Your Life Has Been Delayed by Michelle I Mason

Jenny Waters boards her flight in 1995, but when she lands, she and the other passengers are told they disappeared . . . 25 years ago. Everyone thought they were dead.

Now contending with her family and friends fast-forwarding decades, Jenny must quickly adjust to smartphones and social media while being the biggest story to hit the internet. She feels betrayed by her once-best friend and fights her attraction to a cute boy with an uncomfortable connection to her past. Meanwhile, there’s a growing group of conspiracy theorists determined to prove the whole situation is a hoax. Will Jenny figure out how to move forward, or will she always be stuck in the past?

Cruel Castle by Bryony Pearce

They thought the island was the end. It was only the beginning…

Having survived the horrors of Savage Island, Grady is now stuck working for Gold, the psychopath who masterminded the gruesome competition. Sent on a “team-building exercise” in a remote castle, he starts to plot his escape.

Ben and Lizzie are in hiding, presumed dead after escaping the island. If they’re ever to return to their families, they need to bring Gold down. So they secretly join Grady in the castle. But as the doors slam shut and the series of deadly challenges between them and freedom are revealed, it looks like history is going to repeat itself...

No Ordinary Joe by Siobhán Daffy

The touching and funny story of family life with a boy with special needs. Based on the author’s own family life.

Joe loves chips and music and ice cream and running away. He doesn’t mean to run away – he’s just running.

Life with Joe is lots of fun but it’s hard work too. You have to remember to lock the windows, hide the sugar, shut the gate. But somehow, Joe always ends up with jam in his hair or missing one of his shoes.

But this is no ordinary Joe. He has a secret superpower. The power to make everyone love him.

Happy #BookBirthday

This week we read NOTHING on our lists!

(Not true. We read plenty, but none of it publishes this week.)

We'll have a review up this afternoon to replace the #BookBirthday post. See you then!

The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik

At the Scholomance, El, Orion, and the other students are faced with their final year--and the looming specter of graduation, a deadly ritual that leaves few students alive in its wake. El is determined that her chosen group will survive, but it is a prospect that is looking harder by the day as the savagery of the school ramps up. Until El realizes that sometimes winning the game means throwing out all the rules . . 

The Raven Heir by Stephanie Burgis

A set of magical triplets, two warring dynasties, and a broken crown waiting for its rightful owner…

Deep within an enchanted forest lies a castle where a set of triplets and their sorceress mother have lived for years — safe from the decades-long war for the Raven Throne that rages in the kingdom beyond. Cordelia, one of the triplets, has the power to become any animal with just a thought, and she yearns to discover more about the world outside her castle.

But one day, the world comes to her, when the eldest of the triplets becomes the newest heir to the throne. Knowing that being named heir means certain death, Cordelia’s mother hid the truth about which child is the eldest when she hid them in the forest. When her family is captured, it’s up to Cordelia to use her powers to keep her siblings hidden and discover the truth about the Raven Heir — before it’s too late.

#Bookpost

This week we received no new titles! It's a chance for us to catch up on some reviews. We'll be posting one this afternoon to fill the gap. Enjoy!

Redemptor by Jordan Ifueko

For the first time, an Empress Redemptor sits on Aritsar's throne. To appease the sinister spirits of the dead, Tarisai must now anoint a council of her own, coming into her full power as a Raybearer. She must then descend into the Underworld, a sacrifice to end all future atrocities.

Tarisai is determined to survive. Or at least, that's what she tells her increasingly distant circle of friends. Months into her shaky reign as empress, child spirits haunt her, demanding that she pay for past sins of the empire.

With the lives of her loved ones on the line, assassination attempts from unknown quarters, and a handsome new stranger she can't quite trust . . . Tarisai fears the pressure may consume her. But in this finale to the Raybearer duology, Tarisai must learn whether to die for justice . . . or to live for it.

Weekly roundup

Happy Sunday! Here is your weekly roundup of activity on the blog - we weren't overly busy this week, but it's still nice to look back and see what we've done! 

The Labyrinth Tarot Deck by Minerva Siegel and Tomas Hijo

Let Jareth, Sarah, Hoggle, and other beloved characters from Jim Henson's Labyrinth guide your tarot practice with the official Labyrinth Tarot Deck.

Characters from Jim Henson’s beloved classic Labyrinth try their hand at tarot in this whimsical take on a traditional 78-card tarot deck, which reimagines Jareth, Sarah, Hoggle, and other denizens of Goblin City in original illustrations based on classic tarot iconography. Featuring both the Major and Minor Arcana, the set also comes with a helpful guidebook with explanations of each card’s meaning, as well as simple spreads for easy readings. Packaged in a sturdy, decorative gift box, this stunning deck of tarot cards is the perfect gift for Labyrinth fans and tarot enthusiasts everywhere.

