The Castle School (for troubled girls) by Alyssa Sheinmel

 

When Moira Dreyfuss's parents announce that they're sending her to an all-girls boarding school deep in the Maine woods, Moira isn't fooled. She knows her parents are punishing her; she's been too much trouble since her best friend, Nathan, died―and for a while before that. At the Castle School, isolated from the rest of the world, Moira will be expected to pour her heart out to the odd headmaster, Dr. Prince. But she isn't interested in getting over Nathan's death or befriending her fellow students.

On her first night there, Moira hears distant music. On her second, she discovers the lock on her window is broken. On her third, she and her roommate venture outside...and learn that they're not so isolated after all. There's another, very different, Castle School nearby―this one filled with boys whose parents sent them away, too.

Moira is convinced that the Castle Schools and the doctors who run them are hiding something. But exploring the schools will force Moira to confront her overwhelming grief―and the real reasons her parents sent her away.

Double #Roundup!

 Happy Sunday, all! Yes, once again we missed last week's roundup, so here's a bumper roundup instead!

This fortnight, we reviewed:

The Missing Passenger by Jack Heath

Apocalypse Summer by Tyler H Jolley

Lily and the Lissadell Ghost by Judi Curtin

Finn's First Song by Gerry Daly

Scout's Best Day Ever! by Jennifer Farley

Perfect on Paper by Sophie Gonzales

Climate Action

Jamie McFlair and the Boyband Generator by Luke Frank and Sean Thorne

Busy Day by Lauren Crisp

Rumaysa by Radiya Hafiza

Never Mess with a Pirate Princess by Holly Ryan and Sian Roberts

The Bedtime Book by S Marendaz and Carly Gledhill

We were on the blog tour for Bad Habits! We had a lot of fun with this one.

We wished happy #BookBirthday and happy #BookBirthday!

How did your fortnight go?

The Bedtime Book by S Marendaz and Carly Gledhill

 

It’s a cool, still night in the garden, but Mouse is not asleep. Someone has taken her bedtime book! Where could it be? And how will she possibly sleep without it?

Join Mouse and Frank the sausage dog on a brilliant bedtime romp.

Never Mess With a Pirate Princess by Holly Ryan and Sian Roberts

 

Princess Prue was sweet and fair, till PIRATES stole her teddy bear! Don’t they know?! You NEVER mess with Prudence – pirate AND princess!

A feisty, mould-breaking heroine for adventure-hungry toddlers.

Rumaysa by Radiya Hafiza

 

This funny and empowering story weaves together three classic fairytales into one new adventure with an unusual structural twist: Rumaysa is a Muslim girl who lets her hijab down from a tall tower in order to escape. Set in a magical version of South Asia, Rumaysa explores enchanted forests and dragon lairs, teaming up with Cinderayla and Sleeping Sara along the way to create a strong sense of sisterhood.

Happy #BookBirthday!

Happy Thursday, all! This is a fairly quiet week, with only three books on our lists. However, that's better than next week, which currently has NO titles on our lists!

Busy Day by Lauren Crisp

Discovering shapes is more exciting and hands-on than ever with this interactive board book, complete with tactile moving spinners to encourage children to think, turn and learn!

Jamie McFlair and the Boyband Generator by Luke Franks and Sean Thorne

 

This story begins with a snoring pug, a forgetful grandma, and the hero of this adventure in a really bad mood. There is also a goose on the loose. We just wanted to warn you.

Jamie McFlair’s favourite band got a slot performing on the country’s biggest talent show, but it went wrong thanks to Barry Bigtime (in an ‘incident’ involving a chocolate milkshake and worn underpants – don’t ask).

Barry is a music big shot, all round nasty man…and Jamie’s Uncle. The next day, he launches his own massive new band and Jamie smells a rat. With the help of three trusty best friends – popular Daisy, no-nonsense Jenners, and timid Mel – Jamie vows to uncover Barry’s dastardly plan.

