Deirdre Nally

Written in diary format, this novel charts teenager Ellery’s attempts to come to terms with the untimely death of her mother, a bestselling American writer. As part of her bereavement journey, Ellery, now living in Cork, becomes obsessed with discovering the identity of her father, a secret her mother has brought with her to the grave. With the help of her bookish best friend Meg, Ellery has narrowed the list down to three famous authors, and together they embark on a mission to learn the truth about her paternity.

It hasn’t rained for a year in Funsprings. The rivers and streams and lakes have dried up. The animals are vanishing. The Forest is broken. Pippin must fix this aberration of nature and bring the water back to Funsprings. But Pippin is just an ordinary girl living an ordinary life – a girl who loves her mum and her dad and her granny and her pet mouse Tony. But Granny lets her into a secret.

Daphne Blakeway is accosted at the train station on her first day at ‘St Rita’s School for Spirited Girls’ and asked to return a book to the school library. Following a bank robbery in town and a break in at the school, Daphne realises this book is hot property and someone will stop at nothing to get their hands on it. With the help of schoolgirl librarian Emily Lime and scruffy George (St Rita’s sole male pupil) Daphne sets about tracking down the culprit.

Faith’s dad has gone missing, her mum is refusing to get out of bed, and her younger brother has started talking to a sea ghost in the cellar. Their house is balanced precariously on the edge of a crumbling cliff, with the crack in the ground growing bigger every day. Can things get any more complicated? Yes, of course they can.

When the Land of the Dolls is invaded by a horde of cruel, hungry rats, Karolina is taken captive and flees into the deep, dark woods. From there she is called by the wind to Kraków to live with a lonely dollmaker whose magic powers bring Karolina to life – a secret they share with no one but their best friends, Jewish musician Jozef and his daughter Rena. Then the Nazis arrive in Poland, occupying Krakow and beginning their dispossession of the Jews. Karolina and the dollmaker discover they must use all the magic they can command to save Jozef and Rena from a terrible fate.

‘Do you want to know a secret? Well, I can’t tell you.’ So begins The Clubhouse Mystery, a lively and funny book centred around Cass and her friends Lex and Nicholas. Together they comprise the Bubble Street Gang, a secret society named after the road on which they live (which is actually called Berbel Street, but who wants to be a member of the Berbel Street Gang?).

Do you want to know a secret? Well, I can’t tell you.

So begins The Clubhouse Mystery, a lively and funny book centred around Cass and her friends Lex and Nicholas. Together they comprise the Bubble Street Gang, a secret society named after the road on which they live (which is actually called Berbel Street, but who wants to me a member of the Berbel Street Gang?).

Dani is enjoying her summer holiday, spent on an island with her best friend Ella. They play all day long, build huts, dance in the sea, and swim five, six, seven times a day. They watch the moose swimming through the water and the sea eagles circling over the island. Sometimes Dani is a bit homesick for her hamsters, or her cat, or her dad who phones every evening. But mostly it seems that little can shadow Dani’s carefree summer world. But then her father arrives on the island accompanied by his new girlfriend, and Dani feels her happiness begin to slip away.