Aidan spiralled into grief after his mother died, making every mistake a teenager can possibly make. Now, he’s focused on finishing his exams, and determined to get a one-way ticket out of Derry. Not that he doesn’t love his city, but the wider world beckons – a world where it doesn’t matter if you’re Catholic, an Irish speaker or if your father carried a gun.
Immy is haunted by all the lives she has lived; they clamour in the back of her mind, crying out for attention, crying for the person she was a hundred, maybe a thousand years ago. But Immy is trying to live in the here and now, and she’s falling in love. She has been in love before, of course, but never like this.
Good historical fiction for the YA readership can be hard to find and good historical fiction with a strong female voice is rare indeed and worth shouting about. Mai is a thirteen-year-old girl, growing up in fifth century Britain. Bloodthirsty Saxons have descended on the island to take advantage of the chaos that the Romans left in their wake. It is a dangerous time for anyone, but particularly for a young girl. The stakes are life and death and your life can depend on what you have to trade – even if it’s just a story.
Alfie, his sister and his mum move to a village where everything seems quiet and boring at first, until the weather starts to behave as though it has a mind of its own: things freeze over in the middle of summer; mini tornadoes appear in glasses of water. Alfie is keen to investigate and is on the lookout for the source of these disturbances – and why wouldn’t he start with the strangest man in the village?
Emmy becomes internet-famous overnight when the video of her defeating the evil Mulch Queen goes viral – that’s the final boss in Illusory Tales, the best game ever made. Emmy is a brilliant gamer with her own gaming channel and online friends who worship her for her genius and skill.
