Category: new releases

Book of the Week, fiction, new releases, reviews, Uncategorized

Book of the Week: Midnight Crossroad

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I really struggled to pick a favourite book from last week.  Not because I didn’t like anything, but there wasn’t one book I really wanted to shout about – except my book club book – and that’s not out til next month, so I’ll tell you about that when you can actually buy it!

In the end, I have settled on Charlaine Harris’s Midnight Crossroad – which I got through NetGalley*.  It’s the first book in her new series (I think it’s pegged at three books) – and her first post-Sookie creation.  I’ve now read all of the Southern Vampire series, all of the Harper Connelly series, all of the Lily Bard series – and three of the Aurora Teagardens** so I guess you could say that I’m a fan.  I find her books really easy to read, her world building ticks my boxes and although each series clearly does have a formula, they are original enough that they don’t seem like the same book with new names if you know what I mean.

So Midnight Crossing is the convergence of the supernatural world of Sookie – and the worlds that we’ve seen in her other series – and to me it seems to try to root them all firmly in the same universe – which is something I’ve always wondered about.  There are some familiar faces from the previous series – and I’ve had trouble writing this without giving you spoilers.

The residents of Midnight might look normal (mostly), but they’re all hiding something.  Manfred has just moved to town and is about to discover that still waters really do run deep.  Ummmm.  And that’s about all I can say without giving too much away.  The story has multiple points of view, which can be a bit confusing at first, but it does work to establish the different characters and set up the town from the inside out as well as Manfred looking in.  But that’s not to say that by the end of the book you’ll know all the answers.

It’s not perfect, it’s not the best thing I’ve ever read – but it really is a nice way of passing an afternoon, especially if you’ve read the previous series.  It’s not the same genre really as the True Blood books – but it’s closer to them than any of her other series are.

As I said, my copy came from NetGalley – in advance of the UK paperback release on April 9 – you can pre-order that from Amazon or Foyles.  I can hear you pointing out the contradiction in not having my Book Club book as BotW because it’s not out yet – and then reviewing this which isn’t out for another week, and to that I offer you the Kindle link (and for the US readers, the amazon.com link because the paperback is already out there!) – although I’m sure the price will drop once the paperback comes out.  But you can get a sample now to see if you like it, while you can’t even get a sneak peak of my Book Club novel yet – it’s not out for three and a half weeks (or indeed the end of May in the US).  And it’s cruel to recommend something and make people wait that long!

* Having been reading the Dear Author palarva over the weekend, I’ve resolved to make sure I’m even more upfront about where my books come from – I already say on Goodreads if my copy was from NetGalley or similar, and I try to here, but I’m redoubling my efforts.  Transparency is key…

** I’ve bought book four after reading Midnight Crossing.  I suspect the second Omnibus is in my future…

Book of the Week, books, Chick lit, new releases, reviews

Book of the Week: Creature Comforts

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Regular readers to the blog will be unsurprised to discover that this week’s BotW is the new novel from Trisha Ashley.  The first review on this blog (and one of the earliest posts) was of her last book Every Woman for Herself  and I’ve been waiting eagerly for Creature Comforts ever since. And I managed to control myself – and read the book across three days, rather in one sitting.

Creature Comforts tells the story of Izzy, who returns to her childhood home of Halfhidden, after years travelling around the world.  She’s just broken up with her fiancé Kieran and is looking for answers about a tragic accident she was involved in as a teenager.  On top of that, she’s starting a new business and helping her friends with a plan to regenerate the village by getting more tourists in.  And her aunt’s dog rescue centre is in a spot of bother – with money and with the new owner of the estate that owns the land…

I love the corner of Lancashire that Trisha Ashley has created – and Halfhidden is a great addition to it.  I liked the dynamics of Izzy and her gang of friends – and there’s some fun supporting characters (as usual) who are quirky in a non-irritating way.  The plot’s a good one too – as Izzy tries to discover what happened that fateful night.  Trisha’s heroines always have a bit of baggage behind them to overcome – and I liked that Izzy’s wasn’t a husband/ex-partner as it so often is with books in this sort of genre.  I also really empathised over her ex-fiancé – who reminded me of one of my ex-boyfriends* with his attitude towards her and her life.

