Difference between revisions of "Newest Teens Reviews"

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[[Category:Teens|*]]
 
[[Category:Teens|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Teens]]
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[[Category:New Reviews|Teens]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->
==Teens==
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Leanne Egan
{{newreview
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|title=Lover Birds
|author=Isobelle Carmody
 
|title=Obernewtyn (Obernewtyn Chronicles)
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=A nuclear catastrophe called the Great White destroyed most of the world, and only those who lived in isolated parts of the countryside were able to survive by refusing all contact with radiation-infected refugees from the urban centres. In time the cities grew again, but the fear of outsiders and of those who were different remained and became a religion, composed in part of half-remembered elements of faiths from the time before the apocalypse.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408806975</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Chloe Neill
 
|title=Firespell: The Dark Elite
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Lily Parker is sent to boarding school in Chicago when her parents get the opportunity to do some prestigious research work in Germany. She was expecting bitchy classmates, and she gets them – but she wasn’t prepared for her suitemate, Scout, who stays out late at night and reappears covered in bruises, a school full of secret hiding places, a principal who knows her parents and seems to have an entirely wrong idea about their work – or a mysterious group of supernatural teens called the Dark Elite.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0575095393</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Louis Sachar
 
|title=The Cardturner
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=
 
''How are we supposed to be partners? He can’t see the cards and I don’t know the rules!''
 
 
 
17-year-old Alton Richards is shoehorned into becoming the driver and cardturner for his blind, octogenarian, bridge-playing, but above all rich, uncle by his grasping parents - who are up to their eyeballs in debt and have a weather eye on potential legacies. Alton sighs but goes along with it. He's used to being told to call Lester Trapp his favourite uncle and he's used to his unrepentently mercenary parents.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408808501</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Bonnie Hearn Hill
 
|title=Star Crossed: Taurus Eyes
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Logan McRae is excited by the prospect of attending a writers' camp hosted by author Henry Jaffa, who starts off by asking them all to write a project idea and then shuffles them around. Instead of her longed-for astrology feature, Logan ends up having to write about folk singer Sean Baylor, whose ghost may be haunting the
 
locality. The only person who doesn't have to switch is the cute boy at the camp, Jeremy, who Jaffa allows to keep his original topic – of Sean Baylor. So, Logan and Jeremy end up fighting over research material while also clearly wanting to get to know each other better – does the ghost exist? Will they get it together? Who will write the best article and get it published? The answers to all these questions
 
and more lie inside the second book in the Star Crossed series (along with some temporary tattoos!)
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0762436719</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Catherine Forde
 
|title=Fifteen Minute Bob
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=For years, conscientious student Rory and his hard-working mother have struggled to cope with his father, an eyeliner wearing struggling singer-songwriter unable to hold down a job, and obsessed with a star called Bob Blade. While Rory finds his
 
father's unreliability a nightmare to live with, his two friends Smiler and Barry think he's cool and spend more time hanging out with him than with Rory. As the trio of Smiler, Barry, and Rory's dad team up to make a music video that goes viral on the internet, Rory gets unwittingly involved and, in the words of the blurb from the back,
 
'everything flips'.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405229306</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Richard Denning
 
