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
__NOTOC__
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|author=Max Boucherat
 
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|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
{{newreview
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|rating=4.5
|author=Sophie McKenzie
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|genre=Confident Readers
|title=Blood Ransom
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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 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?
|rating=4
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|isbn=0008666482
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=
 
It's not enough to find out you're a clone and to have both a renegade scientist and a fundamentalist terrorist group trying to kill you. Oh no. Because when MI5 and the FBI relocate you, they condemn you to living thousands of miles away from the only other person in the world that might understand what you've been through. It's safer that way, apparently.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847387632</amazonuk>
 
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Rachel Greenlaw
|author=Celine Kiernan
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|title=Compass and Blade
|title=Moorehawke Trilogy: The Crowded Shadows
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|rating=3.5
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=At the end of [[The Poison Throne (Moorehawke Trilogy) by Celine Kiernan|the first book]] of the Moorehawke Trilogy, The Poison Throne, Wynter Moorhawke, her childhood friend Razi, and her romantic interest Christopher were all desperately
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|summary=''I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.''
trying to find Razi's half-brother Alberon, whose father Jonathon appeared to be driven insane. I thought I knew exactly what to expect from this second novel in the sequence, but was thrown sideways by the massive detour taken.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184149822X</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=David Whitley
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|isbn=0008664730
|title=The Children of the Lost
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Mark and Lily have left Agora and they have no idea what to expect from the land beyond the city walls. They have been brought up within a rigid system based on barter in a city where everything can be traded: goods, services, people, even emotions are up for sale. They have also been taught that outside the city walls is a wilderness, with no civilised life. Do bear in mind here that their idea of civilisation is Agora…They are ill equipped to survive, and immediately make things worse by arguing with one another.  Mark is furious with Lily for her part in their banishment and his actions lead to Lily being placed in great danger.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141330120</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Harry Allen
|author=Rook Hastings
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|title=Children of the Sun
|title=Immortal Remains (Weirdsville)
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|rating=5
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Welcome back to Weirdsville, sorry Woodsville, the town set in a truly creepy hollow, whose forest contains the greatest concentration of ghosts you'll find anywhere in England. Fresh from vanquishing a ghost army and enabling Emily to pass on to the other side and be reunited with her mother, our four reluctant ghosthunters have a new mystery to solve. Freak accidents have killed four local girls in the last four months, and Charlotte is convinced she will be next. She's the only one left alive from a seance she and her friends took part in, and she is certain that death is stalking her.  
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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>0007258119</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1805140493
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Alexia Casale
|author=Andy Mulligan
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|title=Sing if you Can't Dance
|title=Trash
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Raphael lives in Behala, a slum that's grown up around a landfill site in an unnamed South American country. He's a dumpsite boy - this means he and his family scrape a living by combing through the detritus of richer people's lives. Behala replaced Smoky Mountain, another slum that got so dangerous that landslides killed dozens of people and the authorities closed it. What a home, eh? But Raphael has a smile that lights up his whole face and lifts the spirits of all those upon whom he bestows it. And he has good things in his life - a close extended family, a best friend called Gardo - and an exciting secret.
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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>0385619014</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571373801
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sara Starbuck
 
|title=Dread Pirate Fleur and the Hangman's Noose
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=When a mysterious young girl in a barrel is fished from the sea and rescued by the pirate ship belonging to Fleur's uncle William, it seems bad news might be on the way.  The girl turns out to have psychic abilities - and they're just about to hit landfall at Salem, right in time for the witch-hunts.  But worse is to come.  William gets captured there, and someone Fleur thought long dead starts to take his place on board instead.  Fleur then has to skipper the craft herself, on a rescue mission, in a very tense domestic situation.  That's hard enough when you're a mere teenaged girl, against ruffians and pirates, but when the ship has secrets of her own to be revealed...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1862307296</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Ken Howard
 
