Bloomsbury YA

Eighteen year old Salama volunteers as a nurse at her local hospital in Syria. For fifty years, the country has been under dictatorship, and the Free Syrian Army has taken to the streets to protect civilians.

Piecing Me Together is a thought-provoking and engrossing novel about a young teenager, Jade, who describes herself as one of those girls ‘with coal skin and hula-hoop hips’ brought up to ‘take opportunities every chance we get’. Raised in New Columbia, one of the poorer areas of Portland, Oregon (the author’s native city), Jade, a bright, creative girl with a particular interest in learning new languages and the arts, certainly does avail, or at least is encouraged to avail, of many opportunities.

A modern twist on ‘Beauty and the Beast’, this book is a slow burner that rewards the reader in its second half. Prince Rhen has been cursed by an evil sorceress after he breaks her heart. If he fails to get somebody to fall in love with him, he turns into a ferocious beast and the cycle begins again with a new girl. Rhen is a tortured character as he attempts to come to terms with everything he has done in the past. The author does not shy away from representing the hardships encountered by a young man learning to open up to those around him.

Meet 15-year-old Sam and his family as they uproot from the familiar environs of their home in Stevenage to the bright lights of London, following a rise in the family’s fortunes.

Thirteen-year-old Luke’s summer holidays are just beginning as he finds himself playing an active part in a drama he’d much rather just watch from the sidelines – or avoid altogether. His seventeen-year-old sister Rose has left the family home to join the environmentalist commune across the road. His parents are arguing all the time. The only person he can talk to is the quirky Sky who has moved to the commune with her mother.

Allison has run away from home and her abusive father. Taking refuge in an abandoned house in a Cornish seaside town, she finds it is the home of Marla, an elderly woman with dementia. Marla mistakes Allison for Toffee, a childhood friend, and Allison likes the idea of a new identity and name, of being ‘sweet and hard, a girl with a name for people to chew on. A girl who could break teeth’.

Two months after her sister’s mysterious death, Zara finds herself drawn deeper and deeper into a mysterious world of magic and folklore, and an ancient feud. Can Zara discover what really happened to her sister?

Maddie Morrow travels to visit her uncle at the Inn at Havenfall, in a small town in the Rocky Mountains. However, this is no ordinary inn. Beneath it lie hidden gateways between the Ancient Realms, some long sealed for the protection of the other worlds. When a body is discovered during a meeting to celebrate the Solstice, the fragile peace between these realms is compromised. Maddie must work to keep the peace and discover the truth lurking beneath Havenfall.

Maggie’s mum is having a hard time. Having recently lost her job, she has taken to staying in the house with the curtains closed all day. Maggie feels the weight of her mum’s sadness and is convinced that she can find a way to cheer her mum up. This mission would be easier if Maggie wasn’t already juggling some very heavy struggles of her own.

Seventeen-year-old Marty travels to London with his oboe and a bit of savings. He’s lied to his parents to make his escape from conservative small-town Kentucky. Marty struggles to maintain the fiction that he’s attending a prestigious music academy, while he’s actually auditioning for gigs, making friends, experiencing his first romantic relationship and living openly as a gay man. His anxiety and guilt eat away at him, and Marty will do just about anything to avoid going home.