|title=The Last Seal
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=In 1380 the warlock Stephen Blake released the demon Dantalion from the Abyss, only for his nemesis Cornelius Silver to banish him straight away. Dantalion has nursed his wounds for nearly 300 years – and in 1666, descendants of the original pair clash as he
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|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?
aims to return to the world, and burn down London by starting the Great Fire. While the fire rages around London, and Dantalion’s followers try to break the seals which hold him in the Abyss, four unlikely heroes join forces to stop them from being destroyed – and to save the world.
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|isbn=000862657X
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956483550</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Ashley Hickson-Lovence
|author=Nicola Morgan
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|title=Wild East
|title=Wasted
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Jess wants to study music. She's a wonderful singer. And so a chance encounter with Jack, who needs a singer for his band, is exactly the happenstance she'd hoped for. Even better that Jack is so charming and handsome and charismatic. And still better that he feels the same attraction to her. How lucky can a girl get? Jack believes in luck. In fact, he lives his life by it. He doesn't do a thing unless his coin says he can. Newly in love, Jess is slowly drawn into his game of chance. Although it worries her a little, she can't know that a time will come when the toss of a coin is the difference between life and death.  
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|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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406321958</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0241645441
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Jenny Valentine
|author=Patrick Ness
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|title=Us in the Before and After
|title=Monsters of Men (Chaos Walking)
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Noise - visible thought - dominates the lives of everyone on this settler planet. Noise is used as a tool of oppression and as a weapon. There's a cure, but the Machiavellian President Prentiss reserves it only for the most loyal. The Answer are fighting back against his authoritarian regime, but they've had to make some terrible choices. Between the President's torture and the Answer's terrorist bomb attacks stand Todd and Viola - trying to prevent civil war, trying to hold on long enough for the second wave of settlers to arrive. And then, in the wake of the President's genocide of slaves, the Spackle attack. A scout ship finally arrives, but it may be too late to prevent a catastrophic war...  
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|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>1406310271</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1471196585
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Max Boucherat
|author=Keris Stainton
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|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
|title=Della Says: OMG!
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Ever since she was four, Della has had a secret crush on Dan, the good-looking and gentle boy who once shared his brand new crayons with her. And now, more than ten years later, he wants to kiss her. It seems too good to be true, and for a while Della fears the whole thing is a joke, set up by mean girl Gemima. After all, Gemima is Dan's best friend. And then disaster strikes: Della's very private and confidential diary goes missing. The diary with all the excruciatingly embarrassing entries about Dan, her family, her friends...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408304279</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Lara Fox
 
|title=Miss Understanding: My Summer on the Shelf
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Anya Buxton is back.  It's the summer holidays and her mum is keen for her to find a summer job rather than waste her days lounging around at home.  After the brief, worrying possibility that she might just end up as a newspaper delivery girl she lands a dream position gaining work experience with a London publishing houseShe finds herself simultaneously editing a dishy, though slightly disturbed teen author, struggling with a long distance relationship with Al, wondering if 'The Boy' really has turned over a new leaf and being wooed by the boss's sonAnd, of course, she's blogging it all for her dedicated followers.
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|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 lonesomeWhat 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 tamperingWhen 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>0340988835</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008666482
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Rachel Greenlaw
|author=Jenna Burtenshaw
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|title=Compass and Blade
|title=Wintercraft
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=The wardens raid villages and cities for people competent to fight in the war, a war nobody knows anything about other than if you’re sent to fight you don’t come back. The last time they raided Morvane was ten years ago, taking Kate’s parents with them. Kate is taken in by her uncle, Artemis, and grows up in the book shop with him and her friend, Edgar. But now the wardens are back, and looking for more people to fight. However, they are also looking for the Skilled – a dying breed of people who can see through the veil of life and death. They want to build an army of the dead.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755370961</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sarah Dessen
 
|title=Infinity (Pocket Money Puffins)
 
 
|rating=3.5
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Girl is a teen from small town America. We don't know where exactly, but it's somewhere people drive (which rules out the likes of NYC) and it's somewhere that has a roundabout. Most of America doesn't have these – instead they have much more sensible crossings and lights and T-junctions – so it's a source of intrigue for many of the town's residents. For new driver Girl the roundabout is joint top on her List Of Things To Master, along with sleeping with her boyfriend Anthony. They might seem entirely unrelated to the likes of you and me, but to Girl the links are clear. They're both things she will have to deal with for a first time eventually, but she still can't decide whether to rush ahead in order to get them out of the way quickly, or put them off for just a little longer.
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|summary=''I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141330775</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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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.
|author=Meg Rosoff
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|isbn=0008664730
|title=Vamoose (Pocket Money Puffins)
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=There are lots of reasons not to become a teen mum while still at school – there’s your loss of freedom, for a start, plus the fact that babies spend their days crying and pooing, not to mention the fact they’re expensive. But what happens to Jess is something that no one has warned her about: she goes into hospital and gives birth to a bouncing baby moose. Which is, it has to be said, slightly odd. As she and boyfriend Nick struggle through first-time parenthood and learn to deal with the Unique Challenge of having a non-homo-sapien child, there’s a lesson for all of us about biting off more than we can chew and unpredictable consequences.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141329149</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Harry Allen
|author=Nancy Werlin
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|title=Children of the Sun
|title=Impossible
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|rating=5
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Life is just as it should be for Lucy Scarborough. She lives with loving foster parents and at seventeen is looking forward to attending prom with her friends and her date, who has definite boyfriend potential.  The only fly in the ointment is Miranda Scarborough, Lucy's birth mother who, having given birth to Lucy at eighteen, promptly went mad and vanished from Lucy's life leaving her in the care of Leo and Soledad MarKowitz.  Lucy's life has been plagued by unwanted visits from Miranda who seems determined to cause as much embarrassment as possible.
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|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>0141330309</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1805140493
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Carlos Ruiz Zafon
 