|title=The Young Chieftain
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=One minute, Jamie Doran is playing basketball with his friends in downtown LA, the next he's en route to the island of Doran in Scotland to bury his father. James Doran, you see, had been Doran's clan chieftain. The island proves a culture shock for cosmpolitan Jamie. It's remote and dilapidated, there's no internet or mobile phone access, and the only TV is in the community centre. Jamie's grandmother isn't welcoming either - in fact, she barely bothers to hide her distate for her black daughter-in-law and mixed race grandson.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848530331</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Michael Grant
 
|title=Lies (Gone)
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Sam is tired of being heroic. Tired of being relied upon. But he resents being sidelined by his own girlfriend. Astrid's Town Council is busy bringing bureaucracy and officialdom to the FAYZ, but will it ever do anything other than procrastinate? Sam doesn't think so and he's painfully aware that danger lurks around every corner. Zil's band of freak-haters are gearing up to cause some damage, Caine is down but not out, and food is still in short supply. Tensions are growing and the Town Council isn't up to the job. And what's worse is that Sam doesn't think he is, either...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405254297</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=L J Smith
 
|title=The Night of the Solstice
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Claudia knew she wasn't really supposed to follow the fox - not on her own, to the old, forbidden house on the hill. But she did. And it will change everything. The fox is the familiar of Morgana Shee, powerful sorceress and only guardian of the passageway to another universe, Wildworld. But Morgana has gone missing and she must be found before the solstice, for then the gateway will be open to all, including Cadal Forge, an evil magician dedicated to conquering Earth. Claudia, and her siblings, Charles, Jane and leader Alys, must find her. And find her quickly, for everything hangs in the balance on the night of the Winter Solstice.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857070509</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Simon Fox
|author=Cathy Cassidy
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|title=Deadlock
|title=Cherry Crush: The Chocolate Box Girls
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=When Cherry Costello told her teachers that she was leaving Glasgow and moving to live in a cliff-top house in Somerset where her father would make organic chocolates everyone thought that it was just another of her tall tales.  But this one was true.  Not only was Cherry moving to Somerset the Costellos, father and daughter, were going to live with his girlfriend and her four daughters.  From it just being the two of them there would be seven altogetherHow will Cherry cope?  And how will the Tanberry family cope with two new members?
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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 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>0141384794</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839944420
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Kelly McKain
 
|title=Half a Sister
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=When Hannah's parents begin to have whispered, but obviously heated discussions about something her immediate thought is that they're splitting up.  There's quite a bit of that at school and Hannah would hate it to happen to her.  But when it all comes out the reality is rather different.  Sam has just discovered that he has a fifteen year old daughter living in Paris and that her mother has been in a serious car accident.  Sam sees no alternative but to bring Ellie to live with them, but Charlotte is worried about how this will affect their daughter.  When it's put to Hannah she has visions of long girly chats and swopping clothes and makeup and agrees without further thought.  To begin with it's everything she hoped it would be but then a darker side of Ellie emerges and life turns into a nightmare for Hannah.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0746091249</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Lex Croucher
|author=Tricia Telep (Editor)
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|title=Gwen and Art Are Not in Love
|title=Kiss Me Deadly
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=What do Peter Pan, werecats, vampires, teenage zombies, and unicorn hunters have in common? Possibly very little... but they all appear as central characters in stories in this often enchanting anthology of stories of  supernatural romance.
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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>0762439491</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1526651793
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jenny Valentine
 
|title=The Double Life of Cassiel Roadnight
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Runaway Chap walks into a hostel off the street. He's in need of a meal and a bed for the night. As the workers question him, trying to get a history, they notice his resemblance to a poster of a boy who's been missing for two years. Chap isn't Cassiel Roadnight. Chap isn't anyone. But the temptation is there: become Cassiel. Get a family. Live in a home. Become ''someone''. And so he takes the chance and the new identity.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>000728361X</amazonuk>
 
