Difference between revisions of "Newest Teens Reviews"

From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to search
 
Line 1: Line 1:
 
[[Category:Teens|*]]
 
[[Category:Teens|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Teens]]
+
[[Category:New Reviews|Teens]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->
==Teens==
+
{{Frontpage
__NOTOC__
+
|author=Leanne Egan
 
+
|title=Lover Birds
{{newreview
+
|rating=4.5
|author=Neal Shusterman
 
|title=Everwild
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Neal Shusterman continues his part zany adventure, part philosophical enquiry, and part coming-of-age story that began with Everlost in this follow-up that is perhaps even better than its predecessor.
 
 
 
Everlost is a kind of limbo and home to children - Afterlights - who have died, but somehow missed the tunnel and the light - wherever and whatever the light actually is. Adults never make it there, but significant or much-loved objects and buildings sometimes do. Mary Hightower, for instance, is so-called because she took up residence in New York in the Twin Towers. Mary thinks Everlost is a wonderful place and she "saves" the Afterlights she finds by giving them repetitive but addictive tasks to fill eternity.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847387322</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Gemma Malley
 
|title=The Returners
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=''Ducks are cool. Whatever happens, whatever gets thrown at them, they just carry on, their little legs paddling. Unfazed. They always look like they're smiling.''
 
 
 
Will almost wishes he could be a duck. He has precious little to smile about. Sitting watching those ducks go about their business so blithely by the pond, he can't help but remember his mother who committed suicide there some years ago, when Will was just a tiny lad.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408800918</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
 
|title=Beautiful Creatures
 
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Teenage boy meets mysterious new stranger in a small town. They fall in love, he finds out she's harbouring a dark secret, the pair of them try to find out if their relationship can work while she tries to keep him safe from her world. This kind of book appears to be released every few weeks since [[Twilight by Stephenie Meyer|Twilight]] became so successful – but rarely in the past few years has it been done as well as it has in Beautiful Creatures.
+
|summary=When new girl, Isabel, moves to Lou's hometown of Liverpool from London Lou immediately feels Isabel's disdain for everything around her. A misunderstanding between them leaves them hating each other, but Lou feels her pulse racing every time she looks at Isabel or speaks with her, and that's definitely because Isabel makes her feel so cross, isn't it?  Because Lou is straight, isn't she?  Even though none of her relationships with boys have gone very well so far, and she's never had a good kiss with any of them?  So she just finds herself watching Isabel, and wanting to hang out with her because fighting with her is fun, and she definitely just hates Isabel, doesn't she?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141326085</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=000862657X
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Ashley Hickson-Lovence
|author=Sam Mills
+
|title=Wild East
|title=Blackout
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary='I am a murderer.
+
|summary=Written in verse, this is Ronny's story, a young black fourteen year old boy from Hackney who suddenly has to move to Norwich and start at a mostly white school. The move is initiated by Ronny's mum who is worried for Ronny's safety after a tragic event, and so Ronny finds himself trying to settle in a new town, a new school, and keep himself out of trouble.  He listens to music constantly, and has always dreamed of being a rapper. But now, in this new school, his teacher encourages him to be part of a poetry writing workshop group and, slowly, Ronny begins to see the connections between rap and poetry, and the power of creativity and crafting your words.
 
+
|isbn=0241645441
'I'm standing in a bookshop, a gun hot in my palm. The bullet that sat in my barrel thirty seconds ago has pierced flesh, blown into brain tissue, metal now fighting consciousness. The woman slumps ont the floor. Blood begins to trickle from her head. It drips onto a pile of signed copies stacked on the floor.'
 
 
 
Oh my word! What an explosive beginning to a book! But what made a boy do something like this?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571239412</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Jenny Valentine
|author=Ebony McKenna
+
|title=Us in the Before and After
|title=Ondine: The Summer of Shambles
+
|rating=5
|rating=3
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Ondine de Groot wants out of psychic summercamp, so together with her pet ferret Shambles, she flees from the tea leaf readings and astral projection classes, back to her family's restaurant. Only, as soon as she leaves summercamp, she starts hearing voices. Specifically a broad Scottish voice – one that seems to be coming from her ferret. Shambles, it transpires, is in fact a man, turned into a ferret by a witch. Ondine starts to wonder what Shambles would look like as a man, but her imaginings are soon interrupted by the arrival of handsome Lord Vincent, son of the Duke, who sets Ondine's heart fluttering.
+
|summary=Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a once in a lifetime connection. They meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's contact details at the time.  But then chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable.  Something has happened though, something terrible and tragic, and now they must work through their grief, and their friendship, together.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405249617</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1471196585
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Max Boucherat
|author=Laurie Halse Anderson
+
|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
|title=Chains
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Isabel and her sister Ruth are slaves. But they should be free - Miss Mary Finch left a will that said so. But Miss Mary Finch is dead and her greedy nephew and heir denies all knowledge of the will. So Isabel and Ruth are sold to the Locktons and taken to New York. The Revolutionary War is underway and New York is a dangerous place. The Locktons are loyalists, but the patriots are in control of the city.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747598061</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Michelle Harrison
 
|title=The Thirteen Curses
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Red is back, but she's trapped in the fairy realm. Having swapped places with Tanya, she is bound there, but is still desperate to get both her and her brother back into the human world. She must seek an audience with the fairy court, but the realm is full of deception and cruelty – it will be a challenge just to get there. And guess what happens when she gets there? She is set another challenge, twisted with the cruelty of the Unseelie (Boo! Hiss!) court. Whilst the journey goes on, she reflects on her past: the car crash that killed her parents and her time at the children's home.  Meanwhile, Tanya has returned to Elvesden Manor for half term and let's just say that her ability to see fairies comes back into use when the new housekeeper and her pesky parrot land her and Fabian and the whole Manor crew into trouble with the little people.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847384501</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Nancy Farmer
 
