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YA REVIEW -'Quintana of Charyn' - Melina Marchetta (Viking, 2012)
Separated from the girl he loves and has sworn to protect, Froi must travel through Charyn to search for Quintana, the mother of Charyn's unborn king, and protect her against those who will do anything...
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YA REVIEW - 'The Year Nick McGowan Came to Stay' - Rebecca Sparrow (UQP, 2006)
Seventeen-year-old Rachel Hill is the girl most likely to succeed. And the girl most likely to have everything under control . . . that is, until her dad invites Nick McGowan, the cutest boy at school,...
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MY YA CONFESSIONS #3 - I really should be reading more UKYA...
My reading habits fluctuate, much like everyone's else's I should imagine. Although, recently, they've come to a bit of a standstill. You know the usual excuses, life, kids, work, blah blah blah, so I...
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A Little Something for National Short Story Week...
So, it's National Short Story Week (you may have already sussed this from the title of this post), and I quite like short stories. I quite like reading them and I quite like writing them. And hopefully...
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SHORTS ON SHORTS - 'May Malone' by David Almond
When I made the rash decision to start this feature yesterday, as soon as I wrote my introductory post, I made for the bookshelf and started rifling through a few anthologies. But then it struck me -...
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SHORTS ON SHORTS - 'The Paper Menagerie' - Ken Liu
Well, I hope you enjoyed yesterday's post. Today's is going to be a bit tricky to write about. And that's because it's so bloody good. And by good, I mean...
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SHORTS ON SHORTS - 'Letter for Carlos' by Michael Morpurgo
Wow, I've managed to keep this up for three days in a row. I don't normally manage this level of blogging commitment. Yay for me. Anyway, today's short story is Letter for Carlos by Michael Morpurgo....
View ArticleSHORTS ON SHORTS - 'Love Letter Straight to the Heart' by Terry Tapp
I was trying to find a story to write about today that I could link to. However, I just could not find anything that grabbed me. This might have something to do with the fact that I'm knackered and...
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YA REVIEW - 'Life: An Exploded Diagram' - Mal Peet (Walker Books, 2011)
This is a brilliant coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of the Cold War and events leading up to the Cuban Missile Crisis. Clem Ackroyd lives with his parents and grandmother in a...
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So farewell then 2012...
...or otherwise known as the obligatory end of year post.I think it's fair to say I haven't been the most diligent blogger this year. I could cite many reasons/excuses, but I think it generally comes...
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YA REVIEW: 'When I Was Joe', Keren David (Frances Lincoln 2011)
When East London teenager Ty becomes embroiled in a fatal stabbing, the nature of his evidence means Ty and his mum are forced to go into witness protection and assume new identities, leaving behind...
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YA REVIEW - 'Almost True', Keren David (Frances Lincoln, 2012)
On the road again, Ty’s in hiding with complete strangers . . . who seem to know a lot about him. Meanwhile he’s desperate to see his girlfriend Claire, and terrified that she may betray him. Ty can’t...
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YA REVIEW - 'A World Between Us', Lydia Syson (Hot Key Books, 2012)
Spain, 1936. Felix, a spirited young nurse, has travelled to Spain to help the cause of the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. But she is also following Nat, a passionate young man who has joined...
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SHORTS ON SHORTS: 'The Future Husband' by A.J. Ashworth
Just before Christmas, Salt Publishing had a few of it's short story anthologies on special for Kindle, including this one Somewhere Else, Even Here. So let me just show you the Goodreads synopsis so...
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YA REVIEW - 'This is Shyness', Leanne Hall (Text Publishing, 2010)
A guy who howls. A girl on a mission to forget. In the suburb of Shyness, where the sun doesn’t rise and the border crackles with a strange energy, Wolfboy meets a stranger at the Diabetic Hotel. She...
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FRIDAY BOOK BARGAINS
Now, a bit of self promotion coming up now. You may or may not know that I do a spot of freelance writing and one of the sites I write for is called My Favourite Voucher Codes. They’re a bit different...
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YA REVIEW - 'The Ant Colony', Jenny Valentine (Harper Collins, 2009)
Number 33 Georgiana Street houses many people and yet seems home to none. To runaway Sam it is a place to disappear. To Bohemia, it's just another blip between crises, as her mum ricochets off the...
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Friday Book Bargains #2
So if you don’t know what my new feature is all about, just check out my first post from a couple of weeks back. Ok, I know this isn’t strictly ‘Friday’ Book Bargains, but Saturday Book Bargains just...
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Presenting a new feature... I Need to Get Out More #1
Well, it's been a while since I've introduced a new feature and then not really followed it up much, so here's my latest attempt. And here's the rather muddled thought process behind it....Well, you...
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YA REVIEW - 'What's Up With Jody Barton?', Hayley Long (Macmillan, 2012)
Me and my sister are twins. She's Jolene and I'm Jody. We've both got brown hair, we're both left-handed and we both have these weirdly long little toes which make us look like long-toed mutants. But...
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