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Nick Brooks
|author=Becca Fitzpatrick
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|title=Promise Boys
|title=Crescendo
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=We last saw Nora and Patch at the end of ''Hush, Hush'' - lovely title, that! - battered after a Nephilim conflict, but very much together. Patch is no longer fallen, has been given back guardian angel status and the threat to Nora is no more. You'd think everything would go swimmingly after that, wouldn't you? But you know and I know that falling in love with any kind of angel, fallen or otherwise, isn't conducive to a normal life.
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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 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>1847387195</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1035003155
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1919635017
|author=Garrett Carr
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|title=A Thief to Catch a Killer
|title=Lost Dogs
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|author=Kitt Townsend
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Some extraordinary children are to be found in the Northern Irish port-town of Hardglass.  One, Akeem, has in fact just arrived - a stowaway on a cargo ship.  Elsewhere, friends Andrew and Ewan are waiting to see the result of Ewan's father's trial for being a weapons dealer.  While their friend May is newly residing at a most unusual school, one whose pupils have talents to match her singular one of sensing and empathising with the thoughts of animals.  It's a gang of people brought together in a natural, realistic way, with some fantastic factors to their lives that are only going to get heightened.  For said weapons, allegedly going on their way to be decommissioned, will soon be on the same cargo boat Akeem has just left - and they're weapons from the darker side of horror...
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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>1847385990</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Patrick Ness and Tea Bendix
|author=B R Collins
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|title=Different for Boys
|title=A Trick of the Dark
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
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|genre=Teens  
|summary=What if you found a way to cheat death?  What if it left you pain-free forever, both physically and emotionally?  But what if it also meant you had to split your soul, and that left you unable to touch anyone ever again? After Zach and Annis are dragged to France for a family reconciliation events are set in motion that cannot be undoneAnnis sees Zach killed by a the tumbling wall of an old ruined house, yet moments later he is standing, unharmed, in front of herAs she tries to help Zach, and appease her bitter, broken parents, she is dragged deeper and deeper into the horror of Zach's situation.
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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 sexWhich 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 sure. And that's mostly because of who he's been having the relationship and the sex with.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140880915X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1529509491
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Gemma Malley
 
|title=The Legacy
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Longevity isn't working. The drug that prolongs life expectancy indefinitely appears to have reached its own life expectancy. A terrible virus is wreaking havoc across Britain and the sluggish immune systems of the Legals simply can't cope. Consumed by a desperate thirst, they're dying horrible deaths, leaving behind shrivelled and desiccated corpses. It's Richard Pinsent's worst nightmare. Not that Richard cares about people dying, of course.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408800896</amazonuk>
 