Happy #BookBirthday

Happy Thursday, all! This was a quieter week, and currently we have nothing dated for next week! We'll catch up on some oldies and get a bit ahead on the newer stuff, and of course things often show up last minute.

Femlandia by Christina Dalcher

Miranda Reynolds always thought she would rather die than live in Femlandia. But that was before the country sank into total economic collapse and her husband walked out in the harshest, most permanent way, leaving her and her sixteen-year-old daughter with nothing. The streets are full of looting, robbing, and killing, and Miranda and Emma no longer have much choice—either starve and risk getting murdered, or find safety. And so they set off to Femlandia, the women-only colony Miranda's mother, Win Somers, established decades ago.

Although Win is no longer in the spotlight, her protégé Jen Jones has taken Femlandia to new heights: The off-grid colonies are secluded, self-sufficient, and thriving—and Emma is instantly enchanted by this idea of a safe haven. But something is not right. There are no men allowed in the colony, but babies are being born—and they're all girls. Miranda discovers just how the all-women community is capable of enduring, and it leads her to question how far her mother went to create this perfect, thriving, horrifying society.

#Bookpost week ending 20th of July

Happy Tuesday, all! This past week was absolutely bonkers for one of us, receiving loads of books from a contact. Some of them are past their publishing date already, so they won't be featuring on a #BookBirthday post, but we hope to get them all reviewed eventually!

The Charles Dickens Tarot by Chris Leech

Using art and symbolism from the Dickensian Victorian era, this rich and inspiring 78-card deck and guidebook draws on literary themes but remains rooted in traditional Tarot. The Major Arcana focuses on Dickens's own life and history, including real-life people who were worked into his fiction. These include his father, John, as Wilkins Micawber in the Emperor card and his mother, Elizabeth, as Mrs. Nicklesby in the Empress card. The four suits—Fire, Water, Air, and Earth—are populated by a plethora of his best-loved characters and novels. The horizontal orientation of the cards invokes an open book, a vista, or even a panorama of Dickens's scenes. The guidebook, written in Dickensian "shorthand," provides keyword analysis of each card, making the meaning clear in both your own life and in relationship with Dickens's characters.

After the Ink Dries by Cassie Gustafson

What does it mean when you thought you knew someone? What does it mean when that person is your new boyfriend? This page-turning suspense story asks what it takes to face hard truths about yourself and others, and how to find strength when you need it most.

Sixteen-year-old Erica Walker is a webcomic artist who wants to fit in at her affluent new high school. Seventeen-year-old Thomas VanBrackel is an aspiring songwriter and reluctant lacrosse goalie who wants out from under his father’s thumb. After their electric first kiss at Saturday’s lacrosse match, Erica and Thomas are both elated to see where their new relationship could take them.

The next morning, however, following a drunken house party, Erica wakes up half-clothed, and discovers words and names drawn in Sharpie in intimate places on her body—names belonging to Thomas’s lacrosse friends, including the boyfriend of Erica’s best friend. Devastated, Erica convinces herself Thomas wasn’t involved in this horrific so-called “prank”…until she discovers Thomas’s name on her skin, too.

Told in alternating viewpoints, Erica seeks to uncover what happened while battling to keep evidence of her humiliation from leaking out, as Thomas grapples with his actions and who he thought he was. Woven throughout, illustrated graphic novel interstitials depict Erica’s alter ego superhero, Erica Strange, whose courage just might help Erica come through to the other side.

READERS BEWARE; the trigger warnings on this book are not a joke, and I'm going to reproduce them here; Sexual assault and abuse, suicide ideation, self harm and attempted suicide, bullying and victim shaming. There are resources at the back and the author urges readers to take breaks if necessary.

Blog tour: Let Sleeping Murder Lie

American Eve Holdsworth is living her quintessential English dream in a picturesque village in the countryside. Meeting an attractive stranger adds to the appeal.

But Ben Dryden is a pariah in Eve’s new neighbourhood, since his wife was murdered five years ago, and he was the only suspect.

Eve, who is absolutely sure someone as charming as Ben could never be a killer, is

determined to solve the case and clear Ben’s name, even if it’s against his will.

Soon enough Eve finds herself in deep waters, and with her life at stake, she can only pray that her romantic notions won’t be the end of her …

Weekly #roundup

Happy Sunday, all! A quick warning that one of us is going on holidays for the next two weeks, and some posts may be slightly delayed, although we'll do our best to get everything out on time for you. 

