LFCC Authors - An Introduction

[showmasters]

The Book Zone at this years LFCC is bigger than ever before! We have some great well known names, but we also have some up and coming stars, so below we have created a little who's-who with a little bit about each book, so that you can give them a go before July. =)

Each author will be taking part in a signing session during the day, but that's not all... there will be panels and some exciting workshops to take part in too. Keep a look out for the full schedule to be announced very soon! =)
Authors Confirmed So Far:

- Alexia Casale (Sunday)
A British-American citizen of Italian heritage, Alexia is an editor, teacher and writing consultant. After studying psychology then educational technology at Cambridge, she moved to New York to work on a Tony-award-winning Broadway show before completing a PhD and teaching qualification. In between, she worked as a West End script-critic, box-office manager for a music festival and executive editor of a human rights journal. Alexia has always wanted a Dragon; luckily, she has her very own rib in a pot..
The Bone Dragon:


Evie's shattered ribs have been a secret for the last four years. Now she has found the strength to tell her adoptive parents, and the physical traces of her past are fixed - the only remaining signs a scar on her side and a fragment of bone taken home from the hospital, which her uncle Ben helps her to carve into a dragon as a sign of her strength.

Soon this ivory talisman begins to come to life at night, offering wisdom and encouragement in roaming dreams of smoke and moonlight that come to feel ever more real.
As Evie grows stronger there remains one problem her new parents can't fix for her: a revenge that must be taken. And it seems that the Dragon is the one to take it.
This subtly unsettling novel is told from the viewpoint of a fourteen-year-old girl damaged by a past she can't talk about, in a hypnotic narrative that, while giving increasing insight, also becomes increasingly unreliable.
A blend of psychological thriller and fairy tale, The Bone Dragon explores the fragile boundaries between real life and fantasy, and the darkest corners of the human mind.

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- Amy McCulloch (Saturday)
Amy McCulloch is a Canadian living in London, who fits writing around work as an Editorial Director at one of the UK’s leading children’s publishers. She was bitten by the travel bug at an early age while accompanying her parents on buying trips around the world for their oriental carpet business. It was her love of travel that inspired her to set a novel in a hot, desert location (moving to freezing Ottawa, Canada, where her first winter hit -40 degrees C, might have had something to do with that, too). The Oathbreaker's Shadow is her first book.

The Oathbreakers Shadow

Fifteen-year-old Raim lives in a world where you tie a knot for every promise that you make. Break that promise and you are scarred for life, and cast out into the desert.
Raim has worn a simple knot around his wrist for as long as he can remember. No one knows where it came from, and which promise of his it symbolises, but he barely thinks about it at all - not since becoming the most promising young fighter ever to train for the elite Yun guard. But on the most importantday of his life, when he binds his life to his best friend (and future king) Khareh, the string bursts into flames and sears a dark mark into his skin.
Scarred now as an oath-breaker, Raim has two options: run, or be killed.

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- Andrew Lane (Saturday)
Andrew Lane is an author, journalist and lifelong Sherlock Holmes fan. Andrew's passion for the original novels of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his determination to create an authentic teenage Sherlock Holmes made him the perfect choice to work with the Conan Doyle Estate to reinvent the world’s most famous detective as a teenage boy. Andrew Lane has also written another new series LOST WORLDS set in the present day but inspired by a Conan Doyle novel, THE LOST WORLD. The second book SHADOW CREATURES publishes in September 2014.

Young Sherlock Holmes - Knife Edge

Something sinister is afoot in the house in the west of Ireland in which Sherlock is staying. There are frightened whisperings among the servants and the house's owners are clearly scared. But who - or what? - has terrified them so much that nobody will speak out? Young Sherlock must bring all his powers of deduction to unravelling his greatest mystery yet.
Another fast-paced, brilliantly plotted adventure as teenage Sherlock investigates a new crime and comes up against a fresh crop of sinister, clever criminals.

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-Andy Robb (Saturday)
Andy Robb was born in Devon. Once he realized that he was too short to be taken seriously as a costumed hero, he decided to spend as much time as he could playing make-believe. After training as an actor, he went on to appear in plays, TV dramas and films. Andy lives in a house boat on the Thames.

Geekhood - Close Encounters of the Girl Kind

Fourteen-year-old Archie is a Geek to his core. In the world of role-playing games, he's a Level 5 Mage, capable of summoning the Undead. In this world, things are rather different. With no rule book to navigate Life's Big Challenges - warring parents, a crass step-father, orc-like school bullies and rubbish hair - he's teetering on the brink... Then a Beautiful Girl appears in his Geeky world... Despite the fact that the closest he's come to an encounter with a girl is painting an Elven miniature, Archie embarks on a Daring Quest to win her heart. Geek meets girl...what could possibly go right?

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-Anthony McGowan (Sunday)
Anthony McGowan was born in Manchester and went to school in Leeds. He has an M.Phil in philosophy and a PhD on the history of the concept of beauty. He has worked as a nightclub bouncer, civil servant, philosophy tutor, and lecturer in creative writing. He has written numerous books for children and young adults, including Henry Tumour, which won the 2006 Booktrust Teenage prize and the 2007 Catalyst Award, and the controversial and topical The Knife That Killed Me about the problems of knife crime and youth violence.

Hello Darkness

"Stealthy, furtive, unhurried yet urgent. In a few seconds of efficient butchery, the chickens are dead and dismembered." Someone is on a killing spree - slaughtering the school pets with a cold-blooded savagery. The number-one suspect: Johnny Middleton. Johnny's had problems in the past, but they're behind him now. So what if he still sees the world a little differently? He's not crazy and he's not a killer. And he's going to prove it.

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-Beth Reekles (Sunday)
Beth Reekles is 18-years-old and is currently studying Physics at Exeter University. Beth has been writing on platforms such as Wattpad, to great acclaim, for three years and The Kissing Booth was the most-viewed, most-commented-on teen fiction title on the site, with 19 million reads and 40,000 comments. She is still active and extremely popular on Wattpad, and has a large following on Facebook and Twitter.

Rolling Dice

The second cool, sexy YA romance novel from seventeen-year-old Wattpad sensation and author of The Kissing Booth, Beth Reekles.


They say that the higher you climb, the harder you fall - and Madison Clarke will do anything to keep her new life from crumbling to pieces. Moving from a small town in Maine to Florida, Madison grasps the opportunity to reinvent herself, to forget about those days of being a lonely, loser outcast, and jumps at the chance when the popular kids decide to take her under their wing. A hot boyfriend, parties, friends... If only there wasn't the slight problem by the name of Dwight, a cute, funny and totally nerdy guy in Madison's physics class who she can't help but enjoy spending time with. Running from her past and stumbling through the present, who knows what lies ahead in this new life in Florida?

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- Bryony Pearce (Saturday)
Bryony Pearce completed an English Literature degree at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge in 1998 and afterwards worked in the research industry. After a while she moved to a village at the edge of the Peak District and went freelance so she could devote more time to writing. She is now a full time mother to two children, writes as much as possible and enjoys doing school visits and events when she can fit them in.

http://www.bryonypearce.co.uk/

The Weight of Souls

Sixteen year old Taylor Oh is cursed: if she is touched by the ghost of a murder victim then they pass a mark beneath her skin. She has three weeks to find their murderer and pass the mark to them letting justice take place and sending them into the Darkness. And if she doesn't make it in time? The Darkness will come for her... She spends her life trying to avoid ghosts, make it through school where she s bullied by popular Justin and his cronies, keep her one remaining friend, and persuade her father that this is real and that she s not going crazy. But then Justin is murdered and everything gets a whole lot worse. Justin doesn't know who killed him, so there s no obvious person for Taylor to go after. The clues she has lead her to the V Club, a vicious secret society at her school where no one is allowed to leave... and where Justin was dared to do the stunt which led to his death. Can she find out who was responsible for his murder before the Darkness comes for her? Can she put aside her hatred for her former bully to truly help him? And what happens if she starts to fall for him?

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- Cat Clarke (Sunday)
Cat Clarke was born in Zambia and brought up in Edinburgh and Yorkshire, which has given her an accent that tends to confuse people. She's written non-fiction books about exciting things like cowboys, sharks and pirates, and now writes YA novels. Quercus published her first book, Entangled, in 2011. She is the co-founder of the Edinburgh-based Lighthouse Children's Literary agency, which provides editorial guidance for aspiring writers.

