Browsing Tag

cat clarke

Cover Reveal

EXCLUSIVE COVER REVEAL: We Are Young by Cat Clarke

 

Cat Clarke has long been one of my favourite UKYA authors, ever since I read Undone many years ago and was left bereft by the ending. Seriously — there aren’t many other books that have made me cry the same!

Back last year I revealed the cover of Girlhood, which I read in the summer and fell head over heels in love with. It’s one of the best YA books I read last year, and so I was honoured to be asked to reveal the cover of Cat’s next book: We Are Young.

So, without further ado…. Here is the cover of We Are Young!

 

ABOUT THE BOOK:

It starts with a wedding. And a car crash.

On the same night Evan’s mother marries local radio DJ ‘Breakfast Tim’, Evan’s brand-new step-brother Lewis is found unconscious and terribly injured, the only survivor of a horrific car crash. A media furore erupts, with the finger of blame pointed firmly at stoner, loner Lewis. Everyone else seems to think the crash was drugs-related, but Evan isn’t buying it. With the help of her journalist father, Harry, she decides to find out what really happened that night. As Evan delves deeper into the lives of the three teenagers who died in the crash, she uncovers some disturbing truths and a secret that threatens to tear her family – and the community – apart for ever…

An unforgettable story from the queen of emotional suspense, for fans of Jodi Picoult, Megan Abbott and Courtney Summers.

How amazing does that sound?! I don’t know how I’m going to be able to wait until it’s released!

The cover was designed by Hachette Children’s in-house designer Sarah Baldwin, and the book will be released on 3rd May 2018.

 

If you would like to request an exclusive proof of We Are Young, please email emily.thomas@hachettechildrens.co.uk

 

What do you think? Are you excited to read We Are Young? I’d love to know in the comments if you’ve read any of Cat Clarke’s other books!

Cover Reveal

EXCLUSIVE COVER REVEAL: Girlhood by Cat Clarke

I can remember the moment I finished reading Undone and let out a big wail. My heart was well and truly destroyed. From that moment on, I knew that Cat Clarke was a seriously special talent in the YA world. That meant that I was extra excited when I was asked by the lovely people at Books with Bite to reveal the cover of her next book, Girlhood.

Only recently was I lamenting the disappointing lack of new boarding school books in YA. I was obsessed with them when I was younger but the trend has slowly died out. In comes Cat Clarke to the rescue, however, which has made Girlhood a must-read for me.

Girlhood follows Harper, a teenage girl who tries desperately to fit into an expensive boarding school, while struggling to escape the guilt of her twin sister Izzy’s death and her part in it. But a new girl at the school seems to understand Harper, and she’s lost a sister too. Finally Harper feels secured and…loved. But then Kirsty’s behaviour becomes more erratic…Why is her life a perfect mirror of Harper’s? And why is she so obsessed with Harper’s dead sister?
Girlhood is a darkly compulsive story, about girl cliques, love, death, friendship, anorexia, and growing up under the shadow of grief.

The cover has been designed by Sinem Erkas and Girlhood will be released on May 4th by Quercus Children’s Books.

Here’s a sneak peek of the first chapter:

CHAPTER 1

We always have a midnight feast on the first night back. Because that’s what you do at boarding school, right?

When we were younger, Jenna and I were obsessed with boarding-school books. We desperately wanted to be the twins at St Clare’s. Almost every night I’d sneak over to her bed after Mum turned out the lights. We’d put the duvet over our heads and take turns reading to each other by torchlight. Two peas in a cosy little pod.

And somehow I ended up at Duncraggan Castle, just like in the stories. But Jenna’s not with me. I had to come here alone.
I wasn’t alone for long though.

‘Would you rather . . . have muffins for hands or squirrels for feet?’ Rowan leans back and crosses her arms, smug as you like.

Lily snorts with laugher while Ama clinks her mug against Rowan’s.
‘Well, that depends,’ says Ama, now mock-serious. ‘Do the muffins regenerate? Can I choose what flavour? Can I choose different flavours, depending on the day? Oh, and are the squirrels red or grey?’

Rowan’s ready. ‘They regenerate on a daily basis. You can choose any flavour. Grey squirrels. Those poor little bastards have such a bad rep.’

Lily starts on a rant about the plight of the red squirrel, and I put my hand over her mouth to shut her up.

