03DOCKRILL LAURA
04
In Big Bones, 16-year-old Bluebelle is encouraged to tackle her weight—even though she’s confident and content. Then a family trag- edy forces her to find a new relationship with her body. Dockrill was inspired to write the book after finding her own teenage diaries, a reminder of her formerly unhealthy relationship with her body. She describes Big Bones as “a love letter to food”.
07POLLOCK TOM
08
White Rabbit, Red Wolf’s protagonist, Peter, is a 17-year- old maths prodigy who suffers from severe panic attacks. When his mother is stabbed and his twin sister disappears, he is dragged into a world of espionage and violence where state and family secrets intertwine. Armed only with his extraordinary analytical skills, Peter discovers that his biggest weakness may just be his great- est strength.
FIONA SHAW
In Outwalkers, England is no longer a free country. Jake has escaped from the Academy orphanage and is on the run to
Scotland with his dog. When the Outwalkers gang grabs him, they go off-grid. Now, it’s not only their own lives that are at stake... Shaw wrote the book after a dream she had before the Scottish indepen- dence referendum.
Only Love Can Break Your Heart is set in the Palm Springs desert. It’s about Reiko, a popular girl with secrets, and the boy who thinks she is perfect—and what happens when their expectations of each other fail to be met. To write it, Webber tapped into her own feelings of conflict as a teen- ager between “who I was perceived to be, who I actually was, and who I wanted to be”.
MUHAMMAD KHAN
I Am Thunder focuses on Muzna, who feels invisible until the hottest boy in school takes an interest in her. As she discovers his terrible secret and they begin to follow a dark path, Muzna faces an impossible choice. Secondary school teacher Khan began writing his début novel about Islamophobia and radicalisation to give his students a voice.
In inaugural YA Book Prize winner Louise O’Neill’s feminist retelling of The Little Mermaid, Gaia dreams of leaving her controlling father’s underwater kingdom. On her first swim to the surface, she is drawn to a human boy and longs to join his care-free world, but how much will she have to sacrifice to get there? O’Neill wanted
to give her little mermaid agency and “to help her recover her voice”.
09
KATHERINE WEBBER
10
LAURA WOOD
A Sky Painted Gold follows Lou, whose life in a sleepy Cornish village is turned upside down when the owners of the grand Cardew house —a rich, dashing brother and sister—befriend her. Wood describes it as “a dreamy, romantic coming-of-age story set in the golden summer of 1929, featuring moonlit parties, a pair of
dazzling siblings and plenty of whispered secrets”.
25
05
LOUISE O’NEILL
06ALICE OSEMAN
I Was Born for This follows one week in the lives of famous musician Jimmy and ultimate fangirl Angel. When the two are unexpect- edly thrust together, they find out how strange and surprising facing up to reality can be. In the book, Oseman wanted to explore the deep and complex relationship that exists between celebrities and their fans.
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