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
{{newreview
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|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
|author=Jessica Verday
 
|title=The Hollow: The Haunted
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=In [[The Hollow by Jessica Verday|The Hollow]], Abbey tried to cope with the
 
disappearance of her best friend and her feelings for new boyfriend Caspian - only to find herself losing her grip on sanity when she discovered Caspian was dead, a Shade, rather than another real person. After a summer away from Sleepy Hollow, she returns, trying to concentrate on making perfumes and getting science tuition from nice cute Ben - but then Caspian reappears. Will the two find true love? Why are there so many other weird strangers around Sleepy Hollow who Abbey keeps meeting? What exactly DID happen to Kristen? Where do Katrina Van Tassel and Nikolas, the famous Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow, fit into all this? And does anyone who missed the first book have any hope of following what's going on?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847384994</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Simone Elkeles
 
|title=Rules of Attraction
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=
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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?
Carlos Fuentes isn't interested in living in America with his over-protective brother Alex, but his mother sends him there for his senior year of high school to try and keep him out of trouble. Kiara Westford is happy to help a new guy settle in - at least until the shy stutterer actually meets the bad boy. Despite their initial dislike of each other, they're thrown together when Carlos has drugs
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|isbn=0008666482
planted on him and her well respected father takes him in to stop him being sent back to Mexico. Will these two headstrong youngsters find love?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857070436</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Rachel Greenlaw
|author=Sarah Silverwood
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|title=Compass and Blade
|title=The Nowhere Chronicles: The Double-Edged Sword
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|rating=3.5
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=When Fin's guardian, Judge Harlequin Brown is murdered, life as he knows it becomes a whole lot more exciting and dangerous. In the course of one life-changing day, he learns that there is a pathway between his London in 'Somewhere', and an alternate London of a parallel world called 'Nowhere', and that the fates of both worlds are now under threat from a group of rogue Knights, who have the ability to travel between these worlds using their double edged swords.
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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>0575095288</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=Elizabeth Chandler
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|isbn=0008664730
|title=Dark Secrets 3: The Back Door of Midnight
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Like the first four novellas in the Dark Secrets series - previously released in two 'bind-up' editions - this story features a teenage girl returning to Wisteria, Maryland and trying to find closure on past events. In this case, Anna is summoned there by a letter from her uncle asking her to return to the place where her mother died so that he can tell her something important about their family, but by the time she returns her uncle is dead, his body found in the boot of a burnt out car. Her aunt seems crazy, and her first instinct is to get out as quickly as possible, but instead she's drawn into the mystery along with her cute neighbour Zack. The O'Neill women have always been said to be psychic, and Anna starts getting her own flashes which may draw her towards a solution - but also further into danger.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857070347</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Harry Allen
|author=Lisi Harrison
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|title=Children of the Sun
|title=Monster High
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=I don't know about everyone else, but I'm getting a bit fed up of all the vampires, werewolves and other creepies that seem to have popped up since the explosion of hype around [[Twilight by Stephenie Meyer|Twilight]]. So, when this book landed on my doorstep, I can't say I held much hope for it.
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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>1907410635</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1805140493
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Clare Chambers
 
|title=Burning Secrets
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Daniel, his mother and his sister Louie are escaping the city to spend six months on the isolated island of Wragge. They're all escaping something: Daniel's mother is still getting over a broken marriage; Louie is prone to black depressions and self-harming; Daniel has just been released from a youth offenders institution after a conviction for fire-setting resulting in the death of an old itinerant. There's plenty to leave behind.  
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007307284</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Alexia Casale
|author=Kenneth Oppel
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|title=Sing if you Can't Dance
|title=Half Brother
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Ben's thirteen and an only child. You'd think he was entirely used to being the centre of attention, then, wouldn't you? But this isn't really the case. Ben's parents are academics. His father is a fiercely ambitious behavioural psychologist and his mother is both completing her doctorate and acting as her husband's research assistant. Ben is used to coming second to the advance of science. He can cope with that. Usually. But then his parents up sticks and move him all the way across Canada. Why? Because his father's new university is prepared to underwrite his new project - raising a chimpanzee as human and trying to teach it American Sign Language.
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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>0385618417</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571373801
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Simon Fox
|author=Marie-Louise Jensen
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|title=Deadlock
|title=Sigrun's Secret
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=It must have seemed to Sigrun that she had an ideal life in Iceland, breaking and training the colts on the family farm or helping her mother, Thora, who was a healer.  Life seemed to be complete when her father's ship returned home and the family was together again.  It was not to last though.  Sigrun's parents were hiding a dreadful secret and when it caught up with them, Sigrun, her father and Asgrim, her brother were forced into exile in Jorvik for three years.  She was completely unused to the busy city life and disliked the violence and cruelty she found around her.  But – at the same time – her own skills as a healer and midwife began to blossom.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192728822</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Darren Shan
 