|title=The Prince of Mist
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=During World War Two, Max's father decides to move the whole family to a seaside retreat he knows of - a wooden house far away from the city he's grown his family up in.  Nobody seems too keen on the idea, neither of Max's sisters, his mother, nor he - and Max is gifted a pocket watch by his loving, talented mechanic cum engineer cum watchmaker of a father, enscribed as "Max's Time Machine".  But the house they move to, and its surroundings, are full of more successful time machines - a stash of early home videos, a public clock that runs backwards, a sunken shipwreck, a yard full of statues of a stone circus...  And let's not forget the mysterious, spider-eating cat that joins in with proceedings.
 
 
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297856421</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Alexia Casale
|author=James Rollins
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|title=Sing if you Can't Dance
|title=Jake Ransom and the Skull King's Shadow
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=The prologue to this splendid book recounts a terrifying chase, the discovery of fabulous Mayan artifacts, and a shadowy enemy. And that gripping scene sets the tone for the rest of the book. After the strange disappearance of their parents, who were on an archeological dig on the Mountain of Bones, Jake Ransom and his sister Kady are sent a parcel containing two halves of a Mayan coin, their mother's sketchbook and their father's notebook. There is no indication what these things mean or what to do with them.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444000616</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Lucy Jago
 
|title=Montacute House
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Cess is the poultry girl at Montacute House. She and her mother live alone - Cess has never met her father. In fact, she doesn't even know who he is. Shunned by the other villagers because of her illegitimacy, Cess has only two friends, both also social outcasts. There's William, who has a club foot - thought of as a curse in Elizabethan England, and Edith, who's been chased out of the village for witchery by the woman-hating local priest.  
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|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>1408803763</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571373801
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Simon Fox
|author=Gregory Hughes
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|title=Deadlock
|title=Unhooking the Moon
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The Rat and Bob are prairie children. Winnipeg is a land ''so flat you can watch your dog run away for three days''. When their father dies and they're orphaned, they are determined to avoid a children's home at all costs and embark upon a road trip to New York City, in search of their long-lost uncle. Bob is pretty much the hanger-on - he knows that the Rat is a special kid who would never make it in an institution and so he puts his fears aside to follow his singular sister.  
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|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 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849162956</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839944420
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Lex Croucher
|author=Marcus Sedgwick
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|title=Gwen and Art Are Not in Love
|title=White Crow
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|rating=4
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Rebecca is not happy to be leaving London. She's not happy with her dad, she's not happy with her boyfriend, and she just generally an unhappy person. Having to move to a dead-end place like Winterfold doesn't help at all. Her only friend there is a strange girl named Ferelith who one hot summer's day shows her an abandoned mansion where two hundred years ago a priest performed horrible experiments on human corpses. He wanted to learn something from the dead. But what was it? And what does Ferelith really want from Rebecca?
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|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>1842551876</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1526651793
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Nick Brooks
|author=Nick Lake
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|title=Promise Boys
|title=Blood Ninja
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary="It makes perfect sense that ninjas should be vampires".  So Taro is told early on in this book, and on the evidence here that statement is correctWith a gutsy, bloody opening to the adventure we see Taro being attacked by ninjas, and rescued by a friendly vampire among them - having doubted the existence of both from his corner of sixteenth century rural JapanThe attack nearly leaves Taro an orphan, but opens himself up to a whole unexpected destiny, as people seek to kidnap him - or worse, and beyond that, an entirely unforseen existence as a teenage vampire when his saviour turns him.
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|summary=When the principal (headmaster) of Urban Promise Prep school is murdered, three boys find themselves called into the police station as suspectsEach, seemingly, has a grudge of some description against Principal Moore, and each could have been there at the time of his murderBut who killed him, and why, and if any of the boys are innocent, will they be able to clear their names?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848873875</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1035003155
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Mari Strachan
 