|title=The Islands of the Blessed (Sea of Trolls Trilogy)
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=In this third adventure, Jack, a fourteen year old Saxon apprentice bard, and Thorgil, a bad-tempered shield maiden, follow the Bard Dragon Tongue on a quest to quell the draugr - the malevolent spirit of a drowned mermaid mistakenly summoned to Jack's village and who seeks revenge for her earlier ill treatment at human hands.
+
|summary=We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome.  What could possibly go wrong?  Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world. But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spooky. For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tampering. When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184738630X</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008666482
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sophie McKenzie
 
|title=The Hostage (Medusa Project)
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Teenagers Nico, Kitty, Ed and Dylan were implanted with the Medusa gene when they were babies. Now they're adolescents, the intended psychic abilities are coming to the fore. Nico has the power of telekinesis - he can move objects with his mind. Ed can read other people's thoughts. Dylan has an invisible protective shield and no weapon can harm her. Kitty has visions that predict the future.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847385265</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Rachel Greenlaw
|author=Diane Harker
+
|title=Compass and Blade
|title=House of Secrets
 
 
|rating=3.5
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Jane has had to grow up fast. Constantly moving from place to place, never staying in the same school for long, and always reminded of her mother's money worries, Jane longs for the kind of life where she can just be a kid, and not have to deal with adult problems.  
+
|summary=''I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.''
  
When she's sent to stay at her sister's student digs, the Laurels, things go from bad to worse. The Laurels is a decrepit Victorian Townhouse, freezing cold, with no food, and to make matters worse, Jane's sister, Billa, doesn't even want her there.
+
Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the island's leader and Mira's father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846243572</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008664730
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Harry Allen
|author=Bruno Vincent
+
|title=Children of the Sun
|title=Grisly Tales from Tumblewater
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Daniel Dorey comes to the vast and decaying city of Tumblewater with high hopes. He wants to study, become a surgeon, work hard and make a better life for himself. But when the school he enrolled in turns out to be a deserted building, his money is swindled from him, and he's framed for breaking into a shop, he's ready to turn round and go back to the country. His last hope is to collect a volume of local stories for a back-alley publisher. One by one, he hunts down the tellers of these grisly tales and records their words, but it soon becomes evident that he's hiding a dark secret of his own...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330479512</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=John Dickinson
 
|title=WE
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Paul Munro has been disconnected from the World Ear in readiness for a mission that will last a lifetime. Sent to man a tiny station built at enormous effort and expense on a desolate moon in the outer reaches of our solar system, he will never be able to return. Gravity is one-tenth that of Earth and his flesh has wasted, his bones enbrittled without the strength of calcium. 'If he stood on the Earth now... his skeleton would splinter under his weight.' It took eight years to get there and the rest of his life stretches before him fearfully.  
+
|summary= Ra Eun Seo lives in a North Korean town and she is a talented singer. Life is hard and food is difficult to come by, so Seo and her friends Nari and Min go foraging every evening, looking for tree bark and edible grasses to supplement the meagre rations of rice and kimchi at home.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385617895</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1805140493
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Alexia Casale
|author=Alan Skinner
+
|title=Sing if you Can't Dance
|title=Furnaces of Forge
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=In this [[Blue Fire and Ice (The Land) by Alan Skinner|sequel]], it's almost as you were, except here the mysterious powers of the blue flame are not being used by some outlander arsonist, but have been usurped by two inept young scientists from the Myrmidots, to fuel their industry.  We can predict this will prove a bad thing, but the breadth of the journey to capture the flame, and the efforts of all our returning characters to put things right might still be a surprise.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955726859</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Saci Lloyd
 
|title=The Carbon Diaries 2017
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=It's been a year since we read a diary entry from Laura Brown. We left her with a boyfriend and just about adjusted to a Britain in the full throes of carbon rationing. Her nu-punk band, ''dirty angels'', hadn't quite made it, but things were looking rather promising for its future.
+
|summary=It's hard enough to navigate your teenage years without suddenly finding that you're having to navigate a life-changing disability too, but that's what Ven is dealing with after collapsing on stage in the middle of a dance performance that was going to change her life. But she comes back fighting, desperate to avoid the pity stares, and desperate to get back to a life that's as normal as she can possibly manage.  Meanwhile there's a new (cute!) boy in school, her music A Level performance piece to try to sort out, and just the day to day traumas of all the challenges her body continues to throw at her to navigate. So even though she can't dance anymore, might she be able to sing her way through instead?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340970162</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0571373801
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Simon Fox
|author=Alyxandra Harvey
+
|title=Deadlock
|title=My Love Lies Bleeding
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Solange Drake hates being the only born female vampire. Not only does she have to put up with her pheromones making her irresistible to male vampires, who all want to use her to start their own vampire families, she has a prophecy looming over her head, one that states a female Drake vampire will overthrow the current ruler to become Queen of the Vampires.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408803402</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Markus Zusak
 
|title=Fighting Ruben Wolfe
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=The Wolfe family are only just getting by. Times are hard for Cameron and his older brother Ruben. Their father has been injured at work and even though he's mostly recovered now, he's finding it hard to get jobs and the ultimate emasculation of the dole is looming ever nearer. Older brother Steve has ambitions and he can't wait to get out of the house. Sister Sarah is drinking too much and getting a tarty reputation at school. Their mother's fighting to hold things together, but it's taking a heavy toll. Cameron and Rube can't even manage to win a bet at the dog track - even when they get a policeman to put it on for them.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1862309574</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=John Ward
 
