 It’s hard to argue that three is not the magic number when it comes to sequels and series; the classic beginning, the powerful middle and the knockout ending magically famously captured by trilogies such as Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. It’s also fair to say that many series, with yet another sequel, overstay their welcome and after a while begin to stink. Sadly, a significant number of these lurk in YA and children’s fiction which is full of authors which have found a moderately successful formula and refuse to budge from it, or their publisher will not let them. Considering that kid’s fiction is cursed by sequels this article salutes the duology which when done well is an absolute artform which can leave the hooked child crying for the third book which does not exist. One of the finest modern examples of this is Peader O’Guilin’s The Call which is so perfectly formed, ending with such beautiful closure, one imagines it must have been born a duology in the author’s head! I have a feeling many of the books featured below were always intended to be duologies, but who knows. Many would have been sold to publishers as two book packages, others might have been cut short due to poor sales and a few are perhaps extended due to unexpected sales. Note also, we have cheated slightly, in that some of these books such as Emily Suvada’s Mortal Coil have a third book in the offing. YA series can often take time to build momentum and those which have a 2019 date may well still have more to come. If you’re looking for something to buy a teenager for Christmas there are lots to choose from here, many of those chosen move into science fiction and fantasy, generally inhabiting the world of ‘dark fiction’. Enjoy! They are listed alphabetically and the date of first and last book is noted. Do get in touch if you think there are any glaring omissions. If you like the sound of any of these books, please click on the titles to purchase via our multi region Amazon link  LINDSEY BARRACLOUGH: LONG LANKIN & THE MARK OF CAIN (2011-12) Simply terrifying tale of a house cursed by an ancient evil. Two unlucky children who are sent to live with their great aunt are next on this bogeyman’s hit list. It’s roughly based around a real ghostly character from local English folklore and this horrible creation is as nasty as anything you’ll find in adult horror fiction. If Adam Nevill wrote a kid’s book it might be a bit like this. I’ve met Lindsay at book events in the past and it’s amazing such a charming lady can create such an evil creation. (AGE 12+) VIRGINIA BERGIN: THE RAIN (2014-15) The Rain and sequel Storm are a highly entertaining pair of novels which open during a pretty normal teenage party with kids getting pissed, snogging and stoned. The next morning most are dead, something in the rain, and I mean a tiny drop, results in death. Large swathes of the population are killed off very quickly, as something nasty in the water eats you from the inside. Sixteen-year-old Ruby, with a huge pack of neighborhood dogs, tries and find her father in the very distant London and goes on a very dangerous journey. (AGE 12+) ELSIE CHAPMAN: DUALED (2013-14) If you’re after an entertaining science fiction, dystopian mashup then look no further than Dualed which has an exceptionally cool concept at its core. When kids turn eighteen, they must prove their worth by defeating a cloned version of themselves in a timed 24-hour battle. The twist is that neither of the combatants know whether they or their opponent is the ‘Alternate’ and who is the original. Get ready to meet West Grayer who has been training for years to battle her Alternate, but soon things go horribly wrong. (AGE 12+) ELLE COSIMANO: NEARLY GONE (2014-15) Perhaps UK kids cannot relate to American teens who live in trailer-parks, this is a shame as this outstanding duology genuinely deserves to find a UK audience. Leigh (known as ‘Nearly’) is a top student, trying to win a college scholarship, her mother works as a stripper and she hides the fact that she lives in a trailer from her classmates. ‘Nearly’ is an outstanding main character, who when she touches someone can feel the emotions they are experiencing, so she avoids contact whenever possible. She is also obsessed with his missing father and the possibility that he might secretly be trying to contact her through the small newspaper ads. Throw a killer into the mix, who might also be stalking Leigh, you have an outstanding supernatural thriller. Nearly Found is an equally good second book. AGE 13+  HELEN FALCONER: THE CHANGLING (2015-16) If you’re after an engaging fantasy with an Irish mythology twang, then look to further than The Changeling. Aoife mysteriously begins to develop mysterious powers after she follows a little girl nobody else seems able to see. After some investigation and prompting her parents confess that she isn't their real daughter. Their human child was stolen by the fairies, and Aoife is the changeling left behind in her place. Unsure what to do, she and a friend embark on a dangerous journey, which takes them deep into the underworld and changes everything they thought they knew about fairies and their complex relationships with people. The second book The Dark Beloved is a straight sequel and picks up Aoife’s story on her return. AGE 10+ MICHAEL GRANT: MESSENGER OF FEAR (2014-15) Grant has written a massive number of novels and is probably best known for the multi-book Gone series which is more science fiction than horror and BZRK which fuses action with genetic manipulation. I’ve got a soft spot for this rather odd novel and sequel, which is the closest he gets to horror, in which a supernatural being known as the Messenger of Fear