All you need to know about books at www.booksmonthly.co.uk                                                     Issue 4 July 2008

DOUGLAS HILL: DEMON STALKERS - PREY ~ Nick Walker can pass for eighteen, which comes in useful while living on the streets. But Nick isn't eighteen. He's fourteen. He's been fourteen for years ...A chance encounter with Manta, an exceedingly powerful witch, sees Nick cursed with changelessness. Not only will he never age, but, more usefully to Manta, broken bones and sliced flesh, while excruciatingly painful, will mend themselves in a short space of time making Nick the perfect weapon against the demonic assassins sent by the evil Cartel. Constantly hunted, Nick is forced to run evading his enemy when he can and facing gruesome and bloody battles when he can't. But, help comes from a surprising source April, a young girl Nick rescues from some occult enthusiasts intent on sacrificing her, has powers beyond her control or understanding. Together, might they be a match for the sinister forces that stalk them? Hill was sadly knocked down and killed by a bus on a zebra crossing exactly one year ago - he was full of enthusiasm for this latest project, a trilogy concerning the exploits of young Nick Walker, doomed forever to remain fourteen years old. The terrifying demon sequences are reminiscent of the great Dennis Wheatley, tinged with the up to date treatment of the occult we're used to from Darren Shan, and this series will be a serious challenge to Shan!

VALERIE BLOOM: THE TRIBE ~ Maruka is different to the other girls; she likes to hunt and fish deep in the forest, even though it's dangerous. But she should have stayed in the village the day the Kalinas tribe came and stole her mother. She would have stopped them. Two years later, Maruka sees giant white sails rearing up on the horizon. She is sure of a Kalinas attack but a deadlier enemy wades ashore and plants a flag on the beach. Her tribe welcome the pale-skinned men but are repaid with treachery and forced to mine the white man's God - gold. Maruka knows that the tribes have one option: they must put aside their differences and defeat their common enemy. And if the tribes unite, Maruka might even find her mother again ...

EVA IBBOTSON: A COMPANY OF SWANS ~ Weekly ballet classes are Harriet Morton's only escape from her intolerably dull life. So when she is chosen to join a corps de ballet which is setting off on a tour of the Amazon, she leaps at the chance to run away for good. Performing in the grand opera houses is everything Harriet dreamed of, and falling in love with an aristocratic exile makes her new life complete. Swept away by it all, she is unaware that her father and intended fiance have begun to track her down...

JULIE BURCHILL: SWEET ~ 'Some people tread water all their lives. Not me - I'm gonna make a big splash.' Maria Sweet, aka Sugar, is back. Her husband's done a runner taking their daughter with him, but at least she has a plan: get a job, get some cash and get the hell out of Brighton. And somewhere out there in the big bad world is Kim Lewis, who might just be the Love of Sugar's Life. Sugar's landed herself a stint as a model for local fashion designers Agnew & Bagshawe. But when she discovers they've exploited her, she's hell-bent on vengeance and that can only lead to chaos ...Sugar is as defiant and outrageous as ever in this riotous sequel to "Sugar Rush", Burchill's bestselling teen novel.

GERI HALLIWELL: UGENIA LAVENDER AND THE BURNING PANTS ~ Thoughtful, brave and sassy, Ugenia Lavender is one amazing kid. With bags of energy, heaps of attitude and brainwaves like thunderbolts of lightning, Ugenia leaps into adventures that are not only full of fun, but which also contain a great message: that every child is special and capable of great things! With three stories, plus Ugenia's Big News, Top Tips and extra puzzle pages in each book, "Ugenia Lavender" will delight children and adults alike. In Book 3, Ugenia discovers the true meaning of 'liar, liar, pants on fire' and celebrates her tenth birthday in style. She also saves the day when her school stages its very own Olympic Games!

LILY ARCHER: THE POISON APPLES ~ We're reclaiming the apple! We all have evil stepmothers and we're going to give the apple back to them! Alice, Reena and Molly all have one thing in common: they are the stepdaughters of three very evil stepmothers. They think they are alone in their unhappiness until they meet at Putnam Mount McKinsey, a posh boarding school located in lovely, rural Massachusetts, where Reena comes up with a cunning plan to exact their revenge ...

PAUL COOKSON: I'D RATHER BE A FOOTBALLER ~ This fantastic collection features all of Paul Cookson's most popular poems, including "Superman Dog", "The Toilet Seat Has Teeth" and "The Amazing Captain Concorde"! "Short Visit, Long Stay": The school trip was a special occasion. But we never reached our destination. Instead of the Zoo, I was locked in the loo of an M62 service station.