|title=The Earth Hums in B Flat
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|summary=Choosing a child as the viewpoint character of a novel requires confidence and imagination.  To succeed is to convince the reader of events at two levels – the child's world within the adult world surrounding her.  The very best novels about childhood, like say Harper Lee's classic, 'To Kill a Mockingbird', also reflect a wider cultural truth.  In 'The Earth Hums in B Flat', a claustrophobic Welsh village is both protection and straitjacket as the characters struggle to cope with their family secrets.  If that sounds a bit tacky, fear not, because the viewpoint character, Gwenni, is all whippet and sharp corners.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847673058</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1919635017
|author=Ally Carter
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|title=A Thief to Catch a Killer
|title=I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You (Gallagher Girls)
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|author=Kitt Townsend
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=If ever there were a new series chock full of characters to make Harry, Ron, Hermione et al look like wimps, then this is it. Virginia might not be the most exciting of States, and sleepy Roseville may not be the most thrilling of towns, but for our purposes that's good. Boring and ordinary is good. Flying under the radar is good. To the town's residents, the Gallagher Academy is just your typical all girls private school. They don't know much about it, but then who would want to when it's clearly housing a group of snooty, snobby rich kids? Except...it's not. The Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women is not the place it makes out it is – this is an elite institution with a difference, for all its boarders are spies in training, with a curriculum in lethal weapons and covert operations as well as exquisite twists on the usual subjects: foreign languages here mean dedicated days where the whole school converses in any one of the FOURTEEN languages the girls have to master.
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|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>1408309513</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Patrick Ness and Tea Bendix
|author=Adriana Trigiani
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|title=Different for Boys
|title=Viola in Reel Life
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=It definitely wasn't Viola's choice to go to boarding school and she really would have preferred not to have to share a room with three other girls she'd never met before, but her parents – both film makers - were going to be abroad for a year and single rooms were in short supply.  And that was how, at the beginning of the school year, Viola came to be at the Prefect Academy in South Bend, Indiana rather than in her native New York.  She'd left behind her best friend, Andrew (no – he's not her boyfriend, he's a best friend who happens to be a boy) and is sharing a room with Marisol Carreras, Romy Dixon and Suzanne Santry.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847389260</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Eleanor Updale
 
|title=Johnny Swanson
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary='Strength in What Remains' is the inspirational account of Deogratias, a man who has fled from the genocide and civil war in Burundi (just south of the equator in East Central Africa, bordering Rwanda). He escapes to New York, out of fear and want of a safer life; only his new found American life isn't quite what it promised.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385616422</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Celia Rees
 
|title=The Fool's Girl
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
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|genre=Teens  
|summary=When Illyria is sacked, the fool Feste spirits the
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|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 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.
Duke's daughter, Violetta, to London, to chase the evil Malvolio and
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|isbn=1529509491
reclaim an ancient relic. There they meet William Shakespeare, who
 
they persuade to help them in an exciting quest which builds to a
 
climax in the Forest of Arden.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747597324</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1800901232
|author=Gabrielle Lord
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|title=Stitched Up
|title=April (Conspiracy 365)
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|author=Steve Cole
|rating=4
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|rating=5
|genre=Teens
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|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
|summary=It's April and Cal has survived three months of his year on the run. Will the fourth bring him any closer to answers about the Ormond Singularity? And can he trust Winter Frey?
+
|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 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.
 
