Lily's already got plenty going on living with a moody teenage sister, two feral brothers and a messy baby sister. Mum and Gran are stressed to the max, both dads are out of the picture and the cats aren't exactly pulling their weight. But when she starts getting mixed-up warnings not to go on holiday to the tiny, safe Scottish island of Millport, her summer just gets weirder and weirder. The thing is, whoever's talking to Lily doesn't even seem to know she's doing it. If she's a ghost, she's not a very good one. And there's something about her that Lily finds awfully, spine-tinglingly familiar. . . Spend the summer with Lily McLean in this beautifully written, laugh-out-loud adventure by Kelpies Prize winner Lindsay Littleson.
Lily's hoping to put all the madness of the previous summer behind her. Telling people you hear voices doesn't win you many friends. Especially when you're starting high school. Especially when everyone thinks you're just like your troublemaking big sister. At least Lily's best mates Rowan, David and Aisha will stand up for her. But when she finds nasty messages in her locker, Lily knows someone's out to steal her friends and leave her all alone. Lily hopes a fun trip to the Isle of Arran will bring her friends together, but soon those dramas seem like the least of her problems. Back home, her big sister's in big trouble: She might end up in jail -- or worse. The last thing Lily wants is to start up that weird psychic stuff again, but it might be her only hope... Spend the autumn with Lily in this beautifully written, laugh-out-loud sequel to Waterstones Children's Book Prize longlister The Mixed-Up Summer of Lily McLean by Kelpies Prize winner Lindsay Littleson.
'Across the moor galloped a huge dark beast; a heavily muscled horse with a gleaming, rippling black mane. The animal reared up, its hooves cutting the sky, its silken tail streaming like a banner. Its spiralled horn glinted in the sun.' Lewis is cold, wet and miserable on his school residential trip in the highlands of Scotland. The last thing he expects to see is a mythical creature galloping across the bleak moorland. Unicorns aren't real... are they? Lewis and his best friend Rhona find themselves caught up in a dangerous adventure to save the world's last herd of wild unicorns. Fighting against dark forces, battling the wild landscape, and harnessing ancient magic, can they rescue the legendary creatures in time?
With the warmth and humor we've come to know, the creator and host of A Prairie Home Companion shares his own remarkable story. In That Time of Year, Garrison Keillor looks back on his life and recounts how a Brethren boy with writerly ambitions grew up in a small town on the Mississippi in the 1950s and, seeing three good friends die young, turned to comedy and radio. Through a series of unreasonable lucky breaks, he founded A Prairie Home Companion and put himself in line for a good life, including mistakes, regrets, and a few medical adventures. PHC lasted forty-two years, 1,557 shows, and enjoyed the freedom to do as it pleased for three or four million listeners every Saturday at 5 p.m. Central. He got to sing with Emmylou Harris and Renée Fleming and once sang two songs to the U.S. Supreme Court. He played a private eye and a cowboy, gave the news from his hometown, Lake Wobegon, and met Somali cabdrivers who’d learned English from listening to the show. He wrote bestselling novels, won a Grammy and a National Humanities Medal, and made a movie with Robert Altman with an alarming amount of improvisation. He says, “I was unemployable and managed to invent work for myself that I loved all my life, and on top of that I married well. That’s the secret, work and love. And I chose the right ancestors, impoverished Scots and Yorkshire farmers, good workers. I’m heading for eighty, and I still get up to write before dawn every day.”
Unlock the secrets of the unsinkable ship... Bertha Watt, tree-climber and would-be polar explorer, is excited to be on RMS Titanic's maiden voyage, as she leaves Aberdeen behind for the glamour of a new life in America. But Bertha quickly realises that some passengers are behaving strangely, and she determines to unravel their secrets. With new friend, Madge, Bertha sets up her own detective agency to try and solve the mysteries onboard, but they have no idea that disaster is looming for Titanic. Can they help Johan find the hidden treasure and unmask the identity of the enigmatic Mr Hoffman before time runs out on the 'unsinkable' ship?
