Joseph Delaney used to be an English teacher, before becoming the best-selling author of the Spook's series, which has been published in 30 countries and sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide. The first book, The Spook's Apprentice, was adapted into a major motion picture starring Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore.

Joseph Delaney

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Markus Zusak

Rube never loved any of them. He never cared about any of them. He just wanted each one because she was next, and why not take the next thing if it was better than the last? Needless to say, Rube and I aren't too much alike when it comes to women. 
 
Cameron and Ruben have always been loyal brothers, but that loyalty is about to be tested to the limit when Cam falls for Octavia - Rube's latest girlfriend. Will he get the girl? Will his love for her tear their brotherly bond apart? And would Octavia ever go for a guy like him anyway?

Getting the Girl

My name’s Cameron Wolfe. I have a little bit of sense. I don’t have much sense. My older brother Ruben gets me into plenty of trouble. I get Rube into as much trouble as he gets me into. I have a family, yes, that doesn’t really function without tomato sauce. That’s me. 
 
Cameron and Ruben Wolfe are brothers. They spend most of their time throwing one-handed boxing matches (they only have the one pair of gloves) and plotting to rob the local dentists. But what Cameron really wants is to meet a girl – a real girl, not like the ones in the lingerie magazines. But who could ever love an underdog like Cameron Wolfe?

The Underdog

Alan Durant

Cheap tabloid headlines scream the brutal facts at 17-year-old Robert Harrison: his parents have been shot dead in the sitting room of their suburban home. Robert's initial shock and anger is soon replaced by a growing sence of a conspiracy to protect him from the truth. So he decides to investigate the murder himself and the secrets he uncovers about his parents lead him to the brink of sanity and put his life in danger . . .

Blood

Linda Newbery

Flightsend is Charlie's new home, whether she likes it or not. Her mother sees it as an end to all that's gone so tragically wrong, but for Charlie it's the end of her family, not to mention her social life. 
 
They had been a proper family. Mum, Sean and Charlie, with a new baby sister on the way. But the baby died before she was born and everything changed. Gradually, her mother pushed Sean away, before resigning from her job and selling the house, forcing Sean to find somewhere else to live. 
 
Although Charlie believes her mother is making a terrible mistake, she can only offer support - but who will support Charlie, with Sean cut out of their lives? She's certain that the move to a ramshackle cottage, miles from anywhere, can only make things worse. 
 
She couldn't be more wrong. This first summer at Flightsend proves to be a turning point for them both. For Charlie's mum there's a new business and the fresh start that she knew she needed. And for Charlie there's a new job, new friends, a newly discovered talent for art and new feelings for two very different men. It's a summer of beginnings, not ends; a summer that Charlie will never forget.

Flightsend

I say, 'Don't lose your heart, Rube.' And very clearly, without moving, my brother answers me. He says, 'I'm not tryin' to lose it, Cam. I'm tryin' to find it.' 
 
The Wolfe brothers know how to fight. They've been fighting all their lives. Now there's something more at stake than just winning. 
 
A powerful, poignant novel from the author of the international bestseller, The Book Thief.

Fighting Ruben Wolfe

Kate Thompson

I could hear Dennis talking to my ma. 'She was little,' he said. 'Little like me. But old. Older than you.' Those words gave me a cold shock. I could see Dennis imagining fairies, but old ones? 
 
When Bobby's mother moves the family into a rented house in the country, a neighbour tells him that a child was once murdered there. Bobby doesn't care. All he wants is to get back to Dublin and to resume his wild life there, stealing from the crowded shopping streets and racing stolen cars at night. But getting his old life back doesn't turn out to be so easy, and the longer he spends in the old cottage, the more convinced he becomes that something very strange is going on there. Was there really a murder? And if so, was it the one he has been told about?

Creature of the Night

When Samuel Godwin, a young and naive art tutor, accepts a job with the Farrow family at Fourwinds, their majestic home, little does he expect to come across such a web of secrets and lies. His two tutees are as different as chalk and cheese - the beautiful younger sister Marianne, full of flightiness and nervous imagination, and Juliana, controlled and sad. With their governess, Charlotte Agnew, Samuel begins to uncover slowly the horrifying truth behind Juliana's sadness and Marianne's emotional fragility. Their discoveries change their perception of life at Fourwinds for ever and none of their lives will ever be the same again. 
 
With her usual brilliance and ease, Linda Newbery has written a haunting and faultlessly plotted novel with characters that leap of the page and stay with the reader long after the last page is turned.

Set in Stone

K M Peyton

When Josie is evacuated to her aunt and uncle's farm in Essex, she meets and falls in love with seventeen year old Jumbo, a happy-go-lucky optimistic young man who doesn't let his disability interrupt a life full of fun. Their relationship takes off, despite the difficulties of the war, which interrupts their idyll from time to time with stories of tragedy and death. 
 