But Jamie doesn’t know about BARRY’S SECRET. A secret that is TERRIBLE and SHOCKING and VERY STRANGE. There’s something hidden in Barry’s basement – a machine that is the key to his musical success. But what happens when the boyband generator goes wrong? We’ll give you a clue: it is NOT GOOD and THE ENTIRE WORLD is at risk. Can Jamie stop Barry Bigtime before it’s too late?

Climate Action by Georgina Stevens and Katie Rewse

This is a book about climate change.

In this book, we share the facts, but we also share hope. Learn about the causes of climate change and how it is affecting our world. Explore the human impact and what it means to have a carbon footprint. Read about creative ideas for tackling the climate crisis. Be inspired by the positive stories from young changemakers around the globe. Get tips on how to take actions and reduce your carbon footprint.


Our planet needs us, and we need our planet.


One tree will be planted for every book sold in the UK.

Perfect on Paper by Sophie Gonzales

Her advice, spot on. Her love life, way off.

Darcy Phillips:
• Can give you the solution to any of your relationship woes―for a fee.
• Uses her power for good. Most of the time.
• Really cannot stand Alexander Brougham.
• Has maybe not the best judgement when it comes to her best friend, Brooke…who is in love with someone else.
• Does not appreciate being blackmailed.

However, when Brougham catches her in the act of collecting letters from locker 89―out of which she’s been running her questionably legal, anonymous relationship advice service―that’s exactly what happens. In exchange for keeping her secret, Darcy begrudgingly agrees to become his personal dating coach―at a generous hourly rate, at least. The goal? To help him win his ex-girlfriend back.

Darcy has a good reason to keep her identity secret. If word gets out that she’s behind the locker, some things she's not proud of will come to light, and there’s a good chance Brooke will never speak to her again.

Okay, so all she has to do is help an entitled, bratty, (annoyingly hot) guy win over a girl who’s already fallen for him once? What could go wrong?

Scout's Best Day Ever! by Jennifer Farley

 

Scout, Daisy and Dad are going on holidays while Gran stays at home to mind the cat.

Scout promises to send cat a postcard from every place he visits on his travels around Ireland.

But which will be the BEST. DAY. EVER?

Scout's travels take him from Donegal to Cork, from the Giant's Causeway to Salthill. He climbs the Sugar Loaf, muddies up an archaeological dig in County Meath, visits Fitzgerald Park in Cork, as well as Grafton Street and Trinity College in the heart of Dublin even makes his way onto the pitch in Thomond Park, Limerick!

The newest entry in O'Brien's series of books taking place around Ireland is one of the best. Scout and his constant optimism are endearing, and the illustration style is great. I really like, in this book, the addition of a small image of Ireland showing where, exactly, everything is; it really helps to place everywhere, especially for those of us who aren't that good at geography! (I always forget that Cork City is so far in, in my head it's right down on the south west coast...)

I've mentioned the illustrations already, but I'm going to mention them again, because they really are lovely. I especially love the variety of dogs Scout meets on his travels! I've also added a couple of places to my mental list of places to visit in Ireland.

Really lovely.

Finn's First Song by Gerry Daly

 

Squeeeak ... Thwop ... Thwop ... Dwoooooerrrp!

Dad sings his magical whale songs to Mum and baby Finn, far, far away across the huge ocean.

When Finn gets lost, can the other sea creatures help him to send a message of his own?

Lily and the Lissadell House by Judi Curtin

 

Lily and her friend Nellie are housemaids at Lissadell House. Working in such a big house keeps the girls busy, but they still find time for fun, and friendship with Maeve, the madcap daughter of the famous Republican, Countess Marcievicz.

So when strange things start to happen at Lissadell - odd noises, food going missing and rumours of a ghost - Sherlock Holmes-fan Maeve is determined to lead an investigation.

Between them can the three girls solve the mystery of the Lissadell ghost?

Happy #BookBirthday!

Happy Thursday, everyone! It's a quiet week this week, with just two books from our lists publishing. But it's letting us get ahead with some books from later in the year!

