Author Spotight: Lydia Syson

I would like to regularly shine a light on some amazing UKYA authors!

Today I would very much like to shine a spotlight on one of my favourite recent UKYA authors, Lydia Syson.  Lydia is the author of three amazing YA historical books, A World Between Us, That Burning Summer and newly-published Liberty's Fire which I will be discussing today.

It was with Lydia's first book for young adults that really captured my attention, but I also really love reading Lydia's blog in which her passion for history and politics really shines through. She's also writes for The History Girls which is a fantasy collaborative blog written by historical fiction writers!

Lydia Syson ... Lydia on Twitter ... The History Girls 

A World Between Us 

In 2012, I read Lydia Syson's first book for young adults, A World Between Us, and it was incredible. And for me, utterly surprising. Because previous to reading this book, I really didn't consider myself a fan of historical fiction. There was always something about it that put me off that I couldn't connect to on an emotional level. I think, perhaps, the reason that I agreed to read and review this book had a lot to do with the cover design (designer: Jan Bielecki, I believe!) The whole look of the book from the cover had me intrigued and so I sat down and this book changed how I felt about reading fiction based in a historical time period.  And it just completely changed my mind.

I think what I loved so much about reading this book is that it was so very easy to get swept away into the stories of these three main characters. A World Between Us is set during the Spanish Civil War in 1936 and it follows three main characters as they navigate through the horrors of this war. I knew absolutely nothing about the Spanish Civil War prior to reading this story. Nothing. And after finishing this story, I was hugely intrigued and curious to know more. To research more, to uncover more because my interest had been piqued in this incredibly entertaining way. And it didn't feel like I was gaining a bunch of historical knowledge and detail into this time period when I was reading either. Everything felt incredibly natural and seamless. As well as emotional. I was committed to these three characters and their relationships to each other and their happiness and well-being. I needed that.

That Burning Summer

The following year, Hot Key Books published Lydia's second book, That Burning Summer. This time, the story focused on another three characters during the summer of 1940 in rural England during World War II. It centers around a 16 year old girl called Peggy and her brother, Ernest, and about Henryk, a Polish pilot who has crash-landed near to where Peggy lives. Peggy decides to care for Henryk herself in an abandoned church and soon feelings develop between Peggy and Henryk. 

I think what I loved so much about this book is about the exploration of courage. Both in doing what we feel is right as well as the mental courage it takes to do difficult things. It's also about loyalty. I read this book during a very large reading and blogging slump and never did review it but I think I'd like to re-read it at some point. Again, I felt really connected to the characters and their relationship to each other. I also loved the historical detail and the ease in which Lydia Syson tells this story without the historical elements weighing down the narrative. I felt like this was a very interesting and emotional story that had an added bonus of learning something I hadn't known before.

Liberty's Fire

And that brings me to Lydia's third book for adults, Liberty's Fire. Liberty's Fire is being published on the 7th of May by Hot Key Books and I really recommend that you not only pick up this book but also her two previous books as well.  This book is set in Paris in 1871 and it tells the story of a revolution from the perspectives of four different characters. I have a review of this book and an interview with Lydia coming up this week in which I will be writing more and you'll be hearing more about the story and the characters and everything else. Do look out for both of those!  

For now, let me just say that this book was another absolutely fascinating, emotional story rich in detail and told in Lydia's amazing writing style. I feel like I went on a journey with these characters. And everything, from the descriptions of the opera or 19th century photography techniques to the politics of the Communard: everything just drew me in and I couldn't help but be swept away by this story. 

Have you read anything by Lydia Syson? Have I tempted you to read any of these books by her?

Author Spotlight: Siobhan Curham

Siobhan Curham is an award-winning novelist, motivational speaker and life coach.

She has written books for adults, young adults and children – both fiction and non-fiction – and has publishing deals in the UK, France and Germany. Her YA series, Shipwrecked, is currently being developed for television.

Siobhan is currently working on a non-fiction book called True Face: Be Real. Be Fearless. Be You! to be published by Faber & Faber in 2015.