But when Josie meets Chris, Jumbo's heroic fighter pilot brother, she experiences feelings that are out of control and dangerous; is this what real love feels like? She is torn between the two young men - one who is steady and loving, the other wayward and challenging. Yet it may not be her choice to make, as the German attack on England becomes more and more dangerous... 
 
Set against the backdrop of the second world war, where people diced with life and death every day, this is a wonderfully moving story of love, passion and tragedy.

Blue Skies and Gunfire

Trevor Colgan

Luke is fed up. Just as his football team has made it to the semi-finals of the All Ireland Schoolboys' League, his mother has decided to move him to Dun Laoghaire. For her it means a new job - perhaps a new man. But for Luke it means the loss of his footballing dream and struggling to fit into a new school. Whom can he trust? Cecilia whose bullying boyfriend wants to beat him to a pulp? Ella the quiet Man City Fan he sits next to? And will he be able to create a half-decent football team in Dun Laoghaire?

The Stretford Enders

Keith Gray

In 1699 William Milmullen took his six pupils to the lakeside but only he returned after a creature rose up from the water and devoured the six boys right before his eyes. The whole town was shocked and terrified by the tragedy. Many were now too frightened to go out on the lake to fish, and the town's economy was under threat. William Milmullen recovered from the shock of what he'd seen. He named the creature 'The Mourn', and declared himself 'Mourner'. He took upon himself the responsibility to appease the creature by feeding livestock into the lake and vowed his family would forever be responsible for the safety of the town, and that every Milmullen son would take the mantle of Mourner at the age of 16. 
 
This novel is set in the present day, and nobody believes in monsters anymore. These days the town is somewhat embarrassed about its monster stories and to many the Milmullen family is a bit of a joke. The family, however, have held onto their duty, believing that if they forsake the creature it will rise from the lake again. Tim Milmullen turns 16 in a week's time. On his birthday he will become the 13th Mourner. But Tim doesn't know if he wants the role. For one thing all the kids at school tease him, calling his father crazy, saying Old William back in 1699 killed the schoolboys himself and made up the story. And Tim's biggest problem is that he doesn't know if he believes in the legend or not. How can he dedicate his whole life to something he has never seen?

The Fearful

Clara has been left a widow, pregnant with another man's child, and it seems as if things could not get worse. But soon her pretty and reckless youngest sister, Ellen, is harshly sentenced to deportation to the newly-discovered land of Australia, alongside many other convicts. And back in Norfolk, Clara becomes the victim of blackmail that puts her in the clutches of the wicked Nat Grover in more ways than one . . . Will her pure love for Prosper Mayes ever survive? 
 
Spanning from the gritty county of Norfolk to the wilds of Australia in the early nineteenth century, the Garlands face huge obstacles in their struggle to survive as a family. Yet, they remain as inimitable and courageous as ever.

Greater Gains

Gareth Thompson

Glenn Jackson is thirteen and has moved with his father from Burnley to Torbeck in the Lake District. His Mum has not come with them and Glenn's father is avoiding Glenn's questions. From the moment Glenn meets Laura, quiet and overshadowed by her vindictive adoptive sister, he is bewitched. 
 
Harlequin is a seven-foot eighteen-year-old living rough in an abandoned shack, disguising himself behind clown's make-up and an old felt hat and hiding in terror whenever the fighter jets have practice runs over Torbeck. When Harlequin rescues Glenn from falling into the old slate mine the two form an unusual friendship and Glenn comes closer to discovering the secret that Harlequin is running away from.

The Great Harlequin Grim

Set just after the Napoleonic wars, Small Gains is the story of Clara, a true heroine who struggles to keep her head above water in a time of poverty and prejudice. Nat, the cruel but incredibly attractive son of the local rich family, turns Clara and her family's lives upside down, both in the world of racing and in the flushes of first love. And with the threat of tuberculosis hanging over them all, Clara faces up to her extraordinary life and loves with certainty and passion.

Small Gains

Catherine Fisher

Rob's sister Chloe lies in a coma after a riding accident, trapped in a forest of dreams between life and death. But when a dark druid shape-shifts his way into Rob's life, despair turns to hope. Because the druid knows the way through the Unworld, where he claims Chloe is imprisoned. Could the ominous black ring of timbers slowly emerging from a secret archaeological dig hold the key to rescuing her? And will Chloe want to be rescued from a world where the landscapes of story merge and blur, and she has the chance to be Queen? Catherine Fisher's new novel combines a fascinating exploration of Celtic myth with a modern quest for understanding. Where is the land of the imagination? And if we found our way would we ever want to come back?