|title=Birth of a Killer (The Saga of Larten Crepsley)
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Larten Crepsley leads a hard, hard life. One child amongst many, born during an industrial revolution, he works horrendously long and dangerous hours in a silk factory even though he's yet to see his teens. If the family is to eat, there is little choice. The foreman is a violent bully, issuing regular beatings, and nobody dares challenge him and if it wasn't for his orphan cousin, Vur, Larten's life would be grim indeed. But things never seem quite so dark when you have a true friend, do they?
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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>0007315856</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839944420
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Lex Croucher
|author=Beate Teresa Hanika
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|title=Gwen and Art Are Not in Love
|title=Learning to Scream
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|rating=4
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Malvina is thirteen years old, the youngest of three children in a dysfunctional family.  Her father is a very grumpy teacher, with little understanding of children, whilst her mother seems to suffer permanently from migraine.  She has a good friend, Lizzy, and they play together as much as they can, united in their dislike of the 'boys from the estate'.  Her grandmother died last year, leaving her granddad on his own and it's Malvina's job to go and visit him and take him his meals.  The family think this is a great arrangement because they know how much Granddad loves Malvina and looks forward to her visits.  There's a problem though.  Malvina doesn't like going, particularly on her own.  Granddad kisses her on the mouth.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849390606</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=P J Bracegirdle
 
|title=The Joy of Spooking: Unearthly Asylum
 
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=The district of Spooking is still a problem for the evil diplomats from Darlington, the city that surrounds it.  It was in the way of their waterpark [[The Joy of Spooking: Fiendish Deeds by P J Bracegirdle|last time]], and now puts a stop to a new sewage plant. Actually, chiefly in the way last time was Joy, who still calls it homeA cold, decrepit, run-down and gothic home in her instance, but home nevertheless.  But the evil diplomats are still making their plans to redevelop the place.  If only Joy could claim historical prestige for it with her beloved author E A Peugeot as a son of Spooking.
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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 wayIn 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 diariesAnd 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>1847385206</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1526651793
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Nick Brooks
|author=Leila Rasheed
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|title=Promise Boys
|title=The World Turned Upside Down
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Stratford upon Avon 1642 – The English Civil War has come to the town. Mary is a young Catholic at a time when her religion was regarded with deep suspicion. She is drawn to Jack, even though he is a Roundhead soldier with no money, land or status, and he is from an inferior background to her.
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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>0956506402</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1035003155
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1919635017
|author=Rick Yancey
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|title=A Thief to Catch a Killer
|title=The Monstrumologist: The Curse of the Wendigo
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|author=Kitt Townsend
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=While the celebrated monstrumologist Dr Peregrine Warthrop has spent his life tracking down dark and mysterious creatures, the existence of some of these fiends is too much for him to believe. In fact, there's a split between Warthrop, his former close friend John Chanler, and their mentor Von Helrung over whether
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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...
there really are such things as vampires, werewolves, and the terrifying wendigo, rumoured to be the ultimate predator. Warthrop scoffs at the other men's belief in this creature - and at one point in the book gives an interesting lecture on why it's impossible for it to exist - but nevertheless goes in search of Chanler when he disappears searching for it. It's not just friendship that drives him to look for his colleague though, as he's asked by Chanler's wife Muriel - who is Warthrop's former fiancee. The search for Chanler takes the monstrumologist and his young assistant John Henry deep into the Canadian wilderness, but when they return to New York they bring back someone - or something - that can endanger their lives.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847387675</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Celine Kiernan
 
|title=Moorehawke Trilogy: The Rebel Prince
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Fantasy
 
|summary=After spending the entire of [[Moorehawke Trilogy: The Crowded Shadows by Celine Kiernan|The Crowded Shadows]], the excellent second book in this series, looking for it, the Protector Lady Wynter Moorehawke has finally discovered the hidden
 
camp of her childhood friend Prince Alberon. Can she, along with her travelling companions Razi Kingsson - Alberon's brother - and Christopher Garron, persuade the Rebel Prince to make peace with his father, or is their quest to end in bloodshed and failure?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498238</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Alyxandra Harvey
 
