The Season of Light and Darkness by Jillian Cantor

In the months since a dictator was elected president, the United States has been turned upside down. Dissenters are deemed terrorists, including sixteen-year-old Ellie Jacobs’s family.

To escape persecution, the four of them—Ellie, her younger brother Scott, and their parents—decide to freeze themselves cryogenically for ten years in her father’s lab. In ten years, things will be better. They have to be.

But the government discovers the lab after only three years and thaws Ellie early. She awakens, completely alone, to a nightmare of a strange new world and is told the rest of her family didn’t survive. Suddenly, she must abandon everything she knows to go to through “ReAdmittance” and become “Initiated.” Ellie is terrified…until her boyfriend, Ryan, now a nineteen-year-old Initiated soldier, shows up and tells her everything will be fine, that she should trust the good people around her.

But Ellie isn’t sure if she can still trust Ryan.

What Ellie doesn’t know is that Scott never went through with the freeze. He ran away and has joined a band of teenage resistance fighters living in the mountains. No longer her “younger” brother, he’s now sixteen just like her. When Scott learns Ellie has been thawed early, he decides he must risk everything to save her before the brainwashing begins.

Together with other brave rebel teens, Ellie and Scott must navigate this terrible new world to find their way back to each other, before they lose everything—including who they are.

Girl of Darkness by Kristina Dowling

19-year-old Eira Martell is determined to leave her past behind. There’s only one person who understands her: her grandmother. But her grandmother has been missing since Eira was ten, when she suddenly vanished right in front of Eira’s eyes at a pagan stone circle. But strange things are happening again. Someone posts Eira her grandmother’s necklace anonymously, a handsome scarred stranger is following her and the shadow world she has tried so hard to leave behind is stirring once again. Eira is thrown into a treacherous world of ancient magic, grimoires and secret societies.

Great Moments in Hurling

BREATHTAKING PHOTOS CAPTURING MEMORABLE MOMENTS IN HURLING

Considered by many to be the fastest field sport in the world, hurling is skilful, exhilarating and has been part of Irish life for millennia.

Ray McManus and his team of Sportsfile photographers have been close to the action for decades, and their photos, both on and off the pitch from the 1950s right up to the present day, capture the bravura performances, the moments of elation and despair, the blood sweat and tears of a game that sometimes seems more like a battle than a sport.

Including personal stories from photographers, hurlers and managers, this book celebrates the legendary players, the matches and the clashes of one of the world’s most exciting sports.

Swim Little Otter by Tom McCaughren and Erika McGann and Shannon Bergin

Poor Little Otter can’t swim.

The deep, dark river is just too scary.

But he has to learn to swim or he won’t be a real otter.

Maybe his new friend Tom Cat can help …

As you Wish by Nashae Jones

Birdie has big plans for eighth grade. This is the year that she gets a boyfriend, and since she and her best friend, Deve, do everything together, it makes sense that Deve will get a girlfriend. This is the kind of math Birdie doesn’t find intimidating—it’s Eighth Grade 101. (Birdie + Boyfriend) + (Deve + Girlfriend) = Normal Eighth Grade Experience. And normal is something Birdie craves, especially with a mom as overprotective as hers.

She doesn’t expect Deve to be so against her plan, or for their fight to blow up in her face. So when the West African god Anansi appears to her, claiming to be able to make everything right again, Birdie pushes past her skepticism and makes a wish for the whole mess to go away. But with a trickster god, your wish is bound to come true in a way you never imagined.

Before long, Birdie regrets her rash words…especially when she realizes what’s really going on with her and Deve. With her reality upended, can Birdie figure out how to undo her wish?

Strangebrew Apothecary by Rustin Lovewell

When Ellastaria Strange joins a ragtag crew of con artists and serpent-oil salesmen, she’s just trying to escape the slow death of poverty, not sell fake cure-alls in dinky rural villages. Yet Ella harbors a dangerous secret. Unlike her crooked co-workers, she's the real thing; an apothecary with supernatural abilities, hiding from a world fearful of such powers, covertly helping people when she can.

Ella’s life of deceit takes a terrifying turn when her team swindles the wrong town and Ella accidentally reveals her true nature to fanatics with no tolerance for the supernatural. On the run from obsessed vigilantes, Ella and her crew find refuge with a beer brewer who wants nothing to do with crooks or occultists, and his starry-eyed sister who wants in on all of it.

For any hope of a future, the scrappy misfits must band together, embrace what makes them outcasts, and trust in each other’s talents—no matter how strange.

O'Brien Picture Books Roundup

As always, O'Brien are releasing some fabulous picture books for this Christmas! I couldn't separate them, so I've popped them all together here - I hope you enjoy!

A Children's Atlas of Ireland by Jennifer Farley

Do you know what Ireland’s tiniest mammal is? Or where to find an enormous fin whale? Climb mountains full of eagles and insects, and see toads and kingfishers in our lakes and rivers.

Have you heard of the Hag who turns people to stone? Or the fierce pirate Gráinne? Spot Irish werewolves and the phantom island of Hy-Brasil, mysterious standing stones and fairy forts.

