Ghost Queen by Mahtab Narsimhan

Hey, Ghosties, this is the Ghost Queen tuning in from the most haunted place in India!

Teen vlogger Malika's ghost hunter channel is almost popular enough to start earning money to support her family. All she needs is one viral video--and she knows exactly where she's going to get it. Bhangarh Fort is the most haunted place in India, rumoured to be home to the cursed princess Ratnavati and her wicked captor. Malika convinces her boyfriend to sneak into the fort with her after dark and record the experience for her avid fans and followers. That's when things go terribly wrong. Can the "Ghost Queen" escape, or is she doomed to spend eternity trapped with a mad magician and the princess who rejected him?

This short novel is a high-interest, low-reading level book for teen readers who are building reading skills, want a quick read or say they don't like to read!

Nordic Runes by Paul Rhys Mountfort

A comprehensive and practical guide to the ancient oracle based on the runic alphabet of the Norse

• Reveals the symbolism and divinatory significance of the 24 rune "staves"

• Provides clear instructions on how to craft your own rune stones

• Explains the role of runes in the Norse wisdom tradition and its influence on such works as Tolkien's Lord of the Rings

Nordic runes are a potent and profoundly transformative magic system that gives contemporary readers access to the ancient wisdom tradition of Northern European cultures. The runes have deep resonances within the pagan Norse world of gods and goddesses, giants, dwarves, warriors, and wizards, which have greatly influenced the work of J.R.R. Tolkien, among others. Norse tradition attributes the discovery of the runes to the "All-Father" Odin--a god of inspiration and secret wisdom and the mythical prototype for runecasters, who established the pattern for gaining his knowledge.

Nordic Runes addresses three major areas: Runelore, the history of this 2000-year-old Norse oracle; Runestaves, the meaning of the individual runes of the Elder Futhark alphabet and their powerful mythological, magical, and practical lessons for daily life; and Runecasting, a comprehensive guide to the oracular application of the ancient runes, including their crafting, divination, and self-development. As Nordic Runes shows, the runes do more than simply reflect the path of fate; they help develop and enhance intuition. By learning to cast and interpret the runes, the user becomes receptive to the energy currents in material reality and empowered in the arts of its transformation.

No Place Left to Hide by Megan Lally

Brooke works hard to maintain perfect grades, perfect looks, a perfect life—especially after "the incident" that threatened everything. Getting into her dream university puts her that much closer to a fresh start. How can she say no to her best friend's coaxing to celebrate the good news...even if it means returning to the very beach that she's avoided all year?

Spending time by the bonfire with her crush is the perfect end to the night. Except leaving the party turns out to be only the beginning. A truck starts tailing Brooke along the isolated two-lane highway that winds through the woods toward home. And the dark night is about to bring out her darkest fears...

Away by Megan E Freeman

After an imminent yet unnamed danger forces people across Colorado to leave their homes, a group of kids including an aspiring filmmaker and a budding journalist find themselves in the same evacuation camp. As they cope with the aftermath of having their world upended, they grow curious about the mysterious threat.

And as they begin to investigate, they start to discover that there’s less truth and more cover-up to what they’re being told. Can they get to the root of the conspiracy, expose the bad actors, and bring an end to the upheaval before it’s too late?

Happy #BookBirthday! 16 Jan 25

Happy Thursday! This week there are FOUR books on our lists publishing!

Blog tour: Same Page by Elly Swartz

Bess Stein is more than ready to be 6th grade class president. She’s got tons of ideas—including a book vending machine—and her new friend June is beside her as vice-president. Together, they’re unstoppable.

But when the books the girls want included in the vending machine come under fire, Bess is stunned. How can one person believe they have the right to decide what other people can read? It turns out that June’s mom is leading the fight, and now everything’s a mess.

Bess misses June—but she wants to make sure kids who might like these books get the chance to read them, even if it means she and June can’t be friends. With such different opinions, will they ever be on the same page?

Royal Heirs Academy by Lindsey Duga

For fifty years, King Leander Eldana has ruled Ashland without naming an heir to the crown. After sending away his grandchildren to be raised out of the public eye, it’s finally time to secure his nation’s future by appointing one definitive heir. The best way to appraise his successor? In the halls of Almus Terra Academy, a boarding school infamous for breeding the world’s next generation of leaders—and liars.

