Archives de l’auteur : WebmasterBenisti

THE GOODBYE YEAR d’Emily Gale

THE GOODBYE YEAR explores all the trickiness and confusion of the end of primary school and a new stage of life that looms with all its uncertainties and possibilities.

THE GOODBYE YEAR
by Emily Gale
Text Publishing, September 2022

It’s the start of 2020 and Harper is filled with anticipation about being in the final year of Riverlark Primary. She wants a leadership role, the comfort of her friendship group, and to fly under the radar of Riverlark’s mean-boy.

But one by one things go wrong. When Harper’s best friends are made school captains they are consumed by their roles, while her own role—library captain—is considered second-rate. Then something major throws life off course: her parents take overseas jobs as nurses in a war zone. Harper moves in with Lolly, a grandmother she barely knows—and Lolly’s five pets, vast collection of old trinkets and very different expectations.

And then strange things start to happen: Harper wakes in the night in odd places; an old army badge seems to have a mind of its own; and on a visit to the school library she’s convinced she’s seen a ghost.

Who is haunting her? Can she get through the anxiety of the pandemic without her mum and dad? And will Harper find a way to be happy with her goodbye year?

Emily Gale’s books include The Other Side of Summer and its companion novel I Am Out with Lanterns, the Eliza Boom Diaries, Steal My Sunshine and Girl, Aloud, as well as her recent middlegrade collaboration with friend and fellow author Nova Weetman, Elsewhere Girls, and the upcoming Outlaw Girls.

SOMETHING LIKE HOME d’Andrea Beatriz Arango

From the author of Newbery Honor-winning book Iveliz Explains It All comes this moving novel in verse, in which a lost dog helps a lonely girl find a way home to her family . . . only for them to find family in each other along the way.

SOMETHING LIKE HOME
by Andrea Beatriz Arango
Random House, September 2023
(via Writers House)

Laura Rodriguez has a plan: No matter what the grown-ups say, she will live with her parents again. Can you blame her? It’s tough to make friends as the new kid at school. And while staying at her aunt’s house is okay, it just isn’t the same. But that’s all going to change. Because when Laura finds a puppy, it seems like fate. If she can train the puppy to become a therapy dog, then maybe she’ll be allowed to visit her parents. Maybe the dog will help them get better, and things will finally go back to the way they should. After all, how do you explain to others that you’re technically a foster kid, even when you live with your aunt? Most of all . . . how do you explain that you’re not where you belong, and you just want to go home?

Andrea Beatriz Arango is the Newbery Honor Award-winning author of Iveliz Explains It All. She was born and raised in Puerto Rico and is a former public school teacher with almost a decade of teaching experience.

SHOWSTOPPER de Tom Ramsay

A joyful and hilarious queer YA romance set in the mad mad world of musical theatre.

SHOWSTOPPER
by Tom Ramsay
TBA
(via Randle Editorial & Literary Consultancy)

In the bright lights of the West End, a competition – and romance – is heating up to bring the drama, plot twists and exhilarating highs that only musical theatre can.

Gregarious giant Olly is back at the UK’s most prestigious competition for teen performers to prove he has what it takes to be a leading man after he was sabotaged last year; determined to stand out like his favourite Broadway diva Bernadette Peters.

Nervous novice Tarun would rather be anywhere other than centre stage. Nominated after stepping into his school show under much duress; he’s been blackmailed into attending by his Mum and mates and knows nothing about musicals. As far as he’s concerned, ‘Chicago’ is somewhere you get deep dish pizza, and ‘Hairspray’ is something you buy in Boots.

So when the two boys get paired to share a hotel room, Olly can’t comprehend sharing with someone who doesn’t live and breathe the magical world of musicals, whilst Tarun thinks Olly is “way too much” and cannot decipher a single one of his references. But as they get to talking, they discover they’ve more in common than the opening number might reveal. Amidst the drama of rehearsals, could two boys be falling in love?

