A totally unique and disturbing novel which raises uncomfortable moral and ethical questions

17-year-old Sasha travels to France as a volunteer nurse in an attempt to rescue her beloved brother Tom from a terrible death. But can she really change the future?

Marcus Sedgwick began to write seriously in 1994, and his first book, Floodland, was published by Orion in 2000, and won the Branford-Boase award for best debut children's novel. Witch Hill followed in 2001, and was nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe Award, the Independent Reading Association award and the Portsmouth Book Award. In 2002 The Dark Horse was shortlisted for the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, The Carnegie Medal and the Blue Peter Book Award.

The Book of Dead Days was nominated for the Guardian Award, and was shortlisted for the Sheffield Book Award and the Edgar Allan Poe Award.
In his spare time, Marcus is a drummer and at the moment play’s the part of Basil Exposition from behind the kit in The International Band of Mystery, an Austin Powers tribute band.

Marcus Sedgwick used to work in children's publishing and before that he was a bookseller. He now happily writes full-time. Marcus lives in Cambridge and has a young daughter, Alice.

Stephen has been keeping a secret of unbearable proportions. He can't confide in his foster family, his social worker or his dead-beat father - they wouldn't believe him anyway.

Loosely based on the real life case of the Kerry babies, powerful imagery and lyrical prose is woven throughout this unforgettable, outstanding and ultimately hopeful novel.

Siobhan Dowd passed away in August 2007 after a long fight with breast cancer. In her short career, she has been nominated for a number of awards including the 2007 Carnegie Medal and the Booktrust Teenage Prize, and went on to win the 2007 Branford Boase Award and the 2007 Bisto Eilis Dilon Award - both awards that recognise an outstanding debut, for A Swift Pure Cry. Siobhan's second novel, The London Eye Mystery has also just won its first award - the 2007 Nasen TES Special Needs Award. In early 2007, Siobhan was nominated one of the top 25 Authors of the future as Waterstone's celebrated their 25 Anniversary.

Siobhan Dowd was born in London to Irish parents.  She spent much of her youth in the family home in County Waterford, then Wicklow town. She spent her writing life in Oxford.

After attending a catholic school in London, Siobhan gained a degree in Classics at Oxford University.  After a short stint in publishing she then joined the writer's organisation PEN, initially as a researcher and co-ordinator of the Writers in Prison Committee. 

Siobhan went on to be Programme Director of the Freedom To Write committee, based in New York, which included founding and leading the Rushdie Defense Committee USA and co-ordinating Salman Rushdie's visit with President Clinton in 1993. During her seven-year spell in New York, Siobhan was named one of the 'top 100 Irish-Americans' by Irish-America Magazine and AerLingus, for her global anti-censorship work.

On her return to the UK, Siobhan  co-founded for English PEN the Readers & Writers Programme which takes authors into schools that are often in more deprived areas, as well as prisons, young offender's institutions and community projects. 

During 2004, Siobhan was Deputy Commissioner for Children's Rights in Oxfordshire, working with local government to ensure that statutory services affecting children's lives conform with UN legislation.  Siobhan was also Deputy Editor of PEN International, a twice-yearly global magazine, and a freelance writer. She had an MA with Distinction in Gender and Ethnic Studies at Greenwich University, has authored short stories, columns and articles, and edited two anthologies.

Mesmerising and futuristic tale of science, magic and adventure

An unflinching examination of love, loss and sibling intimacy, which is both brutal and compelling

15-year-old New Yorker, Daisy, is sent to England to spend a summer with her unconventional cousins: Isaac, Edmond, Osbert and Piper - plus their two dogs and a goat in a rambling English country house.

So far so perfect, but the shadow of war hangs over this idyllic existence, eventually breaking in with great force and throwing everything into chaos.

Winner of the 2004 Guardian Children's Fiction Prize and shortlisted for the 2005 Booktrust Teenage Prize, this is a powerful exploration of the universal themes of love and war.

