By Kat Zhang, published by HarperCollins Children’s Books

This is a love story. But it is not a romance.

Imagine that you have two minds, sharing one body. You and your other self are closer than twins, better than friends. You have known each other forever. Then imagine that people like you are hated and feared. That the government want to hunt you down and tear out your second soul, separating you from the person you love most in the world. Now meet Eva and Addie. They don’t have to imagine.

The book is set in a future version of the Americas, where everybody is born with two souls living inside their bodies. Soon, between the age of five and ten, one soul will fade from existence, leaving the other one dominant. However, if the souls don’t ‘settle’, the government find out and track that ‘hybrid’ down and they are taken away; never to be seen again. When Eva and Addie, two souls who have been pretending to have been settling for three years now, find other hybrids like them, the result is trouble. Soon, Eva/Addie, Lissa/Hally and Ryan/Devon find themselves captured by the government and taken away to a Hospital where they are told they will be cured of being a hybrid. But as Eva and Addie investigate into this suspicious place, they uncover dark, dark secrets kept from the hybrid children and the whole of America… can they escape before either Eva or Addie is ripped out of their body?

Just from the Blurb, written above in italics, got me excited about this book. That and the cover looked seriously cool, so I started reading this, after receiving the proof in a goodie bag. And my guess was right, this book really was seriously cool! It’s so gripping and captivating, and a great story line. The characters were really well developed and like-able, and there were lots of narrative hooks that pulled me into the book and kept me reading. It reminded me very much of the HIS DARK MATERIALS series, what with the two souls in one body being similar to the people in Philip Pullmans’ books having a Dæmon like a second soul, and being taken away to the institution(his dark materials)/hospital(What’s left of Me), to be separated from their second soul, the person that they love more than anything in the world. 

It’s a brilliant book that will be enjoyed by Adult readers and YA readers alike, I really loved it and can’t wait for the next installment in the ‘Hybrid Series’!

By Neil Gaiman, published by HarperCollins

Another book by the literary Genius, Neil Gaiman!

This, however, is a collection of short stories written by Gaiman over the years: Recent and old all together in a treasury of adventure. The short stories range from an encounter with a Troll under a bridge, to food fanatics tasting a phoenix, to a boy who runs away from home and meets a ghost.

All of the short stories and captivating… funny… and sometimes a little scary! I found each one unique and fun, and as Neil Gaiman said himself in the introduction, short stories can stay with you forever- you might forget what happened or things about the main characters but short stories can always stay with you. Well these all will! I’ll treasure my M is for Magic book- I really loved it!

By Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Dave McKean and published by Bloomsbury

On Monday i will be seeing Neil Gaiman in conversation with Phillip Pullman- so what better to do until then than read some of his books?

Nobody Owens (or Bod, for short) survived a murder on his family by escaping from his cot when he was just  baby. He crawled into the graveyard up the road, and was found by the ghosts occupying it. He was renamed as Nobody and accepted into the graveyard. The story focuses on Bod as he grows up learning the tricks of the trades to being a ghost: learning their abilities yet being alive. Soon he ventures out of the graveyard in the search to buy a headstone for his dead friend… but soon, the man Jack who had murdered his family years ago has come back to finish Bod off! Where can Bod go for help? How can he escape Jack’s clutches again? Read this amazing novel to discover the truth!

I’ve had this book lying on my bookshelf for a while now, and found it again a few days ago when i was hunting for my Neil Gaiman books (M is for Magic&Coraline -reviews up soon) to re-read before i saw the author at the event on Monday. But why had i missed out this book? It was brilliant! As Garth Nix quoted on the back of my copy, it really is the kind of book you wish you had discovered earlier in your life so you can read it over and over again, and that you wish you had written yourself because of it being an unmistakable masterpiece.

I love how Neil Gaiman perfectly tells this story of horror, crime and fantasy as a book perfect for children to curl up with. It has it’s heart warming parts and it’s terrifyingly chilling parts. It covers the topics of Friendship and Hope, entwining them with a gripping and spooky story-line.

I I would definitely recommend this to children and young teens, but i’m sure adults would love this too!

Here is a review posted before, but I am reposting it for my ‘scary Reads’ Halloween reviews!

