Welcome to our latest YA and Middle Grade roundup. Amongst the nine books featured we have an incredibly wide range of plots to dig into or recommend to your favourite youngsters, of which three are Middle Grade Danette Vigilante’s Tia Lugo Speaks No Evil, Jennifer Killick’s Crater Lake Evolution (sequel to the terrific Crater Lake) and Danny Weston’s excellent A Hunter’s Moon, which also crosses over into YA. Femi Fadugba’s mindboggling debut The Upper World is straight science fiction with a touch of dystopia, but as it is set very close to where I live I could not resist featuring it. I was delighted to see the return of the YA horror franchise Red Eye with Bryony Pearce’s Cruel Castle, which is a sequel to Savage Island (2018), unfortunately this was not one of the better Red Eye releases, but kids might still enjoy it. Alexandrea Weis’s Have You Seen Me was an entertaining murder thriller set in an American boarding school and Chris Whitaker’s The Forevers, a thoughtful end of the world drama with a huge meteor hurtling towards earth. Kat Ellis backs up the superb Harrow Lake of last year with another quality twisty horror thriller Wicked Little Deeds and finally Krystal Sutherland’s House of Hollow is a beguiling and highly entertaining dark, folklore, based fantasy. The books are listed alphabetically. Please get in touch if you have any Middle Grade or YA titles you would like us to review.  Kat Ellis – Wicked Little Deeds Last year, the fourth novel by Kat Ellis Harrow Lake impressed us tremendously and it featured in our best of 2020 Christmas YA roundup. Here’s an extract from the review: “A sly and clever YA novel for teen horror freaks to savour! Harrow Lake was a smartly plotted novel which has several layers which you will want to read very carefully, especially as you head towards the end. As a main character Lola was superb and I can think of lots of teenagers who are going to love this book and get lost in its gripping story. Clever, creepy, very original, and superb YA preparation for adult horror.” I’m delighted to say that Kat’s follow-up Wicked Little Deeds is another page-turning treat and for those readers who hid behind the sofa at the mention of ‘Mr Jitters’ in Harrow Lake are going to love ‘Dead-Eyed Sadie’, an equivalent character in Wicked Little Deeds. As with the previous novel, Ellis has fun with small town paranoia, local legends, old ghost stories and builds an entertaining thriller, with supernatural overtones, around the lore. It was one of those novels, that even though it was aimed at a teen audience, had me totally on the hook in figuring who the killer was. Also, I was pretty sure I had it sussed out, but was surprised with the big reveal, even though a few clues were dropped. The main plot was very clever and opens with Ava Thorn (with her uncle and aunt) having to leave the big house her family have lived in for generations. Set in the small town of Burden Falls, her family are closely linked to the legend and curse of ‘Dead-Eyed Sadie’ in which victims are supposed to see this spirit shortly before their imminent death. Moving to a smaller property, Ava is also trying to come to terms with the death of her parents from a year earlier and although a talented artist, is struggling to focus on school. Ava was an engaging lead character who jumps off the page, whose life goes even further off the rails when she realises who has bought her old house and believes she is seeing ‘Sadie’ stalking her. Is she going mad or not? After a teenager she had an argument with is murdered Ava becomes a suspect and begins to conduct her own investigation, whilst there seems to be a vendetta against her own family. Wicked Little Deeds was a pitch perfect slice of small-town life, which although it was more thriller than horror, had a lot going on and was very well plotted. For the most part ‘Dead-Eyed Sadie’ lurked in the background and did not do very much, but when you get to the end will realise why. Teenage thriller fans should eat this book up and it is an absolutely perfect summer read. AGE RANGE 13+  Femi Fadugba - The Upper World Femi Fadugba’s excellent debut is much more YA science fiction thriller than horror, however it has such a diverse and vibrant south London vibe I just have to give it a shout out. Its Amazon blurb says it is currently being developed into a Netflix film, I hope that is the case as I would love to see the areas of Peckham and Brixton (two interconnecting south London areas) feature prominently on screen. I live very close to Brixton and really enjoyed the slang, street life and authentic feelings of black teenagers struggling with gangs, poverty and the impossible dream of escaping. The book uses slang words which my fifteen-year-old daughter chats with, so if you don’t know what ‘peng’ means you’ll have to use a modern slang dictionary! Fadugba has a scientific background and it shows throughout The Upper World, which is a clever and captivating blend of gang warfare, physics, street violence, philosophy and time travel. I’m not going to pretend to understand the quirky detours into physics, some kids might find these confusing or frustrating, but I did enjoy them and much of the novel is grounded in science and quantum physics. Not surprisingly, for a book about time travel, The Upper World is set in two different times which are cleverly interconnected through location and one of the main characters. Firstly, London of 2020 in which