As usual, after reading on of Trisha’s books, I wanted to go back and read the earlier ones – this is partly because there are always little references to them, enabling you to catch a glimpse of what’s going on with some of your old friends, and reminding you how much you enjoyed reading about their lives.

Creature Comforts is Trisha’s first book to get a hardback release – you can buy it on Amazon, Waterstones, Foyles and hopefully in stores too.  The Kindle edition is available too and you can pre-order the paperback too if you can control yourself and wait until June.

 

*Although my exboyfriend didn’t cause me any of the trouble that Kieran causes Izzy!

Book of the Week, books, Chick lit, new releases, reviews

Book of the Week: Three Amazing Things About You

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This was so nearly last week’s book of the week – except that it didn’t get finished in time – and I can’t write a BotW post on something that isn’t over – after all it could all have gone terribly wrong in the last 100 pages.  But it didn’t and it was still the best thing I read last week, even if I did finish it first thing on Monday (!) so here were are.

Book
Such a pretty cover. I do love blue

Jill Mansell’s latest book tells the story of Hallie, Flo and Tasha.  At the start of the book we learn that Hallie has Cystic Fibrosis and is on the way to London for a possible transplant that could save her life.  Hallie runs a website where she answers people’s problems – like an agony aunt (but in a good way) – and her correspondents tell her three things about them before they tell her their dilemma.  As she travels to the hospital, she’s writing her three things –  an explanation – revealing her identity and her situation, in case she doesn’t make it.  Then we jump back to find out how we got to here…

The three stories intertwine in a way that I don’t really want to explain, except to say that it really works.  I loved all the characters in this book.  It made me laugh and it made me cry* and I think it may be my favourite of Jill Mansell’s books that I’ve read.  It’s definitely an evolution from her novels that I’ve read – and its a really good evolution.  I know I haven’t written a lot here – but I don’t want to give too much away.  But if you like smart, funny books with a heart, then this may well be for you.

Three Amazing Things About You is out now in hardback and ebook.  You can pick up a copy at all the usual place – and the supermarkets too – or if you can’t wait here are some links – Foyles, Waterstones, Kindle or my shop in My Independent Bookshop (which send money to my local indie)

* Luckily I have learnt from the Rabbit Hayes experience, and I did my crying on the sofa at home, not on the train!
Book Club, books, fiction, new releases, reviews

Book of the Week: The Ship

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So.  I have joined a book group*.  Or rather I have been allowed to join a book group (thanks Curtis Brown!) and this week’s BotW is our book group read from January.

Antonia Honeywell’s first novel, The Ship, tells the story of a future where the world has descended into chaos – the food has run out, natural resources are exhausted, where people routinely disappear without trace, and you can only continue to exist if your identity card remains valid – forcing you to jump through hoops to keep it up to date.  Lalla has grown up sheltered and protected by her father – who has been assembling a new life for them as her mother shows her around the British Museum.  But when the new life – on board a former cruise ship where her father has had picked all the other residents – gets underway, Lalla grows uneasy – about her future and their destination.

Antonia Honeywell's The Ship
Isn’t the cover gorgeous? I would definitely pick it up in a shop

Now I’m not usually a big reader of dystopian future novels.  I studied The Handmaid’s Tale at A-level – and read Brave New World, Children of Men and 1984 alongside that – but it’s not an area of fiction that I tend to pick up.  But I really, really enjoyed this.  It’s taut and full of suspense and keeps the reader guessing all the way through.  It leads the reader with questions – and it provoked a lot of debate at the (online) book group.

I don’t really want to say too much else about the book – because it’ll spoil it for you, but it’s definitely worth a read.  It paints a very believable picture of a possible future – but it’s one that I sincerely hope never comes to pass.  There are interesting characters – with flaws and secrets for the reader to uncover.  One of the blurbs describes it as Hunger Games meets Handmaid’s Tale – and I think I could get on board with that as a broad summary of what is a really interesting and complex book.

It has a beautiful cover – but I know that if I’d picked this up in the bookshop and brought it home it would have spent a long time sitting on the shelf waiting to be read – as I’m terrible for picking “light” fiction over books I perceive as harder work.  But the book group deadline meant I read this – and I really enjoyed it.  So clearly externally imposed deadlines will work on me – in a way that targets I set myself don’t!