What is a flying boat? Would you ever eat a slippery eel or seaweed pudding? Ride the railway or a canal boat across the country to learn about incredible inventions, huge castles and deep, dark caves and tunnels.

From high mountains to haunted houses, bog bodies to big battles, discover Ireland as you’ve never seen it before.

All I Want is to Not be Alone by Daniel R Fierst

To Timothy Baker, survival isn’t luck—it’s logic: prepare for the worst, anticipate every danger, and above all else stay alive. It’s worked for two months as he’s fortified himself in his childhood home. But when a routine supply run collapses into chaos, and the undead close in, Timothy is forced to abandon his barricaded sanctuary.

His only hope? Heading north, toward whispers of safety in the frozen wilds of Canada.

The journey is anything but safe. Timothy's road from his suburban home to the heart of zombie-ravaged cities is plagued by danger—both external and within. As he documents his descent into isolation through intimate journal entries, half-shattered memories, and fleeting digital connections, Timothy must reconcile the walls he’s built around himself with the growing ache for connection.

With winter tightening its icy grip and humanity slipping further from his grasp, Timothy faces the ultimate test of survival: Can he adapt to the unexpected? And more importantly—can he make it through without someone by his side?

All I Want Is To Not Be Alone is a haunting tale of resilience and humanity’s deepest fear: not the undead, but being truly alone.

Back to the Bookshelf: The Judy Picture Story Library

The world of girls' comics was bigger than you might imagine. The Picture Story Library was a series of books that had all the drama, fun, mystery and adventure of a weekly comic strip crammed into one small 62 page digest. They were a monthly treat to go along with your weekly issues. The stories were complete so no waiting around for the next issue to find out what would happen to the characters.

The Best Christmas Ever by Sarah Morgan

As the snowstorm of the century bears down on New England, reclusive author Mabel Miller is preparing to spend yet another Christmas alone with her cats. While everyone else is making merry, she’ll be avoiding the whole painful holiday. No decorations. No tree. No traces of Christmas. That is, until the weather intervenes and sends not one but two cars spinning into the stone wall surrounding her isolated cottage. Now she has a house full of strangers when the last thing she wanted was company for Christmas.

Yet Mabel’s unexpected guests—a family with two young children expecting Santa to drop gifts down the chimney, and two work colleagues who clearly have a history—are determined to make the best of the situation. As her attempts to protect her privacy are thwarted by the two little ones who are charmingly oblivious to her boundaries, soon Mabel is making cocoa and cookies for the first time in years, and allowing them into her library, a place that contains so many of her secrets.

Mabel has her reasons for keeping her truths so deeply hidden. But this Christmas, if Mabel is brave enough to share, she might finally be able to rewrite the past and find a festive happy-ever-after - for her new friends, but also herself.

Bog Bodies by Kevin Moran

The boys have got a sinking feeling …

A school trip to the remote island of Inis Fola might be Jack, Jerry and Yash’s idea of fun, but it sounds like hell on earth to Conan. And once the Doomsday Club boys arrive at Camp Eclipse, things get even worse: there’s girls and posh kids from another school to deal with. But then haunting blue lights are seen across the bog and people start to disappear.

Evil is stirring in the dark. Could the stories of a thousand-year-old demon buried beneath the bog be true?

Maybe bringing the summonstone to a cursed island wasn't the brightest idea they've ever had …

The Unfortunate Responsibilities of Leopold Berry by Random Riggs

Leopold, Emmet, and Isabel will begin to unravel the mystery of the ring and what, exactly, has been going on with Leopold's family and their connection to Sunderworld.

Salty about the way Sunder has treated him and sceptical that his mother really meant for him to have the mysterious ring, Leopold secretly wishes he could walk away from Sunder. What he really wants is to finish high school and start living a normal life with his newfound courage. But now the magical world that wanted nothing to do with him won’t leave him alone.

The Department, fascinated by the ring, is hounding him to come back. And Isabel and Emmet want Leopold to help them unravel the ring's many mysteries. When the ring activates during a terrifying Noxum attack, enabling Leopold to perform another magical act of heroism, he knows he can't turn his back on Sunder. Wherever he goes, the magic seems to follow. The answers to all his questions lie in the Lyceum’s well-protected archives, in his mother's letters, and perhaps in the unlikeliest, most unmagical of people: Leopold’s father.

The Extraordinary Disappointments of Leopold Berry by Ransom Riggs

Seventeen-year-old Leopold Berry is seeing weird things around Los Angeles. A man who pops a tooth into a parking meter. A glowing trapdoor in a parking lot. A half-mechanical raccoon with its tail on fire that just won’t leave him alone. Every hallucinatory moment seems plucked from a cheesy 1990s fantasy TV show called Max's Adventures in Sunderworld—and that’s because they are.

Not a good sign.

In the blurry weeks after his mother’s death, a young Leopold discovered VHS tapes of its one and only season in a box headed for the trash—and soon became obsessed. Losing himself in Sunder was the best way to avoid two things: grieving his mother and being a chronic disappointment to his overbearing father. But when the strange visions return—at the worst possible time on the worst possible day—Leopold turns to his best friend Emmet for help. Together they discover that Sunder is much more than just an old TV show, and that Los Angeles is far stranger than they ever imagined. And soon, he’ll realize that not only is Sunderworld real, but it’s in grave danger.