I think I’ve decided, but I have a question that needs answering first. ‘Can you control the squirrels though? Like, with a tiny pair of reins?’

Rowan gives that some thought. ‘Yes. But they don’t come already trained.

It’s a lot of work, you know. Squirrel-training is a very serious business.’

‘Then it’s easy! I’m Team Squirrel. Ama? Lil?’

Lil votes muffins (as long as they’re made with organic flour). Ama goes for squirrels ‘because it would be like having pets with you WHEREVER YOU GO.’

I ask Rowan what she’d choose. ‘No idea,’ she shrugs. ‘It’s a really stupid question.’ I throw a pillow at her head.

‘I’ve got one!’ Lily pipes up. ‘This one’s for Ama.’

 ‘Uh-oh,’ says Ama. ‘This is never good.’

Lily stands up, between the two beds. She coughs as if clearing her throat. ‘Allow me to set the scene . . . It’s the night of the Christmas concert. The packed auditorium is hushed. The audience has sat through screeching violins and off-key oboes, but now things are looking up. Ama is set to take the stage, to dazzle and delight with her peerless piano playing . . .’

‘Bit overboard on the alliteration there if you ask me,’ Rowan stage- whispers.

‘Hush!’ Lily kneels down in front of Ama and takes her hand. ‘Ama, my dear, very bestest friend in all the world, would you rather . . . play your piece while your parents have sex on top of said piano . . .’

I can hardly hear Ama’s disgusted retching over our laughter.

‘Or would you rather have sex with a person of your choice up on stage, while your mum plays the piano?’ Lily’s ‘Would you Rather’s are always about sex.

The laughter escalates and I’m half worried Miss Renner will come knocking on the door. But last year Rowan somehow managed to find out that Miss Renner listens to Sounds of the Rainforest on her headphones to help her sleep. Maddox wouldn’t be too happy about that if she found out.

‘You are disgusting, Lily Carter. Disgusting and depraved.’

‘That may be true, but I’m afraid I’m going to need an answer. You know the rules.’

‘I can’t!’ Ama wails, but she knows we won’t let her get away with that. ‘OK, OK! I just . . . waaaaaah!’

‘Got any supplementary questions this time, Adebayo?’ Rowan asks, an eyebrow raised.

‘OK, first of all, I’m pretty sure my parents never, ever, ever have sex.’ Ama grimaces. ‘But I’m going to have to go with Option A. There is no way on earth I would ever have sex in front of anyone. ANYONE.’

‘But you’re perfectly happy for your parents to go at it like rabbits while you play Rachmaninov?’ I smile sweetly, but I’ve crossed the line. Ama hates Rachmaninov.

Our midnight feasts aren’t so much ‘lashings of ginger beer’ as ‘whatever booze we can smuggle in’. Sometimes – if someone remembers – we even have food. Tonight, we demolished a whole tin of yakgwa made by Rowan’s mum. Whoever invented deep-fried biscuits was a genius, no question.

Lily grimaces every time she takes a sip from her tiny bottle. ‘I fucking hate whisky!’

‘It’s better than nothing!’ Ama pouts. She was the one who managed to blag twenty miniatures on her flight back from Lagos.

‘Well, you should learn to love it. We are in Scotland, after all.’ I can’t stand the stuff either, but loyalty to my country wins out.

‘I’ll start liking whisky when Ama starts liking haggis,’ says Lily with a grin.

‘Aw, come on, Lil! It’s hardly the same thing! A sheep’s innards should stay on the inside as far as I’m concerned. And I know you agree with me, Little Miss I was a vegetarian before I could even spell the word.’ Ama’s not exactly slurring her words, but one more bottle and she will be.

‘I’m sure the sheep agrees with you,’ Rowan says, leaning past Ama to take one of the bottles. She opens it and sniffs deeply. ‘Ah, can’t you just see the purple heather in the glens? The noble stag surveying his kingdom . . .’

‘Right before he gets shot by some idiot banker who thinks that killing defenceless animals makes him more manly.’ Lily’s voice drips with disdain; it always does when she talks about her dad.

‘I bet Sharp-Shooter Kent over here could teach your dad a thing or two. She’s fucking deadly.’ Rowan jostles my shoulder.