Paisley 1876.12-year-old Jim has escaped from the Poor House and now he must save his little brother from the same fate. His only hope lies in a mysterious family heirloom - a Paisley patterned shawl that has five guineas sewn into its hem - the price of a new life for Jim's family. Now he must find the shawl and steal it back from the big house where the girl with the red hair lives...Two different worlds collide in this gripping Victorian mystery as Jim and Jessie unravel the past and its pattern of secrets...
With the help of a wisecracking, steampunk robot, two accidental superheroes discover that they have inherited some amazing, if unusual, abilities. Computer whiz Megan can fly (mostly sleep-flying, but she's working on it) while her best friend Cameron can (in theory) transform into any animal, but mostly ends up as a were-hamster. Together they must protect the source of their ancestral powers from a wannabe evil mastermind and his gang of industrial transformer robots who've disguised themselves as modern art installations on their Greenock estate. It isn't easy to balance school and epic super-battles, not to mention finding time to search for other super-talents and train with their Mr Miyagi-esque were-tiger coach. Can Megan and Cam beat the bad guy, defeat his robot transformers and become the superheroes they were born to be? Kelpies Prize shortlisted author Paul Bristow creates a hilarious tongue-in-cheek superhero mash up with a dangerous twist!
From the Laws of Mount Misery: There are no laws in psychiatry. Now, from the author of the riotous, moving, bestselling classic, The House of God, comes a lacerating and brilliant novel of doctors and patients in a psychiatric hospital. Mount Misery is a prestigious facility set in the rolling green hills of New England, its country club atmosphere maintained by generous corporate contributions. Dr. Roy Basch (hero of The House of God) is lucky enough to train there *only to discover doctors caught up in the circus of competing psychiatric theories, and patients who are often there for one main reason: they've got good insurance. From the Laws of Mount Misery: Your colleagues will hurt you more than your patients. On rounds at Mount Misery, it's not always easy for Basch to tell the patients from the doctors: Errol Cabot, the drug cowboy whose practice provides him with guinea pigs for his imaginative prescription cocktails . . . Blair Heiler, the world expert on borderlines (a diagnosis that applies to just about everybody) . . . A. K. Lowell, née Aliyah K. Lowenschteiner, whose Freudian analytic technique is so razor sharp it prohibits her from actually speaking to patients . . . And Schlomo Dove, the loony, outlandish shrink accused of having sex with a beautiful, well-to-do female patient. From the Laws of Mount Misery: Psychiatrists specialize in their defects. For Basch the practice of psychiatry soon becomes a nightmare in which psychiatrists compete with one another to find the best ways to reduce human beings to blubbering drug-addled pods, or incite them to an extreme where excessive rage is the only rational response, or tie them up in Freudian knots. And all the while, the doctors seem less interested in their patients' mental health than in a host of other things *managed care insurance money, drug company research grants and kickbacks, and their own professional advancement. From the Laws of Mount Misery: In psychiatry, first comes treatment, then comes diagnosis. What The House of God did for doctoring the body, Mount Misery does for doctoring the mind. A practicing psychiatrist, Samuel Shem brings vivid authenticity and extraordinary storytelling gifts to this long-awaited sequel, to create a novel that is laugh-out-loud hilarious, terrifying, and provocative. Filled with biting irony and a wonderful sense of the absurd, Mount Misery tells you everything you'll never learn in therapy. And it's a hell of a lot funnier.
A tween’s foreign exchange experience lands her in London luxury—and some hot water as well! Twelve-year-old Jordan isn’t unhappy, but she’s definitely bored. So when she gets the chance to take part in a London exchange program, she’s thrilled to ditch her small town in Delaware and see the world across the pond. Unfortunately, Jordan’s host sister in London, Caroline, isn’t exactly enthusiastic about entertaining an American girl. Despite the chilly welcome, Jordan finds herself loving the city and Caroline’s group of friends, who are much nicer than Caroline herself. And then a major misstep leaves Jordan and Caroline trapped together overnight—inside Daphne’s, the world’s largest department store. Given they have complete access to all the fancy shoes, designer dresses, and coolest makeup around, there are worse places to be stuck. But when the girls’ fun has not-so-fun consequences, Jordan’s wish for excitement abroad turns into a lot more than she ever bargained for...
After Esmé's gran accidentally steals a lynx kitten, Esmé and school 'bad boy' Calum, take on a dangerous mission to return it to the wild in the Scottish Highlands