|title=Out For Blood
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Hunter Wild has always been head of her class at the Helios-Ra Vampire Hunter Academy. Her family takes vampire hunting very seriously – she's called Hunter, after all – and her Grandpa is one of the most infamous vampire hunters of his generation. He believes in staking all vampires, no questions asked. But then, he also believes it's a good idea for Hunter to cut off all her long blonde hair. Hunter isn't so sure on either count.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408807068</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Brenna Yovanoff
 
|title=The Replacement
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Mackie lives in Gentry, a prosperous but quiet town. People are good and kind and the trials and tribulations of other places have traditionally been absent from Gentry. Recently, however, things have felt less secure. People are getting nervous and it just won't stop raining. Mackie isn't doing too well either. His allergies to blood and steel are getting worse and worse and his health is beginning to fail. It's getting more and more difficult to avoid the truth...
 
 
 
... because Mackie is different.  
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847388396</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Lisa McMann
 
|title=Gone
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Janie's made it through so much. And now she's graduated from high school, has a guaranteed job with the local police after college, and a boyfriend who loves her like crazy. Her future should be bright, but it isn't. Because Janie's a dreamcatcher. She can - has to - inhabit other people's dreams. It's great for a career in crime fighting, but it's burning her out. Janie knows that within just a few years she'll be blind and crippled.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857070401</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jenny Downham
 
|title=You Against Me
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=''If someone hurts your sister and you're any kind of man, you seek revenge, right? If you're brother's accused of a terrible crime but says he didn't do it, you defend him, don't you?''
 
 
 
It all seems so straightforward, doesn't it? But it's not straightforward at all for Mikey and Ellie. Mikey comes from a tower block. His mother's an alcoholic and Mikey has to shoulder most of the parental responsibility in the house - getting food on the table, getting his littlest sister to school, fending off periodic interest from social services. Meanwhile, he's trying to make something of himself, training as a chef at a seaside pub.  
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385613504</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Patrick Ness and Tea Bendix
|author=Jennifer Donnelly
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|title=Different for Boys
|title=Revolution
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
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|genre=Teens  
|summary=Meet Andi, a New York girl on a trip to ParisShe's a talented musician at a school for exceptional studentsShe's a wisecracking, quick thinking girl who acts on impulse. She's a brilliant people watcher, and her descriptions of what she sees will make you smileShe's also seriously depressed with a pill popping habit that is spiralling out of control.
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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 togetherAs they're all fired up, straining at the leash only a single-sex school can form, the talk in class and out often turns to sex.  Which is confusing for Ant, as he doesn't know what his score is, where his achievements in that regard lieHe's had a casual relationship, a secret one, for several months now, and so has effectively progressed up the ladder headed by 'experienced', but whether that's set in stone, he can't be sureAnd that's mostly because of who he's been having the relationship and the sex with.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408801523</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1529509491
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1800901232
|author=Jennifer Lynn Barnes
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|title=Stitched Up
|title=Raised by Wolves
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|author=Steve Cole
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
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|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
|summary=Bryn has lived almost all her life around Werewolves. Ever since a Rabid killed her family – only narrowly escaping herself – she's been under the care of her saviour, the Stone River Pack alpha, Callum. Marked as Pack, but Human, not Werewolf, Bryn is something of an oddity. She lives by Pack rule, but tries at every opportunity to undermine it – to keep her distance and maintain that piece of her that is her true self. She doesn't want to submit to Callum's alpha dominance and lose her last piece of freedom.
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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>085738029X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Scott Westerfeld
 
|title=Behemoth
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=World War One looms and Europe's powers are getting ready their armies. In a last ditch attempt at diplomacy, the British air ship Leviathan carries aboard a gift for Sultan Mehmed V, Lord of the Horizons and ruler of the Ottoman Empire. But when things go drastically and dramatically wrong Deryn, a girl posing as a male midshipman aboard the Leviathan and Alek, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, find themselves fighting their own battles. Everyone has their own secrets, but not everyone wants to spark a deadly war...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184738675X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jonathan Stroud
 
|title=The Ring of Solomon (Bartimaeus)
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Barty is back!
 
 
 
Well, he isn't actually back. But we do get to revisit him. Which is good.
 
