TEEN FICTION
A SKINFUL OF SHADOWS by Frances Hardinge (Macmillan £12.99)
Hardinge’s The Lie Tree won the Costa Book of the Year in 2015 and this thrilling new book confirms her extraordinary talent as a writer of historical and supernatural fiction.
against the backdrop of the english Civil War, teenage orphan Makepeace is claimed as the illegitimate daughter of the aristocratic sir Peter Fellmotte. But the royalist Fellmottes have a secret — they devour the ghosts of their ancestors to keep the bloodline alive and need Makepeace as a vessel to host their evil spirits.
Her sole ally is a newly- discovered half-brother, James, but he is soon lured over to the dark side. Makepeace sets out to save James with the help of assorted querulous, internalised phantoms — and a ferocious spirit bear. Chillingly atmospheric, historically fascinating, it’s also blackly comic in parts and beautifully written.
GENUINE FRAUD by E. Lockhart (Hot Key £12.99)
WITH an acknowledged nod to Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr ripley, Lockhart’s novel, like her previous bestseller We Were Liars, dissects the world of privilege and wealth to see what happens when a disaffected outsider infiltrates it.
Jule, an 18-year- old orphan, is holed up in an expensive hotel resort in Mexico, clearly on the run from someone and something.
as the story unfolds in a 12- month reverse narrative, Jule’s relationship with her friend, the rich, spoiled immie, becomes increasingly mysterious, especially once immie’s disappearance and Jule’s skill at mimicking accents and adopting disguises coalesce.
Who is playing whom and is anyone telling the truth about their pasts? nail-bitingly tense, this exploration of identity, entitlement and feminism is a perfect psychological thriller and surely, soon, a movie.
WE SEE EVERYTHING by William Sutcliffe (Bloomsbury £12.99)
THE brutal reality of modern warfare is the basis for this hard- hitting dystopian thriller set in a bombed- out London known as The strip.
Teenage Lex lives in the closedoff area, beneath hostile drones that watch his every move. in a military base nearby, alan’s talent as an online gamer has won him the role of drone operator, with a specific assassination target — Lex’s father.
active in an underground organisation known as The Corps, Lex’s father recruits his son as messenger, which brings Lex power among black-market criminals — and introduces him to Zoe. in the city’s ruins their love affair begins, constrained by secrecy and danger.
Meanwhile, alan’s single mother tries to instil compassion in her ruthless child, who is poised to make the biggest hit of his short career. Parallels with modern conflict zones are uncomfortably accurate.