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1800901232
|author=Lauren Kate
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|title=Stitched Up
|title=Torment
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|author=Steve Cole
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
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|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
|summary=Right, first things first. If you haven't read [[Fallen by Lauren Kate|Fallen]], go read it - or at least read a [[Fallen by Lauren Kate|review]] to see whether it sounds like your cup of tea - because this review will inevitably contain significant spoilers for the earlier Lauren Kate novel.
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|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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385618093</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Patrice Lawrence
|author=John Brindley
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|title=Needle
|title=Blood Crime
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|rating=3
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Joe is lying in hospital in a meningitis-induced coma. It's the last straw for his mother - Joe has been unable to cope ever since his father died, refusing to believe in a tragic laboratory accident and accusing his ex-research partner and her new boyfriend of murder. Before he became ill, Joe's state of mind had become dangerously unstable, and now it's up to his uncle Frank, a hospital consultant, to save him. But Joe isn't lying there insensible: he's fighting the greatest battle of his life - rushing through his veins and arteries evading the aggressive bacteria, rousing his body to fight back, and trying to work out what really happened to his father and whether his own illness has anything to do with it.  
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|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...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184255719X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1800901011
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author= Ann Sei Lin
|author=John Vornholt, Arthur Byron Cover and Alice Henderson
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|title= Rebel Skies
|title=Buffy the Vampire Slayer: No. 1: Night of the Living Rerun; Coyote Moon; Portal Through Time
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|rating= 5
|rating=4
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|genre= Teens
|genre=Teens
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|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=There is something really satisfying about a huge brick of a book: the prospect of settling down for hours and hours of reading pleasure is very tempting. And this book offers an even more tempting lure for Buffy fans, because it contains three whole stories, adding variety to the mix. It's absolutely ideal for a holiday read.
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|isbn=1406399590
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857070606</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Marcus Sedgwick
|author=Michelle Pan
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|title=Wrath
|title=Bella Should Have Dumped Edward: Controversial Views on the Twilight Series
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|rating=4.5
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=I'm sure die hard (Twi-hard) fans will love this book, since it gives them a little bit more about Bella and Edward and Jacob. All those things they've mulled over since the series ended are encapsulated in the topics raised here. Team Edward need not shake their heads in dismay at the book's title - it's controversial on purpose - and the question of who Bella should have ended up with is looked at from both points of view, along with other issues such as whether she should have become a vampire, the faithfulness of the films to the books and which character readers would most like to be.
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|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>1569758220</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1800900899
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Tori Bovalino
|author=Jeri Smith-Ready
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|title=The Devil Makes Three
|title=Shade
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Meet Aura.  She was one of the first people in the world to be born after The Shift, beyond which every newborn was opened to the world of the ghosts, hearing and seeing them whether they liked to or not. Her boyfriend, Logan, who she wants to make love to for the first time on the night of his seventeenth birthday, suddenly dies first instead - making him one of the many ghosts Aura might be able to help. But is something of greater help buried in a school project, touching on standing stone circles, the solstices, the mysteries of her own family's past - and a new young man in her life?
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|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>1847389406</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1789098130
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Philip Reeve
|author=Pam Bachorz
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|title=Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep
|title=Candor
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=The children of Candor know how to behave and the children of Candor stick to those rules:
 
 
''The great are never late.''<br>
 
''Healthy breakfasts make for smart minds.''<br>
 
''Academics are the key to success.''<br>
 
''Always be courteous.''
 
 
In Candor, everyone is happy. There is no crime. There are no tantrums. There is just respect and cooperation. It is a harmonious place that people from the outside desperately want to relocate to.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405250275</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Simon Packham
 
|title=comin 2 gt u
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Sam Tennant is reasonably happy at school, generally gets on alright with people, and doesn't have much to worry about – until he's murdered in the first chapter of this novel. Oh, not '''really''' murdered – his character in a game he plays online is killed. But then, the two who kill him refer to him by his real name instead of his computer persona, and he realises that virtual life has just become very nasty indeed.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848120958</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Lili St Crow
 
|title=Jealousy (Strange Angels)
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Dru Anderson has finally arrived at the Schola Prima – the main school for the training of wulfen and djamphir. She's supposed to be safe here. Supposed to be. Dru doesn't find life any easier. There's someone who wants her dead, and Dru has to work out who, and who else is loyal to them. Because loyalty is everything in the Order.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849161291</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=John E Smelcer
 
|title=The Edge of Nowhere
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Could you survive in the wilds of Alaska if you were washed overboard from a fishing boat during a storm and somehow, amazingly, managed to make it to dry land?  This is the challenge facing Seth and his loyal dog, Tucker. They are out on Seth's father's fishing boat during a terrible storm and neither Seth's dad or his friend realise that the boy and dog have been washed overboard until they reach home and are found to be missing from the boat.  A search party is sent out, but Seth is assumed drowned.  Luckily, Seth and his dog manage to get to one of the tiny islands that run along the coast of Alaska, and after realising that no one is coming to help them they slowly make their way hundreds of miles over many months.  Will they starve to death, or freeze, or be eaten by bears before they manage to make it home?
+
|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>1849391963</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1788452372
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Teresa Flavin
 
|title=The Blackhope Enigma
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=14-year old Sunni finds it bad enough that when she's trying to do some research on a famous Fausto Corvo painting in Blackhope Tower's Mariner's Chamber, she gets lumbered with her annoying stepbrother to look after. Add to that the presence of her classmate Blaise, a boy who's better at art than she is, and her day is looking depressing – and that's '''before''' Dean mysteriously vanishing when walking around the chamber's labyrinth.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848770340</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Joss Stirling
 