Cover Reveals! Question Mark Horror

Hi all, we're so thrilled to be part of the cover reveals for this fabulous new series. Remember Point Horror? (so much older than I remember.) Well this is Point Horror reimagined for current day!

You & Me at the End of the World by Brianna Bourne

This is no ordinary apocalypse...

Hannah Ashton wakes up to silence. The entire city around her is empty, except for one other person: Leo Sterling. Leo might be hottest boy ever (and not just because he's the only one left), but he's also too charming, too selfish, and too devastating for his own good, let alone Hannah's.

Stuck with only each other, they explore a world with no parents, no friends, and no school and realize that they can be themselves instead of playing the parts everyone expects of them. Hannah doesn't have to be just an overachieving, music-box-perfect ballerina, and Leo can be more than a slacker, 80s-glam-metal-obsessed guitarist. Leo is a burst of honesty and fun that draws Hannah out, and Hannah's got Leo thinking about someone other than himself for the first time.

Together, they search for answers amid crushing isolation, but while their empty world may appear harmless . . . it's not. Because nothing is quite as it seems, and if Hannah and Leo don't figure out what's going on, they might just be torn apart forever.

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

To possess the Mandate of Heaven, the female monk Zhu will do anything

“I refuse to be nothing…”

In a famine-stricken village on a dusty yellow plain, two children are given two fates. A boy, greatness. A girl, nothingness…

In 1345, China lies under harsh Mongol rule. For the starving peasants of the Central Plains, greatness is something found only in stories. When the Zhu family’s eighth-born son, Zhu Chongba, is given a fate of greatness, everyone is mystified as to how it will come to pass. The fate of nothingness received by the family’s clever and capable second daughter, on the other hand, is only as expected.

When a bandit attack orphans the two children, though, it is Zhu Chongba who succumbs to despair and dies. Desperate to escape her own fated death, the girl uses her brother's identity to enter a monastery as a young male novice. There, propelled by her burning desire to survive, Zhu learns she is capable of doing whatever it takes, no matter how callous, to stay hidden from her fate.

After her sanctuary is destroyed for supporting the rebellion against Mongol rule, Zhu takes the chance to claim another future altogether: her brother's abandoned greatness.

Happy #BookBirthday!

Happy Thursday, guys! After last week's desperate rush to get everything read, there is only ONE book on our lists publishing this week. Fun!

Little Thieves by Margaret Owen

Vanja Schmidt knows that no gift is freely given, not even a mother's love--and she's on the hook for one hell of a debt. Vanja, the adopted goddaughter of Death and Fortune, was Princess Gisele's dutiful servant up until a year ago. That was when Vanja's otherworldly mothers demanded a terrible price for their care, and Vanja decided to steal her future back... by stealing Gisele's life for herself.

The real Gisele is left a penniless nobody while Vanja uses an enchanted string of pearls to take her place. Now, Vanja leads a lonely but lucrative double life as princess and jewel thief, charming nobility while emptying their coffers to fund her great escape. Then, one heist away from freedom, Vanja crosses the wrong god and is cursed to an untimely end: turning into jewels, stone by stone, for her greed.

Vanja has just two weeks to figure out how to break her curse and make her getaway. And with a feral guardian half-god, Gisele's sinister fiancé, and an overeager junior detective on Vanja's tail, she'll have to pull the biggest grift yet to save her own life.

#Bookpost week ending 13 July 21

Happy Tuesday, all! This was a nice, middling busy week, and just today I got the news that something I've been really anticipating is on the way to me...hopefully I'll have that in next week's Bookpost!

Up All Night (anthology)

When everyone else goes to bed, the ones who stay up feel like they’re the only people in the world. As the hours tick by deeper into the night, the familiar drops away and the unfamiliar beckons. Adults are asleep, and a hush falls over the hum of daily life. Anything is possible.

It’s a time for romance and adventure. For prom night and ghost hunts. It’s a time for breaking up, for falling in love—for finding yourself.

Stay up all night with these thirteen short stories from bestselling and award-winning YA authors like Karen McManus, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nina LaCour, and Brandy Colbert, as they take readers deep into these rarely seen, magical hours.

Weekly #Roundup!

Happy Sunday, all! (No, I didn't start writing this in the title bar, why do you ask?...) Last week's roundup already feels like a very long time ago, so here's all the things that have happened on the blog since then.

The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams

Widower Mukesh lives a quiet life in Wembley, in West London after losing his beloved wife. He shops every Wednesday, goes to Temple, and worries about his granddaughter, Priya, who hides in her room reading while he spends his evenings watching nature documentaries.