|title=The Comet's Child
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Teenage Fin is rescued from his remote forest home by Ragg, the first man he has ever encounteredHaving such a sheltered childhood has equipped Fin with the speech and education of a nobleman's son but little idea about the real world.  Other than relying on his instincts and resourcefulness, Fin has no way of knowing who to trust, or where he is bound as he leaves home with Ragg.
+
|summary=Late one night Graham Blake is late back from his shift on the force, and then suddenly rings Archie, demanding he fetch something from a secret place, and join him on the runThey get together, but barely begin to smell the whiff of Southern trains when the father is arrested, leaving Archie on the late express to Brighton, toting a tin his father was determined to keep away from his colleagues, and the bearer of a whole heap of questions.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905537123</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839944420
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Lex Croucher
|author=Malcolm Walker
+
|title=Gwen and Art Are Not in Love
|title=The Stone Crown
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Neither Emlyn nor Maxine feel completely at home in Yeaveburgh - yet they both have roots there. Emlyn's come back to the town in which he was born because his mother and sister, archaeologists, are working on a dig nearby. His father is in a care home, having suffered a nervous breakdown. Maxine returned to the town to live with her grandmother after her mother died of a heroin overdose. Emlyn is quiet and shy, a bit geeky, and lonely. Maxine is lonely too, but she'd never admit it. She's too spiky and defensive. They both feel like outsiders, and yet they both have a nagging sense that they are where they were meant to be.
+
|summary=Who knew that what I really needed to read right now was a gay Arthurian RomCom?  But honestly, it lifted my spirits in a most delightful way.  In this story, Gwen and Arthur have been betrothed since they were tiny, much to their mutual disgust!  Gwen, you see, is in love with Bridget (the kingdom's only female knight) - something that Art discovers from her private diaries. And then when Gwen then catches Art kissing a boy they find themselves becoming reluctant allies, creating the subterfuge of falling in love with each other, when really they are enabling their own other romantic attachments. But as their impending wedding draws ever closer, will they find a way in which they can both truly be themselves, or are they destined to live a lie their whole lives?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406321516</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1526651793
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Nick Brooks
|author=Tonya Hurley
+
|title=Promise Boys
|title=Ghostgirl
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Charlotte Usher is desperate to be popular.  She has spent the entire summer break transforming herself to try and fit in with the 'in' crowd all in an attempt to try and attract the attention of Damen, a popular and handsome jock.  Yet even after all her hard work she still remains invisible at best, despised at worst.  Finally, in a moment of tragic bad luck, Charlotte chokes on a gummy bear, alone in a classroom, and dies.  This isn't the end of the story however, it's actually just the beginning, because Charlotte isn't going to let the little inconvenience of being dead get in her way...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755347714</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Anthony Horowitz
 
|title=Crocodile Tears (Alex Rider)
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Fans of Anthony Horowitz' Alex Rider series have had a two-year wait for this installment of our young hero's escapades and they are not going to be disappointed.  He's fourteen year old now and not only is he being targeted by a hitman, he's also being pursued by a journalist who wants to tell the nation all about the fact that MI6 are using one of his tender years to do their dirty work.  The trouble is that he can't be positive that it was a sniper that caused the car he was in to skid off a Scottish road and land at the bottom of a Loch.  And MI6 don't seem all that bothered about the journalist, unless, that is, Alex might be willing to find some simple information from a GM crop research centre, in which case they might be able to have a quiet word with the gentleman.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406310484</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=P C and Kristin Cast
 
|title=Tempted (House of Night)
 
|rating=3
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Last time we left Zoey, she'd just banished Kalona, an ancient fallen immortal, from the Tulsa House of Night, along with evil High Priestess Neferet. Stevie Rae's Red Fledglings were regaining their humanity, but Stark, second ever Red Vampire, was badly injured. Her official boyfriend was Erik, but she's re-Imprinted with Human, Heath, and Stark had pledged a Warrior's Oath to her.
+
|summary=When the principal (headmaster) of Urban Promise Prep school is murdered, three boys find themselves called into the police station as suspects. Each, seemingly, has a grudge of some description against Principal Moore, and each could have been there at the time of his murder. But who killed him, and why, and if any of the boys are innocent, will they be able to clear their names?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905654804</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1035003155
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1919635017
|author=Gary Blackwood
+
|title=A Thief to Catch a Killer
|title=Mysterious Messages - A History of Codes and Ciphers
+
|author=Kitt Townsend
|rating=5
+
|rating=4.5
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
 
|summary=There's something utterly cool about codes and ciphers. It's not just the spies with their secret world, it's the mystery of an ostensibly random set of letters or pictures. It's being able to unravel them and see what they're hiding. It's a combination of geeky riddle solving (and geeks are cool, so there) and uncovering the unknown meanings. Gary Blackwood treats us to a history of codes and ciphers, looking at their creation, the stories behind them, and how to crack them.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0525479600</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Marie-Louise Jensen
 
|title=Daughter of Fire and Ice
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Welcome to Viking times. The land is ruled by a pitiless and greedy Chieftain, Bjorn Svanson, who always gets what he wants. And what he wants is Thora. She is a healer – very useful when you're going to set out on a voyage, and also very pretty. The Chieftain's destination is the land of fire and ice, also known as Iceland. Impatiently, the Chieftain kidnaps Thora, but what he doesn't know is that Thora has powers. Yes, a historical fantasy where the heroine has powers – didn't see that coming did you? She can read auras and at times, see the future. And what she sees is her new master's murder. Before you know it, he has been stabbed and Thora and a mysterious male slave are free. What is their destination still? The land of fire and ice. Impersonating Bjorn Svanson, the male slave commandeers his ships and they sail away to Iceland, where a precarious future awaits. Will Svanson's men follow them across the oceans for revenge? Can they live with what they have done? Will they ever get a chance to be together?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192728814</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Lili St Crow
 
