Jessica Warman(Egmont) On the dawn of her eighteenth birthday, Elizabeth Valchar wakes on her father’s yacht after a night of partying and walks onto the deck to investigate a noise. She finds herself staring at a dead body in the water. Her own body. Liz is forced to witness her family and friends coming to …
thrillers
August
Bernard Beckett(Quercus) Stuck in a car wreck, upside down, gravely injured, Tristan and Grace are staring at death, hanging on to the faint hope that when the sun rises, someone will notice them. Fate has brought them together one final time, after doing so time and time again throughout their lives. As they fight for …
The Vampire Hunters
Pete Johnson(Yearling) On his thirteenth birthday, Marcus found out that he was a half-vampire. It might sound exciting, but Marcus certainly does not think so: blood cravings, near death-experiences when eating pizza (half-vampires are allergic to garlic) and powerful vampires wanting to drink your blood while you are a fledgling … it is not that …
Trash
Andy Mulligan(David Fickling Books) Raphael, Gardo and Jun-Jun are dumpsite boys. They spend all day sorting through piles of rubbish and the huge landfill site which is also their home, hoping to find, amongst the human excrement, bits and bobs that they can sell on. When Raphael finds a small leather pouch containing some money as well as some …
The Great Hamster Massacre
Katie Davieswith illustrations by Hannah Shaw(Simon & Schuster Children’s Books) It is a new school year and Anna has been asked to write a report on her summer holidays. Her mum wants her to “embellish” the truth but no, Anna wants to write about what really happened, and that, is the bloody massacre of her …
Quarry
Ally Kennen(Marion Lloyd Books) Scrappy is going nowhere fast. His mother has walked out on the family, his grandfather is losing the plot, his father is grumpy and obsessed with his scrap yard with little time for his family and his sister is frantically saving for a deposit on a flat so she can be out …
The Double Life of Cassiel Roadnight
Jenny Valentine(HarperCollins Children’s Books) Sixteen year-old Chap has been in trouble for fighting (again) in the shelter he has been staying in when the strangest thing happens: the social workers show him a missing person’s poster with his photograph on it. Except, it is not him. The boy is called Cassiel Roadnight, and he has …
Ausländer
Paul Dowswell(Bloomsbury) Peter (Piotr, as he is known at the beginning of the book) is a Polish orphan of German descent. His parents were killed during the first day of the Soviet invasion of Poland and he has been living in squalor in a Polish orphanage ever since. But when Nazis come in to the …
Blood Hunters
Steve Voake(Faber & Faber Children’s Books) In the middle of the Mexican jungle a small scientific team prepares to embark on an exploration of the world’s deepest sinkhole; a naturally-formed underwater shaft, the bottom of which no one has ever reached. What they are about to discover could change the world forever.Three thousand miles away, …