Certain he’s finally been chosen for greatness, Leopold risks everything to claim his destiny, save the world of his childhood dreams, and prove once and for all that he’s not the disappointment his father believes him to be. But when everything goes terribly, horribly, excruciatingly wrong, Leopold’s disappointments prove to be more extraordinary than he ever could have imagined.

How do you battle darkness when no one believes in you—not even yourself?

Welcome to Sunderworld.

The Discworld Bestiary by Terry Pratchett and Paul Kidd

From the Terrible Man-Eating Sloth of Clup to the Ambiguous Puzuma, this gorgeously presented and utterly addictive bestiary from Terry Pratchett's Discworld boasts breathtaking art from Paul Kidby.

An exhaustive illustrated guide to the creatures and critters of Discworld, packed with wisdom from the great minds of the Disc, as well as interjections from some of its more unconventional thinkers.

Discover the best way to care for the Terrible Man-Eating Sloth of Clup, the eating habits of the Ambiguous Puzuma, and marvel at the startling prevalence of ominous ducks in cosmic matters.

Wriggling with insights, crawling with wisdom and packed with extra advice from Rincewind, Unseen University’s latest (and reluctant) adjunct professor of Perplexing Beasts and curator of its curiobiological museum.

Gracie by Judi Curtin

It's 1930. Twelve-year-old Gracie has always lived in a tiny cottage bursting with brothers and sisters, until she's sent to stay with her widowed Aunt Peg. Suddenly Gracie finds herself in a big, empty house feeling very alone.

Enter the Travelling Players and their theatre. Liliana and her family are wild, funny and talented – and fill Gracie's days with colour and excitement.

Can she be happy here after all?

The Little Shop of Gentle Magics by Jessica Rosenberg

Magic smells of Earl Grey and possibility...

Meg MacIntosh descends from a long line of kitchen witches—women capable of working miracles with a pinch of flour and a ray of moonlight. But there's nothing magical about Meg, or the beautiful hand-decorated sugar cookies she pours her heart into.

When Meg's marriage falls apart, instead of going home where she never fit in, she impulsively buys a cozy teashop in the tiny Scottish town of Banhaven. She begins by ripping up ancient linoleum, collecting cute mismatched teacups, and stacking jars of loose-leaf tea all the way to the ceiling. And before she's even mixed her first batch of cookie dough, a customer finds a little gray cat that claims the best chair by the window. Outside, the hills are turning amber and rust. Inside, Meg's little shop smells of Earl Grey and possibility.

Then Arthur shows up at her door—warm, determined, and the first man who's ever truly seen her—and suddenly everything changes. Somewhere between the cookie cutters and the tea leaves, far from her family’s critical gaze, Meg's magic finally awakens—not what was expected, but more powerful than anyone could have imagined.

Tales from the Territory by Travis Baldree

From international bestseller Travis Baldree, Tales from the Territory is a beautiful collection of cosy fantasy tales, set in the much-loved world of Legends & Lattes.

There are many tales yet untold . . .

'GOBLINS & GREATCOATS': Chaos goblin Zyll is involved in a case of mistaken identity, where she solves a murder at an inn whilst simultaneously stealing all the cutlery.

'JUST A THIMBLEFUL': The sweet rattkin baker Thimble finds a new home for his soon-to-be famous cinnamon rolls.

'PAGES TO FILL': An act of mercy leads to a life-changing discovery for warrior orc Viv.

In 'MIROGRAPH', young succubus Tandri assists a university professor on a mysterious project where art and science collide.

In 'CAVALIERS & COFFEES', Viv, now the owner of Legends & Lattes coffee shop, discovers that imitation is not the highest form of flattery.

Bad Words by Rioghnach Robinson

Bad Words follows Parker Navarro, whose debut was snapped up in a million-dollar deal and pegged to be the book of the year—until notorious City Magazine critic Selina Chan tore it apart, turning it into the decade’s biggest flop. Now, four years later, Parker’s second novel is about to drop, and he’s desperate for redemption. But when Selina’s brutal new review goes viral, history repeats itself, and a fiery, very public blowout between them at a publishing party turns them into instant enemies of the literary world.

As their feud plays out through snarky interviews and tense convention run-ins, their jabs about writing, criticism, and who gets to lead an artist’s life start to give way to the realization they might be more like-minded than they thought. While the feud carries on in public, a different conversation is taking place in private, especially after they're thrust together for one snowy New York evening and begin an epistolary communication that starts to feel a lot like flirting.

A Raven of the Rainforest by Rosanne Parry

On Westerly the raven’s otherwise ink-black tail, one bright white feather stands out. Westerly stands out, too. She isn’t like her brother and sister—she’s different. Everyone knows it, including the roost’s storykeeper, who proclaims that Westerly alone is destined to save her fellow ravens from a terrible fate. Questioning her destiny, isolated from her family, and full of doubt, Westerly takes to the sky, vowing never to return. But when a once-in-a-lifetime volcanic eruption finds her, she has no choice but to flee in the direction of home.