March New Releases: The Novels

March can't arrive too soon:

ANONYMITY JONES
James Roy
We are always eager to hear that James Roy is writing, so we were thrilled to hear he was working on a YA novel. When we heard the title ‘Anonymity Jones’ we were intrigued, a girl? Ooh! And then we saw the cover: our expectations were sky-rocketed! Stay tuned for a full length review of this excellent book.

SKULDUGGERY PLEASANT: DARK DAYS (#3)
Derek Landy
Stephanie and Skulduggery are back in another instalment of hilarity and adventure - an ingenious (and much loved) combination! Derek Landy will be in Melbourne at the end of March, so keep your eyes open for author events. If you can't wait (no-one will judge you) check out the Skulduggery website.

IMPOSSIBLE
Nancy Werlin
Seventeen year-old Lucy discovers that she is the latest recipient of an ancient family curse. Unless she completes three seemingly impossible tasks she will fall into madness and pass the curse on to the next generation. Unlike those who suffered before her, Lucy has family, friends and love. Can she beat the odds?

ZERO HOUR: THE ANZACS ON THE WESTERN FRONT
Leon Davidson
When the Australians and New Zealanders arrived at the Western Front in 1916, the fighting had been going for a year and a half and there was no end in sight. The War only supposed to last for six months! ZERO HOUR is the third book by Leon Davidson, author of the best-selling and multi-award-winning SCARECROW ARMY: THE ANZACS AT GALLIPOLI and RED HAZE: AUSTRALIANS & NEW ZEALANDERS IN VIETNAM.

THE PIPER'S SON
Melina Marchetta
Follow-on from SAVING FRANCESCA, hear about it from Melina herself in this teaser.

LITTLE PARADISE
Gabrielle Wang
Mirabel, seventeen, is having a secret affair with JJ. He’s in the Chinese army on a mission in Australia. But one day they are discovered and JJ is sent to Shanghai. So Mirabel decides to leave Melbourne, and everything she knows, to find him. The problem is its 1943.
WOW! What a premise! Sucked in already? That’s all it took me! And, apparently, LITTLE PARADISE is inspired by a true story...

JAMEELA
Rukhsana Khan
This novel, based on a true story, tells the powerful story of a girl in post-Taliban Afghanistan. Life is difficult, and when Jameela’s mother dies and her father remarries it becomes harder still. Beautiful, important (that means must-read) writing by an award-winning author.

THE RETURNERS
Gemma Malley
A gripping new novel set in an alternate future. Will Hodges’ life is a mess. His mother is dead, he has no friends and he is being followed by a strange group of people who tell him they know him. At first Will can’t remember them but when he does, he uncovers the truth of who he is...

THE GIRL WHO COULD FLY
Victoria Lakema Forester
Piper McCloud can fly. Just like that. So she leaves her home to attend a top-secret, maximum-security school for kids with exceptional abilities, whose skills range from super-strength to super-genius. But Piper is special, even among the special. And there are consequences. Consequences too dire to talk about. Too crazy to consider. And too dangerous to ignore...

HEIST SOCIETY
Ally Carter
A stand-alone from the author of THE GALLAGHER GIRLS (to be made into a film). Kat would like to leave the family business. Fair enough! Not so easy if your family are a gang of exclusive world-class thieves though. The rest is top secret!

SCAT
Carl Hiaasen
An eco-thriller, with fun bits, set in Florida. What happens when an unpopular teacher goes missing and Nick and Marta set out to find her? It all involves the local troublemaker, an eccentric eco-avenger, a stuffed rat named Chelsea, a crooked oil prospector, a singing substitute teacher, and an angry panther. So, anything could happen, really!

More to come as time permits...
Leesa Lambert

One More For the Road...

SOLACE OF THE ROAD is the final offering from Siobhan Dowd. Her brief but spectacular writing career began with the release of A SWIFT PURE CRY in 2006, but really her contribution to the book world began much earlier than that.

Born in 1960, Siobhan carried a passion about human rights and literature into her academic life. After graduating with a BA from Oxford and an MA from Greenwich University, she went on to join the writer’s group PEN in 1984.

Founded in 1921, PEN was established with the following goals in mind:
To promote intellectual co-operation and understanding between writers
To create a world community of writers that would emphasize the central role of literature in the development of world culture
To defend literature against the many threats to its survival which the modern world poses.

Dowd traveled with PEN in various significant roles before returning to the UK, where she co-founded English PEN’s readers and writers program, taking authors into schools in socially deprived areas.

In 2004 she had her first writing published, a short story in the collection ‘Skin Deep’. This was also the year she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

In the three years that followed, Siobhan wrote four full length novels, which have continued to be released after her death in 2007. THE LONDON EYE MYSTERY was published to great acclaim (have a look, here), and BOG CHILD won the 2009 CILIP Carnegie Medal (the award was accepted by David Fickling in an extremely moving ceremony) SOLACE OF THE ROAD is the last of these. All royalties from her works go to the Siobhan Dowd Trust, aimed at getting books to children in underprivileged areas.

*this article appeared in the fist issue of 'A Little Book News' and was writtem by Bec Kavanagh