Her new YA novel, Dark of the Moon, the second in the Shipwrecked series, was published by Egmont in June 2014.

The above is (part of!) Siobhan Curham's official bio that can be found on her website!  Do find out more about Siobhan Curham and her many books (including books for adults) on the following websites:

Siobhan Curham .... Siobhan on Twitter ... Siobhan on Facebook ... Dare to Dream ... True Face Revolution

Of course, recently you've probably heard Siobhan Curham's name in connection with Zoe Sugg and that whole situation.  But I first heard about Siobhan's stories when she self-published her first novel for young adults, Dear Dylan.  I think I saw a review of it over on Chicklish (still one of my favourite websites ever, even if it is no longer running!) and I was intrigued by it.  The title and author of the book stayed with me.

Dear Dylan

So when the book was picked up by a traditional publishing house and sold to Egmont, I was incredibly happy for her, even though I didn't know much about her or the book.  I did get a copy of it for review, but it came at a time when I felt pulled in too many directions and one of my guest reviewers very kindly reviewed it for me.  And she liked it.  I still would like to find the time one of the days to go revisit Dear Dylan and give it my full attention. It's a story told entirely in emails between a teenage girl and (supposedly) the celebrity she really looks up to. I like that this book is about friendship and finding those ways to get through difficult times.  It sounds like an interesting book.

Finding Cherokee Brown and Finding Your Inner Cherokee

But it wasn't until Finding Cherokee Brown that I really sat up and took notice of Siobhan Curham and her writing.  I read Finding Cherokee Brown and I felt incredibly connected and emotionally invested in a character and her story line.  Reading Finding Cherokee Brown actually helped me as well. I struggle with my self-confidence and the idea that's brought up in the book about a girl who makes up an alternative persona who is everything that she wants to be sounded like such a good idea that sometimes in situations where I felt uncomfortable or where my anxiety might creep in, I'd sometimes think of what my alternate-Michelle would look like.

Which is kind of why I was so happy that Siobhan Curham wrote and distributed Finding Your Inner Cherokee for free during anti-bullying week.  The main character in Finding Cherokee Brown is bullied and in Finding Your Inner Cherokee, Siobhan really pulled together her own experiences of being bullied with her life coaching and writing for teenagers to put together a short non-fiction guide to help teens and young people regain their confidence after bullying.  I won't lie, reading some of this book made me cry because almost 15 years after my own bullying experiences and I still needed to hear some things and I realised that I hadn't quite gotten over how painful my own experiences with bullying was.  It was an eye-opener. And I thought Finding Your Inner Cherokee was a really important and worthwhile project to have done.

Shipwrecked and Dark of the Moon

But then, Siobhan Curham has also written Shipwrecked and Dark of the Moon which I think are very different.  They're kind of a Lost meets Gossip Girl as a bunch of teenagers get stranded on a deserted island.  I believe they've been optioned but ...again, I haven't yet read them.  They look really fun and adventurous but I just haven't gotten around to them.  I think that's just me though. These books came out with Electric Monkey and I will read them. I will.

True Face

Siobhan's latest project is another non-fiction book called True Face. It's published this month by Faber and it's a book about identity and image and a guide to being your true self in the age of social media and the pressures on teenage girls to be perfect.  Just like with Finding Your Inner Cherokee, I find myself reading this book and feeling very emotional. Like even though I'm in my 30s and feel reasonably more okay with myself and who I am, there is still always more that I could be more okay with.  And Siobhan does a great job of walking through certain things and finding great exercises to do and great case studies to inspire. It's a wonderful thing, and I hope True Face really helps people out there.  

Have you read any books by Siobhan Curham? Do you now want to?

Author Spotlight: Sarah Alderson

I do really hope that you've been enjoying this new feature, Author Spotlight!  For today's spotlight, I'd like to shine it around Sarah Alderson, one of my favourite UKYA authors.

Sarah is an author that I've followed since the release of her debut book, Hunting Lila, back in 2011.  Since then she's published many more books than you'd think in just under 4 years. And I've loved them all.