Apocalypse Summer by Tyler H Jolley and Mary H Geis

 

Matt Voorhees awakes surrounded by a pile of VHS tapes in his cryopod, on the outskirts of an abandoned summer camp, along with eight other seventeen-year-olds. A scientist, who was tasked to watch over them while they were cryogenically frozen is dead. They have no idea where they are, or more importantly, where the rest of the frozen people are. When they were put into cryosleep, they were with their five thousand closest friends and families—but now they’re all alone. Their personalities clash while they try to formulate a plan. Some want to live it up, while others want to find their parents and the others. Left with only the tapes as a touchstone to the past, Matt is forced to survive the new world filled with intense floods and frigid blizzards.

Camp New Beginnings wasn’t the safe haven they were expecting.

Blog Tour: Bad Habits

Alex is a rebel from the tip of her purple fauxhawk to the toes of her biker boots. She's tried everything she can think of to get expelled from her strict Catholic boarding school. Nothing has worked so far - but now, Alex has a new plan.

Tired of the sexism she sees in every corner of St Mary's, Alex decides to stage the school's first ever production of The Vagina Monologues. Which is going to be a challenge, as no one else at St Mary's can even bear to say the word 'vagina' out loud . . .

The Missing Passenger by Jack Heath

 

When a seemingly unoccupied plane crash lands in the middle of Kelton, Jarli’s attempts to lay low and out of Viper’s criminal crosshairs crash lands along with it.

The cause of the accident is a mystery until his Truth App uncovers a dangerous secret at the crash site—a secret Viper will do anything to keep buried.

Suddenly Jarli is a target again and on the run with his high school tormentor, Doug. There’s no one he can trust, not even the police—and Jarli’s starting to think Doug is hiding something, too. Constantly at odds and left with no other choice, they team up to conduct an investigation of their own. But when Doug’s past comes back to haunt them, Jarli fears that there’s little hope in getting out of this one alive.

Kelton was supposed to be the perfect hiding place. But there’s no hiding from the truth.

Roundup

 Happy Sunday, all! Welcome to this week's roundup.

Amelia Unabridged by Ashley Schumacher

 

Eighteen-year-old Amelia Griffin is obsessed with the famous Orman Chronicles, written by the young and reclusive prodigy N. E. Endsley. They’re the books that brought her and her best friend Jenna together after Amelia’s father left and her family imploded. So when Amelia and Jenna get the opportunity to attend a book festival with Endsley in attendance, Amelia is ecstatic. It’s the perfect way to start off their last summer before college.

In a heartbeat, everything goes horribly wrong. When Jenna gets a chance to meet the author and Amelia doesn’t, the two have a blowout fight like they’ve never experienced. And before Amelia has a chance to mend things, Jenna is killed in a freak car accident. Grief-stricken, and without her best friend to guide her, Amelia questions everything she had planned for the future.

When a mysterious, rare edition of the Orman Chronicles arrives, Amelia is convinced that it somehow came from Jenna. Tracking the book to an obscure but enchanting bookstore in Michigan, Amelia is shocked to find herself face-to-face with the enigmatic and handsome N. E. Endsley himself, the reason for Amelia’s and Jenna’s fight and perhaps the clue to what Jenna wanted to tell her all along.

Ashley Schumacher's devastating and beautiful debut, Amelia Unabridged, is about finding hope and strength within yourself, and maybe, just maybe, falling in love while you do it.

Game Changer by Neal Schusterman

All it takes is one hit on the football field, and suddenly Ash’s life doesn’t look quite the way he remembers it.

Impossible though it seems, he’s been hit into another dimension—and keeps on bouncing through worlds that are almost-but-not-really his own.

The changes start small, but they quickly spiral out of control as Ash slides into universes where he has everything he’s ever wanted, universes where society is stuck in the past…universes where he finds himself looking at life through entirely different eyes.