 
You guys last saw Cal in January, feeling rather shell-shocked after his father's death from a mysterious disease and his brush with a crazed lunatic who told him that his father was murdered and he'd be next unless he could hold out until next New Year's Eve. Within days, Cal found himself on the run, accused of battering his own sister, and in search of something called the Ormond Singularity.  
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340996471</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Patrice Lawrence
|author=Hayley Long
+
|title=Needle
|title=Lottie Biggs is (Not) Desperate
+
|rating=3
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Lottie Biggs, who's in her mid-teens is recovering from what's described as a 'mental disorder of a reasonably significant nature'She's having counselling from Blake (from New Zealand) who has some rather unusual turns of phrase and looks like Johnny Depp, but without the pirate make-up.  All in all she's doing quite well.   Gareth Stingecombe is still the love of her life and to seal the bond even tighter she gets a Saturday job in his mother's hairdressing salon. This might, or might not, turn out to be a mistake given what the mother-in-law-to-be thinks constitutes a trendy hairstyle.
+
|summary=Brave. Charlene, the 'heroine' of this piece is extremely hard for some people to like, characters and readers bothKicked 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...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>033047975X</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1800901011
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author= Ann Sei Lin
|author=Rachel Hawkins
+
|title= Rebel Skies
|title=Hex Hall
+
|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=Sophie Mercer has been sent to a boarding school for monsters after a little love spell goes horribly wrong. Hecate Hall has been set up 'to protect and instruct shapeshifter, witch and fae children who have risked exposure of their abilities'.  
+
|isbn=1406399590
 
 
As in any good school story, she soon makes new friends and enemies. Her room mate is a 15 year old vampire with an obsession with everything pink, and Sophie must struggle to hide her disgust at Jenna’s blood consumption, as they quickly become good friends. She faces more difficulty with a trio of glamorous witches. Anna, Chaston and Elodie hate Jenna and they are frequently sarcastic and nasty at Sophie’s expense. At the same time though, they approach her to join their coven, and her reluctance to get involved makes her more unpopular.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847387225</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Marcus Sedgwick
|author=Claudia Gray
+
|title=Wrath
|title=Evernight
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=I'm at a complete loss how to review this book. I'm very tempted to take a tip from my favourite movie critic Roger Ebert who, on occasion, has been known to suggest that you should watch a film '''then''' read his review if it's full of twists and hard to describe without spoilers. I'm actually thinking that's not a bad idea here but will try my best to provide a review with as few clues as possible to the twists and turns, just in case two sentences aren't enough to convince you. This may not be easy, so bear with me!
+
|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>0007355319</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1800900899
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Tori Bovalino
|author=Jim Carrington
+
|title=The Devil Makes Three
|title=Inside My Head
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Zoe has moved from London to rural Norfolk - her parents are expecting a late baby and they want to downsize, get out of the city, and live in a more sustainable way. Unsurprisingly, Zoe isn't big on this plan. Wrenched from her school and friends, and the vibrancy of the capital, she's convinced that her life has just taken a socking great turn for the worse.
+
|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>1408802716</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1789098130
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=William Nicholson
 
|title=Rich and Mad
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=When Maddy Fisher goes for something, she goes all out. She has decided to fall in love, but not just any kind of love – it has to be the can't-eat-can't-sleep, crazy kind. But then once you get to know Maddy, you'd expect nothing less, for this is a girl who lives with a camel and thinks nothing of choosing her parents' shop over her own well equipped room when she wants to find a bed to curl up in for a think.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405247398</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Philip Reeve
|author=Ann Kelley
+
|title=Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep
|title=Koh Tabu
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Bonnie MacDonald is thrilled to be going to a beautiful tropical island with the rest of the Amelia Earhart Cadets, especially as the only adult present will be the incredibly glamorous Layla Campbell, nicknamed the Duchess, who treats them all like adults. But the dream holiday becomes a nightmare - after landing on the wrong island despite dire warnings from the boatman who took them there, a storm kills him and one of Bonnie's friends and wrecks the boat, leaving them trapped with no-one knowing where they are. With the Duchess shining rather less brightly as she’s revealed to be practically useless in the face of danger, it's left to Bonnie and her friend Jas to try and keep the remaining girls alive and find a way to be rescued.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192756044</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sally Gardner
 
