Home of innovative and original Young Adult fiction
Waterstones has just published its list of the best YA of 2024:
What do you think? Have you read the books on their list? Do you agree with their picks?
We loved Songlight by Moira Buffini, and The Prisoner’s Throne by Holly Black. The Twelve by Liz Hyder is waiting on our TBR, and we’re really hoping someone puts Not For the Faint of Heart by Lex Croucher under the tree for us this year!
What were your favourite YA books from 2024? And what should we read next?
We’re excited to announce that A is for Astronaut, our geeky alphabet picture book for young children, is now available to buy online! Head to The Great British Bookshop to order your copy. Excellent for baby shower and christening gifts – and of course, Christmas is coming … 😉
Angels, our LGBTQ+ YA novel, is also available now from The Great British Bookshop. If you enjoy floppy paperbacks with silky covers, this edition will make you very happy.
The Great British Bookshop offers worldwide shipping. Both books are price-matched to our in-person event prices. And best of all – if you buy from The Great British Bookshop, more of the cover price comes directly to the author, and absolutely none of it goes to Amazon!
Title: Songlight
Author: Moira Buffini
Edition: Kindle ARC
Rating: 5/5
What an absolutely gorgeous book!
The story follows three women with a form of telepathy called songlight, which they can use to find other telepaths, or ‘Torches’, and communicate in images and words. In the world of the book, two countries are at war. One values songlight, and gives their Torches important places in society, while the other fears their ability to manipulate the minds of others, and routinely sends them to be lobotomised and used as mindless servants.
Elsa cannot afford to tell anyone she has songlight – she knows she will be taken away from her family and operated on to destroy her ability. When someone close to her is imprisoned and taken away for having songlight, her distress draws another telepath to communicate with her, and they begin a long-distance friendship that must remain secret to protect them both.
Meanwhile, in the capital city, another telepath is keeping her abilities hidden as she lives and works at the top of government. As tensions rise between the warring parties, these three women find themselves at the heart of the negotiations – and risking discovery and betrayal to influence the course of the conflict.
While the narrative switches between various characters who find themselves caught up in the war, these three women are the focus of the story. Elsa is a strong protagonist – an outsider in her community, and resentful of the rules that dictate her life and her future. A strong sense of justice and fairness drives her story, and she finds her assumptions and beliefs challenged as she makes contact with telepaths across the two countries at war.
The other women face their own challenges, and as they become aware of each other, the danger of discovery increases.
My only disappointment with this book is that I didn’t know it was the start of a trilogy until I reached the end. I will be waiting very impatiently for the next instalment to find out what happens next! I can’t wait to meet these characters again.
Have you read Songlight? What did you think of the setting and the story? Click through to the full blog to access the comments section, and share your thoughts! No spoilers, though – you can post those on GoodReads!
YA review: Songlight cross-posted to GoodReads.
Please keep your comments YA appropriate. Be patient! We want to hear from you, but comments are moderated, and may take some time to appear. The comment section will close after five days.
Interested in writing for teen readers? Young Adult reader looking for reading inspiration? Join Taller Books author Rachel Churcher for a FREE author talk at Mildenhall Library this Thursday (15th August).
Title: After the Fire
Author: Will Hill
Edition: Paperback
Rating: 5/5
Wow. This absolute page-turner is both heartbreaking and life-affirming, as the fifteen-year-old narrator tells the story of her life in a strict religious cult, and what happens when a government raid on their fortified compound brings everything she knows to an end.
Moonbeam has lived in the The Holy Church of the Lord’s Legion compound for as long as she can remember. Her father died when she was young, and she remembers the day her mother was banished from the cult and sent to live in the outside world, full of danger and unbelievers and government agents who want to capture and torture the followers of the True Path (according to their leader, Father John). Moonbeam stayed, and learned to fit in without her mother’s protection. She knows how to hide her doubts, protect her friends, and defend the community against outsiders.
