Chicklish

REVIEW: Blood Red Road by Moira Young

Review by Hazel Holmes.

"Every step of Saba's journey sizzles with danger... In a lawless land, where life is cheap and survival is hard, Saba has been brought up in isolated Silverlake. She never sees theangers of the destructive society outside. When her twin brother is snatched by mysterious black-robed riders, she sets out on an epic quest to rescue him."

Saba’s twin brother is taken by mysterious black-robed riders, her father is murdered and her life changes forever. Blood Red Road is a fast-paced story filled with adventure, excitement, furious violence and a lustful romance.

Young’s writing reminded me a little of Tod’s voice in The Knife of Never Letting Go, and the strong feisty female character reminded me of Katniss from Hunger Games.

Definitely worth a read!

Review by Hazel Holmes.

Watch the book trailer here.

REVIEW: A Royal Match by Tyne O'Connell

Review by Luisa.

(From Goodreads) "When LA-born Calypso Kelly arrives at the exclusive all-girls British boarding school, St. Augustine's, she's determined to become popular. But when a photo of Calypso kissing England's heir to the throne, Prince Freddie, ends up in the tabloids, it will take quick thinking to save her reputation-and her relationship with the prince."

I first reviewed this book here on Chicklish in 2006, when it was two separate books called Pulling Princes and Stealing Princes, the start of The Calypso Chronicles series. These have now been repackaged and released in time for a certain wedding, so I thought I'd repackage my review, too! What follows is my original review, with slight adaptations...

The premise of this story didn't immediately attract me, but I found the book very entertaining. Calypso is a great character, an American girl desperately trying to fit in with British boarding school life. The quirks of St Augustine's and its staff and pupils were described hilariously and yet lovingly. There was also a strong exploration of friendships and what motivates the in-crowd, touching on what it takes to fit in and how far a Queen Bee can go before she's cast out. The book was sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. It also had a focus on fencing, which isn't a sport you read about very often in contemporary fiction.

The only thing I liked slightly less was the ending of the first book, where the sequel was set up so obviously that I felt there was something missing from the book as a complete, separate unit. But luckily, in this new version, you can move straight to the next book, and then find yourself copies of Duelling Princes and Dumping Princes too...

This is a fun book for younger fans of boarding school stories.

Review by Luisa

REVIEW: Starstruck by Cathy West - new series from Ransom Publishing

Review by Alexandra.

Ransom publishing have released a brand new series of six books aimed at 8-14 year olds that have a lower reading age. They’re short, beautifully presented books of about 35 pages each. All of the books are on topics related to stage and screen. Each of the books starts with a non-fiction section that tells you something about the topic, and then the final section is a fictional story around the same theme. 

Some examples: one of the books in the series is called Street Dance. From the first section, I learnt about different forms of street dancing, about the moves used, and finally about the competitions and groups of dancers. The story in the end of the book is about a dance battle and is presented in both regular text format and in pictures with speech bubbles. Another of the books is named Circus Skills and takes you through circus skills past and present before moving on to a story of two young people auditioning to join a circus.

The books follow a similar layout to Ransom’s Trailblazers series, using illustration and speech bubbles, as well as text, to allow anyone struggling that bit more to still keep up and enjoy a good story. For teachers, the books are also available with photocopiable workbooks. The workbooks give detailed notes and advice for using the materials with students. 

The series is recommended for struggling readers aged 8-14 with a reading age of 6-7 years. The books are aimed at girls, but most of them, in my opinion, will also interest boys with an interest in acting or dance, or stage or screen. Nothing on the book labels them as ‘for’ a lower reading age, which gives discretion to the reader and would encourage child of other reading ages, interested in the topics, to dip into them.

Review by Alexandra.

Ransom Publishing's website

 

REVIEW: Shadowland by Alison Noel and Dark Flame by Alison Noel

Review by Tamika.