The novel is filled to the brim with humour, drama and queer joy, and is a laugh-out-loud page-turner that will be appreciated and embraced both by musical theatre fans and by those who are more sceptical. The love of musicals is irresistibly infectious, as is the romance, and it is perfect for readers who loved Heartstopper, Gay Club, and those who are re-discovering Glee (as well as those who remember it the first time around!)

Tom Ramsay works for a West End Producer as Literary Manager and Dramaturg, looking after new work and writers of theatre for the company. This role has included working on an Olivier-nominated play and helping to translate a musical about the life of Marie Curie from Korean to English. In his own writing, he is passionate about telling queer stories with the hope and optimism that he longed to find on bookshelves growing up, with a touch of theatrical magic for good measure.

SCAREGROUND d’Angela Kecojevic

The brand-new spine-tingling middle-grade novel from Angela Kecojevic, featuring a deliciously spooky atmosphere and a feisty female protagonist, perfect for fans of Katherine Rundell and Jennifer Killick.

SCAREGROUND
by Angela Kecojevic
Seven Seas/Neem Tree Press, September 2023
(via Randle Editorial & Literary Consultancy)

Roll up, roll up, the Scareground is in town…

The infamous Tombola fair has not been back to Greenwich since tragedy struck it years ago, but everything changes when black balloons float into town announcing the return of the Scareground. The whole town is abuzz with excitement and anticipation but Mr and Mrs Crumpet, the bakers, forbid their adopted daughter Nancy from going.

Nancy is certain the fair holds the answers to the disappearance of her birth parents, and with her best friend Arthur Green by her side, they meet the peculiar Skelter Tombola and uncover a world full of magic, mystery and the macabre. But behind such wonders hides a darkness Nancy never expected, a place where she must confront her greatest fears. Not least that someone might find out her hidden talent/curse, just one more thing that makes her different and must be kept secret…

Angela Kecojevic is a senior librarian and a creative writing tutor and has written for the Oxford Reading Tree programme. She is also the author whose work inspired the multi award- winning adventure park ‘Hobbledown’. Her characters can be seen walking around the park, something she still finds incredibly charming! She is a member of the Climate Writers Fiction League, a group of international authors who use climate issues in their work.

ON HER OWN de Lihi Lapid

A moving, page-turning story of two families in crisis that melds the clock-ticking tension of Laura Dave’s The Last Thing He Told Me with the “issue-driven” gravity of Jennifer Haigh’s Mercy Street.

ON HER OWN
by Lihi Lapid, translated from the Hebrew by Sondra Silverton
HarperVia, March 2024

Watching her Russian immigrant mother, Irina, struggle to put food on the table, Nina, a beautiful and restless teenager, vows her life will be different. When a strapping older man in a fancy car appears at school one day offering her luxuries her single mother cannot afford, Nina believes he’s her ticket out of her dumpy little town. Ignoring the danger signs and her mother’s constant pleas—which end in exhausting screaming matches—she packs a suitcase and leaves home after one last fight.

Ten days later, a terrified Nina, her dress torn, is hiding in the stairwell of a Tel Aviv apartment after witnessing a murder she cannot talk about. She is discovered by one of the building’s tenants, a confused, lonely old widow who mistakes her for the granddaughter she hasn’t seen for a long while, not since her son moved his family to America. “You’ve come back to me, Dana’le.” Instead of correcting the mistake, the desperate Nina jumps at the chance for a place to hide.

Hiding from her mother and the dangerous man who are both frantically searching for her, Nina settles into the old woman’s apartment. But how long can Nina possibly hide out until the poor woman realizes she’s not who she says she is, or before someone else – her homesick son in America who keeps calling, or the lovely local neighbors who drop by with groceries—catches on?

Set between the eve of Passover and Israel’s Independence Day, On Her Own is a tense and immersive psychological read about two families looking for redemption, the transformative bonds between strangers, and the unexpected places from which love can grow.

Lihi Lapid is a bestselling Israeli author, photojournalist, columnist, and activist. She lives in Tel Aviv with her husband Yair Lapid, the former Prime Minister of Israel, and their two children. This is her third novel.