This week’s Six For Sunday prompt is for some of my favourite books with red covers - so here they are!
1. The Beast Warrior by Nahoko Uehashi
This is the sequel to The Beast Player, so here’s the blurb for the first book!
Elin's family have an important responsibility: caring for the fearsome water serpents that form the core of their kingdom's army. So when some of the beasts mysteriously die, Elin's mother is sentenced to death as punishment.
With her last breath she manages to send her daughter to safety. Alone, far from home, Elin soon discovers that she can talk to both the terrifying water serpents and the majestic flying beasts that guard her queen.
This skill gives her great powers, but it also involves her in deadly plots that could cost her life. Can she save herself and prevent her beloved beasts from being used as tools of war? Or must she face the terrible battles to come?
2. Heartstream by Tom Pollock
Cat is in love. Always the sensible one, she can't believe that she's actually dating, not to mention dating a star. But the fandom can't know. They would eat her alive. And first at the buffet would definitely be her best friend, Evie.
Amy uses Heartstream, a social media app that allows others to feel your emotions. She broadcasted every moment of her mother's degenerative illness, and her grief following her death. It's the realest, rawest reality TV imaginable. But on the day of Amy's mother's funeral, Amy finds a strange woman in her kitchen. She's rigged herself and the house with explosives - and she's been waiting to talk to Amy for a long time.
Who is she? A crazed fan? What does she want? Amy and Cat are about to discover how far true obsession can go.
3. What’s A Girl Gotta Do? by Holly Bourne
HOW TO START A FEMINIST REVOLUTION: 1. Call out anything that is unfair on one gender, 2. Don't call out the same thing twice (so you can sleep and breathe), 3. Always try to keep it funny, 4. Don't let anything slide. Even when you start to break...Lottie's determined to change the world with her #Vagilante vlog. Shame the trolls have other ideas...
4. Outwalkers by Fiona Shaw
The border's closed... No one can get into Scotland, just like no one can cross the channel...
England is under the control of an authoritarian regime. Chips implanted in citizens' skin at birth mean anyone can be tracked, anywhere. But Jake, who breaks out of the Academy dorm he's been housed in, has decided to escape.
To go off-grid. To join a small group of independent spirits determined to keep away from the government's prying eyes. The Outwalkers. Only with them will Jake have a chance to reach Scotland - and safety.
5. A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder by Holly Black
The case is closed. Five years ago, schoolgirl Andie Bell was murdered by Sal Singh. The police know he did it. Everyone in town knows he did it. But having grown up in the same small town that was consumed by the crime, Pippa Fitz-Amobi isn't so sure. When she chooses the case as the topic for her final project, she starts to uncover secrets that someone in town desperately wants to stay hidden. And if the real killer is still out there, how far will they go to keep Pip from the truth . . .
6. The Astonishing Colour of After by Emily X.R. Pan
Leigh Chen Sanders is sixteen when her mother dies by suicide, leaving only a scribbled note: 'I want you to remember'. Leigh doesn't know what it means, but when a red bird appears with a message, she finds herself travelling to Taiwan to meet her maternal grandparents for the first time.
Leigh is far away from home and far away from Axel, her best friend, who she stupidly kissed on the night her mother died - leaving her with a swell of guilt that she wasn't home, and a heavy heart, thinking she may have destroyed the one good thing left in her life.
Overwhelmed by grief, Leigh retreats into her art and into her memories, where colours collide and the rules of reality are broken. The only thing Leigh is certain about is that she must find out the truth. She must remember.