HOW LOUD CAN  YOU BURP? ~ How loud can you burp? Could we use animal poo to make electricity? Why is water wet, and is anything wetter than water? What's the deadliest disease in the world? What are clouds for? What's the difference between a brain and a computer? This is a wonderfully funny and informative book which helps us take a fresh look at the world (and universe) we live in, with no boring bits and an abundance of fascinating facts!

ROD CAMPBELL: THE POP UP DEAR ZOO ~ Loved by children for over twenty years, Rod Campbell's classic title is now available in pop-up form. Retaining all the charm of the original title, this new edition is packed full of exciting surprises! Open the zoo's crates, and you'll find an extremely tall giraffe, an incredibly fierce lion, an exceptionally naughty monkey...plus much more. Innovative, witty and as delightful as ever, "The Pop-Up Dear Zoo" is a guaranteed winner!

LARA JONES: FASTER FASTER POPPY CAT ~ Poppy Cat and her friends are off for a day out and you can join in! Inside are four sturdy, simple two-piece jigsaws that have soft-to-touch areas which little fingers will love to explore. This book is perfect puzzles for very young Poppy Cat fans!

LARA JONES: WHIZZ WHOOSH POPPY CAT ~ Poppy Cat and her friends are having some playtime fun and you can join in! Inside are four sturdy, simple two-piece jigsaws that have soft-to-touch areas which little fingers will love to explore. This book includes perfect puzzles for very young Poppy Cat fans!

HONEY HILL BUSY DAY ~ Everyone at Honey Hill is having a busy day! Join them as they listen to stories, paint pictures, play in the garden, have a snack and play dress-up and find the hidden character on each spread. Packed with fun nursery school details that young children will love, with peep-through holes and flaps to lift, this is a great way to get to know Lucy, Oscar, Olivia, Jack and Rafi as they go through their busy day!

SUSAN NAGEL: MARIE THERESE ~ In January, 1796, Marie-Therese, the only surviving child of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI arrived in Vienna in the care of her first cousin, the Holy Roman Emperor Francis II, who had smuggled her out of France after the Reign of Terror. For three years Francis tried to convince Marie-Therese to assert her hereditary rights and allow him to invade the newly vulnerable democracy, but Marie-Therese refused, ultimately fleeing her cousin's Hofburg Palace for Mittau, where her exiled uncle, King Louis XVIII, married her off to his son.At Mittau, Marie-Therese wrote her memoirs, and, upon their publication, immediately became the enduring symbol of the Bourbon Restoration and a figure of fascination around the world. Yet for all of her fame Marie-Therese's later life remains shrouded in mystery. To this day, many believe that the real Marie-Therese, traumatized following her family's sudden execution, was spirited away to Eastern Europe, where she switched identities with a childhood playmate and lived out the rest of her life in seclusion as 'The Dark Countess'. Now, two hundred years later, this theory is finally put to rest.

SUE JENNER: THE PARENT/CHILD GAME ~ Bringing up children is one of the most difficult tasks in the world - and potentially one of the most rewarding. Loving and conveying love may seem to be instinctive skills, but they can also be worked on and improved, and it is now established that parenting is not necessarily an inherent talent, but is something that can be learned. Parents need no longer feel guilty, incompetent or useless when family relationships aren't what they should be - nor do children have to feel unloved, ignored or misunderstood. Good parenting skills, learned now, will be absorbed by the next generation, thus breaking the vicious cycle that can degenerate from toddler tantrums via teenage delinquency to adult crime and yet more unhappy families.In her work as a clinical psychologist with families from many cultures, Sue Jenner has experienced great success with the technique known to psychologists as the 'Parent/Child Game'. This is the first book to present this technique to a non-academic readership. The simple but incredibly effective principles of the 'Parent/Child Game' form the backbone of this guide, which is written with honesty, compassion and humour.

SUE JENNER: THE PARENT/BABY GAME ~ In her first book, Sue Jenner wrote that it is never too late to make positive progress with toddlers. In this new, comprehensive but easy-to-follow book, she explains why it is never too early to establish that all-important emotional bond between you and your baby. Sue shows new parents how to understand an infant's need for warmth, approval, security, and stimulation, and she describes how to translate love for your baby into a language he or she can recognise. "The Parent/Baby Game" uses the latest psychological theory and current research into children's neurological development. But Sue is more than aware, as a mother, stepmother and grandmother, that what we really need to know in moments of crisis is not a series of complex formulas, but simply what to do.So every chapter in this book gives practical solutions to all kinds of challenging situations - everything from birth fears, post-natal depression, strains on your relationship and coping with fatigue, to problems with sleeping, tantrums, crying, playing, feeding and disobedience.