|title=Finding Sky
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Sky is upset when her adopted parents decide to move her away from all her friends in London to a small town in America, but tries to make the best of it. She quickly makes some good friends, but one particular guy is strangely attractive, even though he doesn't seem to want to have anything to do with her. Their paths will cross, however, and they'll be thrown together by fate.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192732137</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston
|author=Lisa McMann
+
|title=Julia and the Shark
|title=Fade (Wake Trilogy)
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Janie's story continues. Still unable to control her abilities as a dream catcher, her latest case is proving difficult. Somebody is preying on the students at Fieldridge and the violent and haunting nightmares that Janie has no choice but to watch yield few answers. Being forced to keep her relationship with Cabel secret is putting a serious strain on the pair, and when Janie learns of the terrible consequences of her powers, she wonders if Cabe is just one more of the many sacrifices she'll have to make.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847387365</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Candy Gourlay
 
|title=Tall Story
 
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Andi is a young teenager in the UK.  She's not very tall, but she is brilliant at basketball.  And she has finally been chosen to play for her school team.
+
|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 islandDad 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 sharkAnd Julia, well, she will be homesick and alone – until she suddenly finds company one night.
 
+
|isbn=1510107789
Bernardo is an extremely tall teenager in the PhilippinesHe lives with his aunt and uncle, and keeps on growingHe is surrounded by superstition, since his name is the same as that of a legendary giant who supposedly protected his village during a major earthquakeOddly enough, there have not been any earthquakes for some years... ever since Bernardo had his first dramatic growth spurt.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385618948</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author= Jonathan Stroud
|author=Christine Johnson
+
|title= The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne
|title=Claire de Lune
+
|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=Claire was having the perfect sixteenth birthday. Okay, so most of the people probably only turned up for her swimming pool, her hands and ears were itching like crazy and everyone had to leave early because of the werewolf sighting in the forest nearby. But all Claire cared about was Matthew Engle, talking to her and flirting with her and promising to call her later. Then her mother takes her into the woods and reveals a dark and dangerous secret – she and Claire are werewolves. Everything Claire thought she knew about werewolves is wrong, but how can she continue to see Matthew, whose father is leading the hunt for them?
+
|isbn=1406394815
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847389287</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Mercedes Helnwein
|author=Louise Rennison
+
|title=Slingshot
|title=Withering Tights
+
|rating=3
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=After killing off Georgia Nicolson in a blaze of hedonism and vampires, it's time for [[:Category: Louise Rennison|Louise Rennison]] to start a new series, with a new teenage girl's first-person narrative. This time it's one Tallulah Casey, a lanky girl worried about her knees and underdeveloped cleavage, and off to stay at a posh drama performance workshop centre in the wilds of Yorkshire.
+
|summary=Gracie Welles has resigned herself to being lonely. As a secret illegitimate daughter of a man with a "real" family, she is used to not being a priority in people's lives. But when she defends a random boy in her class with her slingshot, her simple existence is changed for good. No longer can she spend her time writing novels in solitude, for her life now has a boy in it that she never asked for: Wade Scholfield.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007156839</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=152905818X
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author= T L Huchu
|author=Alex Scarrow
+
|title= The Library of the Dead
|title=TimeRiders: Day of the Predator
+
|rating= 4.5
|rating=5
+
|genre= Teens
|genre=Teens
+
|summary= Ropa Moyo is a ghostalker, using Zimbabwean magic (and a bit of Scottish pragmatism) to take messages from the dead of Edinburgh for their living relatives. Ever since she dropped out of school, she's been using it to support not only herself, but her younger sister and her aging grandmother. However, there's an evil stalking the ruined streets of Edinburgh, targeting the city's children. Soon, Ropa is pulled into the search for a missing boy at the request of his dead mother. She will end up discovering an occult library and realise that the world of magic is far bigger and more dangerous than she ever could've imagined. Will she find the missing children and bring an end to this evil, or will it claim her too?
|summary=Liam, Maddy and Sal were each about to die when an old man appeared to them and invited them to choose another fate. And out of the heartbreak of their decisions to bid farewell to their old existence and their loved ones is born a secret team of time riders, dedicated to putting right the chaos caused by those who meddle with time. It is a decision they will sometimes regret.
+
|isbn= 1529039452
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>014132693X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Kristen O'Neal
|author=Sharon Dogar
+
|title=Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses
|title=Annexed
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=There's been a bit of a kerfuffle over ''Annexed'' - the story of Peter van Pels, who shared the Amsterdam annexe with Anne Frank during World War II, who fell in love with the teenaged diarist, and who perished in a Nazi death camp called Munthausen in 1945. Sharon Dogar has been accused of sexing it up, disrespecting the too-recently deceased, and thrusting twenty-first century sexualised mores into a time where this sort of thing just didn't go on. So, on the one hand, I was very keen to read it and see what I thought.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849391246</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sophie McKenzie
 
