Will Kempen has been running for as long as he can remember, even before his mother was killed. Now, trying to blend with the masses in the dirty docks of London, he is shocked when an old servant tells him that he will never be truly safe unless he finds the ancient order of the Stewards, men and women of exceptional martial prowess sworn to protect humanity from the Dark King if he ever rises again.
But even as Will he trains with them in what looks like a safe haven, the battle between Light and Dark looms closer than ever, and if they can’t stop it before it starts, the Dark King will destroy the world as they know it – just as he almost did once already.
In the dark, it made no difference if my eyes were open or shut.
Bram needs to get away from her life and the things that happened in her past. When the occasion presents itself, she leaves the city and goes to Louth, a small town where his uncle James is restoring an ancient manor in the hopes of making a hotel out of it.
But James is haunted by his own ghosts since the fire that killed his wife and destroyed half of his lovingly renovated manor. There are also other ghosts, or so the rumours say: they are called the Dead Girls, a list of young women who have disappeared after staying at the manor Bram calls home. But the locals are not too friendly with outsiders, and the more she investigates the past of these women, the more Bram start to fear she will be the next one.
Regan is a completely normal girl. She has a loving family, a best friend, and she loves horses. But then one day she steps through a door that asks her to “be sure” and finds herself in a world populated by centaurs, unicorns, kelpies and other magical equines, a world where human is synonym with hero. But not everyone feels that a hero is needed right now…
Hua Mulan has spent all of her life training for one purpose: to defeat in duel the heir of the Peng family and reunite two priceless swords, as well as avenging his father who was paralysed in the previous duel between the two families.
But a messenger from the emperor comes calling for recruits, and with no one in her family able to answer the call, Mulan dresses as a man and journeys to the front with a group of fresh recruits. Thanks to her martial arts training, she is soon chosen to be part of an elite group under the command of the princeling. They will travel beyond the great wall of China to uncover the Rouran clans’ plans of conquest, while unmasking a dangerous conspiracy in the capital and uncovering secrets that will shake Mulan’s understanding of her past.
Had we been telling the truth, he would have said, The place where I’m sending you – it looks beautiful, but it’s haunted. Okay, I would have said.
Mila has been in foster care for the last few years, since the day her stepfather died in a fire and her mother abandoned her. Eighteen years old and alone, she accepts a job as tutor in an isolated farm in North Carolina, hoping to finally find a real home. The owners have a history of adopting their foster children, after all, so there’s a chance they might make space for her as well.
What Mila doesn’t know is that at night the farm is alive with ghosts, and as painful memories start to resurface, she starts to question whether there’s a reason for the ethereal figures playing and dancing in the fields, and whether this might really be the place for her.
She couldn’t remember the first book she had eaten.
Jane North-Robinson is moving across country with her mother Ruth, after her father died and left them with no money. With no other option on the horizon, her mother decided to sell their house and go back to her childhood home, a place she hates and had promised never to go back to. North Manor is big, dark, full of broken windows and strange noises, and in the backyard there are huge rosebushes blooming out of season.
Jane is grieving for her father, but she does her best to adjust to her new life. She makes new friends at school, while at the same time becoming the target for the town bully and struggling to cope with her rising anger. Only her father and her books can calm her down, and now he’s gone. Whenever she’s upset, she picks up one of her childhood books and starts eating a page, slowly, feeling her anger fading as the paper settles in her stomach.
But anger is not her only issue. The house is getting to her: the strange noises, like steps on the upper floor; the lights flickering on and off in one of the empty rooms; the roses growing back wild and black after her mother cut down the bushes. She starts blacking out from time to time, and comes back to consciousness to find messages she doesn’t remember ever sending. Her mother feels far away, buried in her new job and evading Jane’s questions about the house and her past. It all seems to point to the “storage room” her mother keeps locked, and when Jane finally finds the courage to open the door, she doesn’t find piles of boxes inside, but instead a little girl’s room left untouched for years.
How to keep a fire burning. How to stitch a fight up until it’s only a scar. That’s the kind of thing you learn with a mother like mine. Mostly, though, you learn how to be loved without proof.
Margot Nielsen doesn’t know anything about her family. She lives with a mother that feels absent, and their relationship is strained at best. There are moments of tenderness, but they are rare and fleeting, and Margot has learned that the wrong word can destroy them in the blink of an eye.
But she wants something more. She wants a past and family to belong to, and when she finds an old picture that points her to a city called Phalene, she knows what to do.
In Phalene, it takes the locals only a look to guess her last name, and that wins her wary looks all around. Her grandmother is well known and not exactly loved, and the corn fields belonging to her look sickly. Despite everything, when she steps in the old family house, Margot feels like she can finally fill the void left by her mother’s secrets. She has no idea of just how many more are waiting for her within those walls.
Chiara Reads 