|title=Betrayals: A Strange Angels Novel
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=To start, I have to cover the ground of the mythology of this series.  Humans, vampires and werewolves all live in this world, and both species of 'the other' have people halfway turned.  Vampires and werewolves aren't exactly the sort to mix with each other - one liking to spill blood, the others going into feeding frenzies every time they smell it. In a previous book, our heroine Dru, has realised her best friend can become semi-wolf in a shape-changing way, and she's tending to the vampire side of things. She's also discovered a very strong threat against her life.
+
|summary= Solomon Klyne isn't a bad lad, so why is he running around London committing a series of robberies? And how did he learn to crack safes? You'll have to wait to get an answer to the second question because I avoid spoilers. But I'll answer the first one: for his grandmother...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849161283</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Patrick Ness and Tea Bendix
|author=Michael Grant
+
|title=Different for Boys
|title=Hunger
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Teens  
|summary=The kids of Perdido Beach are still within the FAYZ, a barrier erected by Little Pete - no-one knows how - when the nuclear plant went into meltdown. An uneasy truce between Sam's tribe of Perdido Beach kids and Caine's Coates Academy kids is beginning to waver. The food is running out and the Darkness has its claws in all those it's encountered. Caine himself is reduced to delirium by the voice of the Darkness in his head and Lana the healer knows it's inevitable that she too will answer its call. Sam is struggling to keep any form of order. As more and more kids begin to develop special powers and the hunger bites deeper into everyone's bellies, it's inevitable that conflict will break out. And it does, in some very unpleasant ways.
+
|summary=Ant is in Year Eleven at quite a standard school, and is surprised to find his geography class (within which it seems absolutely nothing about geography is ever learnt) has been restructured, so his desk is one of four with both his best buddy from the football team, and two other old muckers – in fact they all go back to primary school days together. As they're all fired up, straining at the leash only a single-sex school can form, the talk in class and out often turns to sex. Which is confusing for Ant, as he doesn't know what his score is, where his achievements in that regard lieHe's had a casual relationship, a secret one, for several months now, and so has effectively progressed up the ladder headed by 'experienced', but whether that's set in stone, he can't be sureAnd that's mostly because of who he's been having the relationship and the sex with.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405251522</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1529509491
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Rachel Caine
 
|title=Carpe Corpus (Morganville Vampires)
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=If you haven't already, meet ClaireShe is beholden to Mr Bishop, the horrid evil vampire that is ruling the town of Morganville, even more so than the other human, and vampire, inhabitants are, now that he has taken over things from Claire's former ruler Amelie.  She is caught in a struggle between the two warring vampire factions, especially over an unusual form of disease among the undead - Amelie's side definitely trying to cure it, Bishop somehow trying to provoke it and profit from itNot only that, her boyfriend is imprisoned, along with his father, one of the world's least subtle vampire hunters.  Can she have enough quality time with him?  Can she and her captured-and-turned ex-housemate Michael survive the horrid things asked of them?  And who is Ada?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>074900777X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1800901232
|author=Joanne Dahme
+
|title=Stitched Up
|title=Tombstone Tea
+
|author=Steve Cole
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Having recently moved to a new school, in a new town, Jessie is struggling to make friends and fit in.  She is afraid to show these new people who she really is - in her old school she often found she had 'blank' moments, when she could hear voices and 'see' people who weren't really there. In desperation to become part of a 'group' she accepts the dare of a group of girls to spend the night in the Cemetery and collect some gravestone rubbings to prove she was there.  Once there she bumps into Paul, the handsome caretaker, and finds herself in the middle of a strange evening when, Paul claims, local actors get together to rehearse for something called the 'Tombstone Tea', a play in which they portray those buried in the graveyard...there's something strange though about these actors and Jessie soon finds herself caught up in a chilling drama.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0762437189</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=K M Grant
 
|title=Paradise Red (Perfect Fire Trilogy)
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
|summary=We are back in the south of France for the third and final timeIn one corner, the 'French', with King Louis and his henchmen rampaging through, warring in the name of peaceIn another corner, the local people, struggling in the harsh environment and none too pleased to see their corner of the world the location for religious wars, with the Cathar ''heretics'' also present.  The lines are drawn, in a realistically convoluted way, and this book will see one of our heroes cross one such line, just as other people make their own momentous decisions. It will take all the narrative skills of the land itself to get the story across to us.
+
|summary=Twelve-year-old Hanh wanted to be a fashion designer.  Life in the rural village where she lived with her family was happy, if not prosperous, so when the smartly-dressed man and woman came to the village to offer Hahn a job in Hanoi it was an opportunity not to be missedSome money changed hands and Hanh was on the mini-bus to HanoiOnly, Hanh and the other girls were not going to work in a shop, they were to work in virtual slavery in an illegal garment factory.  You know those jeans you really wanted: the ones with intricate embroidery and beading on the legs?  The ones with the artfully-placed rips and distressed seams that felt so soft when you touched them? It's quite possible that Hanh and her co-workers made them.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847247075</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Patrice Lawrence
|author=Mary Naylus
+
|title=Needle
|title=The Dresskeeper
+
|rating=3
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Things are pretty grim for Picky.  She is thirteen years old, being bullied at school, and has to spend her weekends helping her single, working mum to take care of her little brother and her senile grandmother.  One evening, at her Gran's house, she goes up into the attic and tries on an old dress that she finds inside an old chest.  The dress turns out to be magic, and she suddenly finds herself back in 17th Century London, struggling with a strange man who is calling her 'Amelia' and is trying to kill her.  Picky ends up embroiled in Amelia's 17th century life as she tries to find out the truth of who is attempting to murder her, at the same time as trying to avoid arousing suspicion with her strange behaviour whenever she returns to the present day.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956122280</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Rick Yancey
 
|title=The Monstrumologist: The Terror Beneath
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=In late 19th century America, young Will Henry has been the apprentice of the stern, forbidding Dr Warthrop since the death of his parents, who were also employed by the doctor. The twelve year old boy has seen many things in his service to the monstrumologist - a specialist in monsters - but nothing can prepare him for the fateful day when an elderly grave robber brings the doctor the twin corpses of a young girl and the headless creature with fangs in his chest who had tried to feast on her.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184738546X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Joseph Delaney
 
|title=The Spook's Stories: Witches
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary='Warning: Not to be read after dark,' are the only words on the back of ''The Spook's Stories'', and on the inside flap, 'The Times' warns us that this book is 'seriously scary'...
+
|summary=Brave. Charlene, the 'heroine' of this piece is extremely hard for some people to like, characters and readers both.  Kicked out of multiple homes and schools, she's fostering with a pleasant yoga tutor, Annie, and has taken up residence in her son Blake's old room while he's at uni. Such a tempestuous personality may be in need of a comfort blanket, you might perhaps think, and the creation of one such item is part of the plot here, as Charlene is a wonder knitter, and is making something full of love for her younger sister – a younger sister she's allowed contact with no more. We see Charlene prove her belligerence with a store detective, and then force people to give her two days off school, when she shouts someone down as expletively ignorant. And then... well, what exactly happens is not for me to say, only to remark how sharp and pointy those knitting needles can be...
 