Shadowland and Dark Flame are the third and fourth books in The Immortals Series. Ever and Damon are finally together, but there is one fatal curse – if they touch, they are doomed to spend eternity in Shadowland. In the third book, we read as they struggle to get the antidote to the curse off their enemy, Roman. Ever also discovers a alarming discovery, when she meets her new boss, Jude. Damon and Ever then wander if they were really soul mates. In Dark Flame, Ever is drawn towards someone, or something, and this risks everything in her life. She also has to come to grips with a big change to someone elses life…

I’ve always been a fan of The Immortals series, and the endings to these books are great. They always have a plot twisting storyline, constantly unexpected. They stories get you really annoyed at some parts, like with Roman. He really knows how to wind up everyone.

I really enjoyed these two, and can’t wait for the next book Night Star, which I hope will be even better!

Review by Tamika, aged 14

GIVEAWAY: Only The Good Spy Young by Ally Carter (now closed)

***This giveaway is now closed and winners have been contacted.***

Only The Good Spy Young is the fourth book in Ally Carter's Gallagher Girls spy school series, and here's more about it:

"Cammie 'The Chameleon' knows by now that even she can't hide from danger. But when she discovers that one of her most-trusted allies is a rogue double-agent, Cammie questions her trust in her classmates, her teachers - and her own heart..."

It's released on 5th May 2011, and to celebrate, we have five prize packs - a copy of the book plus a Gallagher Girls tote bag - to give away to residents of the UK.

***This giveaway is now closed and winners have been contacted. Winners are: Olivia, Ellie, Maria, Karina, Tammi. Congratulations!***

REVIEW: Tomorrow When The War Began by John Marsden

Review by Caroline.

Imagine if you went on a hiking trip with some mates for the weekend and when you got back, you discovered that foreign soldiers had invaded your country. Everyone dear to you had been captured and imprisoned. That’s just what happens to seventeen-year-old Ellie Linton and her friends in this exciting Australian novel – the first of seven - which takes a very original spin on the dystopian theme. There’s nothing futuristic in this book but because you never discover who these invaders are [not in book one anyway] it gives an unsettling edge to the story of the teenager’s battle to stay free. Who are the invaders and what do they want?

Ellie is a very likeable character with a convincing voice and even though she is facing life or death choices, she still has the normal worries of a girl her age. Not least the fact that she’s a little bit in love with two of the boys...and one of them is going out with her best friend. John Marsden may not be so well known in the UK but is clearly a big name in Australian fiction. If the first in this series is anything to go by, he will be soon be a huge star in this hemisphere too.

Review by Caroline.

Caroline Green's novel for young teenagers, Dark Ride  will be published by Piccadilly Press on 1st May 2011

REVIEW: Starcrossed by Josephine Angelini

Review by Hazel Holmes.

"When shy, awkward Helen Hamilton sees Lucas Delos for the first time she thinks two things: the first, that he is the most ridiculously beautiful boy she has seen in her life; the second, that she wants to kill him with her bare hands.

With an ancient curse making them loathe one another, Lucas and Helen have to keep their distance. But sometimes love is stronger than hate, and not even the gods themselves can prevent what will happen..."

Add a dark brooding romance to Greek Mythology and you get Starcrossed, the next major title to hit your shelf. Think Romeo and Juliet mixed with Percy Jackson but for teenage girls – brilliant. So forget vampires, it’s all about the Demigods.

When the mysterious Delos family arrive in Helen’s sleepy hometown of Nantucket, things start to get very weird. Not only does she realise she’s not quite the average girl she’s been hoping to be all these years, but she has become totally love-struck with Lucas, a boy she is destined to loathe.

The fates are at work with this one, ensuring you’ll get swept away alongside Helen with what is one of the hottest books I’ve read in a long time.

Review by Hazel Holmes.

Watch Josephine Angelini on The Daily, talking about how she went from being a bartender to being a novelist. 

REVIEW: Being Billy by Phil Earle

Review by Annalie.

