Young Adult Book Reviews

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  • The Short Knife

    The Short Knife

    Name: Stephen Leitch
    10 March 2021;

    Genre: Historical Fiction

    The Short Knife is set in ancient Britain, some four decades after the Romans have withdrawn, as a new threat is invading the country in the form of the Saxons. Mai, her older sister Haf and their father farm the land, living quietly, till three strangers turn up at the farm s...

  • The World Between Us

    The World Between Us

    Name: Sharon Bolton
    08 March 2021;

    Genre: Romance & Relationships

    The World Between Us is a heart wrenching tale of Alice, bed-bound with the 'Illness', who counts her daily energy levels in spoons. Some days she has enough spoons and other days there's just not enough for her to live her limited life to the full. Alice benefits from Stream...

  • And the Stars Were Burning Brightly

    Name: Lucy Georgeson
    05 March 2021;

    Genre: Bullying

    When 15-year-old Nathan discovers that his older brother Al has taken his own life, his world falls apart. Al was a talented artist. Al was ambitious. Al was going places. So why did he do it? Convinced that his brother was in trouble, Nathan looks into Al's life and relationships. As he does,...

  • The Flag Never Touched The Ground: America's Brave Black Regiment in Battle

    The Flag Never Touched the Ground

    Name: Matthew Lappin
    04 March 2021;

    Genre: Historical Fiction

    'Freedom would never simply be given. It had to be fought for. And taken.'  The life of a Black slave in 1863 was one fraught with segregation, discrimination, exploitation and freedom that could only be dreamt of. William Harvey Carney's beginning to life was no different.William,...

  • Game Changer

    Game Changer

    Name: Clare Wilkins
    11 February 2021;

    Genre: Representation & Inclusion

    Ash Bowman is one of the stars of his American football team. An all-round decent guy with a tight group of friends and a good head on his shoulders. But his neatly ordered and unremarkable world is jolted when he takes a heavy tackle in a game and finds himself in another dimension, a slightl...

  • Savage Her Reply - from the award-winning author of Tangleweed and Brine

    Name: Catherine Purcell
    10 February 2021;

    Genre: Fairy Tales & Folk Tales

    First off let me confess something...in a rare moment of cleaning - I usually just sweep the room with a glance - I've tidied away my notes on this read. I say 'tidied' but I think my enthusiasm with the task may have led to a total recycling of them as they're nowhere to be found since that e...

  • The Gilded Ones

    Name: Ruth Cornish
    10 February 2021;

    Genre: Fantasy

    The Gilded Ones is brilliant! Gripping, full of threat, peril and totally absorbing, this debut novel has been written by new author, Namina Forna, to represent heroic girls.The Gilded Ones is a fantasy based in another world dominated by powerful men. The characte...

  • The Gilded Ones

    The Gilded Ones

    Name: Clair Bossons
    04 February 2021;

    Genre: Fantasy

    The Gilded Ones is an amazing debut novel by Namina Forna. I was fortunate to receive a limited-edition book proof from Usborne and it had a stunning golden cover!This fantasy fiction is set in Otera, an ancient patriarchal empire. Women are forced to wear masks in...

  • Furious Thing

    Name: Eileen Armstrong
    04 February 2021;

    Genre: Real life

    Everyone has met a Lexi, 15 years old and angry at seemingly everything and everybody. Lexi lives with her mum, her mum's new boyfriend John and her 6 year old half-sister Iris. She desperately wants John's love and approval but always seems to fall short of his sky-high ideals, especially com...

  • Magpie

    Magpie

    Name: Janet Fisher
    04 February 2021;

    Genre: Family & Home

    This deceptively slight book tells a story I sincerely hope that most children will never encounter. Alice and her family are on the run from an abusive man whom her mother became involved with, and returned to several times, until he hit Alice which was the wake- up call for her mother. They...