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Revision as of 16:19, 22 April 2012
Teens
Dying to Know You by Aidan Chambers
Karl is seventeen and hopelessly caught in the throes of first love. The object of his affections is Fiorella, a girl who seems above him so many ways. Fiorella's family is both healthy and wealthy, while Karl's father is dead and his mother gets by but not much more. Fiorella is a bright girl on her way to university, while Karl is dyslexic and has left school to work as a blue collar apprentice plumber. Fiorella is articulate, while Karl is reserved. Full review...
Slide by Jill Hathaway
Everyone thinks Vee suffers from narcolepsy. The truth, however, is much stranger than that. She 'slides' into people's bodies when she touches an object they were emotionally attached to, becoming a helpless observer and leaving her body at risk. It's bad enough normally when this happens, as she sees the mean things people do to each other - but it gets much worse when she slides, and finds herself holding a knife and standing over a young girl's body. While everyone else thinks it's suicide, Vee knows Sophie's death was murder - but can she work out whose body she was occupying before the killer strikes again? Full review...
Moon Chase by Cathy Farr
When Wil dreams, it's as if he is inhabiting someone - or something - else's body. And when he wakes one morning after dreaming of a terrible crime and a desperate Fellhound, he knows the dog that he can hear howling is that very Fellhound. Following Farrow to try to rescue her injured master, Wil is captured by the Saranians, who believe he is the one to have tried to murder young Seth Tanner. His sentence is harsh - track and kill the Wraithe wolves in the Moon Chase and return alive and unharmed and go free, die in the attempt, or return injured and be hanged. Full review...
Partials by Dan Wells
Since the Break, no baby has lived longer than three days. Scientists have studied every baby to try and find a cure, but with no luck. The human race is on the verge of extinction after the Partials (genetically engineered soldiers who were made to fight for humans) turned on their makers and released the deadly virus that has wiped out most of the population. For those lucky to survive, they now spend their time trying to cure the virus that kills every baby. Full review...
Welcome, Caller, This Is Chloe by Shelley Coriell
After being crowned Mistletoe Queen, Chloe Camden should be on top of the world, and more popular than ever. A jealous friend can't cope with her success, though, and trashes her reputation, leaving her a sudden social outcast. When her new guidance counselor tells her she needs to change her junior independent social project, Chloe is forced into a school radio station which is on its last legs, run by a bunch of losers who she'd never even have spoken to before. Taking a risk which could either kill or save the station, Chloe is thrust into a position as host of a new chat show. Will the risk pay off? Will Chloe find a new circle of friends? Full review...
The Party Animal and Don't Look Under the Bed (Deadly Tales) by Roy Apps
Bored with sleeping soundly? Fed up with sweet dreams? Well this is the book for you! Deadly Tales features two nightmare urban legends that you'll pray aren't true. Full review...
172 Hours On The Moon by Johan Harstad
It's 2018 and people at NASA want to go back to the moon. But no one's been there since the 70s, so with funding and public support limited, they need an angle. A draw. Something to get people all over the world buzzing. Their answer is a worldwide lottery to select three teens who can accompany the NASA team on their week long jaunt into space. The chance of a lifetime! An unforgettable, unrepeatable experience! An adventure that truly is out of this world! Full review...
The Cambridge Shakespeare Guide by Emma Smith
Does the world need another guide to Shakespeare's plays? There are plenty about and students these days have the added resource of the Internet to get the basics. However, if it does, then this is as good as any you will find. It's nicely written and beautifully clear and above all, succinct. In fact I'm doing a disservice to Emma Smith already by terming it a guide to his plays, because she also includes the poems and sonnets. Full review...
Illegal by Miriam Halahmy
Lindy’s life started to fall apart when her baby sister Jemma died. With her parents gambling and drinking, and her younger brother needing her to look after him, she’s desperate to hold the family together. So when her brother Garth, who’s in jail, manages to set her up with a job working for her charming cousin Colin, she thinks it’s a great opportunity. Then she finds out, though, that Colin’s business isn’t what it seems, and she’s quickly caught up in a nightmare cycle of drugs and threats… can she find the strength to stand up for herself, helped by the strange and reclusive mute boy Karl? Full review...