‘Clay-pigeon shooting isn’t quite the same thing, Rowan. And I’m crap at it anyway.’ This isn’t strictly true. I’m now approaching the dizzy heights of ‘mediocre’, although Miss Whaite prefers to describe my skills as ‘solid’. Dad was appalled to find out the activities I signed up for when I started at Duncraggan. ‘Shooting?! Why did it have to be shooting? And rock-climbing? What’s that all about? Don’t they do any normal things there? Like . . . rounders!’ He had a point, but I’d made a promise to myself when I came here. I wanted to do the kind of weird shit you only get to do at boarding school. I gave up on the climbing after a few months, but I still shoot every week.

By two a.m. the whisky is gone and Rowan’s eyes are drooping closed every couple of minutes. ‘Come on you, let’s get you to bed.’ I drag her up into a sitting position. ‘Tomorrow’s going to be brutal.’

We say good night to Lily and Ama and creep next door to our room. The corridor is dimly lit – just enough light so you can find your way to the toilet in the middle of the night. The green ‘emergency exit’ sign glows incongruously above the door to the stairs. I wish they didn’t have to have things like that – fire doors and official-looking signs and strip lighting really don’t belong in a building like this one. So many changes and additions have been made over the years that it’s only in certain places that the building still feels like a proper castle. Those are the parts that get photographed to death and plastered all over the website. Those are the parts that made me want to come here.

‘Home, sweet home,’ I say, turning on the bedside lights. Our room is slightly smaller – Lily got the pick of the rooms after being elected Head Girl last year. And Rowan managed to convince Hozzie and Sylvana to swap so that we could stay next door to Lily and Ama for our last year at Duncraggan. It felt right. The four of us have been a little unit since Rowan took me under her wing when I arrived.

I think about that day a lot. How I felt when the car pulled up in front of the castle, tyres crunching on the gravel. How Dad patted my leg and said, ‘Well, this is going to be an adventure, isn’t it?’ even though the look on his face said otherwise. How everything seemed so strange and new and not like something a person like me should ever experience.

On my first night, lying awake and listening to the wind rattling against the windows, I wondered if I’d made a terrible mistake. I looked across the gloom towards the other bed and everything about the silhouette was wrong.

Jenna should have been there, sharing everything with me, like always. That’s what twins do. That’s who we are.

**

We all have our reasons for being at Duncraggan; some are more interesting than others. Most people are just here because their parents are filthy rich, and apparently the first thing you do when you’re filthy rich is make sure your children live as far away from you as possible. Bonus points for remote location in the wilds of Scotland. Terrible weather builds character, apparently.

Ama wanted to come here because of the reputation of the music department, but Lily had no choice in the matter. Rowan, Lily and Ama all have rich parents, but it’s not something we talk about. The clues are there if you pay attention. If you look at the labels on their clothes and listen closely for key words like ‘trust fund’ and ‘driver’ and ‘yacht’. I try not to hold it against them – the fact that money is meaningless to them, no matter how much they try to convince themselves otherwise. They don’t care about money because they’ve never had to think about it.

Rowan’s parents moved to South Korea when she was eight years old. Most kids would be upset by that, but apparently she had no fucks to give. She went to another boarding school in London before transferring here for senior school. She stayed here even when her parents moved back to Surrey last year, saying she’d never dream of abandoning us. ‘Together till the bitter end,’ she said.

Rowan’s the only one I talked to about why I came to Duncraggan. I asked her to tell Ama and Lily, because I thought they deserved to know but I couldn’t face telling them. It’s too tiring, telling the story over and over again. Working so hard to make sure you don’t tell the whole truth.

I hate talking about it, and the girls understand that. If one of them finds herself veering into dangerous conversational waters, the others will yank her back to safety. Rowan’s usually the one to do the yanking; I don’t know what I’d do without her. Sometimes I feel bad that I’ve never told her all of it. The worst of it.

The worst of it is simple. You can strip the excess flesh of the story down to the bare bones. You can shrink it and starve it and whittle it down to almost nothing.

That’s what happened to her.

Jenna died two years ago. Heart failure. Other things too: a perforated ulcer, a collapsed lung. But it was the heart that gave up on her. It couldn’t do the job it’s supposed to do; it didn’t have the fuel.

My twin sister was fifteen years old when she died. She weighed just under five stone.