Aleisha is a bright but anxious teenager working at the local library for the summer when she discovers a crumpled-up piece of paper in the back of To Kill a Mockingbird. It’s a list of novels that she’s never heard of before. Intrigued, and a little bored with her slow job at the checkout desk, she impulsively decides to read every book on the list, one after the other. As each story gives up its magic, the books transport Aleisha from the painful realities she’s facing at home.

When Mukesh arrives at the library, desperate to forge a connection with his bookworm granddaughter, Aleisha passes along the reading list…hoping that it will be a lifeline for him too. Slowly, the shared books create a connection between two lonely souls, as fiction helps them escape their grief and everyday troubles and find joy again.

  

Blog tour: Any Way the Wind Blows by Rainbow Rowell

In Carry On, Simon Snow and his friends realized that everything they thought they understood about the world might be wrong. And in Wayward Son, they wondered whether everything they understood about themselves might be wrong.

In Any Way the Wind Blows, Simon and Baz and Penelope and Agatha have to decide how to move forward.

For Simon, that means deciding whether he still wants to be part of the World of Mages -- and if he doesn't, what does that mean for his relationship with Baz? Meanwhile Baz is bouncing between two family crises and not finding any time to talk to anyone about his newfound vampire knowledge. Penelope would love to help, but she's smuggled a cursed American Normal into London, and now she isn't sure what to do with him. And Agatha? Well, Agatha Wellbelove has had enough.

Any Way the Wind Blows takes the gang back to England, back to Watford, and back to their families for their longest and most emotionally wrenching adventure yet.

This book is a finale. It tells secrets and answers questions and lays ghosts to rest.

Carry On was conceived as a book about Chosen One stories; Any Way the Wind Blows is an ending about endings. About catharsis and closure, and how we choose to move on from the traumas and triumphs that try to define us.

(This tour is a bit different, guys - read on for something you'll hopefully enjoy!)

Author Interview: Barry Shore

The JOY of LIVING (™) is Your passport to being Healthier and Wealthier. Barry Shore, the Ambassador of JOY, reveals the 11 Strategies that You can use to slay stress and be happy….no matter the circumstance. Imagine standing up in the morning fully healthy and in the hospital that evening completely paralyzed; and not from a car accident or a spinal injury, but a rare disease. You’ll join the journey as Barry moves from paralysis to now swimming 2 miles per day, 6 days a week. All with a SMILE. You’ll use these Strategies and transform Your world.

Happy #BookBirthday!

Happy Thursday, all!

This week is an amazingly busy week for publishing; a lot of the big summer titles are coming out, especially today. We have an unbelievable THIRTEEN books from our lists publishing this week!

Girl (in real life) by Tamsin Winter

What's it like to grow up online and have every tantrum, every spot - even your first period - broadcast to hundreds of thousands of followers?

Most parents try to limit their kids' online exposure. But not Eva's. Her parents run a hugely successful YouTube channel, and Eva is the star of the show. But Eva is getting sick of being made to pose in stupid mum-and-daughter matching outfits for sponsored posts. The freebies aren't worth the teasing at school. And when an intensely humiliating "period party" post goes viral, Eva is outraged. She's going to find a way to stop the channel, even if she has to sabotage it herself.

Heart of Snow by Katherine Buel

The Selection is a lie. The five girls chosen each year do not vanish into a life of royal luxury, as most believe. Snow knows this because she knows her aunt Lyric—the Witch-Queen of Cresilea—murderess and usurper.

When the Selection comes to the remote village where Snow has hidden since her father’s murder, she puts herself forward, trusting in her scarred face to hide her identity, and enters the castle she fled seven years ago—a place now haunted by unnatural whispers and eerie shadows.

But more is at stake than Snow’s revenge, or even the fates of five girls, and she must learn all she can about Lyric’s magic—and her own—before it’s too late.

#Bookpost!

Happy Tuesday, everyone! A flurry of last minute titles means that several of the books I'm about to list have already been read as they're publishing this week. Watch out for the reviews coming up. 

How to Break an Evil Curse by Laura Morrison

THE PRINCESS BRIDE meets MONTY PYTHON in How to Break an Evil Curse, the first book in a fractured fairytale series about a princess who may be cursed to live in darkness, but refuses to let her curse define her life.

The King of the Land of Fritillary has incurred the wrath of his ex-bestie, the evil wizard Farland Phelps. Farland curses the King's firstborn to die if touched by sunlight, and just like that, Julianna must spend her life in the depths of a castle dungeon (emptied of prisoners and redecorated in the latest fashion, of course). A young woman of infinite resourcefulness, all she needs is a serving spoon, a loose rock in the wall, and eight years of digging, and Julianna is free to explore the city—just not while the sun is out!

Forever Summer by Jenny Oliver

Summer term and the heat is rising ...

