Focus On: Young Adult
Here are our young adult picks for autumn/winter 2024! Have a browse through to help focus your gift buying for this season, and beyond!
Some Like it Cold (Elle McNicoll)
After a long absence, 18-year-old Jasper is finally heading home for the holidays - and she's keeping secrets. Arthur, a budding filmmaker, is turning the town of Lake Pristine into a small town story worthy of the big screen. His plans are disrupted by the arrival of the town's golden girl - the antagonist of his school days; a girl he's never forgotten.
Jasper Montgomery is back in Lake Pristine for one reason: to say goodbye. But before long small-town tensions start to rise, and a certain brooding film buff starts to look like a very big reason to stay...
The perfect story to get lost in, Some Like it Cold centres Jasper as an autistic heroine in a big-hearted small-town romance that will melt your heart!
The Colour of Revenge (Cornelia Funke)
After five happy years, Meggie, her father Mo and the fire-eater Dustfinger, along with a host of new friends, feel safe and settled. But arch-villain Orpheus has found an unexpected way to wreak his revenge on the Inkworld! He has corrupted an artist to create bewitched portraits that will see the heroes fade to grey – Dustfinger, his brave stepson, Jehan, and his enigmatic friend Lilia, must come together to find a way to save them all! This is the Colour of Revenge...
A brilliant new stand-alone novel that returns to the beloved world of the Inkheart trilogy!
Heartstopper Volume 5 (Alice Oseman)
Nick and Charlie are very much in love. They've finally said those three little words, and Charlie has almost persuaded his mum to let him sleep over at Nick's house. But with Nick going off to university next year, is everything about to change?
Heartstopper encompasses all the small moments of Nick and Charlie's lives that together make up something larger, which speaks to all of us.
The Hunger Games: Illustrated Edition (Suzanne Collins & Nico Delort)
The first iconic book in the number one global YA blockbuster Hunger Games series, now sumptuously illustrated by Nico Delort. A must-have addition to the shelves of the series' millions of fans worldwide. This is The Hunger Games as you have never seen it before!
Set in a dark vision of the near future, a terrifying reality TV show is taking place. Twelve boys and twelve girls are forced to appear in a live event called The Hunger Games. There is only one rule: kill or be killed. When sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen steps forward to take her younger sister's place in the games, she sees it as a death sentence.
But Katniss has been close to death before. For her, survival is second nature.
The Dagger and the Flame (Catherine Doyle)
In the dark underbelly of a beautiful city, two rival assassins are pitted against each other in a deadly game of revenge, where the most dangerous mistake of all is falling in love… In Fantome, a kingdom of cobbled streets, flickering lamplight, beautiful buildings, and secret catacombs, Shade-magic is a scarce and deadly commodity controlled by two enemy guilds: the Cloaks and the Daggers – the thieves and the assassins.
On the night of her mother’s murder, 18-year-old Seraphine runs for her life. Seeking sanctuary with the Cloaks, Sera’s heart is set on revenge. But are her secret abilities a match for the dark-haired boy whose quicksilver eyes follow her around the city? Nothing can prepare Sera for the moment she finally comes face-to-face with Ransom, heir to the Order of Daggers.
And Ransom is shocked to discover that this unassuming farmgirl wields a strange and blazing magic he has never seen before… Among rumours of monsters stalking the streets and the rival guilds grappling for control of Fantome’s underworld, Sera and Ransom are drawn together by something more than just magic and must face a deadly choice - forgiveness or vengeance? Kiss or kill? Dagger or Flame?
The Glass Girl (Kathleen Glasgow)
Bella is at breaking point. Everyone in her life needs something from her, and there’s only one thing that dulls the pain. Alcohol smooths the sharp edges and makes it all so much easier.
When Bella drinks, she doesn’t feel heartbroken over her ex. Or caught in the middle of her parents’ divorce. Or overcome with grief for her grandmother.
But one night changes everything. When she awakes in hospital with no memory of what happened, it’s time to face reality. And for Bella, that means rehab and the bumpy road to recovery.
Somewhere Beyond the Sea (TJ Klune)
Arthur Parnassus has built a good life on the ashes of a bad one.
He’s headmaster at an orphanage for magical children, on a peculiar island, assisted by love-of-his-life Linus Baker. And together, they’ll do anything to protect their extraordinary and powerful charges. However, when Arthur is forced to make a public statement about his dark past, he finds himself fighting for those under his care.
It’s also a fight for the better future that all magical people deserve. Then when a new magical child joins their island home, Arthur knows they’ve reached breaking point. The child finds power in calling himself a monster, a name Arthur has tried so hard to banish to protect his children.
Challenged from within and without, their volatile family might grow stronger. Or everything Arthur loves could fall apart. Somewhere Beyond the Sea is a story of resistance, lovingly told, about the daunting experience of fighting for the life you want to live and doing the work to keep it.