 
 
I'm sure you know who I'm talking about. But just in case you don't, Bartimaeus is a sarcastic, wisecracking djinni and the star of a wonderful and best-selling series by Jonathan Stroud. Whilst tied to various enslaving magicians, Bartimaeus has had a finger in many pies of world history, particularly that of London. In fact, he's saved the day almost as many times as Doctor Who has. But Bartimaeus is no Doctor Who. He's a rude, sarcastic egomaniac and unselfish behaviour isn't his byword. But he cracks an irresistible one liner. And he usually comes through in the end.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385619154</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Patrice Lawrence
|author=Alexander Gordon Smith
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|title=Needle
|title=Furnace: Fugitives
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|rating=3
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=It has taken three books for Alex to get out of prison.  He wouldn't have been there if the powers-that-be hadn't framed him for murder, and he would have found it a better experience were it a regular prison.  But no.  Over those three books we have seen just what lives and works in the completely subterranean nightmare - The Warden, Mr Furnace, and the evil creatures they are both making, breeding and employing down there. But the whole experience has come at a cost. Alex has been around these evil men too much, and they are changing him too - making him one of their tools. It's only now, on the outside for the first time, that Alex gets a clearer picture of just how many tools there are - and just how much evil has been spread.
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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>0571259391</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1800901011
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author= Ann Sei Lin
|author=Carl Hiaasen
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|title= Rebel Skies
|title=Scat
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|rating= 5
|rating=4.5
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|genre= Teens
|genre=Confident Readers
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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=Nick and his friend Marta are ordinary kids. They don't look for trouble, and they don't cause it. But when an unpopular teacher punishes a difficult classmate by making him write an essay about his pimples, then trouble can't be far away. The teacher goes missing during a wildfire, and Duane (nicknamed Smoke, because he has a reputation for setting fires) gets the blame. But the evidence doesn't add up, and our young heroes decide it's up to them to discover the truth.
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|isbn=1406399590
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444000594</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Marcus Sedgwick
|author=Tim Bowler
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|title=Wrath
|title=Blade: Risking All
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=It's the final chapter. There's nothing let now but the last confrontation. Blade has nothing left to lose and at last revenge is in sight. Under pressure from the porkers and the gangs, and with his private empire crumbling, Hawk has retreated to his remote hideout. Blade is there, waiting. But Hawk is surrounded by a private army of security. Dozens of grinks and gobbos lie between Blade and his nemesis and getting past them isn't going to be easy. But Blade has his instinct back and nothing is going to stand in his way. Losing is not an option. But can he beat the man who has never known defeat? Can he find redemption?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>019275601X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Robert Muchamore
 
|title=Shadow Wave (CHERUB)
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=A shadow wave is a tidal flow that happens after a tsunami, and it can be deadly because it travels in the opposite direction and is often unexpected. Robert Muchamore's latest book in the CHERUB series is named after this phenomenon, and tells what happens when a bunch of young CHERUB secret agents and their teachers get caught up in the chaos in Malaysia which follows the 2004 earthquake and tsunami. They rescue impoverished villagers and help them begin rebuilding their homes, only to see all their hard work destroyed by government officials who use the disaster as an excuse to take away the fishermen's land and use it to build hotels for rich foreigners. Muchamore pulls no punches as he shows how greed and corruption win out over people's right to keep to their traditional lifestyles.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>034095647X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Benjamin J Myers
 
|title=Bad Tuesdays 3: Blood Alchemy
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=Chess and her brothers have been separated. Box and Splinter are incarcerated on a prison planet, at the mercy of the Twisted Symmetry and their Dog Troopers. Chess is just as much of a prisoner - she's being "protected" by The Committee and languishes in a safe house, itching to be free. None of the three intend on being locked up for long. Chess wants to find out who she really is and then to get on with destroying the Brain that feeds off the energy of innocent children, and Box wants to get back to Chess and help protect her. And Splinter, well, he's got ideas of his own and they certainly don't include an agonising death at the hands of his captors.  
+
|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>184255641X</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1800900899
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Nadia Aguiar
 
|title=Secrets of Tamarind
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=The Island of Tamarind is once again under threat, from the evils of the Red Coral.  Once more Simon and his sisters Maya and Penny (but mostly Simon) must save the island that only they can reach, as it lies in some exotic Bermuda Triangle.  For a second book running they must breach the barriers, solve mysteries surrounding their native friend Helix's legacy, and the native magical element ophalla, and put the island to rights.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141384336</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Thomas E Sniegoski
 