Undone


Jem Halliday is in love with her gay best friend. Not exactly ideal, but she's learning to live with it.

Then the unspeakable happens. Kai is outed online ... and he kills himself.
Jem knows nothing she can say or do will bring him back. But she wants to know who was responsible. And she wants to take them down.
A searing story of love, revenge and betrayal from a bestselling author.

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Catherine Johnson (Saturday)
Catherine Johnson is an award-winning writer of Welsh/African Caribbean descent, now living in Hastings in East Sussex. Her novels for children include Stella, The Dying Game, Arctic Hero, selected for Booked Up 2009 and A Nest of Vipers, shortlisted for the UKLA Award 2009. She lectures in creative writing at London Metropolitan University and is a Trustee of The Reading Agency. She works regularly with children and teachers in primary schools and libraries across the UK.

Sawbones

Sixteen-year-old Ezra McAdam has much to be thankful for: trained up as an apprentice by a well-regarded London surgeon, Ezra's knowledge of human anatomy and skill at the dissection table will secure him a trade for life. However, his world is turned on its head when a failed break-in at his master's house sets off a strange and disturbing series of events that involves grave robbing, body switching and murder. Sparky, persuasive young Loveday Finch, daughter of the late Mr Charles Finch, magician, employs Ezra to investigate her father's death - and there are marked similarities between his corpse and the others. The mystery takes Ezra and Loveday from the Operating Theatre at St Bart's to the desolate wasteland of Coldbath Fields; from the streets of Clerkenwell to the dark, damp vaults of Newgate Prison; and finally to the shadowy and forbidding Ottoman Embassy, which seems to be the key to it all.

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Charlie Higson (Saturday)
Charlie Higson is a successful author, actor, comedian and writer for television and radio. He wrote the phenomenally successful Young Bond series which has sold over a million copies in the UK alone, and been translated into over 24 languages. The series comprises of five novels, all of which entered the children's bestseller charts in the top five. The first novel in his best selling zombie-adventure series for teenagers, The Enemy, was published to critical acclaim in 2009. It was followed by The Dead (2010), The Fear (2011) and The Sacrifice (2012) Charlie is a huge fan of horror films and books, and even studied gothic literature at university.

After leaving university, Charlie formed a band, The Higsons. He then became a decorator before turning to a world of television and going into partnership with Paul Whitehouse. His television successes have included Saturday Live, the Harry Enfield Television programme, The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer, Shooting Stars, Randall and Hopkirk Deceased, the film Suite 16, Swiss Toni and of course, The Fast Show.

Charlie is also a successful adult novelist and has written four thrillers, King of the Ants (1992), Happy Now (1993), Full Whack (1995) and Getting Rid of Mr Kitchen (1996)

The Enemy

They'll Chase you. They'll rip you open. They'll feed on you...
When the sickness came, every parent, policeman, politician - every adult fell ill. The lucky ones died. The others are crazed, confused and hungry.
Only children under fourteen remain, and they’re fighting to survive.
Now there are rumours of a safe place to hide. And so a gang of children begin their quest across London, where all through the city - down alleyways, in deserted houses, underground - the grown-ups lie in wait.
But can they make it there - alive?

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- CJ Skuse (Saturday)
C.J. Skuse, author of PRETTY BAD THINGS, ROCKOHOLIC and DEAD ROMANTIC, was born in 1980 in Weston-super-Mare, England.
She loves: graphic novels, sitcoms, Gummy Bears and the music of My Chemical Romance.
She hates: hard-boiled eggs, carnivals and coughing.
The movies Titanic, My Best Friend's Wedding and Twilight were all based on her ideas, she just didn't get to write them down in time. Before she dies, she would like to go to Japan, try clay-pigeon shooting and own a malamute.
C.J has First Class degrees in Creative Writing and Writing for Children and, aside from writing novels, works as a freelance children's fiction consultant and lectures in writing fiction for teens at Bath Spa University.

Dead Romantic

Camille wants to find the perfect boy, with an athlete's body and a poet's brain. But when she's mocked at a college party, she knows there isn't a boy alive who'll ever measure up. Enter Zoe, her brilliant but strange best friend, who takes biology homework to a whole new level. She can create Camille's dream boy, Frankenstein-stylee. But can she make him love her?

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- Darren Shan (Saturday)
Darren Shan is the number-one bestselling author of Cirque du Freak, The Demonata and The Saga of Larten Crepsley, as well as stand-alone books, The Thin Executioner and Koyasan. Shan's books have sold in every continent, in thirty-one languages, and have been bestsellers worldwide, in total selling over twenty-five million copies. He divides his time between his homes in Limerick and London.

Zom-B Gladiator

Can you kidnap a zombie? Can money buy your life? Or can you only fight for it? B Smith has met her darkest challenge yet ...
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, B Smith has decided to live-- and to fight for good as long as possible. However, London is overridden with brain-eating undead and swarming with human mercenaries whose sense of right and wrong dissolved when society did. When they lay a trap, B is captured. And it'll take dozens of battles--and the fight of a lifetime-- to escape.

Filled with gripping, bloody action sequences, the sixth book in Darren Shan's horrifying Zom-B series promises the fright-- and the fight-- of your life.

 

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Derek Landy (Saturday)Derek Landy is the author of the internationally bestselling Skulduggery Pleasant series. He doesn’t like to brag about all the awards he’s won, such as the Irish Book of the Decade, or the Red House in the UK, or all the other awards that he humbly displays on his mantelpiece. He is also far too modest to mention things like the first book being a Publisher’s Weekly Best Book of the Year, but would like to extend an invitation to Oprah to pop around one day for tea, in thanks for selecting his book for the Oprah’s Book Club Kids Reading List. Derek plays too many video games, reads too many comics, and watches too many movies. He lives in Ireland with too many cats and too many dogs. Occasionally he talks to real people, but only when he absolutely has to.

The final book in the Skulduggery Pleasant series will be published on 28 August but you don’t have to wait that long for the next fix. Like The Maleficent Seven, Armageddon-Outta-Here is set in the world of Skulduggery Pleasant. It will be published in July. Derek says ‘I suggested Armageddon-Outta-Here as a joke. But the more I thought about it, the more I said it in my head, the more I loved it. And suddenly I became determined to be the writer who has a book with THAT title. Amusingly, Harper Collins agreed.’

Skulduggery Pleasant - Armadeddon Outta Here.

One AMAZING new novella.

Three GRIPPING new stories.

In the ULTIMATE story collection.

We all know that doors are for people with no imagination so smash the glass, climb through the window and enter the awesome world of Skulduggery Pleasant with this ultimate story collection.

For the first time, every Skulduggery Pleasant short story – plus The End of the World, the World Book Day novelette – is collected into one magnificent volume. But that's not all…

Written specially for this collection, there is an entirely new novella that will drag you into a nail-biting American horror story, Skulduggery-style, and three brand-spanking-new stories spanning the last 150 years. Join Gordon Edgley as he parties like it's 1985, watch Valkyrie Cain face a vampire in a fight to the death, and see the Dead Men as you've never seen them before. And then read the exclusive chapter from the final book…

Introduced by Derek, this is the hidden history of the skeleton who saves the world… and the girl who's destined to destroy it.

 

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Emma Vieceli (Saturday)
From self-publishing to some of the biggest book publishers in the world, Emma loves telling stories with pictures. Her work includes the New York Times-bestselling Vampire Academy graphic novel series for Penguin Random House, the Yalsa 2013-recommended Avalon Chronicles for Oni Press and her creator-owned and Eagle-nominated Dragon Heir with Sweatdrop Studios. She is now working on the Alex Rider series for Walker books and her co-created independent title, BREAKS. Alongside comics, she worked on the A&E television series, Bates Motel, providing the sketchbook found by Norman Bates.

 

Much Ado About Nothing

In this popular Shakespearean comedy of society and romance, readers find two couples falling in love despite the scheming of the embittered Don John and the comic incompetence of Dogberry. This romantic comedy is one of Shakespeare's most enduring and exhilirating plays, featuring the romantic leads, Claudio and Hero, and their comic counterparts, Benedick and Beatrice. Unlike Vieceli's critically acclaimed Hamlet, which was set in a futuristic cyberworld, Much Ado About Nothing is set between 1815-1871 during Il Risorgimento (Italian Unification).

