Fresh New Fiction

Atticus Claw Settles a Score by Jennifer Gray (sequel to Atticus Claw, Breaks the Law)

Atticus Grammatticus Cattypus Claw, the world’s greatest REFORMED cat burglar is back. This time, the tabby with talent is on the right side of the law. And when Jimmy Magpie and his gang are busted out of jail by a mysterious villain and an evil cat called Ginger Biscuit, Atticus knows from bitter experience he’s going to need all his skill and courage to catch them.

 

 

 

A Very Peculiar Plague by Catherine Jinks 

The thrilling second book in this 3-part series, set in a time when science clashes with superstition and monsters lurk in chimneys. Jem takes on the role of bogler’s apprentice and gets the fright of his life.

 

 

 

 

Osbert The Avenger by Christopher William Hill

Meet Osbert Brinkhoff, the unlikeliest of avengers.  His is a tale of dark delights and ghastly goings-on, of injustice and revenge.  The Villains are VICIOUS.  The settings are SINISTER.  And good does NOT always prevail…  If you prefer CLEAVERS to kittens and FIENDS to fairies…. then welcome to the GRUESOMELY FUNNY tales from Schwartzgarten.; (taken from book cover)

 

 

 

 

Project Huia by Des Hunt

“Logan’s grandfather grew up near Palmerston North in the 1940s. One day, he and his sister Mavis spotted a beautiful and unusual bird in the kowhai tree outside their house: it was a huia bird, which was believed to be extinct. The bird flew away, and in an attempt to photograph it they managed to track it deep into the Manawatu Gorge. It was a dangerous journey through two train tunnels, made even more so when the horrible Carson boys got wind of their mission and decided to try and find the huia first so they could shoot it and sell its highly valuable feathers. More than 60 years later, 11-year-old Logan has returned to the Manawatu with Grandpop and a scientist to try and solve the mystery of what happened to the huia that he and Mavis found all those years ago. Grandpop must remember all the details of the events of many years ago. Can the group rely on his version of the events, and find the huia’s final resting place? Will the huia still be there, and will its DNA still be valuable for scientific research into NZ’s native fauna? And whoever would have thought that those Carsons are still living in the area and on the loose, and still up to their nasty tricks?”–Publisher information.

 

The Thing About Luck by Cynthia Kadohata

Just when twelve-year-old Summer thinks nothing else can possibly go wrong in a year of bad luck, an emergency takes her parents to Japan, leaving Summer to care for her little brother while helping her grandmother cook and do laundry for harvest workers.