|title=The Fallen: Fallen and Leviathan
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Thousands of years ago, a bunch of angels fell in love with human women. For their sins, they were cast out of Heaven. Their children are the Nephilim. They are hunted by Verchiel, leader of the Powers, hell-bent (excuse the pun!) on destroying them, especially the leader who prophecy says will lead them. On his 18th birthday, Aaron Corbet has a strange dream of weapons clanging and angels descending on a battlefield... and wakes up able to speak and understand any language, including that of his dog Gabriel. We can see where this is going, can't we?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857071211</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Tori Bovalino
|author=Chris Priestley
+
|title=The Devil Makes Three
|title=The Dead of Winter
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Michael Vyner's father died when Michael was just a baby. He was a hero, sacrificing himself to save the life of Sir Stephen Clarendon whilst fighting for the British Empire in Afghanistan. This was precious little comfort to Michael and his mother, who resented the rich man's largesse over the years, wishing for the man they lost and not the charity of the man he saved. So, when Michael's mother dies too and he finds himself all alone in the world, he is not entirely overjoyed to discover that Sir Stephen is now his guardian and has invited him to spend Christmas at Hawton Mere.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408800136</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Berlie Doherty
 
|title=Deep Secret
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=
 
Every now and again them there publisher people do this reviewer a big favour and reissue a book that she missed first time around. This is one of those now and thens. Anybody who loves words - child or adult - will love the way Berlie Doherty writes. Her graceful, lyrical prose just floats from the page and you lose yourself in the worlds she creates. She's known for her versatility too - writing realistic books about contemporary issues, fantasies and, as here with Deep Secret, historical novels.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849392358</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=L A Weatherly
 
|title=Angel
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=If you loved the [[Twilight by Stephenie Meyer|Twilight]] series, you will also love ''Angel'', the first book in a new paranormal trilogy. However, even if you are among those who didn't see the attraction of Ms Meyer's books, there's a very good chance you will enjoy this: L A Weatherly is a gifted writer, and her take on paranormal romance is expertly crafted, full of exciting plot twists and well-rounded characters.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409521966</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sophie McKenzie
 
|title=Blood Ransom
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=
+
|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.
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.  
+
|isbn=1789098130
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847387632</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Philip Reeve
|author=Celine Kiernan
+
|title=Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep
|title=Moorehawke Trilogy: The Crowded Shadows
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|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
 
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
 
|author=David Whitley
 
|title=The Children of the Lost
 
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|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.
+
|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>0141330120</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1788452372
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston
|author=Rook Hastings
+
|title=Julia and the Shark
|title=Immortal Remains (Weirdsville)
 
|rating=4
 
|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.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007258119</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Andy Mulligan
 
|title=Trash
 
|rating=5
 
|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.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385619014</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sara Starbuck
 
|title=Dread Pirate Fleur and the Hangman's Noose
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|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-huntsBut worse is to come.  William gets captured there, and someone Fleur thought long dead starts to take his place on board insteadFleur then has to skipper the craft herself, on a rescue mission, in a very tense domestic situationThat'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...
+
|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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1862307296</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1510107789
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author= Jonathan Stroud
|author=Ken Howard
+
|title= The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne
|title=The Young Chieftain
+
|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=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.
+
|isbn=1406394815
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848530331</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Mercedes Helnwein
|author=Michael Grant
+
|title=Slingshot
|title=Lies (Gone)
+
|rating=3
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|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...  
+
|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>1405254297</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=152905818X
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author= T L Huchu
|author=L J Smith
+
|title= The Library of the Dead
|title=The Night of the Solstice
+
|rating= 4.5
|rating=3.5
+
|genre= Teens
|genre=Confident Readers
+
|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=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.
+
|isbn= 1529039452
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857070509</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Kristen O'Neal
|author=Cathy Cassidy
+
|title=Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses
|title=Cherry Crush: The Chocolate Box Girls
+
|rating=5
|rating=4.5
 
|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 altogether.  How will Cherry cope?  And how will the Tanberry family cope with two new members?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141384794</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Kelly McKain
 
|title=Half a Sister
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|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.
+
|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>0746091249</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1683692349
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest Thrillers Reviews]]
|author=Tricia Telep (Editor)
 
|title=Kiss Me Deadly
 
|rating=4
 
|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.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0762439491</amazonuk>
 
}}
 

Revision as of 09:13, 8 April 2024

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

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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

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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

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Review of

Slingshot by Mercedes Helnwein

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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

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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

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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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