 

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- Francis Hardinge (Saturday)
Frances Hardinge spent her childhood in a huge old house that inspired her to write strange stories from an early age. She read English at Oxford University, then got a job at a software company. However, by this time a persistent friend had finally managed to bully Frances into sending a few chapters of FLY BY NIGHT, her first children's novel, to a publisher. Macmillan made her an immediate offer. The book went on to publish to huge critical acclaim and win the Branford Boase First Novel Award. Cuckoo Song is Frances's sixth novel, publishing in May 2014.

Cuckoo Song

The first things to shift were the doll's eyes, the beautiful grey-green glass eyes. Slowly they swivelled, until their gaze was resting on Triss's face. Then the tiny mouth moved, opened to speak. 'What are you doing here?' It was uttered in tones of outrage and surprise, and in a voice as cold and musical as the clinking of cups. 'Who do you think you are? This is my family.'

When Triss wakes up after an accident, she knows that something is very wrong. She is insatiably hungry; her sister seems scared of her and her parents whisper behind closed doors. She looks through her diary to try to remember, but the pages have been ripped out. Soon Triss discovers that what happened to her is more strange and terrible than she could ever have imagined, and that she is quite literally not herself. In a quest find the truth she must travel into the terrifying Underbelly of the city to meet a twisted architect who has dark designs on her family - before it's too late

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-Garen Ewing (Sunday)
Garen's love of drawing and writing goes back to when he was very young, and had to spend a lot of time in hospital, so his mum supplied him with plenty of comics to read, and pencils and blank paper to draw with, and he's been making comics ever since! Other jobs have included working at a mushroom farm (he's a qualified fork-lift truck driver), an airport hotel, a computer software company and doing loads and loads of illustrations for various books and magazines. He's been the editor of a local entertainments guide (5D) and a comic strip anthology (Cosmorama). He's adapted Shakespeare's The Tempest into a comic and is the writer and artist behind The Rainbow Orchid. He's an expert on the Second Anglo-Afghan War of 1878-1880, he's half Scottish, one-sixteenth Romany Gypsy and plays bass guitar and does karate (though not at the same time).

Rainbow Orchid

Set in the 1920s, it is a tale of the search for a mythical flower last mentioned by the ancient Greek philosopher and botanist, Theophrastus.
But why does the orchid also feature on a stone slab that may tell of a forgotten Vedic legend? Who was the mysterious stranger who brought one to a remote village in the Hindu Kush, populated by those who are said to be descended from Alexander the Great? And why does Urkaz Grope want the legendary Trembling Sword of Tybalt Stone at all costs?
The Rainbow Orchid is traditional adventure at its best. Strong and accessible storytelling with an involving plot and attractive, cinematic artwork, it enjoys a varied international readership of all ages and both sexes.

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Holly Black (Sunday)
Holly Black is the author of bestselling contemporary fantasy books for children and teens, including The Spiderwick Chronicles and the Curse Workers series. She has been a finalist for the Mythopoeic Award, a finalist for an Eisner Award, and the recipient of the Andre Norton Award.
She currently lives in New England with her husband, Theo, in a house with a secret door.

The Coldest Girl In Coldtown

Tana lives in a world where walled cities called Coldtowns exist. In them, quarantined monsters and humans mingle in a decadently bloody mix of predator and prey. The only problem is, once you pass through Coldtown's gates, you can never leave.
One morning, after a perfectly ordinary party, Tana wakes up surrounded by corpses. The only other survivors of this massacre are her exasperatingly endearing ex-boyfriend, infected and on the edge, and a mysterious boy burdened with a terrible secret. Shaken and determined, Tana enters a race against the clock to save the three of them the only way she knows how: by going straight to the wicked, opulent heart of Coldtown itself.
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is a wholly original story of rage and revenge, of guilt and horror, and of love and loathing from bestselling and acclaimed author Holly Black.

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- Holly Bourne (Saturday)
Holly Bourne graduated with a first class degree in Journalism Studies and spent two years working as a local news reporter on the Surrey Mirror, garnering a nomination for Print Journalist of the Year in 2010. She now works as a journalist for TheSite, an advice and information website for 16-25 year olds where she writes about topics including sex and relationships, drugs and alcohol, self-harm and mental health, university life and getting a job. Soulmates, an electrifying YA romance, was released in 2013. The Manifesto on How to Be Interesting, her early awaited second novel, is out in September 2014.

Soulmates

Every so often, two people are born who are the perfect matches for each other. Soulmates. But while the odds of this happening are about as likely as being struck by lightning, when these people do meet and fall in love…thunderstorms, lightning strikes and lashings of rain are only te beginning of their problems.

Enter Poppy, the 17-year-old cynic with a serious addiction to banana milk, and Noah, the heart-throb guitarist; residents of mediocre Middletown, sometime students, and…soulmates.

After a chance meeting at a local band night, Poppy and Noah find themselves swept up in a whirlwind romance unlike anything they’ve ever experienced before. But with a secret international agency preparing to separate them, a trail of destruction rumbling in their wake, (and a looming psychology coursework deadline), they are left with an impossible choice between the end of the world, or a life without love…

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- Holly Smale (Sunday)
Holly Smale's first book GEEK GIRL was the UK no.1 debut of 2013. Clumsy, a bit geeky and somewhat shy, she spent the majority of her teenage years hiding in the changing room toilets. She was unexpectedly spotted by a top London modelling agency at the age of 15 and spent the following two years falling over on catwalks, going bright red and breaking things she couldn't afford to replace. By the time Holly had graduated from Bristol University with a BA in English Literature and an MA in Shakespeare she had given up modelling and set herself on the path to becoming a writer. Holly is now a fully fledged author and blogger.

Geek Girl

"My name is Harriet Manners, and I am a geek.”
Harriet Manners knows a lot of things. She knows that a cat has 32 muscles in each ear, a “jiffy” lasts 1/100th of a second, and the average person laughs 15 times per day. But she doesn’t know why nobody at school seems to like her. So when Harriet is spotted by a top model agent, she grabs the chance to reinvent herself. As her old life begins to fall apart, Harriet begins to realise that the world of fashion doesn't seem to like her any more than the real world did.

Will she be able to transform herself before she ruins everything?

A truly heart warming book for anyone that has ever felt alone in a room full of people.

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- Isobel Harrop (Sunday)
Isobel Harrop is an eighteen-year-old girl from the North West of England, squished somewhere between Manchester and Liverpool. She's just finished college, where she studied A-Level English Literature, English Language and Media Studies. She's got her fingers crossed to go to university next year to carry on doing English Literature somewhere a bit more interesting.
This is her first book that wasn't made using the school photocopier and staples. Inspired by Peanuts comics and 1960s design, Isobel loves to draw whenever she gets a chance, with every piece of school work scrawled all over with drawings of imaginary people. When she isn't working or drawing, you might find her fawning over cute animals on the internet (especially sea otters!), eating vast amount of chocolate in all its forms, and collecting stuff that she doesn't need from charity shops.

Follow Isobel at: wastingspacetime.blogspot.co.uk or on Twitter: @IsobelJournal

The Isobel Journal

The Isobel Journal is no ordinary snapshot of a contemporary teenage life. A charming and vivid narrative scrapbook of the eighteen-year-old author's sketches, mini-graphic novels, photographs and captions, it captures her wit, her observations and her creative talent as she takes us through the three central themes in her life: 'Love', 'Friends, Art and Otters' and 'Me'.
Resonant of Laura Dockrill's Mistakes In The Background and with the powerful illustrative style of cult Japanese artist Yos***omo Nara, this is a collector's gift for teenagers and all who have the teenage experience still in their hearts. Readers will emphasise with this witty and honest journal of a girl getting to grips with impending adulthood. It is a must-have for all hipster teenagers and anyone who appreciates the raw creativity of youth. It is enchanting and poignant.

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- James Brogdon (Fri/Sat/Sun)
JAMES Brogden is an urban fantasy author and part-time Australian whose first novel, The Narrows was described by Adam Roberts as “a wonderful novel in the fullest sense: wonderfully good and full of dark wonder.”

Blogging occurs at jamesbrogden.blogspot.co.uk, and tweeting at @skippybe.

