Dead Ends by Erin Lange
Dane is a rebel who's close to getting kicked out of a school; Billy D is the new kid in town. One of Dane's few rules of behaviour is that he won't hit kids in special ed, so Billy D figures hanging around with someone tough who won't hit him is a good idea - although it's not that easy to convince Dane of this. He really needs to, though, because he has a puzzle to solve and Dane could be the perfect person to help him. Full review...
Nomad (Faery Rebels) by R J Anderson
Ok. Before we begin, you should know that Nomad is the second in a sequence. So if you haven't yet read Swift, you should probably start there. Don't read this review: THERE WILL BE SPOILERS.
We meet up with Ivy again as Full review...
The Forbidden Stone (The Copernicus Legacy) by Tony Abbott
If you like your fiction full of heart-stopping adventures, mysterious cults and constant danger, then you'll love this book. Codes, puzzles and ancient secrets abound, and there is no doubt that the publisher's comparison with the novels for adults written by Dan Brown is justified. There's drama and deadly peril on pretty well every page. Full review...
Emily's Quest: A Virago Modern Classic (Emily Trilogy) by L M Montgomery
When I read this book as a teenager (many times over!) I loved Emily's passion for writing, I loved the excitement of all the different events through the story and I loved the happy ending. Coming to the story now, twenty-plus years later, I found the book had a rather different flavour to it. It is, at times, terribly, desperately sad. I was surprised, by a book that is widely regarded as a children's story, at just how bleak Emily's life appears to be, and how traumatic the events in her life are. It is very well written, and I still experienced the same compulsion to read it as I used to find when I was younger, yet even with the final, desperate happy ending that Montgomery manages to squeeze in I was left feeling rather contemplative. Full review...
A Room Full of Chocolate by Jane Elson
Sometimes family isn't the one you are born into but the people and pigs you collect along the way.
Grace doesn't want to leave her London home and go and live with misery guts Grandad while her mum goes into hospital to get a LUMP sorted out. Grace can't see why she couldn't look after her mum herself. After all, the LUMP was just caused by Mum dancing too much, wasn't it? WASN'T IT? But Mum won't hear of it and Grace must move away, start a new school, make new friends and miss her mum so much that even chocolate doesn't help. Things go from bad to worse when Grace upsets the resident school bully on her very first day. Full review...
The Accidental Life of Jessie Jefferson by Paige Toon
Jessie Jefferson isn't having a great time of it. Her mum died in a freak accident. On Jessie's birthday. While buying Jessie's birthday cake. Grief and anger at the loss of her mother has sent Jessie into a spiral of teenage rebellion. She's drinking and smoking and partying and stepfather Stu is at the end of his tether. So much so that he finally tells Jessie something she's always wanted to know: the identity of her biological father...
... it's Johnny Jefferson, global rock star. Full review...
Bird by Crystal Chan
Grandpa stopped speaking the day he killed my brother, John.
That was also the day Jewel was born. Birthdays for Jewel are miserable affairs during which her parents' grief for their son trump their joy in their daughter. In fact, Jewel doesn't see that her parents have any joy in their daughter at all. She's quite certain that nobody will ever love her as much as Mom, Dad and Grandpa loved John. Until, one day, she finds a mysterious boy sitting in one of her favourite trees. Grandpa doesn't like this new John, but Jewel does. She finally has someone that she can really talk to, who really understands the way her mind works. But John isn't everything he says he is. And his arrival is about to change Jewel's life forever... Full review...
Looking at the Stars by Jo Cotterill
Amina and Jenna are sisters living under the Kwana regime. Because the Kwana have banned girls from going to school, they contribute to the family finances by weaving baskets and mats from reeds. Life under the Kwana is tough but Potta and Mamie tell their children to keep their heads down and get on with life as best they can. But fighting is breaking out across the country and when Amina sees a column of liberating soldiers, she begins to think life might get better soon. Full review...
Hunger (Hammer 1) by Melvin Burgess
Beth wakes up one morning covered in dirt and consumed by a ravening hunger. She puts it down to illness and sleepwalking at first but when the hunger doesn't go and reports of a grave desecration surface, Beth has to admit that something sinister is afoot. Beth doesn't know it yet, but she is a special person. She carries a conduit from the land of the living to the land of the dead and a newly-awakened demon wants her very much. But can Beth, together with brother Louis and friends Ivan and Coll, defeat him? Full review...
Shadowplay by Laura Lam
Micah Grey and the clown Drystan have left the circus. Trying to escape their past, and the terrible tragedy that ended Pantomime, they find Jasper Maske, a retired magician who owes Drystan a favour. While they seem to have found a safe haven, the return of a figure from Maske's past reignites an old rivalry. Can they help Maske and avoid detection when the mysterious Shadows seek both Micah and the person he once was? And who is the mysterious Cyan, and can they trust her? Full review...
Storm and Stone by Joss Stirling
American student Raven Stone doesn't like it at her exclusive English boarding school. People are going missing, and return seeming very different. The teachers pick on her as a scholarship students, and her classmates hate her - one of them enough to send her death threats. Just as the mystery starts to deepen, two new boys arrive. Joe is friendly and charismatic, but it's Kieran's analytical brain which may be the clue to solving her problems. Although her problems may be bigger than either of them had realised... Full review...
