Showing titles in Literary Fiction

The highly anticipated second novel from Carnegie-shortlisted author Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock. Come on a journey across the rural American West. Meet the teenagers who live in the small towns across these states, separated by distance, but whose stories are woven together in the most unexpected of ways. Whether they are brought together by the spread of wildfire, by the priest who's moved from state to state or by the hunt for a missing child, these incredible tales blaze with secrets, rage and love.

Link is a fish out of water. Newly arrived from America, he is finding it hard to settle into the venerable and prestigious Osney School. Who knew there could be so many strange traditions to understand? And what kind of school ranks its students by how fast they can run round the school quad - however ancient that quad may be? When Link runs the slowest time in years, he immediately becomes the butt of every school joke. And some students are determined to make his life more miserable than others....

In his palace at Inuyama, Lord Iida Sadamu, warlord of the Tohan clan, surveys his famous nightingale floor. Its surface sings at the tread of every human foot, and no assassin can cross it. But 16-year-old Otori Takeo, his family murdered by Iida's warriors, has the magical skills of the Tribe - preternatural hearing, invisibility, a second self - that enable him to enter the lair of the Tohan. He has love in his heart and death at his fingertips....

Award-winning writer Patrick Ness’s bold and irreverent novel powerfully asks what if you weren't the Chosen One? The one who's supposed to fight the zombies, or the soul-eating ghosts, or whatever this new thing is, with the blue lights and the death? What if you were like Mikey? Who just wants to graduate and go to prom and maybe finally work up the courage to ask Henna out before someone goes and blows up the high school. Again.

Fifteen-year-old Alexander Cold has the chance to take the trip of a lifetime. Parting from his family and ill mother, Alexander joins his fearless grandmother, a magazine reporter for International Geographic, on an expedition to the dangerous, remote world of the Amazon. Their mission, along with the others on their team - including a celebrated anthropologist, a local guide and his young daughter Nadia, and a doctor - is to document the legendary Yeti of the Amazon known as the Beast.

Grass for His Pillow is the second novel in Lian Hearn's astonishingly beautiful series inspired by feudal Japan, Tales of the Otori. In the ancient Oriental lands of the Otori, amidst a time of violent war, famine and treacherous alliances, the fate of the young lovers Otori Takeo and Shirakawa Kaede hangs in the balance.... Takeo, heir to the great Otori clan, has pledged his life to the secret Tribe. His supernatural skills of virtual invisibility and acute hearing make him their most deadly assassin.

The third title in the compelling Tales of the Otori - the story that began with Across the Nightingale Floor and Grass for his Pillow, Brilliance of the Moon by Lian Hearn is an epic tale of love, power and destiny, set in a mythical world inspired by feudal Japan. Takeo and the exquisite Kaede, still only teenagers, are now married, but the implacable forces of destiny that rule their lives tear them apart.

Otori Takeo and Kaede have ruled the Three Countries peacefully for over 16 years, following the events laid out in the epic Tales of the Otori. They have three daughters: Shigeko, 15 years old and heir to the Otori, and Maya and Miki, 13-year-old twins who have inherited the supernatural skills of their father. Kaede knows nothing of the prophecy that Takeo will die at the hands of his son and longs to give him a male child. Nor does she know of the boy he fathered 16 years ago.

In a remote mountain village, a boy is born gifted with the supernatural skills of his father, once the deadliest assassin of the Tribe. Set in the years before the beginning of Across the Nightingale Floor, Heaven's Net Is Wide by Lian Hearn is the first and last tale, which both closes the circle and introduces new listeners to the fantastical, beautiful and thrilling world of the Otori. It is an epic story of betrayal, revenge, magic and love.

The wait is over! John Green, the number one best-selling author of The Fault in Our Stars, is back. It all begins with a fugitive billionaire and the promise of a cash reward. Turtles All the Way Down is about lifelong friendship, the intimacy of an unexpected reunion, Star Wars fan fiction, and tuatara. But at its heart is Aza Holmes, a young woman navigating daily existence within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts.

