Hot Key Books

Bestselling author, Jennifer Donnelly talks about her inspiration for the haunting YA thriller, These Shallow Graves. Have you read it yet?

Today (Thursday January 7th) we will be adding new names to our blogger and YouTuber database. It’s this list we contact when we have review copies available – and only this list! So if you review Young Adult or Middle Grade books, this is your chance.

We have a limited number of spaces, so to be in with a chance, email the below details to [email protected] (lines are open now until midnight UK time January 8th) and make sure to put BLOGGER CALL in the subject line.

Name: Blog/ YouTube title: Blog/ YouTube channel URL: Twitter: Goodreads: Tumblr: Preferred genres: Any other social media links or info: Review copy postal address:

COVER REVEAL - Moth Girls by Anne Cassidy

We’ve got a brand new cover to share with you! Anne Cassidy is back with a suspenseful and psychological YA crossover thriller (perfect for fans of We Were Liars).

Helplessly drawn like moths to the light, two girls go missing in an evocative and gripping tale . . .

They called them the Moth Girls because they were attracted to the house. They were drawn to it. Or at least that is what is written in the newspapers that Mandy reads on the anniversary of when her two best friends went missing. Five years have passed since Petra and Tina were determined to explore the dilapidated house on Princess Street. But what started off as a dare ended with the two girls vanishing. As Mandy's memories of the disappearance of her two friends are ignited once again, disturbing details will resurface in her mind.

After fourteen years of Day comes fourteen years of Night. Be sure not to get left in the dark.

Have you heard about NIGHTFALL yet? While the paperback is coming out next year, we’ve already published the ebook, because we couldn’t wait to get this to you ASAP! Want to know more? In this video the UK editor Naomi tells you everything you need to know.

We’ve got a special Halloween treat for you! Eleanor Hawken, the author of THE BLUE LADY and THE GREY GIRL, has written a scary short story for Halloween, that goes along with THE BLUE LADY. Happy (spooky) reading!

Suzy

I’m lying in a narrow cast-iron bed. I can feel the ancient springs digging into my back. I’m surprised they haven’t strapped me down. From the way Nurse Pippa was speaking to the doctor, I’m surprised they haven’t carted me off to the nearest padded cell and straight jacket. The bile-green tiled walls make my eyes blur, so I close them. They’re so sore and swollen from crying, and forcing them shut makes me realise how bone-tired I am. But every time I start to drift off I jolt awake. The slightest sound, the smallest breeze, it’s like everything in the world is conspiring against me. Me, me, me – why did this all have to happen to me?

The window of my room overlooks the science block, and I can hear the hum of girls going to and from their lessons. I’ve been listening to them all day. They’re talking about me. I can’t make out their words, only the noise of their voices. But I know they’re speaking about me. They always do. Well, if they didn’t before then they most certainly do now, after last night. Everyone knows how gossip in a boarding school works. It’s like bacteria in a Petri dish, it just grows and grows. I’ll be the talk of every classroom. I used to think that’s what I wanted. But not like this.

In my mind I’m the star of my own movie. But recently I’ve strayed into a genre that I don’t want to be in. I’m now basically one of those pathetic girls in a slasher movie. You know, the ones where the heroine wears designer heels and a full face of makeup as she runs away from the knife-wielding maniac.

I could feel the tension building up ever since we did the Ouija Board. Me and Frankie. I thought it would be fun to freak her out. She’s always so composed and together. Always so quiet and removed like she has somewhere better to be. I thought I could wake her up a bit, make her look up to me. Because she’d get freaked out and I’d be the one who played it cool.

I didn’t think the Ouija board would work.

I didn’t expect it to be like this.

That first night there was tapping and scratching at my door in middle of night. I thought it must be Frankie trying to freak me out. There’s a dark side to her. It’s just the thing she’d think funny, to try and make me as mad as Macbeth. I got up to let her in, pushed the door open but there was no one there. And there was this smell. Like cut grass after rain. But as I inhaled it curdled in the air. I felt my throat tightening and my stomach cramp-up. The dormitory was as silent as a graveyard. The world around me was sleeping. But there was something else awake besides me, and it was watching me. Midnight-blue moonlight streamed into the dorm, and the air seemed to crackle with electricity. It was like the excitement you feel before a storm, before the sky erupts with lightning and thunder bolts. That was the moment I knew I’d stepped onto the set of a horror film.

She’s coming. She never sleeps.

It came again the next night, a shuffling outside, tapping, scratching at my door. It’s always so loud I can’t believe it didn’t once wake anyone else up. Every night when the lights go out the smell of rotting flowers and bodies creep into my room, and the sounds rattled around in my head. I clamp my hands over my ears but I can’t escape. I long for silence, I long to escape what we summoned to the Ouija board that night. But it’s following me around like a shadow. I can’t escape the memory of the coin gliding over the board and spelling out that one word: Trapped.