It's summer term at Chelsea High, the most exclusive school in town! The weeks ahead are filled with glamorous events - including a variety show AND a trip to a tropical island! But a shock revelation has new girl Norah Whittaker rethinking everything she thought she knew about herself. With family, friendship and romance up in the air, studying at Chelsea High is NEVER straightforward!

Weekly roundup

Happy Sunday! Another busy week on the blog, with a few extra reviews. Here's your weekly roundup, in case you missed anything important!

Kiki Kallira Breaks a Kingdom by Sangu Mandanna

Kiki Kallira has always been a worrier. Did she lock the front door? Is there a terrible reason her mum is late? Recently her anxiety has been getting out of control, but one thing that has always soothed her is drawing. Kiki's sketchbook is full of fantastical doodles of the Hindu myths and legends her mother has told her since she was tiny.

One day, her sketchbook's calming effect is broken when her mythological characters begin springing to life and Kiki is pulled into the mystical world she drew.

There, she discovers the band of rebel kids who protect the kingdom, as well as an ancient, monstrous god bent on total destruction. Kiki must overcome her fear and anxiety to save both worlds - the real and the imagined - from his wrath.

But how can a girl armed with only a pencil defeat something so powerful?

The Betrayed by Kiera Cass

Can you follow your heart when it’s already broken?

After fleeing Coroa and leaving the memory of her beloved Silas behind, Hollis is unsteadily adjusting to life in Isolte. The Eastoffe family’s affection is a balm on her weary spirit, though Etan, a surly cousin with a deep distaste for Coroans, threatens to upset the uneasy peace she’s found.

While tensions at home ratchet up, disquiet in the kingdom of Isolte is reaching a fever pitch. The Eastoffes may have the power to unseat a tyrannical king—but only with Hollis’s help.

Can a girl who’s lost it all put the fate of her adopted homeland over the secret longings of her heart?

Between Sea and Sky by Nicola Penfold

In a near future where a series of environmental disasters has left much of the country underwater, Pearl lives on a floating oyster farm with her father and younger sister, Clover. Following her mum’s death several years earlier, Pearl refuses to set foot on land, believing her illness was caused by the poisons in the ground. Meanwhile, Clover dreams of school, friends and a normal life.

Then Nat comes to spend the summer at the sea farm while his scientist mum conducts some experiments. Leaving behind the mainland, with its strict rules and regulations, he brings with him a secret. But when the sisters promise to keep his secret safe, little do they realize that they may be risking everything…

Happy #BookBirthday!

Happy Thursday, all! This week there are THREE books from our various lists publishing. Currently the second half of July looks pretty quiet, but next week is going to be busy! 

The Very Dangerous Sisters of Indigo McCloud by John Hearne

Indigo McCloud’s sister Peaches is every adult’s favourite child: pretty, golden-haired, polite and charming. But the children of Blunt know better: Peaches and her sisters are a gang of bullies who will stop at nothing to get her own way.

This is the story of Indigo’s battle to stop Peaches. Leaping across the rooftops of Blunt, talking to his best friend, computer genius Polly, though a walkie talkie, Indigo tries to keep one step ahead of his sisters. But he has to tangle with deadly spiders, curry farts, bungling policemen, various kidnappings, a submarine mishap with a villainous wigmaker …

When he discovers a hidden basement under Peaches’s room where she and her sisters plot their schemes, he knows he is up against a truly evil genius.

The Howling Hag by Nicki Thornton

When there’s a murder in Twinhills and a hag is heard howling at the inn, Raven Charming realizes she may not be the only secret witch in the village.

She could have a rival – one who practises the worst kind of magic. With the help of amateur sleuth, Mortimer Scratch, and Nightshade, a talking cat with a feline sense of detection, she sets out to solve what’s been going on …

Three Bullets by Melvin Burgess

The Bloods are in control and they’re desperate to turn Britain into the world they want to see: right, white, Christian supremist. Anyone who they call abnormal is a target. Amidst the chaos of civil war the country is on the move as small militia groups fight each other and a sea of refugees escapes the cities and the pursuing Bloods.

When her home is destroyed in a bombing raid, Marti must strike out on a mission of her own - to save her father and get his vital software into the right hands. But Marti is mixed race and trans and has her three-year-old brother in tow. Crossing into enemy territory could prove suicidal. Yet Marti's enemies haven't reckoned with her indomitable will to survive - and the gun she carries, which has three bullets . . .

Bookpost!

Happy Tuesday! This was a super week for new books; between all of us, we received something on all five days we get post last week! Read on for covers and links.

This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron

Darkness blooms in bestselling author Kalynn Bayron’s new contemporary fantasy about a girl with a unique and deadly power.