 

Tourmaline

The Tourmaline Archipelago is a place of wonder and grotesquerie which exists on the other side of our dreams. In our sleep we sail its seas and walk the streets of its cities like phantoms.
Sometimes we dream too deeply and become trapped, invading their world and plaguing its people with our nightmares and fantasies. Sometimes we bring them back with us when we wake. Lost, confused, and possessed of powers which leak through from their home, these exiles are pursued in our world by the mysterious Hegemony which seeks to enslave them.
Between, in a doldrum region of the Archipelago, floats Stray: an island-sized raft inhabited by lost dreamers from our world. Here Bobby Jenkins awakens, with no memory of his former existence and determined to find his way home. But how can he return when the woman he loves refuses to leave, and how can he protect her from enemies in both worlds who will tear apart the boundaries of existence and plunge each into chaos in order to possess her abilities?
Tourmaline is an adventure through love, death, and the dreaming space between.

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- James Dawson (Sunday)
For eight years, James Dawson was a teacher specialising in Personal, Social, Health and Citizenship Education (PSHCE). His main remit was ensuring that these subjects were taught to a high standard across several schools. He collaborated on projects involving bullying, sex education, drugs, alcohol and family diversity, and he now writes full-time and lives in London. His debut, best-selling YA novel HOLLOW PIKE was nominated for the prestigious Queen of Teen prize and was followed by publication of the YA thriller CRUEL SUMMER. James's first non-fiction title BEING A BOY, about, well, being a boy, will be out with Red Lemon Press in Autumn 2013.

When he's not writing books to scare teenagers in a variety of ways, James is busy listening to pop music and watching DOCTOR WHO and horror movies.

Follow James at www.jamesdawsonbooks.com or on Twitter: @_jamesdawson

Say Her Name

Roberta 'Bobbie' Rowe is not the kind of person who believes in ghosts. A Halloween dare at her ridiculously spooky boarding school is no big deal, especially when her best friend Naya and cute local boy Caine agree to join in too. They are ordered to summon the legendary ghost of 'Bloody Mary': say her name five times in front of a candlelit mirror, and she shall appear... But, surprise surprise, nothing happens. Or does it?

Next morning, Bobbie finds a message on her bathroom mirror... five days... but what does it mean? And who left it there? Things get increasingly weird and more terrifying for Bobbie and Naya, until it becomes all too clear that Bloody Mary was indeed called from the afterlife that night, and she is definitely not a friendly ghost. Bobbie, Naya and Caine are now in a race against time before their five days are up and Mary comes for them, as she has come for countless others before... A truly spine-chilling yet witty horror from shortlisted 'Queen of Teen' author James Dawson.

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- Joe Abercrombie (Saturday)
Joe Abercrombie was born in Lancaster on the last day of 1974, the son of an English Teacher and a Sociologist, spent much of his youth in imaginary worlds, and left school with a good idea of how to make stuff up. He moved to the big city, learned to brew tea, and ended up as a TV editor, working on documentaries, events and concerts for bands from Iron Maiden to Coldplay. But in the darkness of the night he was still making stuff up, and his first book, the Blade Itself, was published in 2006. He now lives in Bath with his wife Lou and their three children Grace, Eve and Teddy. He makes stuff up full time.

Half A King

‘I swore an oath to be avenged on the killers of my father. I may be half a man, but I swore a whole oath’
Prince Yarvi has vowed to regain a throne he never wanted. But first he must survive cruelty, chains and the bitter waters of the Shattered Sea itself. And he must do it all with only one good hand.
Born a weakling in the eyes of his father, Yarvi is alone in a world where a strong arm and a cold heart rule. He cannot grip a shield or swing an axe, so he must sharpen his mind to a deadly edge.
Gathering a strange fellowship of the outcast and the lost, he finds they can do more to help him become the man he needs to be than any court of nobles could.
But even with loyal friends at his side, Yarvi’s path may end as it began – in twists, and traps and tragedy…

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- Jonathan Stroud (Saturday)
Jonathan Stroud is the author of the best-selling BARTIMAEUS sequence, which is published in 35 languages and has sold 6 million copies worldwide. Lockwood and Co is Stroud’s chilling new series about a ghost hunting trio. Jonathan has yet to see a ghost, but is keeping his eyes open.http://showmastersonline.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=84437

The Screaming Staircase

A sinister Problem has occurred in London: all nature of ghosts, haunts, spirits, and spectres are appearing throughout the city, and they aren't exactly friendly. Only young people have the psychic abilities required to see-and eradicate-these supernatural foes. Many different Psychic Detection Agencies have cropped up to handle the dangerous work, and they are in fierce competition for business.

In The Screaming Staircase, the plucky and talented Lucy Carlyle teams up with Anthony Lockwood, the charismatic leader of Lockwood & Co, a small agency that runs independent of any adult supervision. After an assignment leads to both a grisly discovery and a disastrous end, Lucy, Anthony, and their sarcastic colleague, George, are forced to take part in the perilous investigation of Combe Carey Hall, one of the most haunted houses in England. Will Lockwood & Co. survive the Hall's legendary Screaming Staircase and Red Room to see another day?

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- JP Smythe (Saturday)
James Smythe is the award winning author of The Testimony, The Machine, No Harm Can Come To A Good Man, and the Anomaly Quartet (HarperCollins). In Spring 2015, he will publish The Burning Depths, book 1 of the Australia Trilogy (Hodder). He lives in London.

No Harm Can Come to a Good Man

A terrifyingly original thriller from the author of The Machine.
How far would you go to save your family from an invisible threat?
ClearVista is used by everyone and can predict anything. It’s a daily lifesaver, predicting weather to traffic to who you should befriend.
Laurence Walker wants to be the next President of the United States. ClearVista will predict his chances.
It will predict whether he's the right man for the job.
It will predict that his son can only survive for 102 seconds underwater.
It will predict that Laurence's life is about to collapse in the most unimaginable way.

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- Julie Mayhew (Sunday)
Julie Mayhew originally trained as a journalist, then as an actress, and she started writing because she hardly ever saw a script with a brilliant role for a girl or a woman. Her most recent play for BBC Radio 4, A SHOEBOX OF SNOW, was shortlisted for the Nick Darke Award and was nominated for a BBC Audio Drama Award. She is currently working on her first historical play, about love and electricity in the 18th century. Because she lacks focus (or shows great versatility - you decide) she is also a prolific writer of short stories and hosts a short story cabaret night, 'The Berko Speakeasy'. Julie's debut novel RED INK was nominated for the 2014 CILIP Carnegie Medal and has also been long-listed for the 2014 Branford Boase Award.

Julie lives in Hertfordshire with her family, and you can follow her at www.juliemayhew.co.uk or on Twitter: @juliemayhew

Red Ink

When her mother is knocked down and killed by a London bus, fifteen-year-old Melon Fouraki is left with no family worth mentioning. Her mother, Maria, never did introduce Melon to a 'living, breathing' father. The indomitable Auntie Aphrodite, meanwhile, is hundreds of miles away on a farm in Crete, and is unlikely to be jumping on a plane and coming to East Finchley any time soon. But at least Melon has 'The Story'. 'The Story' is the Fourakis family fairytale. A story is something. "Red Ink" is a powerful coming-of-age tale about superstition, denial and family myth.

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- Kim Curran (Saturday)
Kim was born in Dublin and moved to London when she was seven. She got her first typewriter when she was eight, had a poem she wrote about a snail published in a magazine when she was nine, and that was it – Kim was hooked on writing.
Because she never thought she’d actually be able to make a living as a writer, she decided she needed a trade to fall back on. So, naturally, she went to Sussex University to study philosophy.
While Kim’s plan of being paid big bucks to think deep thoughts never quite worked out, she did land a job as a junior copywriter with an ad agency a week after graduating. She’s worked in advertising ever since, specialising in writing for videogames.

http://www.kimcurran.co.uk/

Control

Scott Tyler is not like other teenagers. With a single thought he can alter reality around him. And he can stop anyone else from doing the same.

That's why he's so important to ARES, the secret government agency that regulates other kids like him: Shifters.

They've sent him on a mission. To track down the enigmatic Frank Anderson. An ex-Shifter who runs a project for unusual kids - as if the ability to change your every decision wasn't unusual enough. But Anderson and the kids have a dark secret. One that Scott is determined to discover.

As his obsession with discovering the truth takes him further away from anyone he cares about, his grip on reality starts to weaken. Scott realises if he can't control his choices, they'll control him.

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- Lucy Christopher (Sunday)
Lucy Christopher was born in Wales but grew up in Australia. She obtained an Undergraduate degree at Melbourne University. She moved to the UK to earn a distinction in a Creative Writing MA from Bath Spa University. The novel she wrote for this class, The Long Flight, was picked up by a publisher under a new name of FLYAWAY.