punishes those who act maliciously by balancing out the injustice done via a game, and if they lose they must pay by enduring their worst fear as their penance and if they win go on with their lives. (AGE 12+) SARA HOLLAND: EVERLESS (2018-19) Sara Holland’s excellent dark fantasy debut Everless was based around an intriguing idea; a world where time (in days, weeks or years) can be extracted from individuals, turned into a potion, and then ingested by others to prolong their lives. Jules and her father are behind on their rent, but to stop her father draining himself of even more life-force she takes a job at the nearby and rich estate of Everless and gets much more than she bargained for when she is sucked into a world of intrigue after the royal visit of the Queen. This was a very clever fantasy novel, with a genuinely spunky heroine, which has been a well-deserved hit. There could be more life in this series yet! (AGE 12+) TOM HOYLE: ADAM GRANT SERIES (2014-15) I really like the jib of this author…. Nobody knows much about him, except that ‘Tom Hoyle’ might be a pseudonym for a school headmaster! It’s a cool story if it’s true…. In the first novel Thirteen Adam is the target of a cult that believes boys born close to midnight on 31st December 1999, Millennium night, must die before the end of their thirteenth year so that some dastardly prophecy will come true. Spiders is the second book in the series, I really hope he is a headmaster, that would be very neat. He has other excellent thrillers which blend adventure, fantasy and horror. (AGE 11+)  JAY KRISTOFF: LIFELIKE (2018-19) Lifelike is more science fiction that horror, from an author who is developing an impressive back-catalogue of genre fiction. Set in a gloriously described post-apocalyptic world full of have and have nots, Eve discovers the wreckage of an android boy named Ezekiel in the scrap pile she calls home, her entire world comes crashing down when she realises the robot is far from it seems and not a pile of junk at all. With her best friend and her robotic sidekick in tow, Eve and Ezekiel will uncover the dark secrets of her past and the origins of her ability to frazzle technology with her mind. A top-notch science fiction thriller with likable characters and outstanding action sequences. AGE 12+ MARIE LU: WARCROSS (2017-18) Think of the most popular computer game you ever played and then multiply it by ten thousand and you’ll have Warcross. I’ve had fun recommending this science fiction thriller to kids who are deeply into Fortnite and Minecraft, as it is the literary equivalent of those games. The computer game ‘Warcross’ has been so successful it has become a way of life for many and this engaging page-turner is much more accessible than Ready Player One, involving a teenage hacker, Emika Chen, who works as a bounty-hunter tracking down Warcross players who bet on the game illegally. Trying to outmanoeuvre other bounty hunters she accidently glitches herself into the game and as a result is offered a job which sucks her into a dangerous conspiracy. A wonderful book for tekkies everywhere, don’t be surprised to see a book three as some point from an author who also wrote the excellent Legend and Young Elites sequences. AGES 12+ KIRSTY McKAY: UNDEAD (2011-12) A kick-ass teen action zombie fest which plays it for laughs in amongst the gore. A group of teens returning from a Scottish skiing holiday run into a zombie plague. An enjoyable read as Bobby tries to avoid being eaten by her classmates in this fun mix of teen angst and horror. Kirsty also wrote a serial killer thriller set in a boarding school called Killer Game which I also enjoyed. (AGE 12+) PEADAR O’GUILIN: THE CALL (2016-18) The Call was one of the finest mesh of horror and teen fantasy I’ve read in years and should be read by absolutely everyone. It has a great plot: in this weird version of Ireland the country has been sealed off from the rest of the world by a supernatural barrier. In this Ireland teenagers can be ‘Called’, this means they are summoned to another realm where they do battle with the Aes Sidhe, the ancient rulers of Ireland before they were banished in a great war. These as very evil fairy creatures and down-right nasty beasts which are incredibly cruel and live to torture humans for sport. Although they are only gone for three minutes in the alternative world this is 24 hours or longer, so avoiding death is almost impossible. The plot revolves around a girl called Nessa, who has a leg defect, and cannot run properly, so nobody gives her a sniff of survival, however she is one TOUGH cookie and sooner or later she is ‘Called’. AGE 12+  LAURA POWELL: BURN MARK (2012-13) Witchcraft is an acceptable, but feared, part of modern society in this dark thriller set in a slightly skewered version of the UK today where witch burnings are seen as popular entertainment on TV and where getting a job for the Inquisition is seen as a cool thing to do. Glory is our main character, who hails from a family of witches, and is desperate to develop the 'Fae' and become a full witch herself. A funky update of Witchfinder General for the teen generation, until Fae meets a witchfinder who is slightly out of the ordinary. AGE 12+ AMY PLUM: DREAMFALL (2017-18) Seven teenagers which have various types of serious sleep disorders are the test cases in a new technology called DreamFall in which the kids are put into a deep sleep and the technology is supposed to eradicate their nightmares and problems over the next few hours. However, something goes wrong and all seven teens, who spend virtually the whole novel asleep, start sharing each other’s nightmares. The story is told from the point of view of a couple of the teens and an