She's written quite often of her family's travels around the world, living in Bali, and travelling more. She writes books incredibly quickly (like super-human quick!) and I think they're all very fast-paced, addictive and exciting reads. (And it says so on the back of most of her books!)

Do find out more about Sarah Alderson and her lovely books, by visiting her website or follow her on Twitter.

Hunting Lila and Losing Lila

Hunting Lila introduced me to Sarah Alderson! A lovely friend of mine sent this first book over for me to read and I very, very quickly fell in love with Sarah's writing style and her actiony scenes mixed together with some incredibly steamy interactions with hot Alex. These two books are all about people with extra-sensory powers and there's a road trip and explosions and it's all kinds of amazing. Sarah has also written and published several short stories/novellas surrounding the characters and story lines of these two books.

Fated, Severed, and Shadowed

These three books all center around demons and demon slayers and I've only actually read the first book in the series, Fated, so far. Though I do have both sequels on my Kindle waiting for me.  While I love the action and adventure of Sarah's stories, I do need to be in the right frame of mind for more paranormal-y stories!

Come Back To Me

Come Back To Me is a New Adult book that Sarah has written under the pseudonym, Mila Gray that follows a relationship between Jessa and Kit.  I loved how intense this book is and how much this book is also a story about friendship and family as well as a very emotional romantic book.

The Sound

I read The Sound early last year when I went home to visit my father who had been in the hospital. It was a very emotional time for me and all I really wanted to read were comforting stories by authors I knew and trusted.  And this book really fit the bill.  It's the story of a girl who becomes a nanny for a family in Nantucket at the time when there is a serial killer who is targeting foreign nannies.

Out of Control

Out of Control was so much fun.  I loved the added element of human trafficking to the story as well. Not only is it this fast-paced story with loads of chemistry between the two main characters, it also has this added bonus of bringing up a social justice story that I didn't realise was so prevalent. Plus, it's set in New York and I love New York based stories!

Conspiracy Girl

Conspiracy Girl is Sarah Alderson's latest YA book and it has been published by Simon and Schuster this month.  I'm incredibly excited to be taking part in the blog tour for this book. Look out for an interview with Sarah very soon!  This book was definitely an edge-of-my-seat read. About a girl who's family had died previously in a home invasion and who lives paranoid and constantly looking over her shoulder. She teams up with a hot hacker when her family's attackers come back to finish the job...

Have you read anything by Sarah Alderson? Will you be adding any of these books to your wish list?

Author Spotlight: Vanessa Curtis

I would like to regularly shine a light on some amazing UKYA authors!

I can't say that I know a great deal about Vanessa Curtis as a person.  She's on Twitter but doesn't share much of herself there.  Her only website seems to be the literary consultancy she runs and has a brief, mostly book-related biography and it's the same with her Goodreads author page.

She plays the piano and has written several books on Virginia Woolf. She has a cat called Poppy. And she writes really interesting books for teenagers and young people that I have greatly enjoyed.

Zelah Green and Zelah Green: One More Little Problem

I first came across Vanessa Curtis after she published her first book for YAs which is called Zelah Green.  I had heard a little bit about it ... that it is a book involving a main character who has OCD mostly, which is a wonderful topic in YA fiction that I really wish more authors would write about ... but it wasn't until I learned that Zelah Green is a loose retelling of Snow White that it really made me sit up and take notice.  So I read it.  And I immediately went out to find and read the sequel as well. 

The Taming of Lilah May and Lilah May's Manic Days

And after I read the Zelah Green books I was quite curious to see what else Vanessa Curtis might write about.  And I was very happy to find the Lilah May duology, which takes a look at the life of another teenage girl who is dealing with some anger issues.  You know me, I like reading about angry girls.  And while I didn't always love where this story goes, I did enjoy these two very much as well. 

The Haunting of Tabitha Grey

Aside from the newest book by her, The Haunting of Tabitha Grey is the only book by Vanessa Curtis that I haven't already read.  And I'm not entirely sure why.  It's a ghost story set in an old Victorian house and it sounds wonderful.  Creepy and unsettling. I shall be looking out for it! 

