Fiction books featuring heroines

This modern fairy-tale with a brilliantly inspiring young heroine is one of Roald Dahl’s best loved stories.

Tracy lives in a children’s home but constantly hopes that her absent, glamorous Mum will come and take her away.

Sophie Hatter is cursed with an old body by the Witch of the Waste and the spell can only be broken by the dreaded Wizard Howl who lives in his moving castle and likes to eat the souls of young girls.

Every night at precisely 12 minutes to midnight, the inmates of Bedlam, London’s notorious madhouse, all begin feverishly writing – incoherent ramblings that Penelope quickly realises are in fact terrifying visions of the new century to come.

Welcome to Panem: its Capitol repressively rules twelve satellite Districts, enslaving the populations as workers and controlling them through hunger.

This is a powerful and engrossing read that successfully informs, shocks, reassures and entertains in equal measures.