Chessnuts- Julia Lawrinson

Jackson and Anna are very different. Both are in their last year of primary school, and while Jackson is sporty and on the swimming and athletics teams, Anna is the nerdy kid who hates sport and is number one player on the chess team. But when Jackson joins the chess team, things change, not just for Anna but for everyone at school, even the nasty Flash Buckley- is he really that nasty? A fab story for 7+ about friendships, school cliques, sport and chess, complete with some handy chess diagrams and quotes from the Grandmasters.

Scatterheart-Lili Wilkinson

Hannah is a girl of 'quality' aka she wears pretty dresses in her nice house and always has enough to eat. Until she is abandoned by her father and unjustly accused of stealing, and therefore thrown onto a ship full of convicts headed to Australia for some hard time. Scatterheart is a beautiful but selfish and flighty fairytale girl who is sold by her father to a big white bear. Their stories run parallel throughout the book, and it is just SO SO good. There are heaps of great historical tidbits, interesting ones they didn't teach you in school, like the mermaid dance and the black pit. There is also a bit of romance, a rather large amount of murder, and a wee bit of scurvy. Wilkinson writes so vividly I felt like I was the one stuck in the hull of the Derby Ram while rats nibbled my freezing shoeless toes. It's bloody fantastic.

lonely werewolf girl- martin miller

About the size of a large flat brick, it took me until about half way through this book until i could work out whether it was really really good, or really very bad. When i finally finished it i decided that while it wasnt really really good, it was still strangely charming, and very funny in parts though a bit to long and involved to not create a small headache trying to remember where the miriad of characters fitted in.

Beginning and ending with Kalix MacRinnalch, an anorexic and scottish emo teenage werewolf, outcast from a clan of insanely violent yet democratic werewolves, this tome follows the clans politically intense and bloody process of electing a new Thane.
A bunch of other mad characters get involved with the MacRinnalch family including the fabulous fire queen Malveria, who is totally deranged and utterly wonderful with her all encompassing passion for fashion and her warrior princess type battle skills, as well as her almost adopted neice Agrivex, a volcano destined sacrifice until rescued on a whim.

Long and involved, sometimes clunkily written yet fun and exciting and at times quite dark, what with the laudanum addicted, cross dressing and nympho werewolves, it also has Bold and the Beautiful style drama. Ill probably read the sequel.

Lady Macbeth's Daughter

Lady Macbeth's Daughter, by Lisa Klein, has a really crap cover. But it was really, really good.
The story centers around Albia, the lame footed and disappointingly female daughter of the Macbeths who was discarded, then rescued and raised by the Wyrd sisters. When Albia's foster mother Geillis dies, she finds out the truth surrounding her birth, and has to decide whether or not to use her 'sight' to bring down Macbeth. What follows is tragedy, insanity, a fling with Fleance, and a well written yet an abruptly ended novel inspired by Shakespeare.

Falling for Lucas-Sweet Valley High!

Ahhh, Francine Pascal. Oh dear.
Well, Falling for Lucas isn't actually written by her, it is written by Kate William. And while it did manage to kill two and a bit hours one waiting afternoon, it generally amused me because of the ridiculous interactions between the mostly deranged and poorly created characters, as well as the supremely cliched plot lines. However it was such trash it was fun, and the fantastically crass and 90s inside cover makes it worth opening, but unless you are really bored, probably not worth reading.

My Candlelight Novel

The companion novel to Secret Scribbled Notebooks.

I don't have anything to say except read it. Read them both. I have nothing to write about it except that if I did, it would be a conversation between two slightly drunk people in the kitchen, having just read the book, excitedly discussing their favourite parts and emphasising points with their wineglasses, while trying not to put their elbow in the cheese.

Secret Scribbled Notebooks

Secret Scribbled Notebooks. Joanne Horniman
I really really loved it. It's one of those rare novels that is the perfect restless summer read, and also a book that when finished makes you want to go do something wonderful for someone, or paint the house a different colour and enrol in a Finnish language course. And it also just makes you a bit happy about life.
Pretty snippets of 17 year old Kate O'Farrell's life shown through her Wild Typewritten Pages and primary coloured journals, it is Anais Nin in fig trees, the first summer with a neice, and first love in a variety of forms.