Dead Time: The Murder Notebooks by Anne Cassidy
Rose's mother and stepfather - Kathy and Brendan - went out for dinner one night and never came back. Rose was taken in by her grandmother who sent her off to a posh boarding school, while her stepbrother Josh went up north to live with an uncle. Full review...
The Hunt by Andrew Fukuda
Gene - not that he remembers he's called Gene - is one of the few remaining survivors in a city peopled by vampires. His mother and sister were killed when he was just tiny and his father finally succumbed to a fang bite infection some years before. Gene's life is all about concealment. He shaves his body hair. He's careful to avoid any situation in which he might sweat - swimming is ok, but other sports are not. He files his nails. He behaves, always, as a vampire would behave. Everything is going so well until the Heper Hunt is announced... Full review...
The Calling by Kelley Armstrong
Maya Delaney and friends have just survived a forest fire they think might have been set deliberately. Safely flying away in a helicopter, they think their troubles are over. Until the pilot turns out to be on the same side as those setting the fire. Full review...
The Bonehill Curse by Jon Mayhew
Anthony Bonehill has created the perfect plan. Seven people will together summon a djinn. Six will gain a wish each, while the seventh will use their wish to kill the djinn and avoid it taking revenge on them. But when Carlos, the seventh, double crosses the rest, and ends up sending the bottle containing the djinn to Bonehill’s daughter Necessity, she’s launched into a race against time to stop the djinn from wreaking havoc on her world. Full review...
Infamous by Sherrilyn Kenyon
Nick Gautier has just found out that the mysterious being he thought was his uncle is actually his future self. Over the course of the past 2 books, the majority of other people he’s close to –- apart from his unsuspecting mother – have been revealed to be some form of demon. Oh, and apparently, he’s got the potential to be the person who will end the world. When someone starts spreading vicious rumours about other students at his school, you’d hardly think it would register with him given everything else going on, but he dives in to try and trace the perpetrator with help from Bubba, Mark, and various others. Full review...
The Fury by Alexander Gordon Smith
Brick felt it. Daisy felt it. Cal felt it. All three, unconnected kids, had the same noisy, throbbing headache at the same time - and all aches went at the same time, in very disappointing circumstances. Brick took his girlfriend to his favourite place, an abandoned theme park, and found her response to both it and him to be not what he expected. Daisy was the school Juliet, and found the experience quite traumatic - almost as bad as what she found back at home. Cal was more regularly after the attention, as the school's best football player, but found everyone's eyes turned to you is one thing, everyone turning against you is another. Full review...
Slated by Teri Terry
It's Britain about fifty years from now and sixteen-year-old Kyla is just about to leave the hospital and go home with her new, adopted family. Kyla has been slated - her memories deleted and her entire personality erased. Kyla is a blank slate. This is what happens to child criminals under the Central Coalition, who were responsible for wiping out the gangs and the riots that had dominated the country for so long. In their eyes, Kyla has been given a second chance. Full review...
Struck by Jennifer Bosworth
Mia Price and her family had moved to LA shortly before a massive earthquake devastated the city. Mia has a connection to the storm that caused the earthquake - lightning seems to be attracted to her and she has been struck and survived countless times. But Mia is also attracted to lightning. It's like a drug for her and her entire body pulses when a storm is coming. Amidst the lawlessness and devastation of the city, two rival factions are gaining influence and both want to recruit Mia. Both say the entire world is in great danger - the Seekers believe that annihilation can be averted but the Followers welcome it. But who is right? And what part must Mia play? Full review...