|title=The Medusa Project: The Rescue
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=It's a fascinating premise: four babies are implanted with a gene relating to psychic abilities, and as they grow up it becomes clear they have each reacted differently, and developed different skills. Then write four books (plus a short story for World Book Day) about their shared adventures, with each book focussing on one boy or girl in particular. In this book, Ed is the central character: he is able to read minds, but is forced to use his gift for evil in order to save his friends. A high-octane tale about four teens struggling to stay alive when it seems every adult on the planet is out to use them for their own ends.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847385273</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Bree Despain
 
|title=The Dark Divine
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Grace and Jude Divine have always been the poster-children for kindness and understanding. Their father is a pastor, a truly good man, and they’ve been brought up to set a good example to those around them. They seem to have everything they could want – until Daniel Kalbi returns to their lives. Three years ago, Jude’s friend Daniel left unexpectedly. Jude was found lying covered in his own blood – and no-one has ever told his younger sister Grace what happened. With the return of the boy she had a crush on for years, Grace needs to work out exactly what happened and how it’s linked to some attacks on people and animals which have just started – could this be a dangerous attraction for her?
+
|summary= Having recently been diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease, Priya has to come to terms with the fact that she may be in constant pain for the rest of her life. She joins ''Oof Ouch My Bones'', an online support group where she talks to a bunch of other teens living with chronic illnesses. They talk about their troubles and help each other out, while also providing an escape to just joke and mess around. When Brigid—one of her closest friends—doesn't respond to the chat for a while, Priya becomes concerned. She decides to steal her parents' car and drive to Brigid's house to check up on her. But what she doesn't expect to find there is a werewolf in the basement – and for that werewolf to be the girl she has been talking to online for the past few months.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405254580</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1683692349
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Eoin Colfer
 
|title=Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis Complex
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Artemis Fowl is trying to save the world. No wonder Holly Short and Foaly think he's not himself. He might stand to make another huge fortune, but he's thinking about global warming, and technological cures for it. But he's also thinking about a lot of other things - in particular, the patterns of the number five. His mind seems stuck making him tap things in multiples of five times, and use sentences with five words in. But when his demonstration in Iceland goes wrong with a four-engined fairy space probe crashing, he certainly becomes something other than himself.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141328029</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell
 
|title=Wyrmeweald: Returner's Wealth
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=If you could imagine the frontier world of the Wild West transported to the Highlands of Scotland, you would have the setting for this first book in a new trilogy by the creators of the [[The Immortals (Edge Chronicles) by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell|Edge Chronicles]]. Micah, a poor farmhand, longs to make his fortune so he can marry the wealthy Seraphita, so he sets off for the Wyrmeweald, where riches beyond your wildest dreams can be had – if you survive. It is a harsh and unforgiving land, full of dangerous dragon-like creatures called wyrmes, but Micah soon learns that when it comes to violence and deceit, it is humans he needs to fear most.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>038561733X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest Thrillers Reviews]]
|author=Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguie
 