The critically acclaimed debut novel from Stephen Chbosky, Perks follows observant "wallflower" Charlie as he charts a course through the strange world between adolescence and adulthood. First dates, family drama, and new friends. Sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Devastating loss, young love, and life on the fringes. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it, Charlie must learn to navigate those wild and poignant roller-coaster days known as growing up.

The iron wheel began to spin, slowly at first, then faster and faster. The room grew darker. As the light lessened, so did the sound. Deeba and Zanna stared at each other in wonder. The noise of the cars and vans and motorbikes outside grew tinny. The wheel turned off all the cars and turned off all the lamps. It was turning off London.... Zanna and Deeba are two girls leading ordinary lives, until they stumble into the world of UnLondun, an urban Wonderland where all the lost and broken things of London end up.

Faith Valentine has it all – fame, money and extraordinary beauty. But what she wants more than anything is a quiet life away from the cameras. Except nobody ever asks Faith what she wants and her family’s expectations are crushing her. The world thinks she’s perfect, but is there is more to perfection than meets the eye?

Sal used to know his place with his adoptive gay father, their loving Mexican American family, and his best friend, Samantha. But it's senior year, and suddenly Sal is throwing punches, questioning everything, and realizing he no longer knows himself. If Sal's not who he thought he was, who is he? This humor-infused, warmly humane look at universal questions of belonging is a triumph.

The hungry Forest is moving forward like an army, a green and constant threat to the humans living in and on an increasingly crumbling Wall. Feather, accompanied only by her scaled ferret, Sleek, must avoid the Forest's tentacles, and the many dangerous creatures it shelters, to return the community's precious spyglass to its rightful place. Along the way, she develops her resilience, and meets other people living on the Wall, whose stories and experiences open her mind, and those of her community, to new horizons.

15-year-old Kateryno and her family live in Kharkiv. Their lives are shattered when on February 24th 2022 the Russian army invades. Their apartment block is struck by a missile. After weeks living in their basement, Kateryno, her mother, and brother, decide to leave, joining seven million Ukrainian refugees. They come to England and meet their host family, the Hawkins. But their new beginning brings a whole new set of problems.

Zazie débarque à Paris pour la première fois chez son tonton Gabriel. Le Panthéon, les Invalides et le tombeau du véritable Napoléon, elle s'en contrefiche. Mais kess-qui l'intéresse alors, Zazie, à part les bloudjinnzes ? Le métro. Et quand elle apprend que les employés sont en grève, elle leur envoie une bordée d'injures. C'est qu'il vaut mieux pas la contrarier, la mouflette !

Sylvia, brave-hearted and rebellious, moves into wild Northumberland from the city of Newcastle. She feels alien in this huge, silent, seemingly empty landscape, but then she meets Gabriel, a strange yet familiar boy. As they roam the forests and fells together, she sees nature with new eyes. She becomes aware that the past is all around her, and is deep inside herself. From the wing of a dead buzzard, they create a hollow bone - the kind of flute that was created and used in rituals in the distant past.

Hanna Slivka is on the cusp of 14 when Hitler's army crosses the border into Soviet-occupied Ukraine. Soon, the Gestapo closes in, determined to make the shtetele she lives in "free of Jews". Until the German occupation, Hanna spent her time exploring Kwasova with her younger siblings, admiring the drawings of the handsome Leon Stadnick, and helping her neighbor dye decorative eggs. But now she, Leon, and their families are forced to flee and hide in the forest outside their shtetele - and then in the dark caves beneath the rolling meadows, rumored to harbor evil spirits.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe meets I'll Give You the Sun in an exhilarating and emotional novel about the growing relationship between two teen boys, told through the letters they write to one another. Jonathan Hopkirk and Adam "Kurl" Kurlansky are partnered in English class, writing letters to one another in a weekly pen-pal assignment. With each letter, the two begin to develop a friendship that eventually grows into love. But with homophobia, bullying, and devastating family secrets, Jonathan and Kurl struggle....