Lucy’s debut novel, Stolen, was written as part for her PhD degree. Stolen explores her thoughts on the Australian desert through the story about a teenage girl who is kidnapped and taken there.

Lucy is working on another teen novel. When she is not writing, Lucy spends her time daydreaming, emailing friends and horseback riding a mare named Topaz as well as helping to run a kid’s wildlife group at Newport Wetlands.

Stolen

Gemma, a British city-living teenager, is kidnapped while on holiday with her parents. Her kidnapper, Ty, takes her to the wild land of outback Australia. To Gemma’s city-eyes, the landscape is harsh and unforgiving and there are no other signs of human life for hundreds of kilometres in every direction. Here, there is no escape. Gemma must learn to deal with her predicament, or die trying to fight it.

 

Ty, a young man, has other ideas for her. His childhood experience of living in outback Australia has forever changed the way he sees things. But he too has been living in the city; Gemma’s city. Unlike Gemma, however, he has had enough. In outback Australia he sees an opportunity for a new kind of life; a life more connected to the earth. He has been watching and learning about Gemma for many years; when he kidnaps her, his plan finally begins to take shape.

 

But Ty is not a stereotypical kidnapper and, over time, Gemma comes to see Ty in a new light, a light in which he is something more sensitive. The mysteries of Ty, and the mystery of her new life, start to take hold. She begins to feel something for her kidnapper when he wakes screaming in the night. Over the time spent with her captor, Gemma’s appreciation of him develops …but is this real love, or Stockholm Syndrome?

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- Lucy Saxon (Saturday)
Debut author Lucy Saxon is 18 years old. Take Back the Skies is the first book in her young adult, epic adventure series. She wrote the first draft of Take Back the Skies when she was just 16 as part of National Novel Writing Month. Lucy is a self-confessed all-round nerd and queen of CosPlay. She regularly attends fantasy conventions and makes all of her own costumes. Lucy lives in Hertfordshire with her parents and brother.

Twitter: @Lucy_Saxon Tumblr: lucysaxonbooks.tumblr.com Facebook: LucySaxonBooks

Take Back the Skies

Catherine Hunter is the daughter of a senior government official on the island of Anglya. She's one of the privileged - she has luxurious clothes, plenty to eat, and is protected from the Collections which have ravaged families throughout the land. But Catherine longs to escape the confines of her life, before her dad can marry her off to a government brat and trap her forever.
So Catherine becomes Cat, pretends to be a kid escaping the Collections, and stows away on the skyship Stormdancer. As they leave Anglya behind and brave the storms that fill the skies around the islands of Tellus, Cat's world becomes more turbulent than she could ever have imagined, and dangerous secrets unravel her old life once and for all . . .

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-Malorie Blackman (Saturday)
MALORIE BLACKMAN has written over fifty books and is acknowledged as one of today’s most imaginative and convincing writers for young readers. She has been awarded numerous prizes for her work, including the Red House Children’s Book Award and the Fantastic Fiction Award. Malorie has also been shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. In 2005 she was honoured with the Eleanor Farjeon Award in recognition of her contribution to children’s books, and in 2008 she received an OBE for her services to children’s literature. She has been described by The Times as ‘a national treasure’ and is the Children’s Laureate for 2013–15.

Noughts and Crosses

Sephy is a Cross – a member of the dark-skinned ruling class. Callum is a nought – a ‘colourless’ member of the underclass who were once slaves to the Crosses. The two have been friends since early childhood. But that’s as far as it can go. Until the first steps are taken towards more social equality and a limited number of Noughts are allowed into Cross schools… Against a background of prejudice and distrust, intensely highlighted by violent terrorist activity by Noughts, a romance builds between Sephy and Callum – a romance that is to lead both of them into terrible danger…

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- Marcus Sedgwick (Saturday)

MARCUS SEDGWICK was born and raised in East Kent in the South-east of England. He now divides his time between a small village near Cambridge and the French Alps.
Alongside a 16 year career in publishing he established himself as a widely-admired writer of YA fiction; he is the winner of many prizes, most notably the Branford-Boase Award, the Booktrust Teenage Prize and the Blue Peter Book Award. His books have been shortlisted for over thirty other awards, including the Carnegie Medal (five times), the Edgar Allan Poe Award (twice) and the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize (four times).

Marcus was Writer in Residence at Bath Spa University for three years, and has taught creative writing at Arvon and Ty Newydd. He is currently working on film and other graphic novels with his brother, Julian, as well as a graphic novel with Thomas Taylor. He has judged numerous books awards, including the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize and the Costa Book Awards.

She Is Not Invisible


Laureth Peak's father is a writer. For years he's been trying, and failing, to write a novel about coincidence. His wife thinks he's obsessed, Laureth thinks he's on the verge of a breakdown. He's supposed to be doing research in Austria, so when his notebook shows up in New York, Laureth knows something is wrong.


On impulse she steals her mother's credit card and heads for the States, taking her strange little brother Benjamin with her. Reunited with the notebook, they begin to follow clues inside, trying to find their wayward father. Ahead lie challenges and threats, all of which are that much tougher for Laureth than they would be for any other 16-year old. Because Laureth Peak is blind.

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- Matt Haig (Sunday)
Matt Haig is an award-winning author of children’s and adult books such as Shadow Forest and The Humans. ECHO BOY is his first YA novel published earlier this year. Reviewers have called Matt’s writing 'totally engrossing', 'touching, quirky and macabre' and 'so surprising and strange that it vaults into a realm all of its own'.

Echo Boy

Audrey's father taught her that to stay human in the modern world, she had to build a moat around herself; a moat of books and music, philosophy and dreams. A moat that makes Audrey different from the echoes: sophisticated, emotionless machines, built to resemble humans and to work for human masters.
Daniel is an echo - but he's not like the others. He feels a connection with Audrey; a feeling Daniel knows he was never designed to have, and cannot explain. And when Audrey is placed in terrible danger, he's determined to save her.
ECHO BOY is a powerful story about love, loss and what makes us truly human.

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- Meg Rosoff (Sunday)
Meg was born in Boston, USA but now lives in Highbury, London with her husband, the painter Paul Hamlyn, and their daughter Gloria.
How I Live Now was Meg Rosoff’s debut novel, which won the Guardian and Branford Boase Awards and was short-listed for the Orange Prize for New Fiction as well as the Whitbread. It garnered the sort of rave acclaim most writers only ever dream of. Mark Haddon, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, championed it right from the beginning, saying, ‘That rare, rare thing, a first novel with a sustained, magical and utterly faultless voice. After five pages I knew that she could persuade me to believe almost anything.’
Since How I Live Now, Meg has gone on to write several award-winning books for teenagers including Just in Case, What I Was and The Bride’s Farewell.

Visit Meg's website at www.megrosoff.co.uk.

How I Live Now

The powerful and engaging story of Daisy, the precocious New Yorker and her English cousin Edmond, torn apart as war breaks out in London, from the multi award-winning Meg Rosoff. How I Live Now has been adapted for the big screen by Kevin Macdonald, starring Saoirse Ronan as Daisy and was released in 2013.

Fifteen-year-old Daisy thinks she knows all about love. Her mother died giving birth to her, and now her dad has sent her away for the summer, to live in the English countryside with cousins she's never even met.
There she'll discover what real love is: something violent, mysterious and wonderful. There her world will be turned upside down and a perfect summer will explode into a million bewildering pieces.
How will Daisy live then?

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- Natasha Ngan (Saturday)
Natasha Ngan was born in St Albans, Hertfordshire, and spent her childhood in both the UK and Malaysia, where the Chinese side of her family is from. She also spent it living in two other worlds - reality, and her imagination. As an only child, books were her best friends, and though she now has real, physical, human friends, books are still every bit as important to her.
Natasha has always (only) wanted to be an author. THE ELITES was her first novel, and she regularly blogs about her experiences of being a debut author. Her next novel THE MEMORY KEEPERS is out in September. Outside of writing YA fiction, Natasha works as a freelance social media consultant and runs a fashion and photography blog with her boyfriend Callum (www.girlinthelens.com.)