teenagers run in gangs and question what kind of future they have, and a near future 2035 version of the city, which is credibly different but still recognisable, with teens having similar problems, but with certain escalations. Fadugba’s vision is scarily similar to ours, where the surveillance state is even more oppressive than it is today. London itself is instantly recognisable, vibrant, multi-cultural, alive and dangerous where we meet our main character Esso who is struggling at school, avoids gangs and has the usage teenage problems with girls and his mum (the relationship with his mum was a real strength of the novel). Soon he discovers he has the ability to see glimpses of the future and becomes haunted by a vision of a bullet fired in an alleyway with devastating consequences. The second plotline is set a generation later, fifteen-year-old Rhia, who is in the care home system and is a talented footballer, but a catastrophic moment from the past holds the key to understanding the parents she never knew. The book silkily leads both characters into a shadowy location called the ‘Upper World’ which exists outside of time (I think), which had other sequences I failed to grasp 100%, but its strengths were its engaging lead characters and authentic location which portrayed local gang feuds. Yes I was confused, but it was still cool. AGE RANGE 12+  Jennifer Killick – Crater Lake Evolution We reviewed Crater Lake back in September 2020 and were delighted to see the book pick up lots of positive vibes, great reviews and obviously successful enough for a sequel, Crater Lake Evolution. Here’s a short section of what we said about the original: “If I were nine years old, I would have loved Crater Lake! It concerns a class of Year Six pupils who are on their rights of passage school trip to an adventure centre. There are terrific action sequences, some gore, great interaction between the kids and big, exciting finish. This is an outstanding gateway into more mature science fiction and horror. It is also a terrific book for reluctant readers who want something relatively mature, but not too long.” The sequel picks up the story five months after the nightmare trip to the Crater Lake camp where a group of kids had to battle creatures which took over the bodies of their teachers, friends and camp staff. If you are after a cool Invasion of the Body Snatchers creepy story then these two books really do the trick. Evolution has many of the main characters as the original, with the gang now all happily settled in secondary school and making new friends, some of which feature in the story. This time out the action takes place in Lance’s hometown of Straybridge which has a university with a science department where they have been doing dodgy experiments connected to the creatures from book one. As with the original, the action takes place over a short period of time, with Lance trying to reconnect with his old friends, whilst suspecting something dodgy has happened to his mum. Before long, the old gang of Katja, Max, Chets and Ade, plus new friend Karim are breaking the curfew to make sure the events of Crater Lake are not repeated. Evolution is fast and furious fun and I love the way it picks up the story with the same kids now in secondary school, who deal with different problems, but still try to keep in touch with their old friends which often is not easy. There are plenty of excellent action sequences and the baddies are cartoony type characters and this is engaging fun for kids at the top end of primary, or first year at secondary. AGE RANGE 9-11  Bryony Pearce – Cruel Castle Bryony Pearce’s Cruel Castle heralds the exciting and long overdue return of the YA horror franchise Red Eye. Having not published a book since Gabriel Dylan’s excellent Whiteout back in 2018 it was looking like the series was well and truly washed up and so book eleven was a very welcome return. I have a feeling the publisher underestimated how popular this series was in school libraries and I was often asked “If I had any new Red Eye books?” by desperate kids. However, considering this is the first book in three years I was very surprised the publisher decided to bounce back with a sequel for its comeback? Cruel Castle follows the events in book nine Savage Island (2018) also by Bryony Pearce and the stories are very closely connected and reading this without having the predecessor might be rather confusing. Sadly, Red Eye do not return with a bang and Cruel Castle is one of the weaker entries in the series, with the whole novel build around a rather old hat escape room format. This lacks the freshness and cruelty of its predecessor Savage Island, which was set on a remote northern Scottish island. It is also worth pointing out that in June of this year Pearce published another YA horror novel called Raising Hell which was significantly better than this and would also have been a good fit for Red Eye rather than this rather bland and undemanding sequel. The story takes place some months after the events of Savage Island where a group of teens are duped into thinking they will be participating in adventure style challenges, for a huge cash prize, only to find out it is a huge setup and if they are to survive have to kill each other off. It’s not quite Battle Royale, but there are some nasty challenges lying ahead and the book was grisly fun. I am not going to say which characters are in Cruel Castle as it would provide spoilers