The Baking Life of Amelie Day

All of the books by Vanessa Curtis that I've read I'd probably class as on the young side of young adult and The Baking Life of Amelie Day is probably more middle grade.  It's one of my favourite books mentioned in the post because while a lot of the story is quite sad, there is also much about this book that makes me really happy.  I loved Amelie Day as a character, very full of life and enthusiastic about baking and blogging. I also found it interesting that Amelie has cystic fibrosis.  I hadn't really come across a character with CF before and it opened my eyes.

The Earth Is Singing

The Earth Is Singing is Vanessa Curtis's latest offering.  This book is being published this month from Usborne and it is a historical YA book about a 15 year old Latvian teenager, Hanna, and her experiences during WWII.  I don't often read historical fiction but I'm really excited about this book! I can't wait to find myself a copy.  

Have you read anything by Vanessa Curtis as yet? Will you be picking up any of these books in the future?

Author Spotlight: Sally Gardner

I would like to regularly shine a light on some amazing UKYA authors. I hope you enjoy this new feature!

Sally Gardner is the author of many books for children and young people including picture books, early readers, middle grade book and young adult novels.  I will be focusing more on Sally's teen books throughout this post.  

I think the first time that Sally Gardner really showed up on my radar was with the publication of Maggot Moon, which won both the Costa Children's Book Award as well as the Carnegie, which is an amazing achievement! 

But the fact that Sally Gardner has been quite outspoken about her dyslexia and the challenges she faced growing up really made me sit up and take notice as well.  She didn't learn to read until she was 14 but went on to do very well at art college, and working in both theatre and costume design before writing and illustrating beautiful and engaging books. 

Many of Sally Gardner's books are historical fiction.  I, Coriander (published in 2005) was about 17th century London.  It sounds really good, with a fantasy twist and the addition of magical powers and a fairy princess!  Coriander sounds like a fun main character...

Sally then went on to write The Red Necklace and The Silver Blade both of which are stories set during the French Revolution.  I'd never really come across either of these books before I sat down to write this blog post, but I have to say, I'm intrigued!  I absolutely love reading about the French Revolution and stories set in France in general, but it sounds like The Red Necklace and The Silver Blade are amazing adventure stories, filling with great characters and plenty of drama and mishap.  I will definitely, definitely be on the look out for both of these titles! 

The Double Shadow is probably the book I know the least about, aside from the fact that loads of lovely people have said wonderful things about it.  And actually, I was sent a copy of this book for review but I was put off a bit by the sheer size of it and sent it to one of my amazing guest reviewers (who loved it!) I've since acquired another copy of it and I am determined to uncover this book's secrets! 

And then there's Maggot Moon a book I've heard so very much about!  I've heard this book described the most as being 'original' and having a really stand-out main character, Standish Treadwell. This is the book I'm most looking forward to reading of Sally Gardner's.  I love that it crosses genres and has a main character with dyslexia and the fact that this book won two very prestigious awards.  I'm just looking forward to it in general! 

Ooh, Tinder is the most beautiful, slim little book.  It's illustrated by David Roberts and I've always loved flicking through a finished copy of this book to see the drawings included that go together so well with the text.  Tinder is a retelling of a fairy tale by Hans Christian Anderson, The Tinderbox, with a setting of the 30 Year War.  I know absolutely nothing about the original fairy tale or the 30 Year War but I'm intrigued.  I hope this book is dark and slightly twisted and, from looking at some of the illustrations, I think that both are the case!

The Door That Led To Where is Sally Gardner's latest book, published this month by Hot Key Books.  It's an absolutely stunning little hardback book and I'm so excited to read it.  It's a sort of time-travel mystery adventure between present day London and 1830s London.  Exciting.

I'm so impressed with this collection of books that I've decided to do my own Sally Gardner read-along this month. I'm aiming to read the four books by her that I own but have not yet read: Tinder, Maggot Moon, The Double Shadow and The Door That Led To Where.  I'd love if you wanted to join with me in this!  

Find out more about Sally Gardner and her books at her website, or follow her on Twitter or Facebook.

Have you read anything by Sally Gardner? Will you be joining in my readalong?