Anyway, The Ship is out in Hardback on February 19th – preorder it on Kindle, from Amazon, Foyles and Waterstones.

*If you’re thinking that it’s odd that I’m not already in a book group, I work a job that has a 24/7 rota pattern making being able to be free on a specific night hard to guaranteed, and I live 80 miles away from where I work, which means I have a long commute – and friends split between home and work.  It’s a bit of a logistical nightmare…

Book of the Week, Children's books, new releases, reviews

Book of the Week: Arsenic for Tea

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I’m back in the children’s section with this week’s book of the week – embracing my long time (20-year plus) love of boarding school stories with Arsenic for Tea by Robin Stevens – the second book in her Wells and Wong series.

I mentioned the first book – Murder Most Unladylike – back in September and have been looking forward to reading the next one ever since.  In Arsenic for Tea, there’s a murder  at Daisy’s house, where Hazel is staying during the holidays.  Once again the Detective Society tries to work out who did it – from a cast of suspects including most of Daisy’s family.

When I started reading boarding school books – back in the early 1990s – the world that the girls at St Clares lived in wasn’t that different to the one that I was in.  They called maths arithmetic and the trains they travelled on were steam ones, but I could recognise their school life and identify it with mine. Since then, with computers, mobile phones, tablets and the like, school has changed a lot.  But Robin Stevens has found a way to write boarding school stories (yes this is set in the holidays, but it still counts) that still work for modern children.  By setting it in the 1930s, she can avoid having to include technology and things that may date very quickly, but she’s also included things that writers at the time didn’t talk about – but that children today can relate to and using Hazel as the principal narrator is a masterstroke.

Hazel is from Hong Kong – and this lends her narration a sense of detachment that works well.  She doesn’t fully understand this world either – so it makes sense for her to explain things that modern children might not quite understand but that would seem jarring if they were explained by Daisy who “belongs”.  Hazel also faces prejudice – and these are subtly dealt with, showing how unfair it is – in a way you never got in “old school” boarding school books, mostly because the cast was either all white – or because the author didn’t think that it was unfair (a sad commentary on a genre of books I love).

Daisy’s parents also have issues – their relationship is clearly… troubled and that forms part of the plot – which again you don’t have in books like Mallory Towers or my beloved Chalet School (where one doesn’t mention d.i.v.o.r.c.e or have any relationships that aren’t perfect.  Although there’s a high percentage of children missing one parent through death from TB or similar!).  This makes the book relatable – as well as making the plot make sense and hang together

I said in my mini review of book one that it’s like Mallory Towers crossed with Agatha Christie – and I stand by that.  There’s enough here for NotChildren like me to enjoy as well as the target audience.  In fact, it’s a bit like a good animated movie – there are bits that adults will love – nods to golden age detective fiction, etc – but that kids would pass straight over without realising that they were missing anything.  And Daisy and Hazel’s antics aren’t too outrageous – everything seems perfectly plausible for them to have been able to do, with enough peril to make it interesting, but not so much superhuman deduction that they don’t seem real.  In fact, part of the fun as a (supposedly) grown-up is the reading between the lines of what Hazel and Daisy don’t understand.

Arsenic for Tea is out on Thursday – you can pre-order the kindle copy here if you’re a grown-up, but I suggest if you’re buying for the 8 – 12 year old in your life and want use of your e-reader/tablet device in the near future, you buy the paperback – here it is on Amazon, Waterstones, Foyles or on my page at My Independent Bookshop – which gives money to one of my local indies.

books, new releases

Reminder: A Place for Us out today in Paperback

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Yes, I know, as if I haven’t gone on about Harriet Evans’ latest book enough already.  But for those of you who like a paperback in your hand – or who have a shelf of Harriet Evans they want to add to – A Place for Us is out today.

In case you missed my gushings about this already – it was on my Books of the Year List and I also did a bit of sleep deprived babbling about it after Part One and reviewed Part Two and Parts Three and Four too.

In case you can’t tell – I really liked it.  You should be able to get your copy all over the place – but here are some links: Foyles, Waterstones, Amazon and my page on My Independent Bookshop where you can also find various other books I’ve been raving about.

