The Balloon Thief

by Aneesa Marufu 

Burn the flame. Seek the night.

For Khadija, the only escape from her father’s arranged betrothal is the sky.

When she spots a rogue hot air balloon fighting against its ropes, she leaps at the chance for adventure. Khadija soon finds an unlikely ally in a poor glass maker's apprentice, Jacob.

But Jacob is a hāri, and Khadija a Ghadaean. The hāri are oppressed and restless – their infamous terrorist group, the Hāreef, have a new fearsome leader. And the ruling Ghadaeans are brutal in their repression.

Soon, a deadly revolution threatens their friendship and their world. The Hāreef use forbidden magic, summoning jinn – wicked spirits made of fire – to enact their revenge, forcing Jacob and Khadija to choose what kind of a world they want to save …

ISBN-13 978-1913696078

Transcendent Kingdom

by Yaa Gyasi 

As a child Gifty would ask her parents to tell the story of their journey from Ghana to Alabama, seeking escape in myths of heroism and romance. When her father and brother succumb to the hard reality of immigrant life in the American South, their family of four becomes two - and the life Gifty dreamed of slips away.

Years later, desperate to understand the opioid addiction that destroyed her brother's life, she turns to science for answers. But when her mother comes to stay, Gifty soon learns that the roots of their tangled traumas reach farther than she ever thought. Tracing her family's story through continents and generations will take her deep into the dark heart of modern America.

Transcendent Kingdom is a searing story of love, loss and redemption, and the myriad ways we try to rebuild our lives from the rubble of our collective pasts. Y12/13

ISBN-13  978-0241988664

Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021 

Liberty Bound (Dystopian)

by Nathaniel M Wrey

Society has turned on its head. The 'free' hide behind fortifications and the 'imprisoned' roam the wild, barren land beyond.

Finbarl-apcula guards the town of Athenia, an oasis in a parched, sparsely populated world. He keeps the citizens safe, ensures those who break the draconian laws lose their freedom, and protects what he prizes above all else: civilisation.

When Finbarl is made to lie to help convict a mother he once rescued from a bully, it delivers the first crack in his unquestionable faith in the system. As further lies and corruption are exposed, Finbarl's world crumbles, allowing him to finally see that 'prison walls' exist everywhere, within himself, throughout society and in the very landscape he calls home.

No one is free and the civilisation he was willing to die for is at the root of the problem.

Finbarl begins a thrilling adventure of twists, rebellion, danger, discovery and tragedy to break the bonds imprisoning a world, himself and the future. Will he find what he really treasures most: true freedom?

ISBN-13 978-1916370500

Winner of the readers favorite International Book Award 2021

 Millennium Book Awards 2021 longlisted author

Finalist in the 2020 Wishing Shelf Book Awards 

Semi-finalist in the Indiereader Awards 2021.

Yellowface

by Rebecca F Kuang

THIS IS ONE HELL OF A STORY.

IT’S JUST NOT HERS TO TELL.

When failed writer June Hayward witnesses her rival Athena Liu die in a freak accident, she sees her opportunity… and takes it.

So what if it means stealing Athena’s final manuscript?

So what if it means ‘borrowing’ her identity?

And so what if the first lie is only the beginning…

Finally, June has the fame she always deserved. But someone is about to expose her…

What happens next is entirely everyone else's fault. 

ISBN-13 978-0008532819

Foyle’s Fiction Book of the Year 2023

Amazon Book of the Year 2023

Shortlisted for Waterstones Book of the Year 2023

Fiction Book of the Year 2023 and  2024 – British Book Awards

Audie Awards for Fiction Winner 2024

Orbital

by Samantha Harvey

Orbital deftly snapshots one day in the lives of six women and men traveling through space. Selected for one of the last space station missions of its kind before the program is dismantled, these astronauts and cosmonauts--from America, Russia, Italy, Britain, and Japan--have left their lives behind to travel at a speed of over seventeen thousand miles an hour as the earth reels below. We glimpse moments of their earthly lives through brief communications with family, their photos and talismans; we watch them whip up dehydrated meals, float in gravity-free sleep, and exercise in regimented routines to prevent atrophying muscles; we witness them form bonds that will stand between them and utter solitude. Most of all, we are with them as they behold and record their silent blue planet. Their experiences of sixteen sunrises and sunsets and the bright, blinking constellations of the galaxy are at once breathtakingly awesome and surprisingly intimate. 

ISBN-13 978-1529922936

WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024 

Winner of the 2024 Hawthornden Prize
Shortlisted for the 2024 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction
Shortlisted for the 2024 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction

The Red Market

Scott Carney

On the Trail of the World's Organ Brokers, Bone Thieves, Blood Farmers, and Child Traffickers

“An unforgettable nonfiction thriller, expertly reported….A tremendously revealing and twisted ride, where life and death are now mere cold cash commodities.”

