Blog Archives
Your Time Is Up by Sarah Naughton – Blog Tour Book Review
About the Book
One has a secret, one of them saw, there’s blood on the papers, who’ll take the fall?
Zaina never meant to get involved. The plan was always to focus on her exams, make her dad proud.
But none of this is what she’d planned for. Chanelle never made it to the exam; Nero’s convinced he saw something last night and Ysla can’t stop crying.
As Zaina starts to scratch the surface of secrets which desperately want to stay hidden she begins to wonder … how far will they go to keep her from the truth?
About the Author
Sarah Naughton worked as an advertising copywriter for ten years before her first book was published in 2013. A supernatural thriller for teens, The Hanged Man Rises was shortlisted for the Costa Book Awards and a second thriller for teens, The Blood List came out the
following year. She also writes psychological thrillers for adults. Tattletale was followed by Amazon bestsellers, The Other People, and The Mothers (The Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month). Her first Christmas YA thriller, You Better Watch Out, published in October 2023 with Scholastic.
She lives in London with her family.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahnaughtonauthor
X: https://twitter.com/SarahJNaughton
What I Thought
What if the worst thing about your A-Level Maths Exam wasn’t the equations?
Take one ticking clock, subtract memories of a drunken party, equals poor Zaina feeling the pressure. She wants to make her late dad proud and win the School Maths prize as well as get into her university of choice. But she also wants to know that she has won it all by being the best. And with one of her rivals sobbing throughout the exam and another one not having turned up the competition doesn’t feel very fair.
Add to that a falling out with your two best friends, one of whom seems determined to get you caught out for cheating by passing you notes and an AirPod, teachers prowling the exam room, students on “toilet breaks” prowling the school. Distractions are everywhere. Divide it all by blood splatter on the front of your exam paper,
and concentrating on quadratic equations becomes the last thing on her mind.
How can Zaina solve a disappearance – or maybe something worse, make up with her best friends, destroy her rivals, make her family proud and maybe even find love in the space of two supposedly silent hours.
Your Time Is Up is a tense thriller with an excellent hook. Zaina’s point of view during the exam is interspersed with her memories of the party she never should have gone to and police interviews with some of the “prime numbers” in the case.
Zaina’s pull between doing what she thinks is right and wanting to block everything out to fulfill her final promise to her dad definitely adds up to an engaging read. We also get a well developed sense of all the secondary characters that feature with each of them going on their own journey.
I would share a quote from near the end where Zaira’s mum gives her some wonderful words of wisdom that I think every teen facing GCSEs or A-levels but instead pop a copy of this book in their hands and they will be so relaxed heading into their next exam though simply knowing it won’t be as eventful as this one.
Fans of Holly Black and Karen M
McManus will enjoy this riveting rollercoaster. It even features actual maths discussion so may come in useful as revision for your maths exam!
Huge thanks to Bee at Kaleidoscopic Tours, Tina Moore’s and Scholastic for the #gifted copy for the purposes of an honest review. Do check out the other tour stops to see what everyone else thought.
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Alex Neptune: Zombie Fighter by David Owen – Blog Tour Book Review
About the Book
When a creepy fog rolls into Haven Bay, Alex, Zoey and Anil are ambushed by terrifying crab-riding zombies, controlled by the evil spirit of Brineblood the pirate.
The only weapon that can stop Brineblood’s zombie army is a powerful trident – but it’s been broken into three pieces. Alex, Zoey and Anil must enter three deadly worlds that have been magically trapped in bottles to retrieve the hidden pieces, all before the zombies can catch them. But with some penguins, an octopus and a frozen dragon on their side, how can they go wrong?
About the Author
Having worked as a freelance games journalist and taught on a BA Creative Writing course for three years, David Owen’s debut novel, Panther, was longlisted for the Carnegie Medal, and was followed by three further highly acclaimed YA novels. Alex Neptune is his first series for younger readers, born of his love for nail-biting heists, fantastical monsters and heartfelt friendships.
