Katya Balen

'Heart-wrenching . . . A book to read in a sitting' LUCY CALDWELL'A gut-punch of a novel' EMMA DONOGHUE'Cathartic, bold and ultimately hopeful' JESSIE BURTON 'Masterfully written . . . Envelops you' JODIE MATTHEWS 'Powerful' CATHY RENTZENBRINKWhen her life is unexpectedly upended, Anna escapes London - and her husband - for a remote cottage in the wetlands of rural England. She hopes the solitude might unblock the novel she can't bring herself to write. Out in the marshes, the locals discover something shocking, risen to the surface after many years buried in the silty earth. Anna is drawn to the site, fascinated and shaken by what she finds there. And as researchers descend, her curiosity gives way to obsession . . . An unsettling, propulsive and fiercely tender novel about buried loss and renewal, Our Numbered Bones explores how we must unearth the past in order to make peace with what we've lost.

On the Island of Ayrie, everybody knows everyone. They know each other's stories as they know every road, every hill and the coming of the tide. In the summer, there are bonfires to celebrate the migration of the puffins. Everything is familiar, nothing much changes, and for Tilda, nothing ever should - it is beautiful, it is perfect and it is home. When newcomer Albie arrives at the island, Tilda wants to show Ayrie off - Albie wants her to leave him alone. She learns quickly that it'll take more than a tour and some seal viewings to win him around. Then, she remembers stories of the old island just an hour's boat ride away from the shore. The old island is a death trap. The journey there is treacherous. Trips across to it are strictly forbidden. And there's a rumour it's haunted by the ghosts of those left there to die. But with all else having failed, the old island is the only way for Tilda to make Albie see what she sees in Ayrie. Besides, it's a different kind of ghost that worries Tilda. The ghost that's been following her, now, since her brother left the island …

From the author of October, October, winner of the Yoto Carnegie Medal, comes a heartbreaking and heart-warming story about sisterhood, found family and accepting love in the most unusual and unknown places. Fen and Rey were found curled up small and tight in the fiery fur of the foxes at the very edge of the wildlands. Fen is loud and fierce and free. She feels a connection to foxes and a calling from the wild that she's desperate to return to. Rey is quiet and shy and an expert on nature. She reads about the birds, feeds the lands and nurtures the world around her. They are twin sisters. Different and the same. Separate and connected. They will always have each other, even if they don't have a mother and don't know their beginning. But they do want answers. Answers to who their mother is and where she might be. What their story is and how it began. So when a fox appears late one night at the house, Fen and Rey see it as a sign - it's here to lead them to their truth, find their real family and fill the missing piece they have felt since they were born. But the wildlands are exactly that: wild. They are wicked and cruel and brutal and this journey will be harder and more life changing than either Fen or Rey ever imagined ...

"Az erdőben lakunk, vadak vagyunk." Október az erdőben lakik az apukájával, és ez így van, amióta az eszét tudja. De a tizenegyedik születésnapján minden megváltozik. Apja lezuhan egy fáról, kórházba kerül, Október pedig kénytelen beköltözni az anyukájához Londonba. Hogyan sikerül alkalmazkodnia a nyüzsgő nagyvároshoz, és a maga vadságával megtalálnia a helyét az emberek között? A lélegzetelállító regény minden érzékszervedre hatni fog a csípős októberi reggelekkel, a lobogó tűz illatával, a gumicsizma cuppogásával a sárban! Október története megmelengeti az olvasó lelkét, miközben tele van kalandokkal! Tarts te is vad hősünkkel, fedezd fel magad, és fedezd fel a világot!

Katya Balen's October, October is a very special new addition to the shelf and deserves classic status - Times Children's Book of the Week A classic in the making for anyone who ever longed to be WILD. October and her dad live in the woods. They sleep in the house Dad built for them and eat the food they grow in the vegetable patches. They know the trees and the rocks and the lake and stars like best friends. They read the books they buy in town again and again until the pages are soft and yellow - until next year's town visit. They live in the woods and they are wild. And that's the way it is. Until the year October turns eleven. That's the year October rescues a baby owl. It's the year Dad falls out of the biggest tree in their woods. The year the woman who calls herself October's mother comes back. The year everything changes. Written in Katya Balen's heart-stoppingly beautiful style, this book is a feast for the senses, filled with the woodsmoke smell of crisp autumn mornings and the sound of wellies squelching in river mud. And, as October fights to find the space to be wild in the whirling chaos of the world beyond the woods, it is also a feast for the soul.