Book of the Week, books, Chick lit, new releases, reviews

Book of the Week: The Last Days of Rabbit Hayes

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What to say about this.  Really I should have been reading between Christmas and New Year – but as it had potential to be a weepy, I thought mixing it with nightshifts was a bad idea.  I had a meltdown over a relationship break-up at the start of a book during some nightshifts, so I thought I ought to avoid a book about a woman dying of cancer!  So, well rested and as emotionally stable as I ever get (that is to say, prone to tears when sad things happen or when people die in documentaries, even when I know it’s coming) I started in on this on commute to work.  And it nearly had me crying on the train not once, not twice, but three times.  On three separate train journeys.

Now I know what you’re saying: “Verity, why didn’t you stop reading the damn book on the train?” And the simple answer is that I couldn’t.  I had to know what happened next – how it all worked out for Rabbit and her family – and as I was on late shifts, the train was the only place where I was going to get a chance to do that.  But I did learn something – by the third train journey I’d scaled back the eyeliner and switched to waterproof mascara!

To go back to the beginning – The Plot.  Rabbit Hayes is dying.  She has cancer – it’s terminal – and the end is rushing towards her faster than anyone wants.  What will happen to her daughter Juliet? And to the rest of her tight-knit family?  But even though her mum and dad are still searching for a miracle, the reader always knows what’s going to happen to Rabbit.

Now I know that makes the book sound like a real downer – and like I said, I was in tears in places – but here’s the thing.  It’s not.  It’s funny and it’s rude and, most importantly, it’s life-affirming.  By the time it’s over, Rabbit may be gone – but you know that it’s ok and it’s going to be ok for everyone else too.  She was the glue that held her family together, but she’s helped them find a way to make it work without her.  And I don’t think that’s a spoiler.  You might cry for Rabbit – and be sad that it ended this way for her – but you’ll come away better for having known her.

I don’t usually do weepies.  The Boy is still borderline grumpy with me about the 2am crying fit that ensued at the end of The Fault in Our Stars after I insisted on staying up to read it to the end (Me: “I’ll have horrible dreams if I leave them like this” Him: “I don’t think reading til the end will make your dreams any more cheerful”).  There are a few books that I’ve studiously avoided reading because I know that they’re sad – and although I’ll read pretty much anything, I’d rather twiddle my thumbs than read anything from the “Tragic Lives” section of the bookshop. But this had such good reviews – and people whose books I love had raved about it – so I took the plunge, and I’m so glad I did.  Perhaps there are a few more books out there that I’ve been avoiding that I should be getting involved with. But maybe not on the train!

You can buy The Last Days of Rabbit Hayes everywhere.  It’s in Richard and Judy’s latest Book Club picks, so it’s in the Buy 1 get 1 for £1 promotion in W H Smith (or at least it was on Saturday), I’m expecting it to be all over the supermarkets and the high street book shops, but if you can’t wait or can’t be bothered to leave the house, you can buy it from Foyles or Waterstones or Amazon or Kindle or Kobo or my page on My Independent Bookshop (which gives money to my local Indie).

books, Chick lit, new releases, reviews

Review: The Woman Who Stole My Life

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I have a strange relationship with Marian Keyes books.  As a person, I love her on Twitter and I could watch her all day on Strictly It Takes Two or Bake Off Extra Slice.  But when it comes to her books, and when I read them, I enjoy them but there are some times I pick one up and just don’t fancy it.  I don’t know if it’s because as well as the humour she deals with Serious Issues – and I’m not always in the market for Proper Problems with my chick lit.*  She is massively, massively popular though – and I know this is a book which is going to be on a lot of Christmas lists this year.

The Woman Who Stole My Life is about Stella Sweeney – who tries to do a good deed and ends up a car crash, the fall out from which will change her life.  The novel jumps backwards and forwards between the now – and various points in the past which explain how she got there.

Now once again, this summary seems short and cryptic, but I’m trying hard not to give too much away because I really enjoyed not knowing all the twists and turns. I will admit that I sometimes found it hard to keep track of when we where we were in the story on occasions – but that may have been down to the formatting in the proof e-copy that I was lucky enough to receive.

One thing that I really wanted to mention was how much I love the title.  Who is the Woman Who Stole My Life ?  I’ve tried writing a sentence to explain what I mean six times – and each time it’s given away too much of the plot.  But trust me when I say when you read it, you’ll understand what I mean.