Titus Eldana has always known he’d inherit Ashland’s future. Now he must prove he has what it takes. Alaric Eldana was not raised with a silver spoon. His secondhand clothes might not be fit for a king, but he knows how to rule: with his fist. Emmeline Eldana only wants to please her neglectful parents. If that means securing the crown, she won’t hesitate to destroy anyone in her way. Sadie Aurelia has no idea why she’s been given a chance to bring new blood to the throne. With nothing left to lose back home, she’s ready to take it.

Filled with competition, secret alliances, enemies-to-lovers romance, and cunning revenge, Royal Heirs Academy is a breathless, entertaining read set in modern-day.

Runes for the Green Witch by Nicolette Miele

A magickal guide to working with runes and plant allies for manifestation, healing, and spellwork

• Examines the herb and plant connections of each of the 24 runes of the Elder Futhark as well as correspondences with deities, astrology, tarot, and crystals

• Provide examples and tips on how runes and plants may be combined within spells and ritual for manifesting, protecting, healing, banishing, and more

• Explains how runes and plants can be worked with for the soulful process of rewilding and connecting with Mother Nature

In this magickal grimoire, herbalist witch Nicolette Miele immerses readers in the wisdom and folklore of the 24 Elder Futhark runes as well as their correspondences with deities, astrology, tarot, crystals, and plants. Each chapter begins by discussing the etymology, meanings, mythology, divination, correspondences, and magick of a particular rune and culminates with profiles of several herbs and plants that possess similar magickal energies. Each plant profile delves into the magickal, metaphysical, traditional, and medicinal applications as well as how to work with these incredible plant allies.

For example, the author connects Fehu, the rune of wealth and value, with the practice of altar-building, making offerings, and with alfalfa, cedar, dandelion, and other plants traditionally used in abundance and prosperity magick. In the chapter on Kenaz, the rune of heat and illumination, the nature connection is nurtured through the element of fire and a step-by-step bindrune candle ritual. The plants connected with Kenaz are those that embody the characteristics of fire—such as passion, ferocity, and sexuality— and include clove, damiana, and kava kava.

Guiding the green witch through the benefits and strengths of synergistic magick, this book helps eclectic magickal practitioners advance their craft through folk magick and medicine, rituals, meditations, spells, and the soulful process of rewilding and connecting with Mother Nature.

The Morrigan by Kim Curran

They called me The Morrigan. I was magnificent. I was multitudes.

They twisted my story, stripped me away. But I will tell it now in my own voice.

It begins, as all the best stories do, in darkness.

From an ancient, storm-tossed sea, a tribe of gods reach the rocky shores of Ireland. Among them, a strange, hungry, red-haired girl. A girl who can change shape, from bird to beast to goddess. A girl who dreams of battle, of blood, of death and power.

She does not know yet that a woman who seeks to rule will always be in danger – or that there are far more treacherous figures in this land than the gods who raised her.

She does not know that one day love will burn so deep in her heart that its scars will never heal. That she will know pain so raw and pure it will almost tear her apart.

She does not know that her journey will take a thousand years. That her name will be remembered for a thousand more.

She is The Morrigan, and she is a girl with rage coiled in her chest. Beautiful, powerful, ravenous rage. A rage that will live forever.

An electric debut retelling of Ireland’s mythic goddess of war, from a bold and powerful new voice.

All Better Now by Neal Shusterman

An unprecedented condition is on the rise. It behaves like a virus, with the first symptom being a fever, but those who contract it experience long-term effects no one has ever seen utter contentment. Soon after infection, people find the stress, depression, greed, and other negative feelings that used to weigh them down are gone.

Almost everyone revels in this mass unburdening. But people in power—who depend on malcontents tuning into their broadcasts, prey on the insecure to sell their products, and convince people they need more, new, faster, better everything—know this new state of being is bad for business. Soon, campaigns start up convincing people that being happy all the time is dangerous. There’s even a vaccine developed to rid people of their inner peace and get them back to normal because, surely, without anger or jealousy as motivators, productivity will grind to a halt and the world will be thrown into chaos.

It’s nearly impossible to determine the truth when everyone with a platform is pushing their own agendas, and two teens from very different backgrounds who’ve had their lives upended in different ways by the virus find themselves enmeshed in the center of a dangerous power play. Can they reveal the truth?

Happy #BookBirthday! 9th January 2025

Happy Thursday! This week there is ONE book on our lists publishing - but it's a fantastic one!