And if he isn’t careful, the world he’s learning to see more clearly could blink out of existence…

The Children's Train by Viola Ardone and Clarissa Botsford

 

Though Mussolini and the fascists have been defeated, the war has devastated Italy, especially the south. Seven-year-old Amerigo lives with his mother Antonietta in Naples, surviving on odd jobs and his wits like the rest of the poor in his neighborhood. But one day, Amerigo learns that a train will take him away from the rubble-strewn streets of the city to spend the winter with a family in the north, where he will be safe and have warm clothes and food to eat.

Together with thousands of other southern children, Amerigo will cross the entire peninsula to a new life. Through his curious, innocent eyes, we see a nation rising from the ashes of war, reborn. As he comes to enjoy his new surroundings and the possibilities for a better future, Amerigo will make the heartbreaking choice to leave his mother and become a member of his adoptive family.

Amerigo’s journey is a moving story of memory, indelible bonds, artistry, and self-exploration, and a soaring examination of what family can truly mean. Ultimately Amerigo comes to understand that sometimes we must give up everything, even a mother's love, to find our destiny.

Happy #Bookbirthday!

Happy Thursday, everyone! A quieter week this week, with only four books from our lists publishing.

Sally Go Round the Stars by Sarah Webb, Claire Ranson and Steve McCarthy

 

A marvellous collection of Irish rhymes to delight any child, beautifully illustrated in this attractive board book.

Hot British Boyfriend by Kristy Boyce

 

After a horrifying public rejection by her crush, Ellie Nichols does what any girl would do: she flees the country. To be more precise, she joins her high school’s study abroad trip to England. While most of her classmates are there to take honors courses and pad their college applications, Ellie is on a quest to rebuild her reputation and self-confidence. And nothing is more of a confidence booster than getting a hot British boyfriend.

When Ellie meets Will, a gorgeous and charming Brit, she vows to avoid making the same mistakes as she did with the last guy she liked. Which is why she strikes up a bargain with Dev, an overachieving classmate who she’s never clicked with, but who does seem to know a lot about the things Will is interested in—if he helps her win over her crush, then she’ll help him win over his.

But even as Ellie embarks on a whirlwind romance, one that takes her on adventures to some of England’s most beautiful places, she still needs to figure out if this is actually the answer to all her problems…and whether the perfect boyfriend is actually the perfect boy for her.

A Shot at Normal by Marisa Reichardt

Dr. Villapando told me to get a good attorney. He wasn't serious. But I am. I'm going to sue my parents.

Juniper Jade's parents are hippies. They didn’t attend the first Woodstock, but they were there for the second one. The Jade family lives an all-organic homeschool lifestyle that means no plastics, no cell phones, and no vaccines. It isn’t exactly normal, but it’s the only thing Juniper has ever known. She doesn’t agree with her parents on everything, but she knows that to be in this family, you've got to stick to the rules. That is, until the unthinkable happens.

Juniper contracts the measles and unknowingly passes the disease along, with tragic consequences. She is shell-shocked. Juniper knows she is responsible and feels simultaneously helpless and furious at her parents, and herself.

Now, with the help of Nico, the boy who works at the library and loves movies and may just be more than a friend, Juniper comes to a decision: she is going to get vaccinated. Her parents refuse so Juniper arms herself with a lawyer and prepares for battle. But is waging war for her autonomy worth losing her family? How much is Juniper willing to risk for a shot at normal?

Roundup

 Happy Sunday! Look, we're on time and everything!

...more or less...

We are the ashes, we are the fire by Joy McCullough

 

Em Morales’s older sister was raped by another student after a frat party. A jury eventually found the rapist guilty on all counts–a remarkable verdict that Em felt more than a little responsible for, since she was her sister’s strongest advocate on social media during the trial. Her passion and outspokenness helped dissuade the DA from settling for a plea deal. Em’s family would have real justice.