Billy is a lifer – a child who has been in care so long that the authorities have pretty much given up hope that he or she will ever be adopted or fostered. Billy was fostered once, by Jan and Grant, but that ended in a disaster that no one, not even Billy, wants repeated. Billy’s life revolves around getting into (and out of) fights, taking his anger out by keying cars, avoiding school and the twins, Lizzie and Louie, his younger siblings. When Billy learns that there are plans to rehouse the twins with their mum, Annie, he panics. How will his mother cope? What will the twins do without him? And more importantly what will he do without them?

Being Billy is a touching and honest account of what happens to the kids that society gives up on, and I can’t believe it is Phil Earle’s first book. It has been written with such confidence and the difficult subject matter approached with such skill and sensitivity. No doubt Phil’s previous career as a carer played a massive part in making the characters and situations feel so real. I actually wonder how possible it would be for a writer to pen a book like this without such an experience – it would take an enormous amount of research in any case. 

This book is bleak. It pulls no punches about the future many of these kids face. There is a particularly chilling account of Marie, another lifer, who was spat out of the care system at eighteen feeling all bright and rosy about her future. Six months or so later, she still hadn’t managed to get a job (employers, it seems, just don’t trust lifers), bills were piling up on her doorstep and she turned to drug-dealing to survive. 

Billy is an eloquent and thought-provoking narrator – one who has a lot to say, if only those around him would listen. A contradiction, he is at once angry and destructive, loving, kind and intelligent. You can’t help but love him and root for him, although at times you want to scream at him as another bad decision sends him hurtling towards a fresh disaster. I loved this book, found it genuinely moving and utterly compelling, right up to its violent and heart-breaking conclusion. 

It was incredibly refreshing to read a book about a real boy set in a real world with real problems. But what was even more refreshing was how convincing it was - the plot, which is largely character-driven, has been well-thought out and was executed with just the right level of sensitivity. The book clearly has a message, but it never once trespasses into didacticism. 

Phil Earle is a writer to watch. This book definitely deserves to win an award – possibly even several.

Review by Annalie

GIMME FIVE: Five inspirations behind HIDDEN by Miriam Halahmy

We're pleased to welcome Miriam Halahmy, author of Hidden (published by Meadowside Fiction, 2011), with a post about the inspiration behind her novel.

Five inspirations behind HIDDEN
by Miriam Halahmy

HIDDEN is about two teenagers who pull an illegal immigrant out of the incoming tide and hide him to save him from being deported. Alix is just an ordinary fourteen year old girl, living at the bottom of quiet Hayling Island. But one cold, misty Saturday on the beach she and Samir find themselves saving a drowning immigrant. Faced with the most difficult decision of their lives, what should Alix and Samir do? HIDDEN deals with courage, prejudice, judgement and the difficulty of sorting right from wrong in our complex world.

Inspirations behind the writing of HIDDEN

  - The plight of asylum seekers in the UK today.

I have worked with hundreds of asylum seekers, from Vietnamese boat people in the 1980s to those coming in from Iraq and the Cameroon today. There are a lot of myths in the media about asylum seekers,  “flooding in, taking out jobs, getting benefits” all of which are simply untrue. Less than 3% of the world’s asylum seekers reach a UK border. It is very hard to convince the authorities your story is true, you are housed in sub-standard accommodation and you are given £5.00 a day in vo uchers for everything you need. Try keeping your teeth clean and a full stomach on that!

In HIDDEN I challenge these myths with strong believable characters and use humour and action to keep the reader turning the pages.

  - The Iraq connection

Samir in HIDDEN came to England as an unaccompanied asylum seeking child from Iraq. Mohammed, the illegal immigrant they hide, is also from Iraq. I have been married into an Iraqi family for over thirty years and so I felt this was a culture and country I knew a lot about. HIDDEN shows something of the ordinary everyday life for Iraqis to counterbalance the negative picture on T.V. of a country where bombs go off and people kill each other. Our family looks forward to the day when we will be taking our holidays in Baghdad.