I think that this may be my favourite of Marian Keyes’ novels.  I like Stella – her voice reminds me of the tone that you get from Marian’s Twitter feed (@MarianKeyes if you don’t already follow her).  I occasionally wanted to give Stella a bit of a talking to, but most of the time I was totally rooting for her as she bounced back from a life-changing experience and tried to figure out what she wanted in life with the assistance (or otherwise) of her family and friends.

And having enjoyed this so much – despite there being some serious issues in there – it’s inspired me to go back and read some of the Keyes backlist that I’ve missed out on.  In fact I think that there may be a Walsh Family book in my library book bag waiting to be read.  Serendipity indeed.

The Woman Who Stole My Life feels like a winter book, something you can curl up on the sofa with and eat Jaffa cakes like there’s no tomorrow – just like Stella does although I give you fair warning that if you do, you may end up in “lady chinos” – just like Stella!

My copy came from Netgalley in return for an honest review, but I’m expecting The Woman Who Stole My Life to be front and centre on the displays and promotions in all the major shops, but if you want to buy online here are some links – for kindle, at Foyles, it’s on my shelves at My Independent Bookshop – where it’ll give some money to one of my local indies or you can buy it through Hive and give money to one of your local indies.

*As the regular reader will be aware, my aversion to Bad Things leads me towards the romance novels and cozy crime and away from Literary Fiction and Prize Winning books.

Chick lit, fiction, new releases, reviews

Review: A Place for Us Parts 3 and 4

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I have enjoyed this book so much – and contrary to my usual views about serialisations (and to my sleep-addled pleas after Part 1 of A Place For Us) I’ve really enjoyed having to wait for the next part, as it’s forced me to make the book last.  As a fast reader, when I find something I like, I gobble it up as quickly as possible – then it’s over.  As someone who finished each of the last 4 Harry Potter books by early afternoon the day that they came out, I can attest that this can leave you with a very long wait to find out what happened next and a sense of regret that it was over too soon.  But reading something spaced out over a period of time gives you a different perspective than eating it up in a big rush.  And this is a book that I would definitely have read in a hurry.  I was desperate to find out what happened next and how it was all going to work out.

The end of Part 2 left us with another major plot development.  Part 3 throws everything up in the air again – so that it falls down in different places and leaves the reader with some answers – but most of the characters are still in the dark.  Part 4 puts everything back together and by the end you can see the family walking forwards into a new future.

And I can’t say much more than that about the plot – because I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone – particularly as part of the joy of this for me was not knowing where this was going and how everything was going to link up together.  Also because the book is going to be published as a proper book in early 2014, anything I say in this post is giving spoilers for the second half of the book – which I try not to do with books I’m reviewing.

This books has such a large cast of characters it is hard to pick a favourite.  Instead I’ll say that I liked the Grandchildren strands the best – if I was forced to pick – but it’s a really tough choice, because every part of the plot has something about it that makes me think that I like that one best.  Certainly the book wouldn’t be as good as it is if any one of them was missing.

This is a different sort of book from Harriet Evans I think.  I’ve read a couple of her books in the past (and as is standard for me, I have a couple waiting to be read as well) and although I enjoyed them and recommend them – I wouldn’t have lent them to my mum.  This one I would.  And that’s because she loves big family sagas spread across time – and even though this one is mostly set in the present so much of the story is because of what happened in the past.  I keep wanting to mention Elizabeth Jane Howard’s Cazalet Chronicles in connection with this book and I can’t quite pin down why – except that they are both books about extended families with secrets which switch between characters as the stories continue and where a house is almost a character in its own right.

Anyway, if you haven’t started reading A Place For Us, you should try it – and now all four parts are available you won’t have the agonising wait that I did between parts 1 to 3 (the holiday meant I got to part 3 a bit later than intended and was able to go straight on to Part 4).  If you want a proper book copy – it’s not out until January 15th next year, which is a shame as I probably have bought it for my sister for her Christmas book if I could have done.  Here are the links to the kindle versions of Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.  I got the first three parts through NetGalley (in return for an honest review) but bought myself Part 4 because I was so desperate to know how it all worked out.

books, Children's books, new releases, reviews, Young Adult

Young Adult Reading Round-up

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Welcome to my (roughly) quarterly round-up of what Young Adult and Children’s fiction I’ve been reading recently.