The One Safe Place by Tania Unsworth
Devin lives on a farm with his grandfather, away from the rest of the world. He knows a little about it – how the gap between rich and poor is far wider than the world we live in, and how many children now live on the street, scavenging for scraps to say alive. But, he’s never been that concerned. On the farm the life is a simple one, but they can grow enough food to get by, and they’re happy. When tragedy strikes, Devin is forced to leave his home and venture into the city for the first time. Full review...
Crash Into You by Katie McGarry
This is the second companion book to McGarry's stunning debut Pushing The Limits, following Dare You To. In the wonderful Pushing The Limits, we were introduced to main characters Noah and Echo and an excellent supporting cast including Noah's best friends and surrogate family Beth and Isaiah. Full review...
Salvage by Keren David
Cass is adopted. She's always been happy in her new family, getting on well with her parents and feeling protective of their natural son Ben. So when her father, a high-ranking MP, is revealed to be having an affair with a woman not much older than her the betrayal hits her hard. Aidan, her brother, manages to get back in touch with her shortly afterwards and seems to be the bright spot in her life. But how much do these siblings really know about each other? Full review...
This Song Will Save Your Life by Leila Sales
Elise is a fragile girl who's never felt like she fitted in anywhere. Shuttled between her divorced parents, she's desperate to be popular at school but can't work out how. Then a chance event leads to her DJ'ing in Start, a hot underground nightclub and her life suddenly improves dramatically - but can she really leave behind her old self, or are the bullies who make her feel like there's nothing worthwhile about her life right all along? Full review...
When The Guns Fall Silent by James Riordan
In 1964, Perry visits a foreign cemetery with his grandfather Jack, a hero of World War I. Jack doesn't like to talk about the war, much to Perry's disappointment, but on this trip he finds himself thinking back 50 years to a time when he signed up full of enthusiasm only to be confronted by the harsh realities of war, and looking back on those of his friends - English and German - who didn't make it. Full review...
Doctor Who: 11 Doctors, 11 Stories by Eoin Colfer, Michael Scott and others
It's basic knowledge that Doctor Who has changed a lot since first being seen fifty years ago – and I don't mean the title character, but the nature of the programme. It has gone from black and white, and cheaply produced, and declared disposable, to being an essential part of the BBC, full-gloss digital, and accessed in all manner of ways. So with the celebratory programme still ringing in our ears, and leaving people pressing a red button to see a programme about three Doctors, er, pressing a red button, we turn to other aspects of the birthday bonanza. Such as this book, which has also mutated in its much shorter lifespan, from being a loose collection of eleven short e-book novellas written by the blazing lights of YA writing, to a huge and brilliant paperback collecting everything within one set of covers. Full review...
Emily of New Moon: A Virago Modern Classic (Emily Trilogy) by L M Montgomery
I think I should confess, before I write this review, that I am a true Lucy Maud Montgomery geek! I have loved her books since I was a little girl, and I have read them so many times that the covers are worn and faded and her stories live inside of me, at least in part making me who I am. I wrote my masters dissertation on her books. I went to Prince Edward Island, Canada, for a conference about her works. I came back with a bottle of red sand and a heart full of memories. If anyone ever mentions Anne of Green Gables in my presence my eyes get very large and I get very excited (and my husband rolls his eyes...) So it is with trepidation that I sit down to review one of her books. Bear with me, I will try not to geek out too much, and I will do my best to be fair! Full review...
Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion
Warm Bodies is told in an alternating first person point of view, switching back and forth between R a zombie who has retained a bit more of the power of thought than most, and Julie, a feisty and courageous heroine, who has been through horrible hardships, but retained an ability to truly care about others. In short, R has far more humanity than the average zombie, but Julie also held on to more of the traits that I feel truly make us human in a world where kindness and unselfish love have become even more endangered than the human race itself. Two other characters are important to this storyline, M, R's best friend and Nora, Julie's closest friend and confidant. I especially liked Nora, who has suffered far more than Julie, and yet still is willing to put aside past hurt, but M has his redeeming points as well. Full review...
The New Hunger: The Prequel to Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion
I normally review a book within a day or two of finishing it. I couldn't with this one. I loved this book, but I did feel dissatisfied with the ending, and I thought perhaps I was missing something - and I was. This book was written as a prequel, and most of the readers will have already read Warm Bodies. I found something so unique in Isaac Marion's writing style, and something about this book so compelling that I couldn't quite bear to rate it down, but neither was I happy with a 5 star rating with such as lacklustre ending. It felt like half a book to me. So - in order to review this fairly - I felt I had to read the author's first book. After reading it I am no longer disappointed in the ending. It isn't after all the end - it is just the beginning of one of the best books I have ever read. Full review...