A Wolf Called Fire by Rosanne Parry

The stand-alone companion to Rosanne Parry’s New York Times bestseller A Wolf Called Wander tells the wilderness survival story of the wolf pup known as Warm and is illustrated in black and white throughout. This Voice of the Wilderness Novel features extensive back matter, including a map.

Warm is the smallest pup, the one his father calls the heart of the pack. But all Warm sees is his bigger brothers Sharp and Swift, even his sisters Pounce and Wag, winning all the wrestling matches. Just as Warm is finding his place, enemy wolves destroy and scatter the pack. Warm helps lead the pups away from the fight, only to find himself alone with four pups to defend and feed. Can he be both the heart and the head of a new pack? Does he have to choose the aggressive leadership style of his father and brothers? Or is there another way?

A Wolf Called Fire is a stand-alone companion novel to A Wolf Called Wander . It’s inspired by Wolf 8, a real Yellowstone wolf who was the smallest of his pack and constantly bullied by his bigger brothers. Wolf 8 survived a tumultuous first year and grew up to be a different sort of leader—one who fought many rival wolves to submission but never killed any. He had a rare talent for mentoring young wolves and became the patriarch of the largest and most successful pack in Yellowstone by choosing a more collaborative and generous leadership style. Features black-and-white illustrations throughout and extensive back matter, including a map.

Blog Tour: Five Reasons to read The Last Bookstore on Earth by Lily Braun-Arnold

The world is about to end. Again.

It’s been a year since a devastating storm ripped Liz’s world apart. Haunted by the memories of those she couldn’t save, Liz holes up in the only place she felt safe before her world fell away: the bookstore where she used to work. Now she spends her days trading books for supplies and collecting stories from the remaining survivors who pass by.

Until she learns that another earth-shattering Storm is coming . . . and everything changes.

Enter Maeve, a spiky out-of-towner who breaks into the bookstore looking for shelter one night. When Maeve’s secrets and Liz’s inner demons come back to haunt them both, they find themselves fighting for their lives and asking themselves one big question.

As the end of the world approaches, is there time for one final love story?

The Rose Bargain by Sasha Peyton Smith

Every citizen of England is granted one bargain from their immortal fae queen. High society girls are expected to bargain for qualities that will win them suitors: a rare talent for piano in exchange for one’s happiest childhood memory. A perfect smile for one’s ability to taste.

But Ivy Benton’s debut season arrives with a shocking twist: a competition to secure the heart of the Queen’s fae son, Prince Bram. A prize that could save Ivy’s family from ruin… and free her sister from the bargain that destroyed her.

Yet every glittering fae deal has a rotting heart, and at the centre of this contest is a dark plot that could destroy everything.

Dark Nation bks 1 - 6 by Grace Hamilton

An EMP devastates the world. And the battle for survival begins…

When a powerful EMP blast knocks out power across the country, schoolteacher Molly, former Marine Colton, and the five students they’re supervising on a trip are trapped inside a prison. Surrounded by hardened criminals and with no safe exit, it doesn’t take long for a riot to throw everything into chaos.

Meanwhile, Deb, Colton’s ex-wife, is lucky enough to fall in with a group of determined survivors. But her good fortune quickly turns into a nightmare when her people are captured by human traffickers, led by a vicious madman.

Molly and Colton must escape to safety with their students, while Deb is forced to lead her fellow survivors in a daring revolt. But in this savage new world, danger lurks around every corner. Is there any hope for safety as what’s left of society collapses?

Loyalties are tested, new bonds are forged, and survival is a daily battle in this dying world.

This boxset contains books 1-6 of the Dark Nation series, a thrilling post-apocalyptic EMP saga.

Five and the Forgotten Treasure by Chris Smith

When Fran, Tom, Maddy and Gilbert the dog stay with Professor George Kirrin for the holidays, they soon find themselves caught up in a robbery of a top-secret treasure map. Professor George will have to tell them about an old case of the Famous Five if they're ever going to catch the thief and rescue the forgotten treasure...

The Famous Five by Enid Blyton was one of Chris Smith's favourite series as a child. Now, this bestselling author weaves the action, adventure and danger of this thrilling and exciting world into a brand-new story, perfect for every generation of readers. Join the adventure!

Can the new Famous Five catch the thief and find the forgotten treasure before it's too late? Join the original Famous Five and a new group of children in this exciting new adventure by bestselling author Chris Smith, inspired by Enid Blyton.