Published by Dutton books

This book may be only 180 pages or so, but it is amazing!

Step into the world of teenager Vlad,a half vampire boy. His dad was a vampire, his mum a human, and they both perished in an unexplainable fire three years ago. Vlad now lives with his mum’s old friend Nelly, andtries to live a normal life with the help of his best mate Henry.

Soon, disaster strikes as a substitute teacher takes over the place of Vlad’s usual teacher who disappeared under mysterious circumstances. The sub. seems to be catching on to Vlad’s secret, fast….can Vlad keep his identity hidden from the strange Mr. Otis? Simultaneously, Vlad uncovers secret of his parents, and vampires… can he solve this mystery too?

All in all, this book is a great teen read and I really enjoyed it. It’s fast-paced, exciting, and leaves you awake at night wanting to read more! I really loved it, and can’t wait to read about Vlad’s next adventures- out now…

Georgia

By Tim Burton, published by Faber&Faber

Award winning Director of creepy, haunting, weird and wonderful movies… Tim Burton wrote a short, 90 page book of haunting short poems!

This book is crammed with creepy poems, about many different things… such as an Oyster Boy, Stain-boy the unfortunate superhero, a girl with many eyes and Jimmy the penguin boy!

I am quite a fan of Tim Burton and his awesome films. I was given this book quite a while back, but found it recently and thought it would be great for my ‘scary reads’ Halloween book challenge, even though it wasn’t on my to-do list a few blogs ago!

All stories, whether they are the three line long ones of the three page long ones, have Burton’s  trademark essence of dark humor. It could be read in about 20 minutes, but i really loved it all the same! With the poets illustrations accompanying each verse; the poems really spring to life. It’s a brilliant, funny, haunting read, check it out!

By Jeyn Roberts, published by Macmillan Childrens’ Books

Moments after several huge earthquakes shake every continent on Earth, something strange starts happening. An inner rage has been released and some people cannot fight it. For those who can, life becomes a battle to survive…

This awesome, thrill ride of a book follows four teenagers through an apocalyptic world. They all experienced terrible times at the start of the disaster. Clementine was the only escapee of a town hall meeting gone massacre. Masons’ mother is involved in a car accident and whilst Mason is in hospital with her whilst she take her last breath, his school and friends in it are burnt to the ground.Aries is one of the few survivors of a bus crash which happened because of an earthquake… and her best friend is one of the killed people on the bus. Michael watches a hideous road rage become so extreme with two deaths and a fight.These four teens had never met… but as the struggle for survival in a torn, dystopian world, they meet under the most uncommon circumstances!

This was the first book review of the month for my ‘halloween-ey’ reads challenge for October! And it was a great choice too. This book was jam-packed with the best ingredients for the perfect dystopian book… Horror, raw and gritty violence, Heartbreak, loss and sorrow, hope and fighting. I loved it! Each page turned itself, it was so full of suspense and scares. who would’ve thought that a YA Authors first book could be so gripping, and so awesome?

I would definitely recommend this to any teenager (above about 12, it’s quite scary at a lot of points!) and adult. It’s a great spooky read!

Meet the intrepid Felicity, or Felix, and follow her as she goes through the Spanish Civil War and faces the struggle of being a nurse, and falling in love!

Felix, (Felicity), meets Nat when he bashes his head. After tending to him, they get to know each other… then torn apart by the Spanish civil War! Nat joins in with the fighting, then Felix becomes a Nurse in the hope of seeing him again. Devastation, shock and adventure follows! two of the characters George, who is in love with Felix, and a certain double crosser (I wont say names! I’ll ruin the story!) turn things upside down… but can Felix and Nat stick together through all of this, and the War that is slowly tearing them apart? Read this amazing novel to find out!

I’m usually reading Dystopian and horror, crime novels etc… I will admit I haven’t read that many historical books. But this really was amazing! It has a great, brave heroine who by far is my favorite character, I really loved her! Nat and George are great characters too, all very unique and stand out from other book characters from other book characters. The story was absolutely brilliant too, with lots of drama because of the love triangle and the World Famous War! It ticks all of the boxes for my idea of a great book; Love, Heartbreak, adventure, drama… The perfect book to curl up with!

Keep an eye on Lydia Syson, I think more great books like this one are going to come from her!