Cirrus@Austlit

'Irian, Ulana and their Clan have made the cave their home ever since they used fire to drive off the Beast – a sabre-toothed tiger that had been preying on them. Protected by an ongoing fire at the cave mouth, they continue to keep the Beast at bay… until one fateful night when the fire goes out! What happens next shatters the Clan and leaves Ulana badly injured and Irian too traumatised even to speak.

' Alone and adrift in their dangerous prehistoric world, they have little hope of survival. What saves them is a chance meeting with a prickly old woman called Trug. Grudgingly, she takes them on a strange, unexpected journey of discovery, flinging them into the many wonders and hard realities of ancient times.

'And that hazardous journey will eventually lead them full circle:  back to the challenge of the cave, and the enduring reality of the Beast….

' An exciting story set in a richly-recreated Paleolithic past, this novel for middle-grade readers is both an extraordinary adventure and a moving exploration of loss, survival and courage.' (Publication summary)

'Nine-year-old city newspaper seller Roddy becomes involved in the infamous Battle of Brisbane in 1942: when American and Australian servicemen fought against each other, rioting in the streets of the city for two days.

'When Roddy helps an American serviceman who’s been involved in the fighting, he never expects that the battle will become covered up – a wartime secret. Never to be reported in the newspapers he sells. Or that his actions will result in a new life for him after the war – all the way to the USA.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'London, Christmas Eve, 1911.The world is changing fast: giant warships, aeroplanes with bombs, spies and assassins, fear of war with Germany. The cosy lives of Lily and Leopold Keeler and their famous stage magician father Edmund Keeler are about to be torn apart by secrets, espionage and monstrous creatures from the shadows.

'Trapped in their stuffy Edwardian childhoods, the Keeler siblings pine for adventure. Lily (14) dreams of being Britain’s first woman detective while Leopold, known as ‘Leo’, (15) would love to be a pilot, the newest kind of hero. They both envy their eccentric uncle Alfred, a brilliant and notorious Sherlock Holmes-like paranormal detective who uses his deductive powers and esoteric equipment to solve mysteries from the world of spirits and mythical beasts.

'When their uncle’s performance of a Christmas Eve shadow-puppet play of Little Red Riding Hood unexpectedly releases the hungry spectre of the Shadow Wolf, Lily and Leo will get more adventure than they ever bargained for.

'But Shadow Wolf proves to be only the first mystery in a conspiracy that threatens to destroy the Keeler family, as Lily and Leo witness their parents, Edmund and Alice, vanish for real in the middle of their latest spectacular magic act. So they turn to their eccentric uncle to keep them safe and solve the mystery of their parents’ disappearance.

'From the Royal Naval dockyards of Plymouth to the bone-stacked catacombs of Paris, Uncle Alfred and his two apprentice detectives, Lily and Leo, confront eerie creatures and blood-chilling danger as they are chased by a ruthless spy-ring determined to harness the dark forces of Magick as weapons of war. As Lily struggles with her refusal to believe in shadow-wolves and ghosts and her brother Leo takes terrible risks to impress their eccentric uncle, the Keeler children find moments of great courage and inspired cleverness, as they try to solve the mysteries in Uncle Alfred’s casebook with plenty of clues and spine-tingling intrigue along the way.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Shipwrecked at the far end of the world in a land at war.

'Befriended by runaways fated to harrowing paths.

'In constant danger from warriors, bandits and superstitious villagers who take his blue eyes and pale skin as proof that he’s a demon…

'Young Daniel Marlowe and his Japanese ‘tomodachi’, his friends, Otsu and Kenji, are about to stumble into a stomach-knotting adventure where a ferocious public test of samurai virtue and a murder investigation will collide.

'Their hazardous journey promises answers. The hope of being joyfully reunited, the risk of confirming loss.

'But the spirit world has its own part to play in their destinies, for someone -or something- waits watchfully in the ancient Forest of the Night.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'The girls at Maddy’s new school look through her as if she is invisible, and say mean things behind her back. The only person who has tried to talk to her is Gareth, who is new too. And he’s good at maths. Talking to him would mean social death. But then strange things happen in old inner-city terrace house Maddy’s family has moved into. She hears spooky noises on the stairs and sees strange faces in the mirror – first a ghastly white face, then a girl in a weird old-fashioned dress. They’re ghosts! The house is haunted!

'The girl in the mirror – Clarissa – starts to talk to Maddy. Maddy’s bedroom was Clarissa’s room back in the 1890s, and it’s the same mirror on the wall – though Clarissa is a Young Lady, so she has to call it a Looking Glass. The spook on the stairs is Clarissa’s brother Bertie, who died of whooping cough when he was six years old. Clarissa and Maddy get on really well – but then Clarissa disappears, and Maddy has strange visions of a huge, evil thing like a giant spider looming over her.

'Maddy’s baby brother gets seriously ill with whooping cough. Even in the hospital, the doctors are helpless.

'Meanwhile, back in the 1890s, the girl in the mirror is having problems of her own. Clarissa’s mother has been in a decline since Clarissa’s poisonous Aunt Lily was widowed, and she moved into their house. Aunt Lily makes a Strengthening Tonic for Mother every week, from plants in the garden. But what if the Tonic that Aunt Lily makes for Clarissa’s mother is actually making her sicker? What if she wants to get Clarissa’s mother out of the way forever?  The two girls have to use all their intelligence and verve to fight against Aunt Lily’s plots, each in her own time, with help from Clarissa’s ghostly brother Bertie—but will they succeed?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'After 12-year-old Megan Evans almost dies, she is packed off to the tiny, remote coastal village of Pelican Rock to recover. Sure she is going to be bored in a place which doesn’t even have the internet, she discovers there is much more to Pelican Rock that she expected. Are the pelicans really magic? What is the secret of the ruined lighthouse? Has she found the place where she belongs? And, perhaps, not just a place…'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'It’s May 1910 and 17 year old Linda Duke has just received a strange message: a playing card, the Jack of Spades, in an envelope that was sent from Paris, where her widowed father, Professor Charles Duke, a noted but impractical Shakespearean scholar, has gone on a research trip. In the code devised by her late French mother Madeleine, who was a dedicated card-player, ‘Jack of Spades’ means treachery and danger. Her father knows that. But it is not his handwriting on the envelope. Linda is convinced he is in great danger, and being both brave and determined, decides to set out immediately to Paris to look for him, starting with the place where he was meant to be staying, a guest-house in the Latin Quarter called the Villa Ardennes.' (Source : http://writerunboxed.com/2009/07/22/more-good-news/#more-1336 )