Meg Rosoff was born in Boston, USA in 1956, the second of four sisters. She attended Harvard University in 1974. After three years at Harvard she moved to England and studied sculpture at Central St. Martins in London, England. She returned to the United States to finish her degree in 1980, and later moved to New York City for nine years, where she worked in publishing and advertising.

Aged 32, Meg returned to London and has lived there ever since. Between 1989 and 2003, she worked for a variety of advertising agencies as a copywriter. She began to write novels after her youngest sister died of breast cancer. Her young adult novel How I Live Now was published in 2004, in the same week she was diagnosed with breast cancer. It won The Guardian Children's Fiction prize, the Michael L. Printz Award in the United States, and was shortlisted for a Whitbread Award in 2004. In 2005 she published a children's book, Meet Wild Boars, which was illustrated by Sophie Blackall. Her second novel, Just in Case, was published in 2006 and won the 2007 CILIP Carnegie Medal and Germany's Jugendliteraturpreis. What I Was was published on August 30, 2007, followed by two additional collaborations with Sophie Blackall: Wild Boars Cook and Jumpy Jack and Googily. She has also published The Bride's Farewell. There is no Dog is her latest novel.

Mercy and her sister Charity have never questioned their daily routine, each day unfolding exactly as the next

On the road to self-knowledge, Dominic undergoes various crises of identity, while facing threats from a controlling state and a voraciously-intrusive media

A plan to set up a new asylum centre in Imogen's village uncovers undercurrents of hatred and violence and Imogen's world is turned upside down by three refugees.

Alan Gibbons has been writing children's books for 17 years. He is the winner of the Blue Peter Book Award 2000 'The book I couldn't put down' for his best-selling book Shadow of the Minotaur. He has also been shortlisted twice for the Carnegie Medal and twice for the Booktrust Teenage Prize. He has won the Catalyst Award, the Leicester Book of the Year, the Angus Book of the Year, the Stockport Book Award and the Salford Librarians' Special Award. His books have been published in languages including Japanese, German, Italian, French, Thai, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Swedish.

Alan was a teacher for 16 years. He is now is a full-time writer and independent educational consultant and a campaigner for library services. He lives in Liverpool.

Visit Alan's website

Read Alan's Booked Up blog

This tale is by turns both tender and unsentimental, and portrays a violent society that perhaps mirrors the darkest reaches of our own urban subcultures

In 1960s rural Punjab, Billah Bains and Kulwant Sandhu nurture a forbidden love, but when their relationship is discovered, the Bains family have to face the wrath of Kulwant’s father, angry at his daughter’s lost izzat (honour). The lovers’ deaths spark a bitter blood feud between the families, which is to have repercussions years later in contemporary Leicester when Sukh Bains and Rani Sandhu fall in love. Sukh’s sister realises that their tragically interlinked past may, almost inexorably, be repeating itself. Rai’s snappily written dialogue and stream of consciousness-like style create a vivid, fast-moving take on the Romeo & Juliet story, exploring the experience of young urban British Asians, negotiating their way through two cultures, and the tragedy of feuds that endure through space and time, from past to present.

Bali Rai was born in 1971 and raised as a working class Punjabi in Leicester. He grew up in a deprived area of Leicester, a city which is almost unique in terms of cultural mix and his style of writing is firmly grounded in the reality that he has seen around him since he was a child. The senior school he attended was about 80% ethnic - 20% white children in terms of ethnic mix.

Bali Rai has been writing short stories and poetry since the age of eight. As a child he made up wild and exciting stories and his imagination has been vivid ever since. At school he excelled at English language and told his teachers that he would one day be a writer.

He left school with eight GCSE’s and English was always his favourite subject. After school he did three a-levels at a local sixth form - none of which was English Literature, which he now regrets. He went on to graduate from Southbank University in London with a 2:1 in politics and since then he has had various jobs in retail, cinema, and telesales and has kept a keen, almost obsessive, interest in current affairs.

In this brave and intelligent novel, Anne Cassidy explores a range of themes, questioning everything from the ethics of tabloid journalism to the outcome of ineffectual parenting.