- Beautiful Hayling Island

  Hayling Island (pictured)  is off the south coast of England, opposite the Isle of Wight. My parents lived there for 25 years and I have been visiting the Island for nearly 40 years. Although my parents are no longer alive my husband and I still regularly visit. I always thought it would be a great place to set a novel. My inspiration for HIDDEN came when I was walking on the beach and then I wrote two more novels, ILLEGAL and STUFFED (Meadowside, 2012). Each of the three novels is set on a different part of the Island and I have really enjoyed going down to do research. As Katie Martin said when she interviewed me on BBC Radio Solent, “So you can say, just off to my office – on the beach!”

- A passion for history

Writing novels allows me to indulge my passion for history. In HIDDEN, Alix’s Grandpa went to Dunkirk, aged 14, with his Dad and uncle, on their boat in May 1940, to help rescue the British army stranded on the beaches. “I didn’t need to be asked twice,” says Grandpa. I found out that five ‘little ships’ left Hayling for Dunkirk in May 1940 and last year I was shown over one of them, Count Dracula, (pictured)  which saved over two hundred men. It was very exciting  to stand on the bridge of this amazing boat and imagine what it must have been like, sailing across the Channel, seeing the plumes of smoke from the bombing on the Dunkirk beaches. Grandpa’s story inspires Alix to find the courage to help Mohammed.

- Fourteen years old

I deliberately made Alix and Samir fourteen because I think fourteen year olds are often overlooked in our society. It’s a bit of a ‘nowhere’ age. You are not supposed to play out with little kids anymore and yet you have none of the rights and privileges of older teens. I often felt when I was teaching in school that fourteen year olds were marking time, capable of so much more. Alix’s Grandpa, Alix and Samir all prove that if you’re fourteen and you are strong, there is no telling what you would be able to do in a crisis.

What inspires you to write?

Thank you very much, Miriam Halahmy!

Miriam Halahmy's website.

Miriam Halahmy's blog.

REVIEW: The Pain Merchants by Janice Hardy (The Healing Wars book 1)

Review by Mel.

"A young girl becomes a pawn in a bigger political game when her uncanny - and dangerous - ability to shift pain between people turns out to be the only weapon she has to save her sister. Fifteen-year-old Nya is one of Geveg's many orphans; she survives on odd jobs and optimism, finding both in short supply in a city crippled by a failed war for independence. Then a bungled egg theft, a stupid act of compassion, and two eyewitnesses unable to keep their mouths shut exposes her secret to the two most powerful groups in the city: the pain merchants and the Healer's League. They discover Nya is a Taker, a healer who can pull pain and injury from others. Trouble is, unlike her sister Tali and the other normal Takers who become league apprentices, she can't dump that pain into pynvium, the enchanted metal used to store it. All she can do is shift it from person to person, a useless skill that's kept her out of the league and has never once paid for her breakfast. When a ferry accident floods the city with injured, the already overwhelmed Takers start disappearing from the Healer's League and Nya's talent is suddenly in demand. But her principles and endurance are tested to the limit when her talent turns out to be the only thing that can save her sister's life."

I love reading about new worlds so this fantasy novel from Janice Hardy really hit the spot. The Pain Merchants features a feisty heroine, fifteen-year-old Nya, as she goes on a quest to save her sister from a potentially nasty end. Along the way, she makes new friends (and enemies), and also discovers that her own, unique ability to shift pain has more value than she ever anticipated.  Nya lives in a city, Geveg, that's been torn apart by war, but is still vibrant and alive - surviving because of the strength of its people. Nya embodies this spirit. Her determination, grit and kindness in the face of overwhelming odds is truly moving. She's tough, but always considers others - never taking the easy way out. This depth of character really makes the story shine.   

The world-building and premise also elevate this book beyond the normal. The setting is middle-eastern in theme, but with a fantasy twist. The author has spent time creating the environment, describing all aspects of Nya's culture so that you almost believe that Geveg is a real place. The highly original concept of bartering with pain sits well within this alien setting and opens up lots of moral dilemmas for the characters. How should they use their abilities? Who decides who gives and takes pain?  I'm looking forward to finding out the answers to these questions and reading more about Nya's journey in the sequel, Blue Fire.

Review by Mel