+
|isbn=1800901011
The whole thing kicks-off relatively tamely, though, with a story about a young Spook (a sort of monster-hunter) who falls in love with a witch and is forced to bear the consequences when the witch's sister comes to stay and exhibits a taste for the neighbor-children.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0370329961</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author= Ann Sei Lin
|author=Lisa McMann
+
|title= Rebel Skies
|title=Wake
+
|rating= 5
|rating=4
+
|genre= Teens
|genre=Teens
+
|summary= Kurara has spent her entire life as a servant on the Midori, a massive dining hall floating in the sky where soldiers of the Empire come to drink and make merry between their conquests. However, when a man named Himura arrives to tell her that she is a Crafter like him, someone with the power to form paper into whatever she desires – a power sought after all across the Empire. He asks her to come with him, to leave the life of dreary servitude that is all she has known. Well, soon Kurara won't have any say in the matter, because the Midori is destroyed by a monstrous paper spirit known as a shikigami, and she is forced to flee out into the world. She joins Himura aboard the Orihime, a sky-ship whose express purpose is to hunt down shikigami, and a whole world of adventure awaits her…
|summary=Janie is seventeen and studying hard for college. She's also working lots of hours at a local nursing home to earn money for college as it's unlikely her alcoholic mother is going to provide much in the way of resources. College is Janie's only chance at a life better than the one she's lived so far and so you can't blame her for being so single-minded in the pursuit of her goal. Only one thing stands in her way...
+
|isbn=1406399590
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847385036</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Marcus Sedgwick
|author=Jaclyn Moriarty
+
|title=Wrath
|title=The Spell Book of Listen Taylor
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Listen Taylor's father has just moved in with his girlfriend and they are adopted into the Zing family, with all of its delightful eccentricities and unusual behaviour – the Zings meet every Friday night for dinner and then disappear into the garden shed to work on the 'Zing Family Secret'. Marbie Zing is terrified of doing something wrong and losing Nathaniel and Listen. Her sister Fancy is becoming increasingly disillusioned with her home life, and her daughter's year two teacher is coming to terms with a break up. The stories of these people come together to create a tale of life, love, and ultimately, what being part of a family means.
+
|summary=Meet Fitz, a young Scottish lad full of frustration at himself. Lockdown is only just over, and he should be free to do what he wants, to go where he wants and with whom he wants, but he cannot stop himself from putting his foot in it when he talks to his best friend, Cassie. They were half of a desultory school band, but Cassie was also one hundred per cent the enigmatic saying she could hear a subhuman hum coming from the earth. Is this connected with one of her eco-warrior parents saying the end of the world is already a done deal? Is it some spooky new kind of music she's dreaming of? Is she just bonkers? And can Fitz find out the truth? Well, not when Cassie has gone missing he can't...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330446363</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1800900899
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Tori Bovalino
|author=Jon Berkeley
+
|title=The Devil Makes Three
|title=The Lightning Key (Circus Trilogy)
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=I shall start with a word of advice.  When you're being hounded by a circus master, and a magician, for the soul of a tiger that's contained in a tiger's egg that's contained in the brain of your teddy bear, and your best friend - a fallen angel - is trying her best to make sure the other angels do not turn on you in a big way - then you're probably living the third book in a fantasy trilogy.  Still - never mind, the angel's efforts will involve you entering a dream world of flight and cloud cities, the chase after your enemies will take you across the world to desert oases and back, and friends new and old will be on board to help.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847384447</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Lauren Kate
 
|title=Fallen
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=A 17 year old girl at a new school meets a mysterious and impossibly good-looking boy, who she's immediately drawn to. He seems determined to either ignore her or be outright rude to her, until he saves her life, and the two of them end up drawn together. This isn't Stephenie Meyer's ''Twilight'', but it certainly has striking similarities.
+
|summary= Working all summer in her boarding school's library is the last thing Tess Matheson wants to do — especially when she gets a request for over a hundred books that she has to deliver herself. What makes it worse is the man who requested the books: Mr Birch. The boarding school's headmaster, and a man Tess hates. As a petty act of revenge for making her find and deliver such a large request, Tess sticks post-it notes on each of the books, scribbled with the ugliest insults she can think of. They're never meant to reach him, of course. Her plan is to get her anger out like this, and then take them all off before delivering them. No harm done… Or it would be, if someone hadn't delivered them for her.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385738935</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1789098130
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Philip Reeve
|author=Gareth Hinds
+
|title=Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep
|title=King Lear
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=Hound me out of town in a most appropriate manner, but I do not like King Lear.  For me, even as a trained actor, the language is too dense and rich, the set-up too archly unfeasible to create the great tragedy it's thought to be.  To my mind the acclaim and esteem in which it's held is only mirrored by its own over-long, over-blown blustering.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0763643440</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sarah Beth Durst
 
|title=Ice
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Cassie lives on an Arctic research station in Alaska. She loves the ice and the wilderness of her remote home and she'd definitely prefer to spend her time on tracking polar bears and fending off frostbite rather than on mixing with her peers and enjoying college and home comforts back in Fairbanks. However, things aren't all rosy. Cassie's mother died when she was just a baby and she can't help feeling a huge hole in her heart. Her scientist father is remote and unloving and her grandmother left the station after an argument with him when Cassie was still very young.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847386571</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=A J Healy
 