Briseis has a gift: with a single touch, she can grow plants from tiny seeds to rich blooms.

When Briseis’s aunt leaves her a dilapidated estate, Bri and her parents head there for the summer. Hopefully surrounded by plants and flowers, Bri will finally learn to control her gift. But their new home is sinister in ways they never imagined--it comes with a specific set of instructions, an old-school apothecary, and a walled garden growing the deadliest botanicals in the world.

When strangers begin to arrive on their doorstep, asking for tinctures and elixirs, Bri learns she has a talent for creating them. One visitor is Marie, a mysterious young woman who Bri befriends, only to find that Marie is keeping dark secrets of her own. 

Up against a centuries-old curse, Bri must harness her gift to protect herself and her family.

From the bestselling author of Cinderella Is Dead comes another enchanting story about a young woman with dark forces descending around her.

Julia and the Shark by Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston

The shark was beneath my bed, growing large as the room, large as the lighthouse, rising from unfathomable depths until it ripped the whole island from its roots. The bed was a boat, the shark a tide, and it pulled me so far out to sea I was only a speck, a spot, a mote, a dying star in an unending sky...

Julia has followed her mum and dad to live on a remote island for the summer - her dad, for work; her mother, on a determined mission to find the elusive Greenland shark. But when her mother's obsession threatens to submerge them all, Julia finds herself on an adventure with dark depths and a lighthouse full of hope...

A beautiful, lyrical, uplifting story about a mother, a daughter, and love - with timely themes of the importance of science and the environment.

Weekly roundup

Happy Sunday! Some late arriving books meant that this week and next will be a little more packed, so as always, here's your roundup in case you missed anything.

Trailblazers; Lin-Manuel Miranda by Kurtis Scaletta

Be inspired by the lives of trailblazers past and present in this fun and factual biography series!

How did Lin-Manuel Miranda become the multi-award-winning creator behind a hit Broadway show? As a child, Lin-Manuel spent his time listening to the sounds and rhythms of New York. Taking part in school productions and writing his own plays, he knew early on he was destined for the stage. While on holiday years later, he read a biography of Alexander Hamilton and came up with an idea for an original musical take on American history. Discover how this aspiring actor went on to create the most talked about show in decades and take the world by storm with his creativity!

TRAILBLAZERS biographies are packed with little-known trivia, fascinating facts and lively illustrations.

Nadia and the Forever Kitten by Holly Webb

Nadia spends as much time as she can at her friend Violet’s house, playing with the kittens her mum brings home from her job at the animal shelter. When Violet tells Nadia about a pregnant cat urgently in need of a place to stay, Nadia convinces her parents to foster Gracie for the summer.

After Gracie gives birth to five beautiful kittens, Nadia is instantly drawn to the smallest and sweetest, who she names Luna. But while the other kittens are quickly adopted, Nadia is heartbroken to see no one is interested in Luna. Can she help the kitten find her forever home?

The Amazing Edie Eckhart by Rosie Jones

"Do you like chicken?" Oscar asked me. I nodded. "Then take a wing." Oscar offered me his arm and we linked each other into the school hall.

Edie has Cerebral palsy, but she's used to it because she's spent her whole life being a bit wobbly. She can't wait to start secondary school with her best friend Oscar and share sausage rolls with him at breaktime. But when Oscar scuppers these plans by getting his first ever girlfriend, GROSS, Edie eventually decides to stop feeling sorry for herself and find a boyfriend, so she can prove to Oscar she's grown up too. She muses: 'when Thor was stripped of his power and banished to Earth by Odin, did he mope around and throw his hammer out of the pram? No he got on with it, bossed around Earth and found love like an absolute legend'.

But while she's plotting, she accidentally gets cast as the lead role in the school play. As Edie devotes her time to the performing arts, she finds a new friend, as well as talents - and feelings - she never knew she had. She soon realises that life in the spotlight might just be her thing after all...  

Happy #Bookbirthday!

Happy Thursday! In keeping with most of the month, this week there are TWO books on our various lists.  

Sentient by Jackie Higgins

Sentient assembles a menagerie of zoological creatures - from land, air, sea and all four corners of the globe - to understand what it means to be human. Through their eyes, ears, skins, tongues and noses, the furred, finned and feathered reveal how we sense and make sense of the world, as well as the untold scientific revolution stirring in the field of human perception.