We start this time with Gail Carriger’s Etiquette and Espionage*, which is the first book in her Finishing School series.  Published 18 months ago – the third book is due out next month – it’s a steampunk school story which ticked quite a few of my boxes (Nineteenth century setting, school story, assertive female lead) and stayed on the right side of what I can get into when it comes to vampires and supernaturals.  I loved the premise – a finishing school which teaches its students espionage alongside social graces.  The cast of characters was interesting, the plot was pacy and you get the feeling there are lots more things still to be revealed in the rest of the series.  I think it would suit an early teen who was a Worst Witch fan and who likes Harry Potter – but it works for those of us who are Young Adult at heart with a thing for school stories as well.

In the last round-up I mentioned that Fools’ Gold by Philippa Gregory was on the to-read pile.  This is the third book Gregory’s YA series The Order of Darkness, which is set in the fifteenth century.  I suspect in coming to a middle book in this series I’ve probably spoilt the plots of the previous two – but hey, I wasn’t going to get books one and two just to read them in order because I happened to have bought book three.  That would be insane.  But this is an illustration (again) of why I prefer to read series in order.  Anyhow, enough digression.  Fools’ Gold is set in Venice where our intrepid heros Luca and Isolde are trying to track down the source of an influx of English gold that has hit the Venetian market, whilst also pursuing their own quests for various things.  It was fine.  Just fine.  It fell slightly the wrong side of my supernatural/paranormal limits – it’s more White Queen than Other Boleyn Girl – which may suit others but not me.  It filled an afternoon, but I won’t be hunting out the rest of the series.

In the last post I also mentioned that I was behind the curve with Rainbow Rowell’s work – and I have (finally) read Eleanor and Park.  For those who’ve missed it, set in the 1980s  Eleanor is the new girl in town with a troubled and chaotic home life; whilst Park is the boy in the headphones and black t-shirt at the back of the bus, busy trying to make himself invisible.  As the two get to know each other – through  mix-tapes and cartoons they fall in love.  But it’s not as simple as that of course.  Although I was worried for a while it was going to end up with me in tears on the train, it was all ok in the end (in that I wasn’t a weeping mess on the train) and I really enjoyed it.  I’m saddened (but not surprised) that this has been a bit controversial in areas of the US (swearing! sexuality!) but luckily that doesn’t seem to have dented the book’s performance. One for a mid-teenager I think – around the start of GCSE time.

Out next week is Oh Yeah Audrey* by Tucker Shaw – which is the story of 16 year-old Audrey Hepburn super fan Gemma and her meet-up with fellow fans who she met through her tumblr page dedicated to the Breakfast at Tiffany’s star.  I can’t say that I loved it, but it was perfectly fine whilst it lasted – although it did have a few issues, like a late plot development which I didn’t think was adequately resolved.  It’s set over the course of one day – so naturally there’s not a whole lot of scope for character development, but it does have a nice take on some of the best – and worst – bits of the social media revolution.

And a massively advance heads-up about Unspeakable* by Abbie Rushton – which isn’t actually out until February – which is bonkers.  I’m sure I’ll mention it closer to the time to remind you, but it’s really worth putting a note in your diary to look out for it because it’s really good. It deals with difficult issues, it’s powerful, it’s emotional and it’s gripping.  Unspeakable is the story of Megan.  She doesn’t speak.  She wants to – but the voices in her head won’t let her.  Then Jasmine joins her school and suddenly talkative Jasmine is unlocking things inside Megan – could she be the answer?  But what will happen if she rediscovers her voice?

So there you have it – the best bits of my latest Young Adult reading.  A quick mention should also go to the first Wells and Wong book* – which I reviewed in the Back To School post and is also well worth a look if you have someone to buy for who has read all of the Worst Witch, St Clares, Mallory Towers sort of books.  Book Two is due out early next year.  As usual – any more recommendations for what I should be reading in the YA world always welcome – pop them in the comments.

And thanks as always to NetGalley who provided me with my copies of the books which have asterisks (*) next to their titles in return for an honest review (as if I’d ever do anything otherwise).  All the others come from the pile of purchases!