|title=The Red Necklace
 
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Paris's streets are already humming with talk of revolution, when the young gypsy Yann Margoza is summoned to perform his magic at the chateau of a selfish, debt-ridden marquise. He is to tell the assembled aristocracy their future. But what he hoped would be the ticket to a better life turns into a nightmare when he has a vision of the richly-dressed crowd drowning in a sea of blood.
+
|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>1842556347</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1788452372
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sarah Singleton
 
|title=The Island
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Otto has arrived in Goa a couple of days ahead of Charlotte and Jen, his gap year companions. It's typical of Otto to steal what should be shared thunder. He's a lovely lad, but he's a tad selfish and he does like to be first for everything. Each of the three has a different reason for the trip: Otto wants to get some experience for a hoped-for career in photo-journalism; Charlie wants to volunteer and beef up her environmental credentials; Jen has dreamed of journeying to India for as long as she can remember.  
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847382967</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston
|author=Justin Richards
+
|title=Julia and the Shark
|title=The Chamber of Shadows
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It's London, 1886.  A company building those new underground train tunnels finds a hidden vault at impossible depth - and seems to release into the world The Lord of Flies.  A mysterious masked stage magician does the obviously impossible.  A robotic killer stalks the streets, and a street gang of ruffians-on-the-up decides to solve the mystery.  A man in charge of Fortean artefacts at the British Museum has a new employer, asking something much more evil from himSurely all of that cannot be connected in some way?  Surely one book can not have all those dark and mysterious elements we can probably all recognise, and put them into one period thriller without coming over as a horrendous porridge of parody?
+
|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 islandsHere 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>0571237991</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1510107789
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Robin Wasserman
 
|title=Crashed
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Lia lives in a future where minds can be saved even if bodies can't. After a fatal car crash, her brain has been scanned, mapped, saved, and transferred into a machine designed to look and feel human. She'll live forever. We last saw her with her new mech "life" in tatters after Auden's terrible accident and her family's rejection. She can't see a future for herself amongst the orgs any more and so she rejoins Jude and his group of adrenaline junkie mechs at Quinn's mansion. It's a life of extreme thrill-seeking, backed up by Quinn's unlimited credit and Jude's shady contact at Bio Max, who supplies them with dangerous and untested, but exciting and cutting edge mods and updates.  
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847387659</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author= Jonathan Stroud
|author=David Yelland
+
|title= The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne
|title=The Truth About Leo
+
|rating= 4
|rating=4
+
|genre= Teens
|genre=Teens
+
|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=Leo lives inside his own head for much of the time. You can't really blame him. He's always tired for a start. That's because he's often up early, tidying up the house after one of his father's rampages. His father drinks too much, you see, and sometimes he smashes up the house. Leo can't risk this being discovered because his father's the only person he's got since his mother died of cancer. He misses her like crazy, and he's afraid he'll be taken into care if anyone finds out about his dad's drinking.
+
|isbn=1406394815
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141330031</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest Thrillers Reviews]]
|author=Richard Denning
 
|title=Tomorrow's Guardian
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Eleven year old Tom Oakley thinks he's going mad when he seems to relive short periods of his life, and dreams about other people from different times. The reality is far stranger – he's a Walker, with the power to rescue those he dreamed about. Travelling to the battle of Isandlwana, the Great Fire of London, and a German U-Boat, guided by the mysterious Professor, Tom saves the lives of soldier Edward, servant Mary, and Able Seaman Charlie, who also have powers. There are others, however, with similar powers, who aren't as pleasant as Tom's new friends – and the four of them, allied with the Professor and his roguish helper Septimus, are pitched into a battle to save the worlds. That's intentionally plural – there are two parallel universes at stake here.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445251388</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

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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