The harlequin mantis shrimp can throw a punch that can fracture aquarium walls but, more importantly, it has the ability to see a vast range of colours. The ears of the great grey owl have such unparalleled range and sensitivity that they can hear twenty decibels lower than the human ear. The star-nosed mole barely fills a human hand, seldom ventures above ground and poses little threat unless you are an earthworm, but its miraculous nose allows it to catch those worms at astonishing speed - as little as one hundred and twenty milliseconds. Here, too, we meet the four-eyed spookfish and its dark vision; the vampire bat and its remarkable powers of touch; the bloodhound and its hundreds of millions of scent receptors, as well as the bar-tailed godwit, the common octopus, giant peacocks, cheetahs and golden orb-weaving spiders. Each of these extraordinary creatures illustrates the sensory powers that lie dormant within us.

In this captivating book, Jackie Higgins explores this evolutionary heritage and, in doing so, enables us to subconsciously engage with the world in ways we never knew possible.

#Bookpost!

Welcome back to #Bookpost! We missed this feature during Lockdown, but it just wasn't practical to coordinate. Since it's been literal months since the last one, we've gone a bit further back than the customary week for this post.

This Fragile Earth by Susannah Wise

Not long from now, in a recognizable yet changed London, Signy and Matthew lead a dull, difficult life. They’ve only really stayed together for the sake of their six year old son, Jed. But they’re surviving, just about. Until the day the technology that runs their world stops working. Unable to use their phones, pay for anything, even open the smart door to their flat, Matthew assumes that this is just a momentary glitch in the computers that now run the world.

But then the electricity and gas are cut off. Even the water stops running. And the pollination drones – vital to the world, ever since the bees all died – are behaving oddly. People are going missing. Soldiers are on the streets. London is no longer safe.

A shocking incident sends Signy and Jed on the run, desperate to flee London and escape to the small village where Signy grew up. Determined to protect her son, Signy will do almost anything to survive as the world falls apart around them. But she has no idea what is waiting for them outside the city…

Weekly roundup

Happy Sunday! Here is this week's roundup in case you missed anything. From next week we're resuming the Book post on Tuesdays, so look out for that!

Instructions for Dancing by Nicola Yoon

Evie Thomas doesn’t believe in love anymore. Especially after the strangest thing occurs one otherwise ordinary afternoon: She witnesses a couple kiss and is overcome with a vision of how their romance began…and how it will end. After all, even the greatest love stories end with a broken heart, eventually.

As Evie tries to understand why this is happening, she finds herself at La Brea Dance Studio, learning to waltz, fox-trot, and tango with a boy named X. X is everything that Evie is not: adventurous, passionate, daring. His philosophy is to say yes to everything—including entering a ballroom dance competition with a girl he’s only just met.

Falling for X is definitely not what Evie had in mind. If her visions of heartbreak have taught her anything, it’s that no one escapes love unscathed. But as she and X dance around and toward each other, Evie is forced to question all she thought she knew about life and love. In the end, is love worth the risk?  

These Deadly Games by Diana Urban

Let’s play a game.

You have 24 hours to win. If you break my rules, she dies. If you call the police, she dies. If you tell your parents or anyone else, she dies.

Are you ready?

When Crystal Donavan gets a message on a mysterious app with a video of her little sister gagged and bound, she agrees to play the kidnapper’s game. At first, they make her complete bizarre tasks: steal a test and stuff it in a locker, bake brownies, make a prank call.

But then Crystal realizes each task is meant to hurt—and kill—her friends, one by one. But if she refuses to play, the kidnapper will kill her sister. Is someone trying to take her team out of the running for a gaming tournament? Or have they uncovered a secret from their past, and wants them to pay for what they did…

As Crystal makes the impossible choices between her friends and her sister, she must uncover the truth and find a way to outplay the kidnapper… before it’s too late.

Author of All Your Twisted Secrets, Diana Urban’s explosive sophomore novel, These Deadly Games, will keep you riveted until the final twist is revealed.

Happy BookBirthday!

Happy Thursday, all! As I said last week, this is a very quiet week; only ONE book, and that one only showed up at the last minute!  

Zhiguai translated by Yi Izzy Yu and John Yu Branscum

Discover the China that before now was only whispered about in the dark.

In this collection, award-winning writers and translators Yi Izzy Yu and John Yu Branscum share paranormal and glitch in the matrix tales from across present-day China. Confided by eyewitnesses, these true stories uncannily echo Western encounters with chilling dimensions of reality and supernatural entities. At the same time, they thrillingly immerse the reader in everyday Chinese life and occult beliefs.

Zhiguai: Chinese True Tales of the Paranormal and Glitches in the Matrix includes such accounts as:

*The reincarnation of a teenager whose fate eerily mimics his predecessor's

*A girl who dies in the womb but nevertheless continues to communicate with her twin

*Terrifying shifts into demonic parallel universes

*Walls desperately painted with blood to save a family from tragedy

*Huge populations that disappear into thin air

*The revenge-seeking ghosts of murdered cats

*Weird temporal shifts

*Occult murders

From the terrifying to the uncanny, this collection will not only change your understanding of China but of reality itself.  

Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim

Shiori, the only princess of Kiata, has a secret. Forbidden magic runs through her veins. Normally she conceals it well, but on the morning of her betrothal ceremony, Shiori loses control. At first, her mistake seems like a stroke of luck, forestalling the wedding she never wanted, but it also catches the attention of Raikama, her stepmother.

Raikama has dark magic of her own, and she banishes the young princess, turning her brothers into cranes, and warning Shiori that she must speak of it to no one: for with every word that escapes her lips, one of her brothers will die.

Peniless, voiceless, and alone, Shiori searches for her brothers, and, on her journey, uncovers a conspiracy to overtake the throne—a conspiracy more twisted and deceitful, more cunning and complex, than even Raikama's betrayal. Only Shiori can set the kingdom to rights, but to do so she must place her trust in the very boy she fought so hard not to marry. And she must embrace the magic she's been taught all her life to contain—no matter what it costs her.

You're So Dead by Ash Parsons

Plum Winter has always come in second to her sister, the unbelievably cool, famous influencer Peach Winter. And when Peach is invited to an all-expenses paid trip to a luxurious art and music festival for influencers on a private island in the Caribbean, Plum decides it's finally her time to shine. So she intercepts the invite--and asks her two best friends Antonia and Marlowe to come along to the fest with her. It'll be a spring break they'll never forget.

But when Plum and her friends get to the island, it's not anything like it seemed in the invite. The island is run-down, creepy, and there doesn't even seem to be a festival--it's just seven other quasi-celebrities and influencers, and none of the glitz and glamor she expected. Then people start to die...

Plum and her friends soon realize that someone has lured each of them to the "festival" to kill them. Someone has a vendetta against every person on the island--and no one is supposed to leave the island alive. So, together, Plum, Antonia, and Marlowe will do whatever it takes to unravel the mystery of the killer, and fight to save themselves and as many influencers as they can, before it's too late.

Weekly roundup

Happy Sunday, all! We had a pretty quiet week here on the blog, but here's the roundup anyway, just in case!

All the Money in the World by Sarah Moore Fitzgerald

Fifteen-year-old Penny longs for something better. Better than a small, damp flat. Better than her bullying classmates and uninterested teachers. Better than misery and poverty day in day out.

An unlikely friendship and a huge sum of money promise a whole lot of new chances for Penny, and she realises that not only can she change her life, she can change herself.

But at what cost?  

Red Sky Burning by Teri Terry

 

She survived the hurricane and now Tabby is on the run, hoping she can make it to her old friend Jago before her pursuers catch her.

All she has are questions, about the experiments she saw in the basement of her swim school...about who - or what -she is.

Denzi is also searching for answers after the storm. But each time he connects with a survivor, they disappear.

The environmental activist group The Circle claims responsibility for the hurricane that destroyed Tabby and Denzi's school and caused great damage around the world. Now they threaten further terror if their demands aren't met.

As the political tension bubbles over into violence, Tabby and Denzi search for the truth. There's something connecting them, drawing their paths into one.

Can they put the puzzle pieces together and discover what The Circle wants with them? Sometimes it's better not to know the truth...

Tabitha Plimtock and the Edge of the World by Erica McGann and Phillip Cullen

Tabitha Plimtock lives in a house at the very edge of the world. She is a go-getter - that is, a dogsbody forced to go and get things - for her nasty relatives, Gower, Gristle, Bertha and Cousin Wilbur.

One of Tabitha's endless chores involves descending the cliff face, via a net that hangs from the back of the house, to collect eggs, nuts and other things from the inhabitants of the wall. When rumours begin to circulate of monsters climbing from the base to gobble up unsuspecting wall-dwellers, Tabitha is worried for all her friends.

Determined to save them, Tabitha seeks out the elusive and eccentric Dr Sherback. The doctor introduces her to a whole new world at the base - one that is dark, dangerous and absolutely thrilling - but not even Dr Sherback's vast knowledge can slow the terrible creatures climbing to the top of the wall.

With a clever plan, and not a small amount of courage, can Tabitha stop the monsters and keeps the people she loves safe for good?

Happy BookBirthday!

Happy Thursday, all! This was a quieter week, with FOUR books from our lists publishing. The next two weeks still look quiet, so we'll be reading ahead a bit to get a jump on some books due later in the year!

Blogtour: The Fire God by Michele Sims

Welcome to the book tour for The Fire God Tour by Michele Sims. Read on for more details about this genre-blurring romance! There's also a chance to win a signed copy of the book!