|title=Wicked: Resurrection
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=The eagerly-awaited conclusion to Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguié's ''Wicked'' series is finally here. After over three years of wondering and waiting to find out how this enthralling supernatural series will end, readers can finally dive straight into the war between good and evil with Resurrection and discover the answers to the secrets that have been kept from them.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847387373</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Vivian Oldaker
 
|title=The Killer's Daughter
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Emma has just moved to Wessex with her Dad and Jan, her Dad's girlfriend. But it's not just adjusting to a new school, a new country that Emma has to deal with. Emma's Dad was accused of murdering her famous Grandmother by pushing her off a cliff in Greece. No one wants to be her friend, and it's not long before she becomes the newest victim to bullies. Slashed swimming costumes, physical fights – being at her new school is difficult.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842708147</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Kieran Scott
 
|title=She's So Dead To Us
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Ally Ryan had not expected to return to Orchard Hill – ever.  Less than two years previously she and her family had moved out in a hurry when her father’s business dealings had caused serious financial problems in the local community.  But her mother has a job in the local school and they move into a small house and try to rebuild their lives.  Abby wasn’t exactly expecting a warm welcome but she was surprised when so many of her so called 'friends' cut her dead and it’s made obvious that she now lives on the wrong side of town.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857070444</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Gillian Philip
 
|title=Firebrand (Rebel Angels)
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Seth lives in the land of the Sidhe, protected from the world of full-mortals by an ancient magical Veil. There's an uneasy but relatively settled peace, with only the occasional border fray to disturb their long lives. But things aren't easy for Seth - he's the unwanted second son of a Sidhe lord, his mother interested only in the corridors of power at the court of Kate NicNiven, and his father with eyes only for his older brother Conal. The inhabitants of his dun don't trust him, he's half-feral, and his only real tie is to Conal, who has taken him under his wing, and for whom Seth would gladly die.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905537190</amazonuk>
 
}}
 

Revision as of 09:13, 8 April 2024

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

152905818X.jpg

Review of

Slingshot by Mercedes Helnwein

3star.jpg Teens

Gracie Welles has resigned herself to being lonely. As a secret illegitimate daughter of a man with a "real" family, she is used to not being a priority in people's lives. But when she defends a random boy in her class with her slingshot, her simple existence is changed for good. No longer can she spend her time writing novels in solitude, for her life now has a boy in it that she never asked for: Wade Scholfield. Full Review

1529039452.jpg

Review of

The Library of the Dead by T L Huchu

4.5star.jpg Teens

Ropa Moyo is a ghostalker, using Zimbabwean magic (and a bit of Scottish pragmatism) to take messages from the dead of Edinburgh for their living relatives. Ever since she dropped out of school, she's been using it to support not only herself, but her younger sister and her aging grandmother. However, there's an evil stalking the ruined streets of Edinburgh, targeting the city's children. Soon, Ropa is pulled into the search for a missing boy at the request of his dead mother. She will end up discovering an occult library and realise that the world of magic is far bigger and more dangerous than she ever could've imagined. Will she find the missing children and bring an end to this evil, or will it claim her too? Full Review

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Review of

Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses by Kristen O'Neal

5star.jpg Teens

Having recently been diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease, Priya has to come to terms with the fact that she may be in constant pain for the rest of her life. She joins Oof Ouch My Bones, an online support group where she talks to a bunch of other teens living with chronic illnesses. They talk about their troubles and help each other out, while also providing an escape to just joke and mess around. When Brigid—one of her closest friends—doesn't respond to the chat for a while, Priya becomes concerned. She decides to steal her parents' car and drive to Brigid's house to check up on her. But what she doesn't expect to find there is a werewolf in the basement – and for that werewolf to be the girl she has been talking to online for the past few months. Full Review

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