The Gathering Dark by Leigh Bardugo
The country of Ravka has been at war for many years. It has also been torn in two by the Shadow Fold, a mysterious black fog filled with the volcra, monsters who feast on human flesh, created by an evil Darkling many centuries ago. All seems lost for this once-great country - until orphan Alina crosses the fold, and manages to fight off the volcra by releasing a power she never knew she had. Taken to the royal court to learn how to use her power, will she be Ravka's saviour? And while the current Darkling needs her to help him to repent for his predecessor's crimes, and she feels attracted to him - why can't she ever forget her childhood friend Mal? Full review...
The Duff: The designated ugly fat friend by Kody Keplinger
Bianca Piper is proud of her cynicism. She's not an air-head. She's not obsessed with dating jocks. She has no desire to flirt with every male in sight. But when Wesley Rush, the school heartthrob, tells her she's a DUFF - a Designated Ugly Fat Friend - it really gets to Bianca. Things aren't going well for Bianca on the domestic front either. Her mother is away all the time and Bianca is afraid her father might start drinking again, after eighteen years. As things get further and further out of control at home, Bianca finds herself in the most unlikely of place - the arms of the hated Wesley Rush. Full review...
Doctor Proctor's Fart Powder: The End of the World. Maybe. by Jo Nesbo
If you put authors you least expect to diversify from more literary to children's works on a scale of one to ten, Jeanette Winterson must be a four, Ian McEwan a high eight, and Jo Nesbo, Nordic crime sensation de nos jours at least eleven. But this is now the third in the series of youthful, frivolous adventures, and this time the titular professor, diminutive smart Alec Nilly and Lisa (and their seven-legged spider) have to save the world. Full review...
When You Were Mine by Rebecca Serle
In this modern-day retelling of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Rosaline has been best friends with Rob ever since they were tiny. But recently, their friendship has grown. The electric crackle of attraction is sparking between them and they are tentatively inching their way towards a relationship. One night they kiss and Rosaline believes they are about to become the couple she has always believed they were destined to be. But then her estranged cousin Juliet arrives back in town. She makes it clear she wants Rob and will stop at nothing to get him. Rosaline can do nothing but watch as Juliet steals her boyfriend and her best friend... Full review...
Department 19: The Rising by Will Hill
HE RISES. The graffiti is breaking out everywhere. For those who don't know what it's referring to, it's a minor annoyance. For Blacklight operatives, it could be the harbinger of the end of the world. Because HE is Dracula, and Valeri Rusmanov has succeeded in bringing his old master back to life – or the vampire equivalent of it, at least. The only hope is that they can track him down before he reaches his full power. Can Jamie Carpenter, along with new Blacklight operatives Larissa (his vampire girlfriend) and Kate Randall, who he rescued from Lindisfarne at the climax of the last book, help to stop him? That's about all of the plot that I feel comfortable talking about, such is my desperation to avoid spoiling anything. Full review...
Invincible by Sherrilyn Kenyon
With Nick Gautier having survived the onslaught of zombies, and finding out that most of the people he knows are supernatural, he’s left wondering what to do now. He hasn’t got long to decide, though – because his new coach is putting pressure on him to steal some special items, and boys of his age are turning up dead. Will he be next? Not if he can help it! Can Nick avoid being murdered, deal with his coach, and work out just who he can trust? Full review...
The Girl In The Mask by Marie-Louise Jensen
Sophia has been living relatively freely while her father has been in the West Indies, running the estate, shooting pistols with her cousin Jack and generally being unladylike. But now her father is back and more than keen to see her married off to the next suitable gentleman who so much as looks in her direction. Full review...
Black Arts by Andrew Prentice and Jonathan Weil
London, 1592. Jack successfully completes a test with a local crime family and becomes a "nipper" or cutpurse thief. But Jack's first victim accidentally brings him into contact with a London even more dangerous than the one he already knows - one where magic is real and the fight between good and evil can have fatal consequences. Jack returns home to find his mother murdered by Nicholas Webb, a charismatic Puritan preacher currently whipping up the London crowds against demons and witches. Full review...