ANITA JAIN: MARRYING ANITA ~ You are a single woman in your thirties, fed up with the singles scene. You are tired of singles dinner parties, and exhausted by phone calls, e-profiles, and forced dinner conversation. You fear you will never marry. What do you do? Anita Jain, a New York-based Indian-American journalist, is just such a woman. Even her parents despair of her and have logged her details on to an Indian dating internet site. For years she has trusted the Western way of finding a husband, but maybe there's something in arranged marriages after all. It certainly can't get any worse. So she's travelling to India in search of a perfect husband. "Marrying Anita" is a refreshingly honest look at the modern search for a mate set against the backdrop of a rapidly modernising New India. Will she find a suitable man? If so, will he please her nosy parents, aunts, uncles and cousins? Is the new urban Indian culture all that different from New York? And is any of this dating worth the effort?

MATT RUFF: BAD MONKEYS ~ Jane Charlotte has been arrested for murder. During questioning, she tells the police that she is a member of a secret organisation. Her division, the Bad Monkeys, is an execution squad, determined to rid the world of evil people. But the man she has just killed was not on the target list. As her story becomes more bizarre the question becomes: Is Jane lying, crazy - or playing a different game altogether?

LISA SEE: PEONY IN LOVE ~ Peony has neither seen nor spoken to any man other than her father, a wealthy Chinese nobleman. Nor has she ever ventured outside the cloistered women's quarters of the family villa. As her sixteenth birthday approaches, she finds herself betrothed to a man she does not know, but Peony has dreams of her own. Her father engages a theatrical troupe to perform scenes from "The Peony Pavilion", a Chinese epic opera, in their garden amidst the scent of ginger, green tea and jasmine. 'Unmarried girls should not be seen in public,' says Peony's mother, but her father allows the women to watch from behind a screen. Here, Peony catches sight of an elegant, handsome man and is immediately bewitched. So begins her unforgettable journey of love, desire, sorrow and redemption.

MONICA PRADHAN: THE HINDI-BINDI CLUB ~ For decades they have remained close, sharing recipes and customs, and shaped by ancient ways. They are the Hindi-Bindi Club, a nickname given by their daughters to the mothers who left India to start anew daughters now facing struggles of their own. For Kiran, Preity and Rani, adulthood means balance, from the ways they tweak their mothers' cooking to rejecting their parents' beliefs. But will they have the courage of the Hindi-Bindi Club to hold on to their dreams - or create new ones?

DAVID KYNASTON: AUSTERITY BRITAIN - SMOKE IN THE VALLEY ~ David Kynaston's "Austerity Britain" 1945-51, the first book in his series "Tales of a New Jerusalem", was a major "Sunday Times" bestseller in 2007. Here is the second volume from this landmark book covering 1948-51. Continuing his groundbreaking series about post-war Britain, Kynaston presents a breathtaking portrait of our nation through eyewitness accounts, newspapers of the time and previously unpublished diaries. Drawing on the everyday experiences of people from all walks of life, "Smoke in the Valley" covers the length and breadth of the country to tell its story. This is an unsurpassed social history: intensely evocative to those who were there and eye-opening for their children and grandchildren.

DAVID CORDINGLY: COCHRANE THE DAUNTLESS ~ Patrick O' Brian, C.S. Forester and Captain Marryat all based their literary heroes on Thomas Cochrane, but Cochrane's exploits were far more daring and exciting than those of his fictional counterparts. He was a man of action, whose bold and impulsive nature meant he was often his own worst enemy. Writing with gripping narrative skill and drawing on his own travels and original research, Cordingly tells the rip-roaring story of a flawed Romantic hero who helped define his age.

MATTHEW BRZEZINSKI: RED MOON RISING ~ On 4 October 1957, at the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union secretly launched Sputnik, Earth's first artificial moon. Powered by a car battery, it passed over the stunned American continent once every 101 minutes and propelled the USSR from backward state to superpower and pioneer of the Space Age. This is the pulse-racing story of a time when two nations and ideologies were pitted against each other in a quest that laid the foundations of the modern technological world.

MARY HOFFMAN: STRAVAGANZE CITY OF SECRETS ~ Matt is dyslexic and extremely intelligent. When he is unexpectedly transported to the Scriptorium of Padavia (real-life Padua) University, he discovers he is a Stravagante who can travel through time using his talisman, a leather-bound book. Together with Luciano, now studying at the University, and Arianna, in disguise as a boy, he must fight the dangerous di Chimici clan who are on the verge of making a terrifying breakthrough into our world. This is a breathtaking and thrilling novel that will delight all Stravaganza fans.

Books Monthly (formerly Gateway Monthly) is published by Paul Edmund Norman on the first day of each month. You can contact me via e-mail at: editor@booksmonthly.co.uk. If you'd like to get a story published in Books Monthly just e-mail it to me and I'll consider it - no payment though, I'm afraid!