—Michael Largo, author of Final Exits Award-winning investigative journalist and contributing Wired editor Scott Carney leads readers on a breathtaking journey through the macabre underworld of the global body bazaar, where organs, bones, and even live people are bought and sold on The Red Market . As gripping as CSI and as eye-opening as Mary Roach’s Stiff , Carney’s The Red Market sheds a blazing new light on the disturbing, billion-dollar business of trading in human body parts, bodies, and child trafficking, raising issues and exposing corruptions almost too bizarre and shocking to imagine. Y12/13

ISBN-13 978-0061936463

A Colourful View From the Top:

Twenty-One Extraordinary Stories of Leaders of Colour Achieving Excellence in Business

You might not think, right now, that you have what it takes to succeed. But incredible things do happen when you believe. We hope this book will stoke your sense of belief in what it is you can achieve and the gifts you have the potential to give to the world.

Relentless in its inspiration, candour and warmth, A Colourful View From the Top is a vital anthology of twenty-one voices who are at the top of their game in business and beyond. Whether their specialism be advertising, tech, law or art, each luminary offers a unique and deeply meaningful collection of lessons and affirmations to draw upon time and time again.

Discover how they became influential figures in culture and corporate life; how their achievements haven't been defined or limited by their race, gender or age; how sometimes the most fulfilling careers involve twists, turns and side hustles; how corporate success need not preclude social awareness.

ISBN-13 978-1408715819

The Girl With No Reflection

by Keshe Chow

A princess. A portal. A prophecy.

Ying Yue believed in love . . . once. Yet when she's chosen to wed the Crown Prince, Ying's dreams of a fairy tale marriage fall apart. Her husband-to-be is cold and indifferent, confining Ying to her room for reasons he won't explain. And whispers swirl: of seven other brides who mysteriously disappeared after their own weddings.

Left alone with only her reflection for company, Ying begins to see strange things in her mirror. And on the eve of her wedding, she unwittingly tears open a gateway and is pulled into another world. The realm is full of sentient reflections, including the enigmatic Mirror Prince. He is kind and compassionate, unlike his real-world counterpart, and before long Ying falls in love.

But soon she discovers that the two worlds have a blood-soaked history, and Ying has a part to play in both. And the brides who came before her? By the time they discovered their roles, it was already too late . . .

Winner of the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Prize for an Unpublished Manuscript 2022

Shortlisted for the 2025 ABIA Awards John Marsden Book of the Year for Older Children.

ISBN-13 978-1399733793

Open Water

Caleb Azumah Nelson

Two young people meet at a pub in South East London. Both are Black British, both won scholarships to private schools where they struggled to belong, both are now artists -- he a photographer, she a dancer -- trying to make their mark in a city that by turns celebrates and rejects them. Tentatively, tenderly, they fall in love. But two people who seem destined to be together can still be torn apart by fear and violence.

At once an achingly beautiful love story and a potent insight into race and masculinity, Open Water asks what it means to be a person in a world that sees you only as a Black body, to be vulnerable when you are only respected for strength, to find safety in love, only to lose it. 

ISBN-13 978-0241448786

WINNER OF THE COSTA FIRST NOVEL AWARD 2021

WINNER OF DEBUT NOVEL OF THE YEAR AT THE BRITISH BOOK AWARDS 2022

A No.1 BESTSELLER IN THE TIMES

You Can Change the World!: Everyday Teen Heroes Making a Difference Everywhere

by Margaret Rooke

This inspirational book tells the stories of more than 50 of today's teenagers who've dared to change the world they live in. It's been written to show other teens they can do the same. Bestselling author Margaret Rooke asks teens about their experiences of being volunteers, social entrepreneurs and campaigners, online and beyond. They explain how they have survived in a world often obsessed by celebrity, social media and appearance, by refusing to conform to other's expectations. If you want to achieve against the odds and create genuine impact, this book may be the encouragement you need. The interviews cover race, sexuality, violence, grief, neurodiversity, bullying and other issues central to life today. Read about teens from around the world including

- Trisha, 18, who has invented a way of preventing bullying online

- Dillon, 18, who takes damaged and donated clothing and upcycles it for the homeless

- Guro, 13, who persuaded a pop band to portray women differently in its video

- 'Happy D', 19, who learned to read at 14 and found ways to build his confidence

- Heraa, 19, who fights Islamophobia online.

- Ruben, 18, bullied because of Down's Syndrome, now a successful actor

- Lucy who, at 14, walked into Tesco head office and persuaded them not to sell eggs from caged hens.

- Cameron, 17, who has cerebral palsy and was side-lined by soccer teams who set up his own team 'Adversity United'

- Alex, 18, who broke his back on his 15th birthday and says his injury has taught him to care for others

- Amika, 18, who fights 'Period Poverty'

- Jesse, 15, who's seven feet tall and embraces his stature

- Billy, 18, who wore full make up every day at high school

ISBN-13 978-1785925023

Gold Winner of the Moonbeam Multicultural Non-Fiction Award 2019