Library Loot (2.11), review copies & bought

Here's what I've picked up this week:


Library

Girl Parts by John Cusick
"Hello, David. My name is Rose. It's a pleasure to meet you. We are now entering minute two of our friendship. According to my Intimacy Clock, a handshake is now appropriate." DAVID is a rich kid, with a million friends, online and off. CHARLIE is a loner, disconnected from the high school world around him. Neither of them feels close to anybody. Until they meet... ROSE: part girl, part robot, and ALL a boy could want. But can a robotic girl really change the lives of two teenage boys? Before they know it, Rose is teaching David and Charlie how to feel human again.

Kidnap in the Caribbean by Lauren St John
Laura cannot contain her excitement when she wins a trip to the Caribbean for herself and her uncle, Calvin Redfern, especially when her best friend, Tariq, and her three-legged husky, Skye, accidentally find themselves on board too. But when they dock at Antigua, they discover that Calvin Redfern has vanished, and Laura and Tariq are about to be kidnapped by the fearsome Straight A gang. Dramatic escapes, an erupting volcano and a race against time to stop the deadly undercover 'Marine Concern' make Laura's second adventure every bit as exciting as the first.

Bought

When it Happens by Susane Colasanti
Reminiscent of the movie Say Anything, a debut novel for all those searching for The One!

Sara and Tobey couldn'’t be more different. She is focused on getting into her first-choice college; he wants to win Battle of the Bands. Sara'’s other goal is to find true love, so when Dave, a popular jock, asks her out, she'’s thrilled. But then there'’s Tobey. His amazing blue eyes and quirky wit always creep into her thoughts. It just so happens that one of Tobey'’s goals is also to make Sara fall in love with him. Told in alternating points of view, Sara and Tobey'’s real connection will have everyone rooting for them from the minute they meet!

Review

The Haunting of Charity Delafield by Ian Beck (3 Nov, Bodley Head)
A magical, enchanting tale, with stunning illustrations that will transport you into another world.

Flame-haired Charity Delafield has grown up in a vast, isolated house - most of which she is forbidden to explore - with her fiercely strict father. With only her kindly nurse, Rose, and her cat Mr Tompkins for company, she knows very little of the outside world - or of her own family's shadowy past. What she does know is that she is NEVER to go outside unsupervised. And she is NEVER to over-excite herself, because of the mysterious 'condition' that she has been told she suffers from.

But Charity has a secret. All her life, she has had the same strange dream - a dream of a dark corridor, hidden somewhere in the house. Then, one day, Charity stumbles across the corridor. It leads to a door . . . and suddenly she realises things are not quite what they seem.

The Adventures of the New Cut Gang by Philip Pullman (1 Sep, David Fickling Book)

For the first time in one volume, two action-packed thrillers from one of our best-known authors, about a motley group of urchins forming THE NEW CUT GANG, solving crimes in late Victorian London.

Thunderbolt, Benny, Bridie and Sharky Bob are a mixed bunch of vagabonds and urchins who come together to form the New Cut Gang in two comic tales of stolen silver, skulduggery and desperadoes.

Fake coins are turning up all over Lambeth and the finger of suspicion is pointing at Thunderbolt's dad - could he really be the forger? The crime-busting New Cut Gang come to the rescue!

And when just two clues - a blob of wax and a Swedish match - are discovered at the scene of a break-in, the children find themselves on the trail of an extremely cunning criminal.

Set in late Victorian London, these two action-packed thrillers have now been put together in a single volume - with new illustrations throughout from Horrible Histories illustrator, Martin Brown.

The Poison Diaries: Nightshade by Maryrose Wood (1 Sep, HarperCollinsChildren'sBooks)
A dark, gothic tale of romance… and murder.

The latest book in the grippingly dark series, The Poison Diaries.

Our heroine, Jessamine, has lost her faith in the men she loved, and her innocence as well. She turns to the dark side and plots to kill her father, using his own poisons, before becoming an assassin, a poisoner for hire. Can she recover from her heartache and reunite with her true love, Weed? Find out in this thrilling story where poisons, darkness and horror are a part of everyday life, and love is the only cure.

Not shown - a download of the audio book of All These Things That I've Done by Gabrielle Zevin; Macmillan Young Listeners; Unabridged edition (September 6, 2011)
In 2083, chocolate and coffee are illegal, paper is hard to find, water is carefully rationed, and New York City is rife with crime and poverty. And yet, for Anya Balanchine, the sixteen-year-old daughter of the city's most notorious (and dead) crime boss, life is fairly routine. It consists of going to school, taking care of her siblings and her dying grandmother, trying to avoid falling in love with the new assistant D.A.'s son, and avoiding her loser ex-boyfriend. That is until her ex is accidently poisoned by the chocolate her family manufactures and the police think she's to blame. Suddenly, Anya finds herself thrust unwillingly into the spotlight--at school, in the news, and most importantly, within her mafia family.