Instagram – https://instagram.com/davidowenauthor
What I Thought
Book 1 Review – Alex Neptune: Dragon Thief – https://kirstyes.co.uk/2022/08/03/alex-neptune-dragon-thief-by-david-owen-blog-tour-book-review/
Book 2 Review – Alex Neptune: Pirate Hunter – Alex Neptune: Pirate Hunter by David Owen – Blog Tour Author Interview and Book Review
Book 3 Review – Alex Neptune: Monster Avenger
Monster Avenger is my favourite book of the series to date. In it a parasite is infecting all the ocean creatures starting with Loaf the seal and there’s evidence that the Water Dragon is losing its battle with the infection and the results of that would be catastrophic.
Alex, Zoey and Anil get a distress call from new friend Meri and go in search of them, the missing baby dragon and a cure for the infection.
Then we take a very Inner Space like journey into the belly of the dragon, and its heart, lungs etc in order to administer the cure. As well as deadly stomach acid there are more foes lurking inside to keep them from their goal. There was also a highly entertaining Tarzan of the Jungle type scene featuring mucus vines!! (Spoilers for this book will feature in the book 4 review below).
Book 4 Review – Alex Neptune: Zombie Fighter
With Zoey and Anil having been gifted water magic Alex is no longer alone but instead finds himself in the role of teacher, while he is still coming to terms with the power himself.
But there is not much time for lessons when a mysterious fog and the mysterious clicking noise it contains rolls over Haven Bay and the safety of the town is once again threatened.
The zombie crabs are after Brineblood’s skull and after previously deciding that Argosy was not trustworthy enough to hold onto the skull his house is a last refuge to keep it from a greater evil.
Faced with a frozen water dragon it is up to the three fledgling magic holders to locate three trident prongs that when reunited would have the power to save them all.
What follows is a portal adventure and treasure hunt featuring volcanos, floods, penguins, monsters and some people who may not be what they seem.
The loss of the water dragon to icecubeness in this one drives Alex, Zoey and Anil to work together and learn from each other to achieve their goals.
As with the other books I really enjoy how the kids aren’t completely on their own with this and benefit from ongoing help from family and a variety of sea creatures. Alex’s Grandpa and sister Bridget are also excellent human characters to have along for the ride.
This is such an enjoyable series. Fast paced and action packed with an undercurrent of climate change/protect our oceans messaging that weaves into the plot smoothly.
Book 5 Review – Alex Neptune: Dragon Champion
Zombie Fighter’s ending has set – 2025 release Dragon Champion – up to be an epic concluding battle to a very fun series and is a book I will definitely be on my anticipated reads list for next year.
Huge thanks to Bee at Kaleidoscopic Tours and the publisher Usborne for the gifted copy for the purposes of an honest review. Do go check out the rest of the tour stops too.
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The Midnight Switch by Samuel J Halpin – Blog Tour Extract and Giveaway
About the Book
A spooky, quirky adventure of curses and magic, perfect for fans of Malamander and A Place Called Perfect.
When Lewis’s family moves to a faraway town called Barrow, he can’t quite put his finger on what feels so strange about his new home. Everyone is obsessed with superstition, and an old story about floods and witches and a curse, while a mysterious bird watches his every move.
Then his family friend Moira arrives to stay. Only, there’s something peculiar about Moira too. She doesn’t know where she’s from, or even when she’s from, and strange things happen around her. Lewis and Moira are determined to figure out what’s going on in Barrow, but as they unravel secret symbols, riddles and stories of a midnight curse, they find that there might be some truth in the old town tales.
Time is running out, before magic switches up everything they know…
About the Author
Born in Tasmania with Irish roots, Samuel J. Halpin writes daily. Having studied journalism at the University of New South Wales, Samuel went on to take cinematography at AFTRS, the national Australian film school in Sydney before moving to London and working in comedy TV production. His children’s books are his answer to a childhood raised on a hodgepodge of fairy tales, crowded bookshelves and cups of hot chocolate.
Twitter:
http://twitter.com/samueljhalpin
Instagram:
https://instagram.com/samueljhalpin
Giveaway
Can you break the riddle and stop the curse:
My first sounds like a body of water.
My second is in STORIES but not TALES or FICTION.
My third is LORE but not LEGEND nor REALITY.
My last is what starts it flying.
Post your answer on my The Midnight Switch Instagram story which will be pinned on my profile until the giveaway closes on Friday 3rd November.
Extract
In the meantime read chapter one here!
Huge thanks to Bee at Kaleidoscopic Tours and the Publisher Usborne for the gifted copy. I will be adding my review to this post when I have read. Follow along with the rest of the tour too.
kirstyes 