as to who survives in Savage Island, but there is a lot of conspiracy, revenge is on the table, aimed at the billionaire psychopath who set it all up. However, the billionaire has his own ideas and the “team-building exercise” in a Scottish castle is much more than it seems, but ultimately a less fun version of what went down on the island. There were some solid twists and turns, with the plot more thriller than horror which might attract younger readers, but overall, I felt an overwhelming sense of disappointment as this was a brilliant opportunity for Red Eye to announce its triumphant return to YA horror with something wild, instead this was rather underwhelming and they return with a whisper instead of a howl. AGE RAGE 12+  Krystal Sutherland – House of Hollow I always enjoy authors moving around the genres and Krystal Sutherland’s third novel House of Hollow is an exceptionally convincing example of this. I read her debut Chemical Hearts a few years ago, which was an entertaining YA romantic drama, but this latest novel retains the convincing teenage voice of her debut, but effortlessly blends in the supernatural. One of the great strengths of the novel was that the reader was, for most of the time, unsure whether there was something otherworldly going on or not. It was obvious from the outset that the family the story revolved around was very strange, but the contemporary private school setting in Hampstead north London, grounded the action in the world of today. The novel is narrated by the youngest of three sisters Iris (the others being Vivi and Grey) and even she admits that odd things can happen around them, but kind of shrugs it off as the biproduct of being ‘Hollow Sister’ Whether Iris Hollow has special powers or is just plain weird is for the reader to find out, however, as a narrator she seriously crackles and gives House of Hollow a very authentic teenage voice which I am sure many teen readers will tap straight into. The reason the sisters are ‘special’ is because ten years earlier the three vanished into thin air, only to reappear a month later, with no memory of where they had been. Over the following years, even if the media interest eventually died down, both elder sisters Vivi and Grey led very different lives in a rock band and as a super model. However, even if the sister bond is very tight (and a great strength of the novel) it is Iris who is left behind. Early in the novel the story takes a fascinating direction when, once again, Grey disappears, but leaves clues to where she might be only her sisters can decipher. The story then moves into the realms of dark fairy tales and folklore, without ever playing to the stereotypes you often get in this brand of YA novel. Make sure you hang in there for a terrific ending. AGE RANGE 13+  Danette Vigilante - Tia Lugo Speaks No Evil If you’re after an enjoyable easy-read page-turning, but not too scary thriller, then Tia Lugo Speaks No Evil is worth a look for kids at the top end of primary, or first year of secondary school. Very early in the story thirteen-year-old New Yorker Tia Lugo partially witnesses a murder outside her bedroom window, suffering from Asma, she finds herself awake at odd times and struggles to sleep. The story is built around her failure to tell the police what she saw, fearful that the killer will target her family and at a certain point he does make contact. Adult readers will not find many surprises in this story, but I enjoyed Tia trying to negotiate what to do next, coming from a Spanish speaking family, with a grandmother who believes in herbal magic (and weird-smelling herb bundles, and eerie statues), the plot has some nice strands which are built around her close-knit family and a culture which does not find talking to the police easy. The nicest relationship is with her best friend Julius, who is the same age, and there are the early stages of romantic tension in the air, but the book keeps everything nicely innocent. Tia was a terrific main character, and although you will be screaming “go to the police!”, it was still very nice to have a Latin American central character, with the plot also taking in bullying at school and younger readers have an entertaining mystery to unravel, with a couple of red herrings thrown in along the way. Horror does not always have to be super scary, and this was a very enjoyable Middle Grade thriller with nice tension, atmosphere and family dynamics. AGE RANGE 8-11  Alexandrea Weis – Have You Seen Me Alexandrea Weis’s Have You Seen Me follows a well-trodden path into a posh American boarding school, Waverly Prep, with sinister goings on, which they seem to be deliberately playing down. There was little to separate this book from the crowded boarding school pack which falls short of the market-leader, Maureen Johnson’s Truly Devious series, which has a very similar setting. My main issue with this book was the way in which the murder mystery was framed, not necessarily the story itself, which was a decent read with twists and turns and a surprise ending (but not too much, as I knew who the killer was long before the end). When I read a thriller, I need to be convinced what I am reading is plausible. However, within the first thirty pages of Have You Seen Me new history teacher (main character Aubrey LeRoux) almost becomes best friends with a group of students and begins to investigate the disappearance of troubled teenager Lindsey Gillett. This was just so