Darkhenge

Aidan Chambers

Karl, aged seventeen, is hopelessly in love. But the object of his affections, Firella, demands proof, and poses him a series of questions regarding his attitude to the many sides of love. But Karl is dyslexic, and convinced that if Firella finds out, she will think he is stupid, and unworthy of her, and leave him. 
So Karl asks a local writer to help him construct his replies - and an unlikely, but extremely touching, friendship develops between the two men. They both come to learn a great deal about about life from a very different perspective, and when an act of violence shatters their calm, they find their respective appraisal of life shifting in profound ways.

Dying to Know You

From the ruins of an ancient abbey, British archaeologists unearth the skull of a young monk. Using the very latest technology, Liam's dad must attempt to put the flesh back on the bone and give life back to the skull. What did the young man look like? 
 
But as his dad works, Liam finds himself submitting to an irresistible force. As he looks into the cavities where eyes had once been, he hears a voice calling out across the centuries - "Foul deeds. Murder. The Black Arts." 
 
Who was this young monk and how did he die? The questions keep coming as Liam is drawn into a centuries-old mystery, embarking on a journey that will force him and his father to confront their own recent loss.

Flesh And Bones

Chloe Rayban

Justine Duval has modest goals in life: to attain celebrity status, earn stacks of cash, be drop dead gorgeous and find pure, unadulterated love. Simple. By achieving her ambitions of fame, money, beauty and a bloke, Justine will cunningly evade ever becoming Grown-Up-and-Past-It. And a bizarre meeting with her future self - ten years older and ten years wiser - gives Justine the chance to really get to grips with her ultimate destiny...in more ways than one.

Wild Child

Jonathan Meredith's life is a disaster, all because of a Greek holiday and Iris, the girl who has brought his world - parents, education, society - tumbling down. So Jonathan seeks refuge with Peter, his jockey friend with ambitions to win the National. Jonathan's life quickly becomes focused on the race, and chances of a very challenging horse . . .

The Last Ditch

John Rowe Townsend

The inhabitants of Halcyon Island are ruled by the laws of the Deliverer and follow the same customs and traditions that have prevailed for hundreds of years. The laws state 'No incomers', but when Thomas and Molly find a shipwrecked canoe with a boy and girl, barely alive, inside they are determined not to reject them outright. New blood on the island is bound to cause a disturbance, but the effects the incomers have on the close-knit community are beyond anyone's predictions.

The Islanders

Anthony McGowan

From the Carnegie Medal winning author of Lark, comes Henry Tumour - winner of the 2006 BookTrust Teenage Prize. 
 
It wasn't my choice: Henry was in charge. 
 
As if school bullies and his mum's tofu sandwiches weren't enough for Hector Brunty, he now has another dilemma: a talking brain tumour. 
 
Henry Tumour turns out to be the perfect alter-ego, advising Hector on haircuts, high-fashion, and tactics for snogging the best-looking girl in school, Uma Upshaw. Controlling his speech and brain chemicals is one thing, but soon Henry Tumour is trying to make more decisions about Hector's life than he'd like. 
 
Can Hector overpower his tumour in order to get what he really wants . . . before they both go under the knife?

Henry Tumour

Robert Westall

There were three people, standing in the darkest place, watching him. 
 
Simon is outraged that his Mum plans to remarry. He can't bear her new fiancé or the way his mother and sister seem to have forgotten his late father. Overwhelmed by hatred and anger he seeks solace in a nearby abandoned water mill. But another, powerful hatred lingers within its walls. And it is about to be unleashed... 
 
Westall's immense talent is evident from the opening line - Simon's anger and unhappiness are tangible, and the Scarecrows' ill-intentions terrifying.

Scarecrows

In Breaktime, Ditto challenges Morgan to prove that literature is crap and triggers off a chain of events to alter his outlook of life forever. Ditto faces a series of charges from Morgan against literature: that all fiction is Done. Finished. Dead; a sham and a pretence. He undertakes faithfully to record a life in the week of Ditto - with all the chaos of reality thrown in - and his literary creation reveals more about himself than he originally bargained for. 
 
In Dance on My Grave, life in his seaside town is uneventful for Hal Robinson, nothing unusual, exciting or odd ever happens to him - until now that is. Until the summer of his 16th birthday when he reaches a crossroads of choices in life. He foolishly takes a friend's boat for a day's sailing, gets into difficulty and is rescued by Barry Gorman. Their ensuing relationship results in a tumultous summer for Hal as he experiences the intense emotions of his first teenage love.

Breaktime & Dance on My Grave

Sangu Mandanna

Eva's life is not her own. She is a creation, an abomination – an echo. Made by the Weavers as a copy of someone else, she is expected to replace a girl named Amarra, her 'other', if she ever died. Eva studies what Amarra does, what she eats, what it's like to kiss her boyfriend, Ray. So when Amarra is killed in a car crash, Eva should be ready. 
 
But fifteen years of studying never prepared her for this. 
 