The Demon's Watch by Conrad Mason
We're the Demon's Watch, son. Best you don't think of us as the good folk. More like the dangerous folk.
Joseph Grubb lives in Fayt, a busy port between the Old and the New Worlds. In Fayt, humans, elves, trolls, ogres and fairies live together in relative peace. But it's not all harmony. The League of Light is threatening the port, wanting to force back into the Old World way of segregation and persecution of the fey folk. And there is suspicion of multiculturalims even in Fayt itself - Joseph is a half-goblin and an orphan. His goblin father was murdered for marrying a human woman and Joseph now lives and works at a tavern owned by an uncle who despises him and calls him Mongrel. Full review...
Hollow Pike by James Dawson
Lis London has troubles in her life. She's been badly bullied by girls at her old school. She has bad dreams about an unseen assailant trying to kill her. Moving to Hollow Pike to live with her older sister Sarah is meant to be a fresh start. Except as soon as Lis gets there, she seems to recognise the location of her recurring nightmare. Then there's a death... and Lis starts to wonder whether the rumours of witchcraft are more than just rumours. Will the new start she'd so looked forward to turn out to have a gruesome end? Full review...
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Having been diagnosed at age 12 with stage 4 thyroid cancer, Hazel was prepared to die. Then at age 14, a miracle treatment shrunk the tumours in her lungs...for the time being. Hazel could live for years, or she could die at any time, but her days are spent tethered to an oxygen tank and under constant surveillance and treatment to keep the cancer at bay. Hazel is now 16. With her life in a constant holding pattern, Hazel meets Augustus Waters at a cancer support group. Augustus is gorgeous, sharp-witted, in remission and completely attracted to Hazel. As their relationship blossoms and grows, Hazel finds she has to re-examine her attitude about life and death, illness and wellness and love. Their brief journey together leaves a lasting legacy behind that will change everything. Full review...
The Traitor's Gate: The Nowhere Chronicles Book 2 by Sarah Silverwood
There is a storm coming, a storm of rage and fury and chaos. The friendship between Fin, Christopher and Joe, which held strong through their last adventure, is breaking down as Joe, now a holder of two of the five stories that hold the worlds together, finds his mind being warped by the stories and their uncontrollable power. The Knights of Nowhere, inter-world peacekeepers with the ability to pass between the worlds of Somewhere and Nowhere, barely have time to initiate a few new members to their dwindling force before they find themselves pushed to their limits, simultaneously dealing with something that is attacking people at random and causing madness, and the implications of the Prophecy, which heralds a war to end all wars. All his life people have called Fin special, for some reason unknown to him, and perhaps unknown to them. However, when Fin finally learns the true nature of his parents, his very existence is shaken to the core, and he suddenly finds himself questioning everything he previously believed in. Full review...
Chomp by Carl Hiaasen
Wahoo isn't a cool kid. He can't play sports, and he doesn't have the latest gear. But no one at school bullies him because Alice, the twelve-foot alligator who lives in his dad's zoo, accidentally bit his thumb off one day. The other kids reckon if he can walk away from an ordeal like that, then he must have something going for him. And by the time this story is over, he'll be up to his ears in street-cred. Full review...
Virals by Kathy Reichs
Tory Brennan is just a normal girl with an extraordinary aunt - the renowned forensic anthropologist Tempe Brennan. Desperate to follow in her relative's footsteps, she seems to have little opportunity to do so living in South Carolina - but that quickly changes when she and her friends stumble on a decades old corpse. Desperately trying to find out what happened to the dead person, and cure a sick dog they've liberated from a laboratory on their island home, the quartet's lives have suddenly become rather complicated. And that's before a mysterious virus hits them all and leaves them with some very strange side effects... Full review...