When the government storms the compound, everything burns. The cult members use their guns and training, but they can’t fight soldiers and tanks. Moonbeam is appalled at the loss of life and the destruction of her home as she makes her way through the fighting to save the children she cares about.
In the outside world, Moonbeam joins the few survivors in hospital, and begins to tell her story to the psychiatrist in charge of her case. In as series of flashbacks and conversations, we learn about her experiences – about Father John’s absolute power within the cult, about daily life in the compound, and about her relationship with Nate, a newcomer to the community. We also discover the questions she won’t answer – what she was doing throughout the raid, what she knows about Father John, and why her mother made sure she was promised to the cult leader as a wife, even when she was trying to get them both out of the compound.
The answers come slowly, alongside Moonbeam’s interactions with the other child survivors – some of whom are angry that they weren’t taken to heaven with the cult members who died.
This is an absolutely gripping story, inspired by the disastrous 1993 government raid on the Branch Davidian cult in Waco, Texas. It is a human story with an extremely sympathetic and inspiringly strong narrator, and I never stopped cheering for her – even when some of her secrets are revealed.
I can’t recommend this book enough!
Have you read After the Fire? What did you think of Moonbeam’s story? Click through to the full blog to access the comments section, and share your thoughts! No spoilers, though – you can post those on GoodReads!
YA review: After the Fire cross-posted to GoodReads.
Please keep your comments YA appropriate. Be patient! We want to hear from you, but comments are moderated, and may take some time to appear. The comment section will close after five days.
We really can’t believe this. We launched our first novel, Battle Ground, at London Olympia FIVE WHOLE YEARS AGO on a frighteningly hot and humid day at YALC.
😲 FIVE YEARS!! 😲
A huge THANK YOU to everyone who has bought, read, reviewed and told other people about the book and the series. It has been an amazing five years of writing, promoting, meeting new readers – and winning two international awards. Thank you all for your support and encouragement. 🧡
Taller Books has come a long way in five years. Seven books in the Battle Ground Series (plus a free novella), a standalone LGBTQ+ novel, Angels, a children’s picture book, an indie author editing service, and sponsorship of the Foreword Festival UK.
Here’s to the next five!
Title: My Teeth in Your Heart
Author: Joanna Nadin
Edition: Kindle ARC
Rating: 5/5
Another Netgalley ARC from UCLan Publishing, and another surprising, smart YA romance with compelling characters and plenty of emotional depth. I was hooked from the first page, and the story only became more gripping as the author built up the stories of Billy and Anna, two women in the same family, finding first love fifty years apart.
But there’s so much more to the story. The book opens in 1975 with Anna, 17 and accidentally pregnant. She had been aiming for good A-level results and a place at Cambridge, but instead she’s dealing with her mother’s disapproval – and there’s no way she can go to university now.
In 2024, Anna’s granddaughter Billy is studying for her A-levels, but spending time when she should be in class hooking up with a boy she can’t tell anyone about, because he has a girlfriend, and because her best friend has a crush on him.
Their stories are told in parallel, with alternating chapters. We learn that, until the summer of 1974, Anna had lived in Cyprus – a good, academic girl in the ex-pat community. She spent her time studying, swimming with her fashionable friend Nancy, and at her secret job in a bookshop. Her parents wouldn’t approve of her working – and certainly not alongside the Cypriot boy she’s falling in love with. With the threat of invasion growing, Anna is torn between her safe ex-pat life, and the lives of the local families who have nowhere to escape to. We follow Anna through the summer of 1974 as she discovers her independence and makes choices that will transform her life, and the lives of the people around her.
Meanwhile, Billy’s discovery of her grandmother’s diary gives her an insight into her grandparents’ lives, and a family history she hadn’t suspected. Anna had lost contact with her Cypriot friends after the Turkish invasion, and a 2024 trip to Cyprus gives Billy and her mother the chance to piece together the events of 1974, and to discover their own shared history.
