Since unexpectedly losing her mother, Jihad’s world has become devoid of colour. She can’t wait to graduate and move away for art school. But when her father enrols her into a prestigious school for senior year, she’s filled with dread.
Simo and Luca are in love. At least, that’s what the noticeboard in the centre of Lombard village is telling everyone on one bright September morning. Best friends for ten years, Luca Dean and Simo Lorca know each other better than anyone else – but Simo doesn’t know that Luca is in love with him, and Luca doesn’t know if he can ever be honest with Simo.
Award-winning Brian Conaghan is well known for his gritty, heartfelt teen fiction, and Stealing Happy is a very welcome addition to his work.
Like the veiled kingdom in which she lives, Viola Sinclair is cursed: cursed with magic, for which the punishment is death, and worse, cursed with the attention of the kingdom’s only prince, who also happens to be the queen’s deadly assassin. When the queen discovers Viola’s magic in the course of her hunt for the king’s killer, the clock begins ticking: Prince Roze has seven days to end her life, or the queen will end his. But Roze has a secret too, and he’s willing to sacrifice everything – and feign an engagement to Viola – to get what he needs.
Libby’s life is dramatically upturned when a video of her ‘cheating’ on her boyfriend, Dan, goes viral. Dan is in an accident on the same night and is now in a coma. Libby’s life becomes lonely and frustrating until she lays eyes on Neha, the new girl in school.
Eighteen-year-old Jasmin has a troubled family history, having witnessed her adored grandfather attempt to kill her grandmother at a young age. Now she has the conflicting memories of him to sit with and nobody she can call a true friend, so when the close-knit group of college students that she has been watching from afar take her under their wing she feels right at home in their seductive world of mystery. But after a tragedy on campus that the friends grow increasingly embroiled in, the cracks between them begin to show and the feeling of safety fades away.
Sariyah, a Black 17-year-old, has a unique ‘gift’ for hearing the needs of strangers, but it won’t seem to allow her to hear the needs of those closest to her. This ability intrudes on Sariyah’s daily interactions, adding to the challenges she navigates due to family circumstances. Sariyah’s brother is unwell with Sickle cell disease, her mother struggles with depression and while her parents are still together, her father opted to stay in their original home when the rest of the family relocated because of her brother’s health condition.
Bringing together a fun, cosy take on light fantasy with a high-stakes adventure narrative, this story builds on the legend of Robin Hood and the Merry Men and constructs a fabled world with mystical woodlands and hilarious queer characters.
A coming of age novel that takes place over only forty-eight hours, Almost Nothing Happened has a vividly illustrated cover that instantly tells the reader that the title is not entirely true. Told between current events and flashback memories of the previous two months, the book follows narrator Callum through his sometimes improbable experiences around the varied neighbourhoods of Paris as he grapples with regret, impulsivity, and pining.
Helen Comerford’s début novel marks her as an author to keep an eye out for. An anxiety-inducing prophecy is set to hit Nine Trees in the year 2024. Jenna is trapped in a burning cinema and saved by new up-and-coming superhero Blaze. It’s a massive event – there are cameras! Media! Press! Live interviews with a burning building in the background! What could possibly be more heroic than that? But as Jenna was the first to be rescued by Blaze, this event automatically crowns her as ‘The Love Interest’. And Jenna, as well as her father and sister, is not too happy about this.