Silver: Return to Treasure Island by Andrew Motion
Even if you have not read Robert Louis Stevenson's 1883 classic Treasure Island, or you have read it a long time ago, the chances are that you will be broadly familiar with the story and in particular some of the rich characters he created because they have entered into the culture of our image of pirates. Before Johnny Depp convinced us that pirates looked like Keith Richards, it was the terrifying image of Long John Silver and his parrot, squawking 'pieces of eight', double dealing his way to buried treasure and the innocence of young narrator Jim Hawkins that conjures up what we think of in terms of pirate adventure. But Stevenson left some tantalizing threads to his tale, not least the fact that Silver made off with only the majority of the treasure and left the remaining silver behind together with three marooned pirates to fend for themselves. Setting the story 40 years after these events, Andrew Motion picks up the tale and has the offspring of Hawkins, in the form of his son also called Jim and Long John Silver's daughter Natty returning to collect the remaining bounty. Of course, it's never going to be that simple. Full review...
Bunheads by Sophie Flack
Nineteen-year old Hannah Ward, a dancer with the Manhattan Ballet Company, has devoted her entire life to dance. She works hard, watches her weight like a hawk, and navigates the complicated maze of relationships with the rest of the company who, in many cases, are both friends and rivals. But then she meets musician Jacob, and she realises just what she's missed out on while growing up like this. Will she do the unthinkable and give up her career, or pass up the chance of love in the hope of gaining success in the ballet world. Full review...
The Flappers: Vixen by Jillian Larkin
Gloria Carmody is a society princess in 1920's Chicago. Engaged to Sebastian Grey, both powerful and handsome, she is expected to be little more than an ornament to him. After spending a night at the notorious speakeasy the Green Mill, though, Gloria knows that there's more to life than balls and socialising... Full review...
The Paradise Trap by Catherine Jinks
When Marcus's mum has to economise over their holidays, it means just the two of them, revisiting a campsite she herself knew as a child, in a grotty old second-hand caravan. It's a greasy, shabby, squeaky little closet of a caravan, and no-one can agree on what the awful stink pervading it reminds them of. But when the trip is hyped up as a great time for both, it seems to have a chance of coming true, for a bizarre cellar to the caravan leads everyone to their dream trip - if only, unfortunately, one way... Full review...
The Flask by Nicky Singer
Twelve-year-old Jess is dealing with a lot. Her beloved Aunt Edie has just died. Her mother is expecting twins - but these new babies will be Jess's half-brothers and will complete Jess's mother's marriage to her stepfather. But will they complete Jess's family? Will they even survive? Because the twins are conjoined. And in 70% of separations, only one twin lives. And if this weren't enough in the way of trials and tribulations, Jess's best friend Zoe is moving towards a relationship with a boy. Does this mean she will leave Jess behind? Full review...
Pieces of Us by Margie Gelbwasser
Every summer Katie and her sister Julie meet up with Alex and his brother Kyle at a lakeside community in New York. They leave behind their problems - which are legion - and find comfort in each other. But when a dark secret of one of them leaks out, the four are all left reeling by the far-reaching consequences. Full review...
Torn by Stephanie Guerra
Stella Chavez is a fairly ordinary girl until she meets Ruby Caroline. She gets pretty good grades, has friends she's grown up with, and is a soccer star. New girl Ruby, on the other hand, is trouble with a capital T, right from the moment she storms into her first class wearing a band-aid of a skirt and swearing like a trooper. There's something about Ruby, though, that draws Stella to her, and the pair quickly become inseparable. But as Ruby's behaviour gets more and more erratic, and she's drawn into bad habits and an unsuitable relationship, can Stella save her friend - or will she get dragged down with her? Full review...
The Alchemy of Forever by Avery Williams
Back in the Middle Ages, Seraphina nearly died. Her boyfriend Cyrus saved her life - at the cost of someone else's. Using his newly discovered Alchemy potion, he transferred her soul into another body. They've now lived over 600 years, changing bodies every decade or so, but Sera is tired of this unnatural existence and is determined to end it. She runs away from Cyrus, ready to die for real this time. When she finds sixteen-year-old Kailey, who's just been involved in a car accident, her good intentions waver and she takes over the dying girl's body. Could this be her chance for a new start? Full review...