Follow Natasha at: http://natashangan.com or on Twitter: @girlinthelens

The Elites

'There is a rumour that the Elites don't bleed.' Hundreds of years into the future, wars, riots, resource crises and rising sea-levels have destroyed the old civilisations. Only one city has survived: Neo-Babel, a city full of cultures - and racial tension. Fifteen-year-old Silver is an Elite, a citizen of Neo-Babel chosen to guard the city due to her superior DNA. She'd never dream of leaving - but then she fails to prevent the assassination of Neo Babel's president, setting off a chain of events more shocking and devastating than she could ever have imagined. Forced to flee the city with her best friend Butterfly (a boy with genetically-enhanced wings), Silver will have to fight to find her family, uncover the truth about Neo-Babel and come to terms with her complicated feelings for Butterfly. Packed full of adventure, romance, exoticism and the power of friendship, The Elites is a highly compelling and beautifully written novel from a supremely talented debut author.

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- Nick Lake (Sunday)
Nick Lake is the Editorial Director of HarperCollins Children’s Books. He has been responsible for publishing such bestselling authors as Michael Morpurgo, Derek Landy and David Walliams. In Darkness was his first book for both adult and young readers and was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. He has published two previous books for children – The Ministry of Frost and Blood Ninja. He currently lives near Oxford.

Hostage Three

It's a once-in-a-lifetime thing: a girl on a yacht with her super-rich banker father; a chance for the family to heal after a turbulent time; the peaceful sea, the warm sun . . . But a nightmare is about to explode as a group of Somali pirates seizes the boat and its human cargo - and the family becomes a commodity in a highly sophisticated transaction. Hostage 1 is Dad - the most valuable. Amy is Hostage 3. As she builds a strange bond with one of her captors, it becomes brutally clear that the price of a life and its value are very different things . . .

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- Non Pratt (Sunday)
After graduating from Trinity College Cambridge, Non Pratt became a non-fiction editor at Usborne working on many bestselling series before moving across to fiction. She has been running the list at Catnip Publishing since 2009. Non lives in London with her husband and small(ish) child, and Trouble is her first novel.

Trouble

Hannah's smart and funny ... she's also fifteen and pregnant. Aaron is new at school and doesn't want to attract attention. So why does he offer to be the pretend dad to Hannah's unborn baby? Growing up can be trouble but that's how you find out what really matters.

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- Patrick Ness (Saturday)
Bestselling and award-winning novelist Patrick Ness was born in Virginia, USA, and spent his upbringing in the states of Hawaii, Washington and California. He has lived in London since 1999. He is the author of a novel and short story collection for adults, but is best known for the Chaos Walking trilogy: The Knife of Never Letting Go, The Ask and the Answer and Monsters of Men. The trilogy has won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, the Costa Children’s Book of the Year Prize, and the Booktrust Teenage Prize. In 2011 Monsters of Men won the prestigious CILIP Carnegie Medal after all three books in the trilogy were shortlisted, the first time that has ever happened.
Patrick’s sixth book A Monster Calls received high critical acclaim and is the winner of the Children’s Book of the Year Award at the Galaxy National Book Awards, the Red House Children’s Book Award and the UKLA Children’s Book Prize. In June 2012, A Monster Calls became the first book ever to win both prestigious CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals.

More Than This

A boy called Seth drowns, desperate and alone in his final moments, losing his life as the pounding sea claims him. But then he wakes. He is naked, thirsty, starving. But alive. How is that possible? He remembers dying, his bones breaking, his skull dashed upon the rocks. So how is he is here? And where is this place? It looks like the suburban English town where he lived as a child, before an unthinkable tragedy happened and his family moved to America. But the neighbourhood around his old house is overgrown, covered in dust and completely abandoned. What's going on? And why is it that whenever he closes his eyes, he falls prey to vivid, agonizing memories that seem more real than the world around him? Seth begins a search for answers, hoping that he might not be alone, that this might not be the hell he fears it to be, that there might be more than just this...

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- Phil Earl (Sunday)
Phil Earle was born, raised and schooled in Hull. His first job was as a care worker in a children’s home before training as a drama therapist and also working in a therapeutic community in south London, caring for traumatized and abused adolescents.

After some years in the care sector, Phil became a bookseller, and currently works in children’s publishing. He lives in south-east London with his wife and children, but Hull will always be home.

Visit Phil Earle's author website at www.philearle.com.

Heroic

'For the past five weeks I'd prayed that I'd never see my brother's name spelt out in poppies. In the weeks that followed I often wished I had.'
Jammy and Sonny McGann are brothers, but that's where the similarities end. One is calm when the other is angry; one has a plan while the other lives purely in the moment.
When Jammy returns from Afghanistan a very different man to the one who left, it's Sonny who is left to hold things together. But just how far will he go to save the brother who always put him first?
Inspired by S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders and by the battles facing young soldiers all over the world, this is a devastating novel about brotherhood and sacrifice, from the award-winning author of Being Billy and Saving Daisy.

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Rainbow Rowell (Saturday)
Rainbow Rowell writes about people who talk a lot. And people who feel like they’re screwing up. And people who fall in love. FANGIRL is her second YA novel - the first, ELEANOR & PARK, spent six weeks on the New York Times best seller list. Rainbow has also written about adults (ATTACHMENTS and LANDLINE). When she’s not writing, Rainbow is reading comic books, planning Disney World trips and arguing about things that don’t really matter in the big scheme of things. She lives in Nebraska with her husband and two sons.

Fangirl

Cath is a Simon Snow fan.
Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan . . .
But for Cath, being a fan is her life — and she’s really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it’s what got them through their mother leaving. Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fanfiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere.

Cath’s sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can’t let go. She doesn’t want to.Now that they’re going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn’t want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She’s got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend, a fiction-writing professor who thinks fanfiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words . . . And she can’t stop worrying about her dad, who’s loving and fragile and has never really been alone.
For Cath, the question is: Can she do this? Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? Writing her own stories?

And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind?

 

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-Robert Muchamore (Sunday)
ROBERT MUCHAMORE was born in Islington in 1972. As a teenager he dreamt of either becoming an architect, a photographer or a writer. On discovering that architects have to train for seven years and after quitting his Saturday job in a camera shop, he saved up enough money to buy a word processor and set his heart on writing. The only problem was, he didn’t know what to write. So, he found a regular job and spent thirteen years as a private investigator.

He was inspired to start writing again by his nephew’s complaints about the lack of anything decent to read. Robert’s CHERUB and Henderson’s Boys series are bestsellers around the world, and in 2012 he sold more than Derek Landy, Charlie Higson and Darren Shan.
Robert grew up listening to mix tapes sent to him by his older brother, developing tastes for indie bands like Joy Division, The Pogues and The Smiths. The idea for Rock War came from seeing that many of Robert’s fans turned up at book signings wearing the logos of long dead rock bands, and a realisation that his online fan forum had more kids talking about the X-Factor than about his books.

Check out Robert’s website: www.muchamore.com

Rock War

Meet Jay, Summer and Dylan. They've got everything to play for.

Jay plays guitar, writes songs and dreams of being a rock star. But his ambitions are stifled by seven siblings and a terrible drummer. Summer works hard at school, looks after her nan and has a one-in-a-million singing voice. But can her talent triumph over her nerves? Dylan is happiest lying on his bunk smoking, but his school rugby coach has other ideas, and Dylan reluctantly joins a band to avoid crunching tackles and icy mud. All three are about to enter the biggest battle of their lives.

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- Ruth Warburton (Saturday)
Ruth Warburton grew up on the south coast of England in Lewes; a small town with a long history. After leaving Lewes she studied English at the University of Manchester, and there developed a fascination with Old English and Middle English texts. While researching A Witch In Winter she found herself returning to them, in particular Beowolf and Le Morte D’Arthur, and seeds from these mixed with ancient Mesopotamian demons, Voodoo spells, Tudor superstitions and 15th century witch-hunting guides, to create the Winter Trilogy and her new series Witch Finder.

Ruth is a publicist for adult fiction at Random House and lives in North London.

Witch Finder

London, 1880, and eighteen-year-old Luke Lexton is about to endure his initiation into the Malleus Maleficorum - the secretive brotherhood devoted to hunting witches, and the organisation that will help Luke take revenge on the witch who murdered his parents. His final test is to pick a name at random from the Book of Witches, a name he must track down and kill within a month, or face death himself.

Luke picks out sixteen-year-old Rosa Greenwood, a witch-girl living in rapidly fading grandeur on the west side of town. She's the last bargaining chip in her family's struggle to avoid bankruptcy and is about to be married off to the handsome, cruel, grotesquely rich Sebastian Knyvet - a powerful member of the Ealdwitan.

