now. Hardly anyone has a job that pays enough to live on. Life is mean and limited for most people. And then a rock star gives his final concert. Jimmy Earles dies on stage after taking Death, a new drug that gives the ultimate high at an equally high price - it kills you after seven days and there is no antidote. Full review...
Going Vintage by Lindsey Leavitt
After finding out that her boyfriend has been cheating on her with a girl he met online, Mallory decides that the best way to make her life less complicated is to get rid of the boy, and of the new technology that's the cause of her woes. Finding a list her grandmother wrote as a teen in the Sixties, she decides to go vintage, and live as her grandmother did. Will she find the answer to her modern-day problems in the past? Full review...
Don't Look Back by S B Hayes
Ever since they were children, Sinead has been taunted by her older brother Patrick. Always their mother's favourite, he constantly plays games with her, trying to force her to follow him. When he goes missing, it seems to be his most sinister game yet - as he leaves a trail of clues which lead to Benedict House, a strange place where time seems to stand still. Full review...
Department 19: Battle Lines by Will Hill
The wheels have been set in motion for Dracula to rise. Department 19 is in disarray, dealing with deaths, the disappearance of their chief Henry Seward, and the dreadful knowledge that there could be yet more traitors in the ranks. Jamie Carpenter is trying to train rookies into a fighting force who can take on vampires more dangerous than any newly-turned ones that have ever been seen before, Matt Browning is desperately trying to find a cure for vampirism, and Larissa Kinley is in the USA trying to help in the fight against her own kind. With Zero Hour coming ever closer, can the department save the day? Full review...
Queen & Commander (A Hive Queen Novel) by Janine Southard
In Rhiannon's world, your entire future depends on your final school test results. Everyone is classified according to personality type and entry to any career or university depends upon your personality type. It's impossible to cheat the test... unless you're Rhiannon. Rhiannon should really be a Perceiver. But all her life she has wanted her own hive. And to achieve this, she must test as a Queen or Commander. And this she does. The only person to ever have manipulated the test. Rhiannon's future is set: leadership training, followed by a choice of Devoted to serve her, followed by command of a prestigious space ship and hive. Full review...
Fractured by Teri Terry
As a teen criminal in Lorder-run Britain, Kyla was slated - her memories erased and her personality "reset". But Kyla wasn't like the other Slateds - she retained tantalising memories of her previous life. Fractured picks up Kyla's story after she's lost Ben and just as a mysterious man from her past comes back into her life. It seems that Kyla's memories represent more than just a failed slating. She has a role to play in the fight against the Lorders. But it's not as easy as that. Is Kyla a victim? A freedom fighter? A terrorist? And can the end ever justify the means? The more Kyla learns about her history, the more such questions burn. And the more danger she finds herself in... Full review...
Siege by Sarah Mussi
Leah Jackson is miserable and in detention. This is particularly infuriating because the detention means she's likely to be late for her fame and fortune interview, one of the few chances kids at YOP schools have to make it into college and to get a life worth having. But Leah's worries are about to become much, much more immediate. Year 9 kids storm into the room. They're armed. And they're shooting. Leah escapes the melee by hauling herself up into the roofspace. But only just. Kids are dead. Teachers are dead. Everyone else is rounded up in the gym. Only Leah and Anton are free, but they are trapped above the ceiling tiles. Full review...
Losing It by Cora Carmack
Bliss is a drama student, but what else would you expect with a name like that? And yet, when we first meet her, I would never have guessed that was her major. She just doesn’t seem the type. She’s also not the type to pick up random men in bars, but that’s exactly what she does as the book starts. It’s her friend Kelsey’s fault. She’s determined to get Bliss out there, because that’s not where Bliss normally is. About to graduate at the end of the year, Bliss has made it through college without one key college experience: sex. And it’s time to change that. Full review...
What The Spell by Brittany Geragotelis
Brooklyn just wants to be noticed by someone – the popular kids at her high school, the cute guy she likes, anyone other than the guidance counsellor who’s her only real friend. Luckily for her, she’s counting down the days until her sixteenth birthday - when she’ll have her powers as a witch finally unbound. When this happens, though, even though it initially seems like it will give her everything she wants, her new abilities could have caused more problems than ever. Full review...
Through Dead Eyes by Chris Priestley
After an unfortunate episode at school, Alex has joined his father on a business trip to Amsterdam. He had been hoping to spend some time with his father, but instead he is palmed off on Angelien, daughter of his father's new girlfriend. But Angelien is pretty and so Alex is quite happy to be shown around by her. When her boyfriend Dirk isn't around, that is. At an antique market, Alex finds himself drawn to an ancient-looking mask. He can't help but buy it. And once bought, he can't help but put it on. Full review...