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Things To Do Before the End of the World - Emily Barr

1. Live your best life. 2. Uncover family secrets. 3. Trust no one What would you do when you hear the news that humans have done such damage to the earth that there might only be a limited amount of safe air left - a year's worth at most? You'd work through your bucket list, heal rifts, do everything you've never been brave enough to do before? Olivia is struggling to do any of this. What it is she truly wants to do? Who do she wants to be? Then out of the blue comes contact from a long-lost cousin Olivia didn't even know existed. Natasha is everything Olivia wants to be and more. And as the girls meet up for a long, hot last summer, Olivia finds Natasha's ease and self-confidence having an effect on her. But Natasha definitely isn't everything she first appears to be. Emily Barr is no stranger to YA literature having penned many a well-received title including The One Memory of Flora Banks and The Girl Who Came Out of the Woods. Her latest offering, Things To ...

Blog Tour | Kate In Waiting - Becky Albertalli

  [PRINCIPAL CAST LIST] Kate Garfield Anderson Walker Best friends, and contrary to popular belief, not co-dependent. Examples: Carpooling to and from theatre rehearsals? Environmentally sound and efficient. Consulting each other on every single life decision? Basic good judgement. Pining for the same guys from afar? Shared crushes are more fun anyway. But when Kate and Andy's latest long-distance crush shows up at their school, everything goes off-script.  Enter Stage Left: Matt Olsson He is talented and sweet, and Kate likes him. She really likes him. The only problem? So does Anderson. Turns out, communal crushes aren't so fun when real feelings are involved. This one might even bring the curtains down on Kate and Anderson's friendship... Becky Albertalli's latest YA offering is just what you would expect from the blurb - full of theatre, drama, and high school relationships, which are always the most complicated. Kate and Anderson are best friends, inseparable and r...

Murder on the Safari Star - M.G Leonard and Sam Sedgman

Harrison Beck and his Uncle Nat are on the journey of a lifetime aboard the Safari Star - a luxurious steam train that will take them from Pretoria to the stunning Victoria Falls. Close encounters with the amazing animals and landscapes of Southern Africa are adventure enough, but things get mysterious when a passenger is found dead inside a locked compartment. Is it just a terrible accident or is something more suspicious afoot? It's up to train detective Hal and his new friend Winston to find out.  Murder on the Safari Star is the third instalment of M.G Leonard and Sam Sedgman's Adventures on Trains series, following the roaring success of the Highland Falcon Thief and Kidnap on the California Comet . As a huge fan of the previous two novels I was eager to delve into the latest offering and luckily it did not disappoint.  This time Hal and his Uncle Nat are exploring the South African savannahs, desperate to see the Big 5 out in their natural habitat. As usual, they are joi...

Blog Tour | What Beauty There Is - Cory Anderson

  Jack Morton has nothing left. Nothing except for his younger brother, Matty, who he'd die for.  Now Jack faces a start choice: lose his brother to foster care, or find the drug money that sent his father to prison. He chooses the money.  And so begins a race against times as Jack tries to track down the stash of money while evading the clutches of Bardem, the man who masterminded the drug deal gone wrong all those years ago and who has held a vendetta against the family ever since.  But when Jack meets Ava, things become even more complicated.  At first Jack thinks he's found someone he can lean on for once, but then it turns out that Ava might be the one person guaranteed to bring Bardem to Jack's door.  What Beauty There Is is Cory Anderson's debut novel and what a debut it is. Heart-breaking , brutal and emotional What Beauty There Is is a rollercoaster of emotions with central characters that are developed from page one and a plot which has ...

The Night Bus Hero - Onjali Q Raúf

"The boy's an absolute menace. He's a bully. A lost cause!" "Why can't he be more like his sister?" I've been getting into trouble for as long I can remember. Usually I don't mind 'cos some of my best, most brilliant ideas have come from sitting in detention. But recently it feels like no one believes me about anything - even when I'm telling the truth! And it's only gotten worse since I played a prank on the old man who lives in the park. Everyone thinks I'm just a bully. They don't believe I could be a hero. But I'm going to prove them all wrong... The Night Bus Hero is Onjali Raúf's latest offering after the success of her other children's novels,  The Boy at the Back of Class and The Star Outside My Window,  and this has the same strong messages delivered in her unique style. The Night Bus Hero revolves around Hector - quite the anti-hero to begin, he is a bully who loves to wind others up and is constantly get...

Blog Tour | Amari and the Night Brothers - B.B Alston

  Amari Peters knows three things. Her big brother Quinton has gone missing. N oone will talk about it.  His mysterious job holds the secret... So when Amari gets an invitation to the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs, she's certain this is her chance to find Quinton. But first she has to get her head around the new world of the Bureau, where mermaids, aliens and magicians are real, and her roommate is a weredragon.  Amari must compete against kids who've know about the supernatural world their whole lives, and when each trainee is awarded a special supernatural talent, Amari is given an illegal talent - one that the Bureau views as dangerous. With an evil magician threatening the whole supernatural world, and her own classmates thinking she is the enemy, Amari has never felt more alone. But if she doesn't pass the three tryouts, she may never find out what happened to Quinton... Amari and the Nightbrothers is a truly magnificent addition to the middle grade world of fantasy...

Jungledrop - Abi Elphinstone

Eleven-year-old twins, Fox and Fibber, have been rivals for as long as they can remember. Only one of them will inherit the family fortune and so a race is afoot to save the dwindling Petty-Squabble empire and win the love of their parents. But when the twins are whisked off to Jungledrop, a magical Unmapped Kingdom in charge of conjuring our world's weather things get wildly out of hand. An evil harpy called Morg is on the loose. And if she finds the long-lost Forever Fern before the twins, both Jungledrop and our world will crumble.  Suddenly, Fox and Fibber find themselves on an incredible adventure in a glow-in-the-dark rainforest full of golden panthers, gobblequick trees and enchanted temples. But, with the fate of two worlds in their hands, will the twins be able to work together for once to defeat Morg and her dark magic?     Jungledrop is the highly-anticipated second novel in the Unmapped Chronicles series by the brilliant Abi Elphinstone. When I saw this in my ...