Now she must abandon everything she's ever known – the guardians who raised her, the boy she's forbidden to love – to move to India and convince the world that Amarra is still alive . . .

The Lost Girl

Jan Mark

Set in a highly realistic dystopic future, where the lowlands of Britain are flooded, this beautifully realised novel explores a world where archaeology is controlled for fear of social unrest. One bleak morning, a storm across the North Sea unveils a human skull, which leads to a series of events that changes the lives of those involved. Merrick, a young graduate archaeology student becomes embroiled in the task of discovering the origins of the skull. His interest in this bizarre case brings him into contact with the Inglish, a remnant tribe eking out an existence on the edge of Europe. In this wildly progressive new world, it is they who will be affected the most. This is a compelling vision of England as it could be in the not-so-distant future.

Useful Idiots

At the age of nine Andrew Kindness witnesses the horrific death of a father and son who are sucked into quicksand on the shores of Millom's estuary in Cumbria. Unable to help at the time, Andy grows haunted by the guilt and memory of this terrible event. When his granddad shows him the art of cross-breeding daffodils some years later, Andy finds solace in the beauty of the flowers, but he keeps his hobby secret from the prying eyes of the village. 
 
That is until Angie Hutchinson, the cleverest and prettiest girl in the school, needs Andy's help to produce a radio show to commemorate the anniversary of Wordsworth's famous Daffodils poem. Their growing friendship gives Andy the strength he needs to let go of the past and face up to his dad's illness. 
 
A moving novel that explores both the beauty and bleakness of life and the effect that the past can have on shaping the future - beautifully written in Gareth Thompson's fresh prose.

Sunshine to the Sunless

'It's not really kidnapping, is it? He'd have to be alive for it to be proper kidnapping.' 
 
Kenny, Sim and Blake are about to embark on a remarkable journey of friendship. Stealing the urn containing the ashes of their best friend Ross, they set out from Cleethorpes on the east coast to travel the 261 miles to the tiny hamlet of Ross in Dumfries and Galloway. After a depressing and dispiriting funeral they feel taking Ross to Ross will be a fitting memorial for a 15 year-old boy who changed all their lives through his friendship. Little do they realise just how much Ross can still affect life for them even though he's now dead. 
 
Drawing on personal experience Keith Gray has written an extraordinary novel about friendship, loss and suicide, and about the good things that may be waiting just out of sight around the corner . . .

Ostrich Boys

Tom Pow

'Floris is all that keeps Victor in the human world, the only tenderness he allows in his heart. He will do all he can to find her and, if he doesn't, yes, he will die as a dog . . .' 
 
Bradley, Victor and Floris live with the dogs on the dark, forgotten edge of a segregated city. Haunted by memories and abandoned by society, they have learned to survive on their own. But when Floris is kidnapped the others must venture into the unknown to save their friend. It is a journey fraught with danger - violent gangs stalk the streets, and corrupt warlords viciously guard their territories. But it is also a journey of discovery . . .

The Pack

Fifteen-year-old Samson Ashburner has always felt like an outsider - even before the accident that left his face scarred and his confidence shattered. With the jeers and taunts of the local children and his mother ringing in his ears, Samson malingers like a dark cloud over the Cumbrian landscape. His only refuge is his ancestor's charcoal-burning hut deep in the nearby woods and it is here that he encounters Angel Obscura, a gypsy girl who teachers Samson that not everybody takes him at face value. But Angel is not all that she seems, and Samson is drawn into a web of deceit and shady dealings with an explosive outcome.

The Anarchist's Angel

Derwent Drive was known as the Speed Creep. A continual chain of Dashes into Blind. We'd all heard the story about the Creeper who dropped Blind into a garden, only to discover he was standing in a dog pound. It was also the longest creep; twenty-five houses all in a row, no bends, no kinks. And no Creeper had ever done the lot. But Jamie and I reckoned we could do it. Jamie was the best Creeper around. He was the best Buddie you could have. And he was mine. Ever heard about 'creeping' before? Probably not. Nobody really talks about it. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen. It does. Creeping over back fences all the way down a street without getting caught; without being hurt. It happens more than you might think. It's probably happening somewhere tonight.

Creepers

'Hundreds of people want to be in a band. They all get guitars and they all play gigs and they all write songs, and they still never make it.'There's a big difference between being a rock star and a pop idol - Will and Danny know which they'd prefer to be. They form the group Happy and it seems they are on the way to realising their ambitions. But when Happy's first gig is cut short by a fire at the venue, Will struggles to cope with his bitter disappointment and retreats into his private world, rejecting everyone around him. His girlfriend, Beth turns to Danny for comfort and their friendship soon becomes something more. With nothing left for him at home, Will leaves for London to stay with his session-musician father and to follow his dream.

Happy

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