It had started as a post-Christmas diet. A diet that was my idea.


You can preorder Girlhood at:

Amazon | Waterstones | Hive | The Book Depository

How amazing is the cover?! Have you read any of Cat Clarke’s other books? Let me know which one is your favourite in the comments below!

Uncategorized

YA Starter Kit

So you may be new to reading YA, or just looking for some awesome book recommendations… Today I’m going to help you add LOTS and LOTS of books to your TBR piles!

IMG_1266

Undone by Cat Clarke will give you ALL THE FEELS. It made me cry so much and I loved every single second of reading it. It’s a must have on your shelf because it has LGBT themes, deals with grief and loss, and also has a brilliant plot!

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater is a favourite YA book of mine because I read it right when I was getting serious about reading YA. It’s about werewolves which may seem cheesy after Twilight but it’s such a refreshing urban fantasy novel that you can become invested in easily.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor has SO many fans. I still haven’t read the second or third books in the trilogy, but I really enjoyed the first instalment when I read it a few years ago. It’s completely unpredictable so it’s a very exciting reading experience!

The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson is one of my favourite books of 2015 so far and is about imitations of the Jack the Ripper murders happening in London. Rory, the main character, is American and starts at a boarding school in London just as the murders start to happen. I LOVE this series a lot and can’t stop recommending it! SO, SO fantastic!

Trouble by Non Pratt is about teenage pregnancy and it’s written perfectly. I enjoyed it so much and can’t wait to read Non’s next book, Remix, as I loved Trouble so much.

IMG_1267

We Were Liars….It really is best to lie about this book because the least you know about it the better! It took the book world by storm last year, and I still can’t believe the shock ending! I really didn’t expect it at all.

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell is one of my all-time favourite books and perfect for people who love sites like Tumblr and are involved in Internet culture. It’s about a girl called Cath who, alongside her twin sister, is starting college. Cath writes fan fiction on a book series very similar to Harry Potter!

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas is a favourite fantasy book of mine and centres around Celaena Sardothien, an assassin who is chosen by the prince to enter a competition to become the King’s Assassin. READ IT, READ IT, READ IT!

Have a Little Faith by Candy Harper is hilarious and is a relatively short book too! It’s very true to a British teenager’s life and I adored it.

Every Day by David Levithan tells the story of A, a person who wakes up in a different body each day but, one day, A finds that there’s someone they just can’t let go of. It’s unique and David Levithan writes so beautifully.

Which books would you add to my list? Have you read any of these?

Lucy Recommends... Uncategorized

Lucy Recommends… [4] – Big Books

lucyrecommends

 

Lucy Recommends is a feature where I use all of my persuasive techniques to make you buy the best books around, whether it be by genre, author or series.

This time I’m going to talk about BIG BOOKS. I’m not exactly one to read lots and lots of big books, but there are a few I’ve really enjoyed. I consider a big book to be over 400 pages…

IMG_0182

Diving straight into the deep end, it’s no surprise that I’m featuring A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin on a list of ‘big books.’ It took me over a month to read but because of its size it meant that it was very easy to absorb everything about the world of Westeros. You can read my full review here.

IMG_0194

Undone by Cat Clarke is incredible. Telling the story of a girl out to get revenge for the death of her best friend, it’s enthralling and unputdownable. It was the first of Cat’s books I read, and has me craving to read more. Even more than a year after reading, it’s still fresh in my mind.

IMG_0171

Winger is one of my favourite books of the year so far. When I first looked at it, I was intimidated by its size but it hooked me right away and the inclusion of comic strip-style graphics means that the time reading goes very quickly. Winger is centered around a boy called Ryan Dean who goes to an exclusive boarding school in the US. It’s about the trials and tribulations of being a teenager, told in a realistic manner. Very highly recommended!

IMG_0188

Soulmates is a breath-taking romance novel, taking the term ‘soulmates’ to an extreme. What happens if you finally find that person you’re meant to be with forever, but it has horrifying effects? This is what happens when Poppy meets Noah. Once a cynic, meeting Noah changes more than just her belief in love… I loved Soulmates when I read it and it’s a book I could re-read over and over again. I know so many people who have loved it, and Holly definitely isn’t without her fans! A phenomenal debut novel.

Do you like reading ‘big’ books? Which ones are your favourites?