|title=Tommy Storm and the Galactic Knights
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Meet Tommy Storm.  He's one of five teenagers snapped up from around the universe to be a gang of heroic detectives charged with rescuing EVERYTHING from destruction.  Not just the planet, or the solar system, or even the galaxy, but EVERYTHING.  Nobody seems to know what's going to cause this destruction, or when, but he and his friends and their ship seem to be the only people proactively going about saving the day.  So it's a pity that they start this book strung up by a nasty loony who's about to kill them.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847247555</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jeanette Winterson
 
|title=The Battle of the Sun
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=London 1601. Elizabeth I is getting on in years. Her capital city is a busy, bustling place. Boats fill the river and people fill the streets. Jack is happy because it's his birthday and his present is his heart's desire: an excitable black puppy named Max, who's a ''licking and a running and a leaping and a jumping and a tummy in the air and a tail wagging and a barking, racing, braking, spinning energy dog of delight''.  
+
|summary=In a word, rich. There is certainly an abundance of riches in this story set on a peculiar island called Wildsea, British but way west, beyond the Scillies. There are troll people on it, and sea-witches, and legends of the Dark family that has to keep watch for magical islands and their monster approaching from even further west, where no ship dare sail. The current Darks are the Watcher, Andrewe, who has to keep notes of activity from the Hidden Lands, his brother Will who lives in London with too much science in his head to worry about such local yokel superstitions, and Andrewe's foundling daughter, who washed up out of the sea one day eleven years ago. But when Andrewe Dark drowns himself, both his sullen brother and his curious ward are thrust into the world of protecting their island, like it or not.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140880042X</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1788452372
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston
|author=Abby McDonald
+
|title=Julia and the Shark
|title=The Popularity Rules
+
|rating=4
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=This book is labelled as Abby McDonald's first adult novel, but a brief browse at the juvenile title, cover and formatted content bowls it straight down the teen read alley.  The Americanised language, music scene setting and media heroine are aspirational stuff when you're stuck in the pre-scene years.  So, despite its label, I've given it four and a half stars based on its appeal as a girlie book.  That said, I'm well over eighteen, read the story avidly, and enjoyed the irony.  So well done, Abby McDonald, for an entertaining story, cleverly told.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099533898</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Alexander Gordon Smith
 
|title=Furnace: Death Sentence
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Meet Alex Sawyer.  Framed for a murder he certainly didn't do, the lad is given life (of a kind) in the Furnace, a literal hellhole of a private prison, buried a mile under England.  It's a vicious existence, with tribal gangs among the inmates, and worse on the staff - the warden is helped by his malevolent blacksuits, nasty medical aides called wheezers, and there are mutated, feral creatures of all kinds collectively called rats.  After two previous books of failed break-outs, Alex is under the knife of the warden, who has a new tactic.  He does not want to break Alex - he aims to remake him, with medicine, surgery and Clockwork Orange-style brainwashing, as one of his own.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571245617</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Chris Priestley
 
|title=Tales of Terror from the Tunnel's Mouth
 
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Young Robert is put on a train back to school by his stepmother. It's the first journey he's made on his own. It turns out to be more of a challenge than he could ever have imagined. The train stalls at the mouth of a tunnel and while the other passengers sleep through the wait, a mysterious woman in white tells him a series of stories - stories with a difference.  
+
|summary=Julia, our pre-teen heroine, has been packed off with her parents and their cat from the family home in SW England to be lighthousekeepers for a summer, in the far NE of the Scottish islands. Here be Vikings, that kind of Scottish island. Dad is going to be automating the lantern, which is his specialist thing, while mum will be leaving her career in algae behind to hunt the elusive Greenland shark.  And Julia, well, she will be homesick and alone – until she suddenly finds company one night.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408800144</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1510107789
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author= Jonathan Stroud
|author=Edgar Allan Poe and Gris Grimly
+
|title= The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne
|title=Tales of Death and Dementia
+
|rating= 4
|rating=5
+
|genre= Teens
|genre=Graphic Novels
+
|summary= Scarlett McCain is an outlaw, rejecting the draconian conformity of the Surviving Towns and Faith Houses to wander the wildlands between the Seven Kingdoms of Britain, robbing banks and shooting other outlaws to keep herself alive. But then she meets Albert Browne, a dark boy with dark powers and a darker past. With mysterious militiamen hunting them down, they plan to flee to the mythical Free Isles of the London Lagoon. Together, they must brave man-eating wildlife, the cannibalistic Tainted and all the horrors of post-apocalyptic society to reach the Free Isles, but will they be any more accepted there than they are in the rest of Britain?
|summary=Wow! What a wonderful combination: Edgar Allan Poe, master of the gothic horror short story, and Gris Grimly, outstanding illustrator, known for his [[The Dangerous Alphabet by Neil Gaiman and Gris Grimly|work with Neil Gaiman]]. Poe's ''Tales of Death and Dementia'' are shown off at their very best in this edition.
+
|isbn=1406394815
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847386474</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jessica Verday
 
|title=The Hollow
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=When Abbey's best friend, Kristen, disappears and is assumed dead, Abbey feels as though she has no-one left to talk to. Refusing to believe that Kristen is really gone, while struggling to come to terms with life on her own, Abbey meets the mysterious Caspian, a young man who appears to be the perfect gentleman, showering her with hand-crafted gifts and words of wisdom within weeks of meeting her. But beneath those piercing green eyes and soft-spoken manner, Caspian has secrets of his own. Hoping to uncover those, and determined to find out what really happened to her best friend, Abbey begins to question her sanity, as the truth proves more frightening than she thought.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847384986</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest Thrillers Reviews]]
|author=Michael P. Spradlin
 
|title=The Youngest Templar: Trail of Fate
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=After his ship is lost in a storm as he is returning to England, Tristan is washed up on some foreign shore, completely lost and with no sign of his companions. When he wakes, he's surrounded by four men and two women, all pointing swords at him. As soon as they talk, he realises he's in France. He explains his situation to Celia, one of the young women, and though cautious of him at first – believing he might possibly be a spy, she ignores his pleas for directions to the nearest port and offers (almost insists) to take him with them.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0399247645</amazonuk>
 