As Rosa and Luke get to know each other, Luke realises it will be impossible for him to kill Rosa, just as Rosa knows she will bring disgrace on her family if she does not marry Knyvet. But Knyvet is hiding dark secrets - including the key which will unlock the mystery of Luke's murdered parents. Torn between appeasing their elders and their love for each other, Rosa and Luke must each make their choice between life and death.

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- Sally Gardner (Sunday)
Sally Gardner is an award-winning novelist from London. Her books have been translated into 22 languages and have sold more than one million copies in the UK alone. Fuelled by her own experiences as a child, Sally continues to be an avid spokesperson for dyslexia awareness, working to change the way it is perceived by society.

Tinder

Tinder follows the adventures of Otto Hundebiss, a soldier tired of war who defies death. A mysterious half-man, half-beast nurses him back to health, but continues on alone, leaving Otto only with some old shoes and a set of dice which will tell him the way forward. Stealing chickens and bread in order to survive, Otto is followed by a strange grey-cloaked man who can transform into a wolf. Hiding from the werewolf up a tree, he meets the enigmatic Safire and the two travel together until they are tragically separated.
From then, Otto’s mission becomes clear and he rolls the dice in hopes that they will lead him back to her. He is soon plunged into an adventure of dark magic and mystery, meeting the scheming Mistress Jabber and the terrifying Lady of the Nail.He learns the power of the Tinderbox and becomes the master of wolves, yet even these powers may not be enough to bring him what he desires.

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- Sally Green (Sunday)

Sally Green lives in north-west England with her husband and son. She has had various jobs and even a profession but in 2010 she discovered a love of writing and now just can’t stop. She used to keep chickens, makes decent jam, doesn't mind ironing, loves to walk in Wales even when it's raining, and will probably never jog again. She really ought to drink less coffee. Half Bad is her first novel.

You can follow Sally on Twitter @Sa11eGreen

Half Bad


Half Bad by Sally Green is a breathtaking debut novel about one boy's struggle for survival in a hidden society of witches.

In modern-day England, witches live alongside humans: White witches, who are good; Black witches, who are evil; and sixteen-year-old Nathan, who is both. Nathan’s father is the world’s most powerful and cruel Black witch, and his mother is dead. He is hunted from all sides. Trapped in a cage, beaten and handcuffed, Nathan must escape before his seventeenth birthday, at which point he will receive three gifts from his father and come into his own as a witch—or else he will die. But how can Nathan find his father when his every action is tracked, when there is no one safe to trust—not even family, not even the girl he loves?

In the tradition of Patrick Ness and Markus Zusak, Half Bad is a gripping tale of alienation and the indomitable will to survive, a story that will grab hold of you and not let go until the very last page

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- Sarah Crossan (Saturday)
Sarah Crossan is originally from Dublin. She graduated with a degree in philosophy and literature before training as an English and drama teacher at Cambridge University and has been working to promote creative writing in schools since. She taught English at a small private school near New York until she became a full time writer. She completed her Masters in creative writing at the University of Warwick in 2003 and in 2010 received an Edward Albee Fellowship for writing.

www.sarahcrossan.com / Twitter: @SarahCrossan/ Facebook: Sarah Crossan

Resist

The sequel—and conclusion—to Sarah Crossan's Breathe. Three teen outlaws must survive on their own in a world without air, exiled outside the glass dome that protects what's left of human civilization. Gripping action, provocative ideas, and shocking revelations in a dystopian novel that fans of Patrick Ness and Veronica Roth will devour.

Bea, Alina, and Quinn are on the run. They started a rebellion and were thrown out of the pod, the only place where there's enough oxygen to breathe. Bea has lost her family. Alina has lost her home. And Quinn has lost his privileged life. Can they survive in the perilous Outlands? Can they finish the revolution they began? Especially when a young operative from the pod's Special Forces is sent after them. Their only chance is to stand together, even when terrible circumstances force them apart. When the future of human society is in danger, these four teens must decide where their allegiances lie. Sarah Crossan has created a dangerous, and shattered society in this wrenching, thought-provoking, and unforgettable post-apocalyptic novel.

 

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- Sarra Manning (Sunday)
Sarra Manning is a journalist and author of YA and adult novels. She began her writing career in teen magazines and was Entertainment Editor of Just Seventeen before becoming the editor of Elle Girl. Sarra’s ‘teen’ voice was later channelled into the hugely successful blog ‘Anthems for the Teen Girl’, which garnered a huge following; she was also shortlisted for the 2010 ‘Queen of Teen’ awards. Sarra lives in London.

www.sarramanning.co.uk / www.facebook.com/sarramanningbooks

The Worst Girlfriend in the World

My best friend was now my deadliest enemy, the one person I'd hate beyond all measure for the rest of my life . . .
Franny Barker's best friend, Alice, is the worst girlfriend in the world according to the many boys of Merrycliffe-on-Sea. She toys with them, then dumps them. But she'll never dump fashion-obsessed Franny. Nothing and no one can come between them.
Not even tousle-haired rock god, Louis Allen, who Franny's been crushing on hard. Until Alice, bored with immature boys and jealous of Franny's new college friends, sets her sights on Louis. Suddenly, best friends are bitter rivals.
Is winning Louis's heart worth more than their friendship? There's only one way for Franny to find out.

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- Sophie McKenzie (Sunday)
Sophie McKenzie was born and brought up in London, where she still lives. She has worked as a journalist and a creative writing teacher, and now writes full time. Her debut was the multi-award winning Girl, Missing (2006), and she is also the author of Blood Ties and sequel, Blood Ransom, The Medusa Project series, and the Luke and Eve trilogy. She has tallied up numerous award wins and has twice been long listed for the Carnegie Medal.

Split Second

Bound together by the devastating consequences of a terrorist attack on a London market, teenagers Charlotte (Charlie) and Nat appear at first to have much in common. But, as Charlie gets closer to Nat and his family, she begins to wonder if perhaps he knows more about the attack than he has let on. Split Second is an action-packed thriller that shifts between the perspectives of its two main characters as their courage and their loyalties are tested to the limit.

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- Steve Cole (Saturday)
Steve Cole liked books, and so went to the University of East Anglia to read more of them. Later on he started writing them too, with titles ranging from pre-school poetry to Young Adult thrillers (with more TV and film tie-ins than he cares to admit to along the way). He has been the voice of a Dalek and an editor of fiction and non-fiction book titles for various publishers, including the Doctor Who novels The Feast of the Drowned and The Art of Destruction. He is the author of the hugely successful Astrosaurs, Cows in Action, Astrosaurs Academy and Slime Squad series, and now the phenomenal Young Bond series.

Young Bond - Shoot To Kill


Cole, who takes over from the original creator of Young Bond, Charlie Higson, is the author of a number of hugely successful children’s books – including the Astrosaurs series and several authorised Doctor Who novels. He is a lifelong fan of Fleming’s Bond novels.

Whilst Higson’s five novels chart Bond’s childhood at Eton and his introduction to the world of espionage, Cole’s first title will pick up where By Royal Command (2008) left off and will follow teenage James in the aftermath of his expulsion from Eton. This period in Bond’s life has never been explored before and readers can expect all the thrills, action, glamour and tension that are the essential ingredients of a classic Bond adventure.

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- Tanya Byrne (Sunday)
Tanya Byrne was born in London and studied in Surrey, where she still lives with her cat who goes by several names, none of which he actually answers to. After eight years working for BBC Radio, she left to write her debut novel, Heart-Shaped Bruise, which was shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger, and longlisted for the Branford Boase Award. Tanya was also shortlisted for New Writer of the Year at the National Book Awards. She has travelled all round the country; to speak to crowds at the Edinburgh festival and to classrooms of young people.

Follow Me Down

First love. Last lie.

When Adamma Okomma has to leave her glossy high school in New York for a dusty English boarding school, she thinks it's the end of the world - or the end of her social life, at least.

Then she meets the wicked-witted Scarlett Chiltern, who shows her all of Crofton College's darkest corners and Adamma realises that there's much more to her new school than tartan skirts and hockey sticks.

She and Scarlett become inseparable, but when they fall for the same guy, the battle lines are firmly drawn.

Adamma gets the guy but loses her best friend. Then, when Scarlett runs away, Adamma finds herself caught up in something far more sinister than a messy love triangle. Adamma always knew that Scarlett had her secrets, but some secrets are too big to keep and this one will change all of their lives forever.