But the victory is lived. In a matter of minutes, justice vanishes as the judge turns the Morales family’s world upside down again by sentencing the rapist to no prison time. While her family is stunned, Em is literally sick with rage and guilt. To make matters worse, a news clip of her saying that the sentence “makes me want to use a fucking sword” goes viral.

From this low point, Em must find a new reason to go on and help her family heal, and she finds it in the unlikely form of the story of a 15th-century French noblewoman, Marguerite de Bressieux, who is legendary as an avenging knight for rape victims.

We Are the Ashes, We Are the Fire is a searing and nuanced portrait of a young woman torn between a persistent desire for revenge and a burning need for hope.

The Electric Kingdom by David Arnold

 

When a deadly Fly Flu sweeps the globe, it leaves a shell of the world that once was. Among the survivors are eighteen-year-old Nico and her dog, on a voyage devised by Nico's father to find a mythical portal; a young artist named Kit, raised in an old abandoned cinema; and the enigmatic Deliverer, who lives Life after Life in an attempt to put the world back together. As swarms of infected Flies roam the earth, these few survivors navigate the woods of post-apocalyptic New England, meeting others along the way, each on their own quest to find life and light in a world gone dark. The Electric Kingdom is a sweeping exploration of love, art, storytelling, eternal life, and above all, a testament to the notion that even in an exterminated world, one person might find beauty in another.

Happy #Bookbirthday!

 Hi everyone! Sorry this post is a little late; we were double checking dates on a couple of titles and missed posting, so we just threw up another one instead. But this is a good week! TWELVE books from our lists posted this week.

Toddler books from Little Tiger

 We have two wonderful books from Little Tiger today. As there's two, you can find the covers and blurbs under the cut instead of over it!

All Our Hidden Gifts by Caroline O'Donaghue (mild spoilers)

 

After Maeve finds a pack of tarot cards while cleaning out a closet during her in-school suspension, she quickly becomes the most sought-after diviner at St. Bernadette’s Catholic school. But when Maeve’s ex–best friend, Lily, draws an unsettling card called The Housekeeper that Maeve has never seen before, the session devolves into a heated argument that ends with Maeve wishing aloud that Lily would disappear. When Lily isn’t at school the next Monday, Maeve learns her ex-friend has vanished without a trace.

Shunned by her classmates and struggling to preserve a fledgling romance with Lily’s gender-fluid sibling, Roe, Maeve must dig deep into her connection with the cards to search for clues the police cannot find—even if they lead to the terrifying Housekeeper herself. Set in an Irish town where the church’s tight hold has loosened and new freedoms are trying to take root, this sharply contemporary story is witty, gripping, and tinged with mysticism.

The Project by Courtney Summers

 

Lo Denham is used to being on her own. After her parents died, Lo's sister, Bea, joined The Unity Project, leaving Lo in the care of their great aunt. Thanks to its extensive charitable work and community outreach, The Unity Project has won the hearts and minds of most in the Upstate New York region, but Lo knows there's more to the group than meets the eye. She's spent the last six years of her life trying—and failing—to prove it.

When a man shows up at the magazine Lo works for claiming The Unity Project killed his son, Lo sees the perfect opportunity to expose the group and reunite with Bea once and for all. When her investigation puts her in the direct path of its leader, Lev Warren and as Lo delves deeper into The Project, the lives of its members it upends everything she thought she knew about her sister, herself, cults, and the world around her—to the point she can no longer tell what's real or true. Lo never thought she could afford to believe in Lev Warren . . . but now she doesn't know if she can afford not to.

The Last Bear by Hannah Gold

 

There are no polar bears left on Bear Island. At least, that’s what April’s father tells her when his scientific research takes them to this remote Arctic outpost for six months. But one endless summer night, April meets one. He is starving, lonely and a long way from home. Determined to save him, April begins the most important journey of her life…

This moving story will win the hearts of children the world over and show them that no one is too young or insignificant to make a difference. The Last Bear is a celebration of the love between a child and an animal, a battle cry for our world and an irresistible adventure with a heart as big as a bear’s.