}}
 

Latest revision as of 09:54, 8 July 2024

000862657X.jpg

Review of

Lover Birds by Leanne Egan

4.5star.jpg Teens

When new girl, Isabel, moves to Lou's hometown of Liverpool from London Lou immediately feels Isabel's disdain for everything around her. A misunderstanding between them leaves them hating each other, but Lou feels her pulse racing every time she looks at Isabel or speaks with her, and that's definitely because Isabel makes her feel so cross, isn't it? Because Lou is straight, isn't she? Even though none of her relationships with boys have gone very well so far, and she's never had a good kiss with any of them? So she just finds herself watching Isabel, and wanting to hang out with her because fighting with her is fun, and she definitely just hates Isabel, doesn't she? Full Review

0241645441.jpg

Review of

Wild East by Ashley Hickson-Lovence

4.5star.jpg Teens

Written in verse, this is Ronny's story, a young black fourteen year old boy from Hackney who suddenly has to move to Norwich and start at a mostly white school. The move is initiated by Ronny's mum who is worried for Ronny's safety after a tragic event, and so Ronny finds himself trying to settle in a new town, a new school, and keep himself out of trouble. He listens to music constantly, and has always dreamed of being a rapper. But now, in this new school, his teacher encourages him to be part of a poetry writing workshop group and, slowly, Ronny begins to see the connections between rap and poetry, and the power of creativity and crafting your words. Full Review

1471196585.jpg

Review of

Us in the Before and After by Jenny Valentine

5star.jpg Teens

Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a once in a lifetime connection. They meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's contact details at the time. But then chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable. Something has happened though, something terrible and tragic, and now they must work through their grief, and their friendship, together. Full Review

0008666482.jpg

Review of

The Last Life of Lori Mills by Max Boucherat

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome. What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world. But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spooky. For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tampering. When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn? Full Review

0008664730.jpg

Review of

Compass and Blade by Rachel Greenlaw

3.5star.jpg Teens

I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.

Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the island's leader and Mira's father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear. Full Review

1805140493.jpg

Review of

Children of the Sun by Harry Allen

5star.jpg Teens

Ra Eun Seo lives in a North Korean town and she is a talented singer. Life is hard and food is difficult to come by, so Seo and her friends Nari and Min go foraging every evening, looking for tree bark and edible grasses to supplement the meagre rations of rice and kimchi at home. Full Review

0571373801.jpg

Review of

Sing if you Can't Dance by Alexia Casale

5star.jpg Teens

It's hard enough to navigate your teenage years without suddenly finding that you're having to navigate a life-changing disability too, but that's what Ven is dealing with after collapsing on stage in the middle of a dance performance that was going to change her life. But she comes back fighting, desperate to avoid the pity stares, and desperate to get back to a life that's as normal as she can possibly manage. Meanwhile there's a new (cute!) boy in school, her music A Level performance piece to try to sort out, and just the day to day traumas of all the challenges her body continues to throw at her to navigate. So even though she can't dance anymore, might she be able to sing her way through instead? Full Review

1839944420.jpg

Review of

Deadlock by Simon Fox

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

Late one night Graham Blake is late back from his shift on the force, and then suddenly rings Archie, demanding he fetch something from a secret place, and join him on the run. They get together, but barely begin to smell the whiff of Southern trains when the father is arrested, leaving Archie on the late express to Brighton, toting a tin his father was determined to keep away from his colleagues, and the bearer of a whole heap of questions. Full Review

1526651793.jpg

Review of

Gwen and Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher

4star.jpg Teens

Who knew that what I really needed to read right now was a gay Arthurian RomCom? But honestly, it lifted my spirits in a most delightful way. In this story, Gwen and Arthur have been betrothed since they were tiny, much to their mutual disgust! Gwen, you see, is in love with Bridget (the kingdom's only female knight) - something that Art discovers from her private diaries. And then when Gwen then catches Art kissing a boy they find themselves becoming reluctant allies, creating the subterfuge of falling in love with each other, when really they are enabling their own other romantic attachments. But as their impending wedding draws ever closer, will they find a way in which they can both truly be themselves, or are they destined to live a lie their whole lives? Full Review

1035003155.jpg

Review of

Promise Boys by Nick Brooks

4star.jpg Teens

When the principal (headmaster) of Urban Promise Prep school is murdered, three boys find themselves called into the police station as suspects. Each, seemingly, has a grudge of some description against Principal Moore, and each could have been there at the time of his murder. But who killed him, and why, and if any of the boys are innocent, will they be able to clear their names? Full Review

1919635017.jpg

Review of

A Thief to Catch a Killer by Kitt Townsend

4.5star.jpg Teens

Solomon Klyne isn't a bad lad, so why is he running around London committing a series of robberies? And how did he learn to crack safes? You'll have to wait to get an answer to the second question because I avoid spoilers. But I'll answer the first one: for his grandmother... Full Review

1529509491.jpg

Review of

Different for Boys by Patrick Ness and Tea Bendix

4.5star.jpg Teens

Ant is in Year Eleven at quite a standard school, and is surprised to find his geography class (within which it seems absolutely nothing about geography is ever learnt) has been restructured, so his desk is one of four with both his best buddy from the football team, and two other old muckers – in fact they all go back to primary school days together. As they're all fired up, straining at the leash only a single-sex school can form, the talk in class and out often turns to sex. Which is confusing for Ant, as he doesn't know what his score is, where his achievements in that regard lie. He's had a casual relationship, a secret one, for several months now, and so has effectively progressed up the ladder headed by 'experienced', but whether that's set in stone, he can't be sure. And that's mostly because of who he's been having the relationship and the sex with. Full Review