There was one book in the school library about ghosts. One poxy book in the whole place. A collection of Victorian ghost stories. I read every one of them looking for clues, all the heroines in those stories broke so easily. I felt proud that I was so strong. I walked around the school corridors each day feeling smug because I was living this nightmare like a survivor. I wasn’t the girl that got killed off at the beginning of the movie, I was the star that survived and featured in the sequels too. But at night I don’t feel brave. I just want it to stop.

There was one story in the book where a priest banished vengeful spirits by sprinkling consecrated water around the room and uttering prayers. I thought I could do the same. Yesterday I persuaded Frankie to come with me to the school chapel. I scooped up holy water from the font and took it back to my room.

I stood in my room and recited the Lord’s Prayer. I remembered all the words correctly and made the sign of the cross into the air. I did everything just as the priest in the story had done. I dipped my fingers into the water and flicked it about the room until every last drop was gone, “Spirits, I banish you, Spirits, I banish you. Spirits, I banish you.”

As soon as the dorm lights were out, I knew I wasn’t alone. I couldn’t see her but I could feel her. She was watching me. Standing over my bed. As clouds passed over the moon I saw shadowed shapes creeping over the walls like some kind of twisted puppet show. Hands reaching out, fingers, claws grabbing, scratching, pleading. Then came the smell, as soon as I smelt it I felt my lungs constrict. My eyes began to burn with tears. I wished Frankie were there

But Frankie wasn’t there. I was alone. Alone with whatever demon breathed just inches from me.

I scrunched-up my eyes and felt warm tears spill down my cheeks. This is what a lame woman in a Victorian ghost story would do, close her eyes and cry. I want to be better than that, but in that moment I was lost to something far greater than pride. With my eyes tight closed I felt the presence at the side of my bed disappear. I let myself exhale slowly. But then there was movement at the end of the bed. Something tugged at the bottom of my duvet. Then I felt the cover lift up, a breath of frozen air creeping into my bed. I instinctively pulled my knees up to my chest but something ice cold grabbed hold of my ankles.

Cold hands burned into my skin, holding my legs in place, pinning them to the end of the bed.

I screamed a blood-curdling plea to everyone around me, “Help me! Please, help me!” I bolted upright in bed and tried to shake my legs free but the ice cold hands kept me firmly in place. I couldn’t see anything at the end of the bed but I could feel it.

I screamed louder as the door to my room flung open. I tried to jump out of bed but the hands held me steady like shackles. “Help! Help!”

Kirsty was now in my room, standing over me and shouting back, “Suzy, calm down. What’s wrong?”

“She’s holding me. Please get her off of me. Get her off!”

Two more girls ran into my room. My eyes were too blurred with tears to see who they were. Then someone flicked the dorm lights on and my room was illuminated in a sharp, painful glow.

As soon as it was light the hands disappeared from my ankles. But my skin still burned from where she had touched me. I kicked the duvet off as if it were on fire. I expected to see burn marks sizzling on my skin where she’d touched me, but there was nothing. “She was right here,” I sobbed, as Kirsty turned around shouted at one of the other girls to call Ms Barts.

As my eyes began to spill fresh tears something caught my attention. My Hamlet poster. It was covered with tiny burn marks. It looked like someone had flicked liquid fire onto it, scorched it somehow.

And then it dawned on me. The burn marks were everything I’d sprinkled holy water. As the noise in the dorm began to grow, as girls woke up from the commotion, I looked around my small room in horror. The burns were everywhere. On my walls, posters and pictures. On my desk. On my duvet, on my bed.

Someone was screaming in the distance. A scream filled with terror and poison. I felt arms try to push me down to the bed. Someone was shouting in my ear and I realised the screaming was coming from me. My lungs burned and burned as I screamed everything I had into the world around me.

My limbs flailed about and the girls around me tried to hold me down. I swore at them and screamed, screamed, screamed for them to leave me alone. My bones ached as every muscle in my body constricted with fear.

There was a voice in my ear. But my tears had made me blind and I couldn’t see who it was. The voice was telling me to calm down. The voice followed me as they took me out of the dorm, into Ms Bart’s room before they took me up here to the San. All the time telling me softly that it will be ok.

But it’s not ok.

I don’t think it’ll ever be ok, ever again.

I always longed for drama. But not like this. I don’t want this story, someone else can have it. I feel like I’ve opened a horrible jack in the box and it’s ugly, devilish face is screaming manically at me.

What have we done? What have we unleashed? How will we ever make it go away?