Dusk

Dusk is more than just a girl—her DNA was fused with hawk genes in a military experiment to make the best warriors, resulting in traits like night vision. After 13 years of being held captive in a government lab, she escapes and hides in an abandoned town. There she lives in an uneasy truce with the other subjects who fled the lab: a horde of killer mutant rats and a clan of vicious guard dogs. Then one day, a boy named Jay stumbles into town. Will Dusk follow her human instincts and save Jay? Or will the hawk in her see an easy prey? In vivid prose, Susan Gates conjures a tale of science gone wrong that seems eerily realistic. As Dusk and Jay dance around both the local predators and each other, readers will find deep sympathy in their situation, even as they race through the pages to see what happens next.

Virtual World

When computer junkie Jack North downloads a pirated copy of Silicon Sphere from the internet, he can’t wait to try it out. After all, Sphere is said to be the ultimate in virtual reality, with graphics, sounds, even smells so realistic, you’d swear you were inside the game–or the game had somehow leaked out into the real world. But when other Sphere players start to disappear, Jack suspects there may be something more to it than meets the eye–something altogether sinister. What he discovers as he treads the line between reality and illusion, between sanity and madness, is a virtual world so nightmarish the only way out may be to give in.

I Is Someone Else

It is 1966, and the times, they are a-changin’. Fifteen-year-old Stephen is on his way to a summer program in France when he meets two glamorous new friends of his older brother, Rob, who has been missing for 18 months. They persuade Stephen to travel to Istanbul with them, to find his brother. And what a world opens up to him: a world of beautiful girls, drug busts, fascinating cultures, fast-moving friendships, and betrayals. As he travels further into Asia, the nature of Stephen’s journey changes: The search for his brother is replaced by an inner exploration, in which he must confront his own past, and his own dark secret.

Demons and Shadows: The Ghostly Best Stories of Robert Westall

Contains some of the author’s best ghostly tales, including “Rachel and the Angel,” “The Creatures in the House,” and the previously unpublished “Graveyard Shift.” By the author of The Stones of Muncaster Cathedral.

On the Run

Fifteen-year-old Luke is a skilled thief with a perfect record until the day he is caught running from a robbery gone wrong. He chooses to save the life of a blind girl, Jodi, rather than escape cleanly. As a result, Luke is given a shot at freedom if he will train to be Jodi’s guide in the London Marathon. The friendship that develops between the two offers Luke one last chance to discover just how far-and in what direction-he is willing to run. A taut, unpredictable read, this novel will appeal to anyone who has changed course in life . . . or is trying to figure out how.

Shades of Darkness: More of the Ghostly Best Stories

A companion volume to Demons and Shadows, this collection of eleven stories of the unexplained includes the tale of a nosy schoolgirl who helps a desperate ghost right a wrong and that of an antique camera that holds the clue to an old crime.

Ways to Live Forever

1. My name is Sam. 2. I am eleven years old. 3. I collect stories and fantastic facts. 4. I have leukemia. 5. By the time you read this, I will probably be dead. Living through the final stages of leukemia, Sam collects stories, questions, lists, and pictures that create a profoundly moving portrait of how a boy lives when he knows his time is almost up.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Christopher is 15 and has Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of autism. He is obsessed with maths, science and Sherlock Holmes but finds it hard to understand other people. When he finds a dead dog on a neighbour’s lawn he decides to solve the mystery and write a detective thriller about it.