This is a truly wonderful story. The characters are beautifully drawn and absolutely real as they live through terrifying events and face impossible choices in 1974, and follow in those footsteps in 2024. The dual narration is brilliantly handled, and provides a framework for the author to reveal the full story slowly, with maximum impact for the characters and the reader.
I adored this book. Emotional, relatable, intriguing and unpredictable – absolutely a five-star read.
My Teeth in Your Heart will be published on July 4th. Thank you to NetGalley for sending me this book in exchange for an honest review.
Have you read My Teeth in Your Heart? What did you love about it – the characters, the story, the settings? Click through to the full blog to access the comments section, and share your thoughts! No spoilers, though – you can post those on GoodReads!
YA review: My Teeth in Your Heart cross-posted to GoodReads.
Please keep your comments YA appropriate. Be patient! We want to hear from you, but comments are moderated, and may take some time to appear. The comment section will close after five days.
Today is PTSD Awareness Day, and with author Rachel Churcher we’re launching our official fundraising page for PTSD UK.
All Rachel’s novels feature main characters who experience PTSD, and we want their stories to help support PTSD awareness and treatment.
As part of the Foreword Festival UK Pay It Foreword Book Fair in Bury St Edmunds on August 31st, we’ll be raising money for PTSD UK via JustGiving – and we’re starting today! Any donations massively appreciated, and all donations on the official page go directly to the charity.
PTSD UK is the only UK charity dedicated to raising awareness of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – no matter the trauma that caused it.
Thank you so much for your support!
If you’re in Suffolk and free tomorrow morning, it would be wonderful to see you at Harris & Harris Books in Clare, 10.30-12.30. Taller Books author Rachel Churcher will be signing copies of Angels, her LGBTQ+ finding-yourself novel (with a twist!) in the bookshop. Come along and discover your new reading obsession for Pride Month!
Featuring a range of characters as they discover their identities, passions, and relationships, Angels is a university heartbreak story, an exploration of friendship and attraction, and an allegory for the LGBTQ+ experience.
It takes courage to find your wings …
Title: The Guidal – Discovering Puracordis
Author: Roxy Eloise
Edition: Paperback
Rating: 5/5
I love a good, original YA Dystopia, and this ticked all the boxes! A training centre for teenagers learning to be Enforcers of curfew and other laws, arranged marriages, strict relationship rules, games with life-changing rankings for the winning teams, friendships and romances, a mysterious commander with a grudge against the narrator, and a really interesting twist with a setup for book two.
Aurora has been raised in the Boulderfell Institute for Young Enforcers. Her only memories of a life before the institute are dreams of running with her friend Tayo, and being caught by Enforcers at the age of three. The book begins with her move from the children’s quarter to the adult section, following her sixteenth birthday. The author captures the fear and anxiety of the move – relatable for anyone who has changed schools or employers and worried about how they will survive in a new environment.
And Aurora is right to be anxious. The adult section brings the potential for an arranged engagement, a step up to dangerous competitive games, patrols in the outside world, and conflict with the commander of the Institute. It doesn’t take long for her to find herself in serious trouble, betrothed to a stranger, and targeted by older trainees who are threatened by her physical abilities. When she discovers someone from her past at the institute, everything she believes about herself is challenged, and she must decide who – and what – to believe.
I loved this book. I loved the story and the setup. I loved the characters, and Aurora in particular. I loved the people who supported her, however secretly, and I loved the twist at the end. This is the beginning of an excellent YA dystopian series, and I’m looking forward to book two!
Have you read The Guidal – Discovering Puracordis? What did you think of Aurora’s story?Click through to the full blog to access the comments section, and share your thoughts! No spoilers, though – you can post those on GoodReads!
YA review: The Guidal – Discovering Puracordis cross-posted to GoodReads.
Please keep your comments YA appropriate. Be patient! We want to hear from you, but comments are moderated, and may take some time to appear.