intern helping with the experiment. This was terrific stuff, with all sorts of monsters, nightmares and nasty stuff going on. AGE 12+ REBECCA SCHAEFFER: MARKET OF MONSTERS (2018-19) Not Even Bones was a very clever and original debut which had me hooked from the beginning with an intoxicating blend of fantasy and horror. Nita is a teenage girl who works as a mortician for her psychopathic mother and dissects the bodies of supernatural beings she has caught and killed. Nita’s mother auctions bits and pieces of her kills on the internet with her daughter helping. However, in the opening stages of the novel the mother brings home a live boy and expects Nita to cut his ear off so she can make some cash from it. After that she intends to sell his eyes and Nita decides to help him escape. I hope this series expands into a trilogy. AGE 13+ VICTORIA SCHWAB: CASSIE BLAKE (2018-19) When Cass was younger, she had a near-death-experience which resulted in her being able to see ghosts. Her best friend, Jacob, is a ghost, whom her parents believe is an invisible friend she will grow out of. After her parents get a new job presenting a TV programme about true supernatural hauntings her family relocate from America to Edinburgh, in Scotland. Once in Edinburgh, The City of Ghosts of the first book, Cass begins to see even more ghosts and even meets another little girl who has the same gift as her who teaches her to use it properly. Aimed at primary aged kids and a gentle introduction to ghost stories. AGE 9+  EMILY SUVADA: MORTAL COIL (2018-19) If you’re into far-out science fiction, with a strong apocalyptic, an end of the world vibe, then look no further than Mortal Coil which should stretch into a trilogy early in 2020. Catarina’s father is one of the dying world’s leading geneticists who is trying to find a cure to a virus which has destroyed humanity. But his sudden death leads to fears that all hope is lost, until Cat realises that her father has left her secret coded messages within the genes of other people and only she has the ability to crack the codes whilst a powerful organisation which controls the world’s technology lurks in the background. AGE 13+ GP TAYLOR: SHADOWMANCER (2002-06) The highly entertaining Shadowmancer meshes fantasy, adventure and horror together an old-fashioned tale of an evil sorcerer trying to take over the world with only a few plucky kids standing in his way. This book was one of the earliest examples of self-publishing being hugely successful and then being bought in a bidding war in the quest to find the ‘next’ Harry Potter. The sequel reunites the same characters and another battle against the evil lord Demurral. AGE 12+ AMY TINTERA: REBOOT (2013-14) Reboot has a very clever concept behind in; set in the future where technology has advanced, but life is very cheap, those who are killed can be brought back to life as cyborg policemen, which retain a certain amount of their human emotions and personality. However, the longer they have been dead, the less human feelings they have once they are ‘rebooted’. The story revolves around Wren Connolly who was revived five years earlier and has developed into a deadly policewoman as her revival times was very long at 178 minutes. Now 17 years old, she serves as a soldier for HARC (Human Advancement and Repopulation Corporation) and is deadly and barely human. Wren is given the job of training a new ‘Reboot’ called Callum Reyes, who was revived after 22 minutes and is still very human and the pair clash, but also hit it off in other ways. I don’t know how many teenagers have seen Robocop, these books certainly have part of its vibe, but it’s clever and entertaining stuff. AGE 13+ MARY WATSON: THE WREN HUNT (2018-19) Two supernatural factions (‘Judges’ and ‘Augers’) battle for survival in a version of modern-day Ireland which is top heavy with magic, superstition, and strange goings on. The two factions are eternal enemies, and the main character is an Auger, ‘Wren Silke’, who has a powerful supernatural gift which is one of the main thrusts of the novel. Wren is a really engaging character, and for the sake of her family, goes undercover, as an intern, at the family home of their sworn enemy hoping to discover anything which might tip the ancient battle in her family’s favour. However, with magic the reality is rarely black and white, and the teenager gets into trouble along the way, especially as her power and gift is slowly revealed. The second book is a companion piece rather than a sequel but features some of the same characters. AGE 13+  SCOTT WESTERFELD: PEEPS AKA PARASITE POSITIVE (UK) (2005-6) Exciting, vaguely futuristic vampire novels Parasite Positive and Last Days have a twist in which vampirism is seen as a disease. Cal picks up this infection and is a carrier who gives it to his girlfriend and tracks down those he has infected with the disease which is called ‘peeps’ creating ghoul like vampire creatures. The second novel cleverly develops this supernatural apocalypse with five teenagers fighting for survival as the deadly epidemic spreads. AGE 13+ MATT WHYMAN: THE SAVAGES (2012-14) I reckon this author must be a fan of the cult 1980s horror film Parents as it has some major similarities and is an entertaining and blackly funny look at quite a different family who are shocked when their daughter Sasha brings home a vegan boyfriend. This is a major problem for the ‘Savage’ family as they descend from a long line of cannibals. Matt Whyman is such a cool author, impossible to pigeonhole, always trying something new, and I’m a huge fan of Boy Kills Man a gun crime thriller set in Columbia and many of his other novels. AGE 13+  |
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