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Review: Skyborn
Past mysteries and present crises collide in a whirlwind adventure that explores family, friendship, and standing up for what you believe in. The Quinn Family Circus is in need of a new headline act. Ever since Bastjan’s mother died in a terrible aerobatic accident, ticket sales have been declining. Now, in desperation, the ruthless…
Read MoreReview: Crazy
Jane, somewhere around a mid-point in life, finds herself at a moment of reckoning. A creative writing tutor, she suffers from both an unsteady sense of conviction in her task and acute, shifting physical pains that strike at unpredictable moments. Reflecting on the formative relationships in her life, she recalls the conflicts and currents…
Read MoreA Long Look At Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway was one of the most important and divisive literary figures of the twentieth century – ahead of a major TV documentary series on his life, Cliff looks at his works and influence: Around fifteen years ago, I decided I would spend an entire month devoted to Ernest Hemingway. I’ve always enjoyed setting myself…
Read MoreReview: Yours Cheerfully
If you’ve been suffering from a reading slump, this is the ideal book to get you back on a reading roll. Featuring the same cast of characters that stole our hearts in Dear Mrs Bird, Yours Cheerfully continues the tale of the spirited Emmeline Lake and her best friend Bunty as they navigate their way through 1941.…
Read MoreMiddle Grade Titles Coming Our Way
We’ve been lucky enough to receive some amazing advance copies of middle grade novels for kids from our publishers recently – two due out in June and two in September! The rich breadth of storytelling in this quartet really is too good to keep to ourselves, so below we have a little summary of…
Read MoreWhat To Read After ~ Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Do you know anyone who’s devoured all the Wimpy Kid books… multiple times? Are they struggling to find another book they love as much? We’re here to help ? An obvious choice is Liz Pichon’s brilliantly illustrated Tom Gates series, Dav Pilkey’s Captain Underpants series or Jonathon Mere’s World of Norm (illustrated by Donough O’Malley).…
Read MoreReview: Shades Of Scarlet
Scarlet’s mum has moved out, and taken Scarlet with her. Of course, no-one is telling Scarlet the whole story. Is she expected to just accept this massive upheaval to her life without complaint? The adults in her life seem outraged if she expresses even the smallest amount of dissatisfaction or even curiosity. They’re treating…
Read MoreReview: Klara And The Sun
Klara is an Artificial Friend (AF) intended to be bought for children as a companion. She spends her days staring out of a store window observing the humans and surroundings, dreaming of the life outside. When she is eventually purchased for an ill teenage girl and uprooted to the remote countryside, her unique and…
Read MoreReview: Amnesty
Danny, a young Sri Lankan man is determined to escape the brutality of his homeland’s security forces and a manipulative father. He pays a lot of money to start a dubious course at an Australian college but when he drops out, disillusioned that it is just a way to exploit migrant workers, he makes…
Read MoreReview: The Gilded Ones
Set in a fictionalised West Africa, sixteen-year-old Deka lives in an intensely patriarchal empire (think Afghanistan under the Taliban) where women’s choices are utterly proscribed by religion and society. She’s about to undergo the ritual of purity, which is as sinister as it sounds, when her village is attacked by monsters whose terrifying shriek…
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