A compelling read that paints a vivid picture of a very harsh period in history

This beautifully written, unusual novel explores the destructive nature of prejudice and mob violence

Kevin Brooks was born in Exeter, Devon, and he studied in Birmingham and London. He had a varied working life, with jobs in a crematorium, a zoo, a garage and a post office, before – happily – giving it all up to write books. Kevin is the author of many critically acclaimed novels including Martyn Pig, Lucas, Kissing the Rain, Candy and The Road of the Dead. He now lives in North Yorkshire.

Danny and his mother Cathy are on the run from her abusive boyfriend, Chris. They go back to the Edge, Cathy's childhood home, which she left after having Danny at the age of sixteen.

Alan Gibbons has been writing children's books for 17 years. He is the winner of the Blue Peter Book Award 2000 'The book I couldn't put down' for his best-selling book Shadow of the Minotaur. He has also been shortlisted twice for the Carnegie Medal and twice for the Booktrust Teenage Prize. He has won the Catalyst Award, the Leicester Book of the Year, the Angus Book of the Year, the Stockport Book Award and the Salford Librarians' Special Award. His books have been published in languages including Japanese, German, Italian, French, Thai, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Swedish.

Alan was a teacher for 16 years. He is now is a full-time writer and independent educational consultant and a campaigner for library services. He lives in Liverpool.

Visit Alan's website

Read Alan's Booked Up blog

John’s struggle to prove his innocence and smash the gang is recounted in gritty language

Keith was born and brought up in Grimsby.

His first book, Creepers, was published in 1996 when he was only 24. The novel was highly acclaimed and shortlisted for the Guardian Award. It was translated into several languages and was a big hit in America. His short novel, The Runner, won the Smarties Silver Award and was given a special mention in the Japanese Sankei Prize for Children’s Publishing.

Keith has now published several teen novels as well as his younger fiction titles. His aim is to write strong, accessible fiction for the sceptical and hard-to-please reader he once was.

Warehouse, the story of a community of runaways told from three different perspectives was shortlisted for the Guardian Award, and won the Angus Book Award, as chosen by teenage readers themselves. Happy, his gritty story of friendship, love and betrayal as two friends try to realise a dream of making it big in a rock band was shortlisted for the Lancashire Book Award.

Malarkey followed in June 2003 to fantastic critical acclaim. Described by the Sunday Times as ‘clever, cool and suspenseful’, it is an off-beat spin on film noir detective stories, set in a modern high school where the eponymous hero is framed for a crime he didn’t commit and has only 24 hours to prove his innocence. The novel won the South Lanarkshire Book Award as well as being shortlisted for the Book Trust Teenage Prize, the Angus Book Award, Calderdale Book Award, Lancashire Book Award, Leicester Book Award and Wirral Paperback of the Year.

The Fearful, challenges readers to question blind faith but condemn intolerance towards others’ beliefs. The Fearful was long listed for the Carnegie Medal.

Keith’s latest novel Ostrich Boys, published in July 2008, follows three friends Kenny, Sim and Blake who embark on a remarkable journey of friendship. Stealing the urn containing the ashes of their best friend Ross, they set out from Cleethorpes on the east coast to travel the 261 miles to the tiny hamlet of Ross in Dumfries and Galloway. After a depressing and dispriting funeral they feel taking Ross to Ross will be a fitting memorial for a 15 year-old boy who changed all their lives through his friendship. Little do they realise just how much Ross can still affect life for them even though he's now dead.

This is Keith Gray's first new novel in three years and is a wonderful rites-of-passage story combing elements from Stand By Me, An Inspector Calls and Grand Theft Parsons. Ostrich Boys was shortlisted for the 2008 Costa Children’s Book of the Year Award.

Keith lectured for two years in Creative Writing at the University of Lincolnshire and Humberside, where he really enjoyed working with people who shared the same interests and ambitions as him. He now lives in Edinburgh and spends much of his time visiting schools passing on his love of books.