implausible, the brand-new teacher leading a Scoobie gang investigation with her pupils! Granted, the teens had their own agenda, but this lack of basic credibility put me off the book from the start. Perhaps it is because I have worked in education and schools since 1994 that this irritated me so much as it lacked even an inch of credibility. Genuine kids readers will undoubtedly swallow the story much easier that I did. Bearing that observation in mind teen readers should have fun with what is an engaging murder mystery which takes in disappearances over two time periods. Once Audrey turns up (she is a young teacher, mid-twenties), we realise that she previously attended the school as a pupil when another girl disappeared and was questioned as a suspect. It is quickly revealed that Audrey was bullied and did not have a particularly happy time at Waverly Prep. The teens who join her Scoobie gang were all friends of Lindsey, and are also aware of Sophie’s history, and use her to try and solve the mystery and any connections to the previous disappearance. In the end there were not too many suspects, and like with Scoobie, it is never the most obvious one. Other points of view are the kids in the group, with the story taking in usual teen issues in broad strokes. One might wonder why Audrey ever came back as the Headmistress was a real dragon who did not like anybody. Have You Seen Me was an easy and relatively undemanding read for thriller and mystery fans. AGE RANGE 12+  Danny Weston - A Hunter’s Moon If you are after a very fast paced historical supernatural thriller then Danny Weston’s A Hunter’s Moon is a terrific Middle Grade read and because it holds back on graphic violence is perfect for kids starting secondary school. Set in 18th Century Scotland, and top-loaded with local folklore, teenager Callum’s life is turned upside down when his father loses a pile of money at cards. As a result, Callum ends up working as a servant/slave to Frazer McCloud as payment for his father’s debt and McCloud is a tough master. Early in the novel the pair are hired to kill a wolf which is terrorising a local community some miles away. Once they arrive they realise the local farmers believe that the killer is not a wolf, but a creature from Scottish mythology called Cù Sìth. What follows is a very entertaining thriller in which Callum and Frazer realise that the Colonel who hired them has not told them the full story and something very nasty lurks in the encroaching forests and it’s hungry. I particularly enjoyed the interactions between the characters in A Hunter’s Moon. Initially McCloud is painted as a real bad guy, but he grows on the reader as the plot moves along. Likewise, the developing friendship between Callum and local girl Mhairi, the innkeeper’s daughter, came across as authentic, particularly as she has a strange air about her. Even though it was not an especially violent book the action sequences were wildly intense and the descriptions of the beast were particularly strong. I enjoy fiction which has a convincing folklore spin and A Hunter’s Moon had me checking Wikipedia a few times, all of which is blended into a convincing Scottish setting. Young horror and thriller fans will get quickly sucked into this engaging plot, especially as the body count increases, and even those readers who do not read much historical fiction will easily tap into this engaging novel. AGE RANGE 10-13  Chris Whitaker – The Forevers There are many YA novels about the end of the world which head into wild survivalist or dystopian settings and Chris Whitaker’s The Forevers is an antidote to that particular trope, as there is not a biker or cannibal in sight. Alternatively, this novel is a very philosophical and character driven look at the end of the world, it will be too slow for action seeking teens, but for those who enjoy more thoughtful dark thrillers then there is much to admire. It also reminded me of the fantastic Last Policeman by Ben Winters, an adult trilogy with a very similar plot, a giant asteroid will hit earth and the novel is the countdown to this cataclysmic event. In a YA setting a countdown to the end of the world asks lots of interesting questions involving the point of going to school, following rules or even the law. Is murder a big deal or even worth investigating? Like in The Last Policeman the asteroid is discovered ten years before impact and the novel picks up the story thirty days before the world (probably) ends. Main character Mae is seventeen and knows she is going to die before she turns eighteen, so it is easy why teens might ask “What’s the point?” type questions. The story is built around three suicides, including the best friend of Mae, and her investigation into whether this was indeed a suicide. If anything, the story dwells too much on this and for some of the time the asteroid is relegated to the background. As society begins to crumble (but not to the extent of most novels of this type) it asks the question what would you do if you could get away with anything? Ultimately it was a very sad book as the reader knows what exactly is going to happen on the very last page. It was inevitable, but somehow I was still hoping that there was a get out for Mae as she was a great character, damaged, but one teen readers will feel great empathy for. AGE RANGE 13+ Tony Jones TODAY ON THE GINGER NUTS OF HORROR WEBSITE[SPLASHES OF DARKNESS] |
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