Sky on Fire (Monument 14) by Emmy Laybourne
We left our supermarket kids when they split up at the end of Monument 14. Niko, Alex and six others were taking the school bus to try to save Brayden who had been shot and to find the US military evacuation team. Dean, Astrid and three of the little ones had stayed behind - it was too risky to take pregnant Astrid into the poisoned outside. And when we say poisoned, we mean it. A bioweapons accident had left the air toxic in different ways to different people, depending on their blood group. Nobody knows where Jake is. Full review...
Skulk by Rosie Best
All Meg wanted to do was go out and create a real work of graffiti art. Then she sees a dying fox transform into a man, and pass onto her a mysterious gem, and all of a sudden she's inherited a whole new world of problems. Skulk sees its heroine plunged into a secret London, where raggedy groups of people transform into animals. The shapechangers have never got on with each other, but with a mysterious stranger trying to claim the strange gemstone Meg's forced to try to unite this ragtag bunch. Full review...
Time Trap by Richard Smith
Who was Hector Lightfoot? And why did this 19th century soldier and engineer disappear in such mysterious circumstances? And who are the two ghosts inhabiting his house in 21st century London?
Jamie and Todd are thrown into the mystery when they spend a weekend in London with Jamie's Uncle Simon who lives in the house that once belonged to Hector Lightfoot. Simon takes the two boys to see Hector's recently-discovered underground lab at the British Museum. When the building is struck by lightning, the two boys are sent back in time to the year 1862. They know that their only chance of returning home is to find Hector. But where is he? And can they avoid being sucked into a life of crime while they search for him? Full review...
Endless Knight by Kresley Cole
Evie has survived in the post Flash apocalyptic world in part because of the help of her Cajun boyfriend, Jack, and the other companions they've picked up along the way. But it's also because of Evie's impressive abilities. Full review...
Tinder by Sally Gardner
Sally Gardner has followed her wonderful and haunting Maggot Moon with another story about a world at war, but although death and violence abound once again, the atmosphere here is very different. This time we are not in some alternate nineteen fifties Britain where the bad guys have won, but instead in the eerie, mist-filled world of the fairy tale. In this place wonders and magic lead the hero to his destiny, and love, power and greed are the catalysts for both joy and despair. Full review...
Curtsies and Conspiracies by Gail Carriger
With the end of her first year at Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality fast approaching, Sophronia is caught up in a conspiracy involving a mysterious trip to London, a prototype that everyone wants to get their hands on, and a potential threat to a friend. Can she save the day? Full review...
The Boy on the Porch by Sharon Creech
When Marta and John wake up one morning, there's a surprise in store. A little boy is asleep on their porch. He has an unsigned note asking the couple to care for him. And so they do. And they soon come to love him, even though he cannot talk. But they can't help but worry. Who is Jacob? Will his parents return for him? And if they do, how will Marta and John bear to give him up - this little boy who paints blue trees, rides cows and can make music from anything? Full review...
The Ransom of Dond by Siobhan Dowd
Siobhan Dowd wrote just four novels before she died from breast cancer in 2007. All four novels were wonderful and yet they weren't Siobhan's sole legacy to us. Patrick Ness took an idea of hers and, together with artist Jim Kay, turned it into A Monster Calls, which won both the Carnegie and Greenaway prizes. And now we have The Ransom of Dond, Siobhan's last story. Full review...
Alan Turing (Real Lives) by Jim Eldridge
Alan Turing was one of Britain's greatest thinkers of the last century. He did pioneering work on computing and artificial intelligence. He was also a hero of World War II, working in the famous code-breaking community at Bletchley Park, cracking German naval codes used to lethal effect organising U-boat attacks. Turing was the man who beat the Enigma machine. Full review...
Let It Snow by John Green, Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle
On Christmas Eve, the night of the worst storm in 50 years, Jubilee Dougal's parents are arrested after a riot over decorative houses. Sent to stay with her grandparents, her train gets stuck. She ditches the train, and ends up in a waffle house with fourteen cheerleaders and various teen boys. Three best-selling authors team up to tell the story of this Christmas in a trio of interlinked novellas. Full review...
The Letter for the King by Tonke Dragt
It's midsummer night, and Tiuri is one of five young men locked up in a chapel with one more night of silent penance between them and the ceremony that makes them knights of the realm, when a stranger lures him outside. The elderly man gives Tiuri the task of delivering a secret letter, and the chivalry and espionage is too much for the sixteen year old to ignore. The bad news begins, however, when he finds the very experienced knight he was to deliver the letter to dying alone on a forest floor, meaning Tiuri must accept the mantle unofficially, and deliver the missive to its ultimate audience – the king of the neighbouring country. The journey will bring the young man right to the cusp of danger, international intrigue and more. Full review...
Haze by Paula Weston
Gaby Winter's life used to be pretty ordinary. Apart the horrific nightmares she sometimes had about a guy and a nightclub and the death of her brother, Jude, things were going okay. Until the mysterious Rafa showed up and told her she was actually one of the Rephaim - a child of a fallen angel - and that she lived a whole other life that she can't remember, where she and Jude were warriors against demons, but on two opposite sides. The other Rephaim thought she was dead. And now they think there's a chance Jude might be alive somewhere too. Full review...