1800901232.jpg

Review of

Stitched Up by Steve Cole

5star.jpg Dyslexia Friendly

Twelve-year-old Hanh wanted to be a fashion designer. Life in the rural village where she lived with her family was happy, if not prosperous, so when the smartly-dressed man and woman came to the village to offer Hahn a job in Hanoi it was an opportunity not to be missed. Some money changed hands and Hanh was on the mini-bus to Hanoi. Only, Hanh and the other girls were not going to work in a shop, they were to work in virtual slavery in an illegal garment factory. You know those jeans you really wanted: the ones with intricate embroidery and beading on the legs? The ones with the artfully-placed rips and distressed seams that felt so soft when you touched them? It's quite possible that Hanh and her co-workers made them. Full Review

1800901011.jpg

Review of

Needle by Patrice Lawrence

3star.jpg Teens

Brave. Charlene, the 'heroine' of this piece is extremely hard for some people to like, characters and readers both. Kicked out of multiple homes and schools, she's fostering with a pleasant yoga tutor, Annie, and has taken up residence in her son Blake's old room while he's at uni. Such a tempestuous personality may be in need of a comfort blanket, you might perhaps think, and the creation of one such item is part of the plot here, as Charlene is a wonder knitter, and is making something full of love for her younger sister – a younger sister she's allowed contact with no more. We see Charlene prove her belligerence with a store detective, and then force people to give her two days off school, when she shouts someone down as expletively ignorant. And then... well, what exactly happens is not for me to say, only to remark how sharp and pointy those knitting needles can be... Full Review

1406399590.jpg

Review of

Rebel Skies by Ann Sei Lin

5star.jpg Teens

Kurara has spent her entire life as a servant on the Midori, a massive dining hall floating in the sky where soldiers of the Empire come to drink and make merry between their conquests. However, when a man named Himura arrives to tell her that she is a Crafter like him, someone with the power to form paper into whatever she desires – a power sought after all across the Empire. He asks her to come with him, to leave the life of dreary servitude that is all she has known. Well, soon Kurara won't have any say in the matter, because the Midori is destroyed by a monstrous paper spirit known as a shikigami, and she is forced to flee out into the world. She joins Himura aboard the Orihime, a sky-ship whose express purpose is to hunt down shikigami, and a whole world of adventure awaits her… Full Review

1800900899.jpg

Review of

Wrath by Marcus Sedgwick

4.5star.jpg Teens

Meet Fitz, a young Scottish lad full of frustration at himself. Lockdown is only just over, and he should be free to do what he wants, to go where he wants and with whom he wants, but he cannot stop himself from putting his foot in it when he talks to his best friend, Cassie. They were half of a desultory school band, but Cassie was also one hundred per cent the enigmatic – saying she could hear a subhuman hum coming from the earth. Is this connected with one of her eco-warrior parents saying the end of the world is already a done deal? Is it some spooky new kind of music she's dreaming of? Is she just bonkers? And can Fitz find out the truth? Well, not when Cassie has gone missing he can't... Full Review

1789098130.jpg

Review of

The Devil Makes Three by Tori Bovalino

4.5star.jpg Teens

Working all summer in her boarding school's library is the last thing Tess Matheson wants to do — especially when she gets a request for over a hundred books that she has to deliver herself. What makes it worse is the man who requested the books: Mr Birch. The boarding school's headmaster, and a man Tess hates. As a petty act of revenge for making her find and deliver such a large request, Tess sticks post-it notes on each of the books, scribbled with the ugliest insults she can think of. They're never meant to reach him, of course. Her plan is to get her anger out like this, and then take them all off before delivering them. No harm done… Or it would be, if someone hadn't delivered them for her. Full Review

1788452372.jpg

Review of

Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep by Philip Reeve

5star.jpg Confident Readers

In a word, rich. There is certainly an abundance of riches in this story set on a peculiar island called Wildsea, British but way west, beyond the Scillies. There are troll people on it, and sea-witches, and legends of the Dark family that has to keep watch for magical islands and their monster approaching from even further west, where no ship dare sail. The current Darks are the Watcher, Andrewe, who has to keep notes of activity from the Hidden Lands, his brother Will who lives in London with too much science in his head to worry about such local yokel superstitions, and Andrewe's foundling daughter, who washed up out of the sea one day eleven years ago. But when Andrewe Dark drowns himself, both his sullen brother and his curious ward are thrust into the world of protecting their island, like it or not. Full Review

1510107789.jpg

Review of

Julia and the Shark by Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston

4star.jpg Confident Readers

Julia, our pre-teen heroine, has been packed off with her parents and their cat from the family home in SW England to be lighthousekeepers for a summer, in the far NE of the Scottish islands. Here be Vikings, that kind of Scottish island. Dad is going to be automating the lantern, which is his specialist thing, while mum will be leaving her career in algae behind to hunt the elusive Greenland shark. And Julia, well, she will be homesick and alone – until she suddenly finds company one night. Full Review

1406394815.jpg

Review of

The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne by Jonathan Stroud

4star.jpg Teens

Scarlett McCain is an outlaw, rejecting the draconian conformity of the Surviving Towns and Faith Houses to wander the wildlands between the Seven Kingdoms of Britain, robbing banks and shooting other outlaws to keep herself alive. But then she meets Albert Browne, a dark boy with dark powers and a darker past. With mysterious militiamen hunting them down, they plan to flee to the mythical Free Isles of the London Lagoon. Together, they must brave man-eating wildlife, the cannibalistic Tainted and all the horrors of post-apocalyptic society to reach the Free Isles, but will they be any more accepted there than they are in the rest of Britain? Full Review

Move on to Newest Thrillers Reviews