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- Tim O'Rouke (Saturday)

Tim O’Rourke started out as a self-published writer two years ago. He has gone on to sell over 200,000 books in that time. Tim is an obsessive writer, spending 8 hours a day, five days a week hunched over his laptop at the kitchen table while his three sons row and fight all around him, over such things as the PS3, TV remote and anything else they can think of!
In the last two years Tim has written over 1.5 million words and would have written more if it hadn’t been for his beautiful wife reminding him that there is a world outside of his own imagination!

Tim can’t wait for the upcoming release of his book Flashes, which will be published by Chicken House in 2014.

He lives in Buckinghamshire with his wife, three sons and a cat.

Flashes

Charley has flashes in her mind, psychic snapshots of terrifying events. After the death of her best friend, Charley's flashes become more intense as she sees images of the murder of a teenage girl. But how will Charley ever convince Tom Henson, the new detective in the town of Marsh Bay, to believe she can help him solve the case?

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- Will Hill (Saturday)
Before quitting his job in publishing to write Department 19, Will Hill worked as a bartender, a bookseller and a door-to-door charity worker. He grew up in the north-east of England, is scared of spiders, and is a big fan of cats. He lives in east London with his girlfriend, where he splits his time between staring out of the window and staring at a computer screen. The latter tends to be more productive.

Zero Hour

Department 19 still stands against the darkness. But for how much longer? Book four in the explosive series from bestselling author, Will Hill.
As Dracula continues his rise, the men and women of Department 19 wait for good news. But hope is in short supply – the country is beginning to fall apart as the public comes to terms with the horror in their midst; a cure for vampirism remains years, even decades away; and their supposed ally Valentin Rusmanov has not been heard from in weeks.

Jamie Carpenter and his friends are working hard to keep the forces of evil at bay, but it is beginning to feel like a lost cause…Until familiar faces from the past bring news that could turn the tide. News that takes Matt Browning to America on a desperate search for a miracle, and sends Jamie and Larissa Kinley into the darkest corners of eastern Europe, where something old and impossibly powerful waits for them.

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[dogsoldierspoon]

Very awesome and thank you for the authors!

 

I have three questions though.

 

1. I was wondering if the authors will only sign books that you buy at their table. I have a few books already and would rather get those signed than buying a new one (especially if the author hasn't written many books yet)

 

2. Would the author sign more than one book? I'm not talking about dozens, but my sister has asked if I could get a couple of her books signed as well. But yeah, if the author's only signing one book per guest, I wouldn't want to bring all that extra weight.

 

3. Will they do the same as the actor guests? In other words, will they be signing throughout the day (when they're not doing q&a's and workshops) or only at certain hours.

[MrT]

also will there be an option to get things signed other than books e.g. a 10 x8 photo of a book supplied. as i currently only have books in a digital format, and i own books by the author on kindle but do not want to buy a physical copy of said book

 

thanks

[Avengers7]

I would like to know these answers as well. Is there a limit on autographs? I have 4 Darren Shan books for him to sign. Looking forward to meeting him.

[showmasters]

- Everyone wanting a signature from any of the Authors will need to be getting at least one BOOK signed. This can be one bought on the day, or one that you bring along with you.

 

- Authors will only be signing "official" items. That is to say, books, scripts or items that they have been involved in creating. They will not be signing items such as tickets, programmes or blank card.

 

- There will be no limit on the number of books you can get signed, unless the demand for a particular author is much higher then the time they have available. At this time a limit may be introduced in order to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to meet them. I'm sure you understand that having one book signed for everyone is better than some people leaving with no books signed at all.

 

Who are people most looking forward to meeting?

[Tattybarber]

Hey, I'm super excited for many of these authors. Especially Charlie Higson. I was wondering if you know the price range for each signing yet? Thanks

[DavidB]

Author signings are usually free.

[KingRichard76]

Ooooh suit you sir!

[enty]

As the mother of an avid reader looks like there will be a suitcase just for books as she has 12 already and another 5 ready for her to read, going to have muscles like Arnie by the time we get to London.

[Sam_Carter96]

Author signings are usually free.

Do we have confirmation on this? Not that I don't believe you ahah but you said 'usually'.

[DavidB]

You have 99% confirmation

[Sam_Carter96]

You have 99% confirmation

Ah okay, thanks!

[Avengers7]

- Everyone wanting a signature from any of the Authors will need to be getting at least one BOOK signed. This can be one bought on the day, or one that you bring along with you.

 

- Authors will only be signing "official" items. That is to say, books, scripts or items that they have been involved in creating. They will not be signing items such as tickets, programmes or blank card.

 

- There will be no limit on the number of books you can get signed, unless the demand for a particular author is much higher then the time they have available. At this time a limit may be introduced in order to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to meet them. I'm sure you understand that having one book signed for everyone is better than some people leaving with no books signed at all.

 

Who are people most looking forward to meeting?

Only Darren Shan at the moment but might meet Charlie Higgson as well.

[Tattybarber]

That would be super awesome if they are free! I want to buy all new books for the signings anyway

[Diabolik]

What about posing for photos, will that be permitted or do usual guest preferences apply?

 

Am I right in thinking the authors don't have scheduled photoshoots?

[jonathan]

- Everyone wanting a signature from any of the Authors will need to be getting at least one BOOK signed. This can be one bought on the day, or one that you bring along with you.

 

- Authors will only be signing "official" items. That is to say, books, scripts or items that they have been involved in creating. They will not be signing items such as tickets, programmes or blank card.

 

- There will be no limit on the number of books you can get signed, unless the demand for a particular author is much higher then the time they have available. At this time a limit may be introduced in order to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to meet them. I'm sure you understand that having one book signed for everyone is better than some people leaving with no books signed at all.

 

Who are people most looking forward to meeting?

 

Will Charlie Higson be signing Fast Show photos, books, DVDs etc? Sorry if this has been asked and answered already.............

[ihearttwilightsaga]

What about those of us who are UKYA authors who will be there but don't get all this lovely advertising because our publishers are American? Can we start our own information thread?

[dogsoldierspoon]

- Everyone wanting a signature from any of the Authors will need to be getting at least one BOOK signed. This can be one bought on the day, or one that you bring along with you.

 

- Authors will only be signing "official" items. That is to say, books, scripts or items that they have been involved in creating. They will not be signing items such as tickets, programmes or blank card.

 

- There will be no limit on the number of books you can get signed, unless the demand for a particular author is much higher then the time they have available. At this time a limit may be introduced in order to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to meet them. I'm sure you understand that having one book signed for everyone is better than some people leaving with no books signed at all.

 

Who are people most looking forward to meeting?

Thanks for answering 2 out of 3 questions, really eased my mind :)

 

Can't speak for the others, but so far it's looking like:

 

- Charlie Higson 2x

- Sally Green 1x

- Derek Landy 1x

- Holly Black 1x

- Sally Gardner 1x

- Meg Rosoff 2x

- Natasha Ngan 2x

- Jonathan Stroud 1x

- Darren Shan 2x

- Emma Vieceli 1x

- Sarah Crossan 1x

 

And maybe Joe Abercrombie and I'm sure I haven't covered all my sister's books though. Gonna be a heavy suitcase

[Wolverneil]

Dan brown

R A Salvatore would be cool authors

[Wrong Name]

I'd love it if you could get Danny Wallace and Dave Gorman. I love their books!

[adriangill]

What about posing for photos, will that be permitted or do usual guest preferences apply?

 

Am I right in thinking the authors don't have scheduled photoshoots?

Historically I can't recall any having photo shoots. Some are quite happy to pose at their desk though if that helps.

[jonathan]

If I bring my Fast Show book along, will Charlie Higson sign that? Sorry for asking again but looking for an answer lol

 

Thanks

[Queen_Sindel]

If I bring my Fast Show book along, will Charlie Higson sign that? Sorry for asking again but looking for an answer lol

 

Thanks

 

Are you concerned because the book isn't listed on the first post? Normally authors don't have a problem signing books you bring. That is as long as you're not showing up carrying 35 books.

[stevie_g]

Oh man, I gotta meet Charlie Higson!

[showmasters]

What about those of us who are UKYA authors who will be there but don't get all this lovely advertising because our publishers are American? Can we start our own information thread?

The only confirmed authors are those listed on the website.

 

-Yes, all of them are free

 

-Charlie will most likely sign DVD's and scripts, but these MUST be accompanied by at least ONE book.

 

- There are no official photo shoots, but most authors will be doing photos at the table if you have your own camera. However, there can be exceptions to this put in place on the day, so please listen to any instructions the crew may have. =)