She's got lots of friends, and her boyfriend is the school hunk. She's being encouraged to 'take the relationship to the next stage' by her friend Lizzie.Home is pretty much a non-event. Her mother seems distracted, her father breezes in and out but isn't really present, her brother is a stoner. Her life is turned upside down when Dad announces that he wants them to live on an off-shore island for a year and work to make it into a conservation island. Minna is horrified at the idea, as is her mother. All the more so when they discover that the whole venture is to be made into a reality TV series.To her utter dismay, Minna finds herself on an island, with only her family for company. There's no phone or email contact with the outside world. The helicopter ride to the island has made Mum sick and she doesn't seem to be recovering. Minna has to cope with new family dynamics, come to terms with the fact that her parents' marriage is doomed, and has to learn domestic arts that don't rate very highly on her excitement meter.Can you find a new you?

    Evelyn “Button” Peters is nine the summer Winnalee and her fiery-spirited older sister, Freeda, blow into her small town–and from the moment she sees them, Button knows this will be a summer unlike any other.Much to her mother’s dismay, Button is fascinated by the Malone sisters, especially Winnalee, a feisty scrap of a thing who carries around a shiny silver urn containing her mother’s ashes and a tome she calls “The Book of Bright Ideas.” It is here, Winnalee tells Button, that she records everything she learns: her answers to the mysteries of life. But sometimes those mysteries conceal a truth better left buried. And when a devastating secret is suddenly revealed, dividing loyalties and uprooting lives, no one–from Winnalee and her sister to Button and her family–will ever be the same.

    We both looked after Sophie and her baby. We had to. It’s not like Sophie was going to look after that baby herself. All she was interested in was weeping and wailing for her dead husband. She was so busy weeping and wailing for her dead husband that she rejected his baby who was right in front of her.When Olga’s friend Lara becomes a grandmother, Olga helps out whenever she can. After all, it’s a big imposition on Lara, looking after her bereaved daughter and the baby. And the new mother is not exactly considerate.But smoldering beneath Olga’s sensible support and loving generosity is a deep jealous need to be the centre of Lara’s attention and affection—a need that soon becomes a consuming, dangerous and ultimately tragic obsession.Gigi Fenster’s A Good Winter is an enthralling psychological thriller, a dark and complex portrait of a troubled mind.

    After her mother died, it’s all she can do to keep her friends, her boyfriend, her happiness from slipping away. And then there’s her dad. He’s stuck in his own daze, and it’s so hard to feel like a family when their house no longer seems like a home.Her father’s solution? An impromptu road trip that lands them in a small coastal town at Tessa’s grandmother’s. Despite all the warmth and beauty there, Tessa can’t help but feel even more lost.Enter Henry Lark. He understands the relationships that matter. And more importantly, he understands her. A secret stands between them, but Tessa’s willing to do anything to bring them together—because Henry may just be her one chance at forever.

    She couldn't have been more right, seeing as: a.) Her best friend, convinced she had found her soulmate, disappeared with some random guy. b.) Said best friend had Reed's purse and the car keys, leaving her no choice but to -c.) - accept the offer of said random guy's friend to look for their missing companions together. d.) Said random guy's friend was annoying, arrogant, and recklessly impulsive. e.) Oh, and he was hot, too. And that was only the beginning.

    As Denise's search leads her closer and closer to the one person she hoped she'd never have to face again, she begins to realize that her future depends on just one person--herself.This emotional and inspirational love story proves that life is full of unexpected twists and turns--especially when it comes to facing your demons, fighting for love, and finding happiness for the future.

    What clues can Frances find in her own history, and who is the mysterious Mazarine? Following the narrative thread left by her daughter, she travels through cities touched by terrorism and surveillance, where ways of relating are subtly changed, and a startling new fiction seems to be constructing itself.

    She is everything he isn't - rich, reserved and snobby - and symbolises everything he dislikes about the town. But appearances can be deceiving, and both Slade and Mallory have more in common than they first realise until he discovers the terrible secret that haunts her life. A truthful and engaging insight into friendship, self harm and identity from one of New Zealand's most popular writers for young people.Right Where it Hurtswas the Winner of the 2003 Library Association of New Zealand Aotearoa Esther Glen Award and Shortlisted in the 2003 New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards.

    I am nearly sixteen. I'm hungry for a juicy life. I lean out the window at night and I can taste it out there, waiting for me.Popular and smart, fifteen-year-old Rosie Moon is the quintessential good girl. She also wishes she could be someone else for a while, someone more interesting. Asher Fielding is the mysterious new boy at school who has dreadlocks and a love of Jim Morrison. On the first day of tenth grade, Rosie develops a crush on Asher, and when the two pair up for a poetry assignment they quickly form a bond. When Asher is falsely accused of stealing a wallet at school, he and Rosie decide to escape it all - their families, their school, their ordinary town - and hitchhike up the Australian coast. They know they shouldn't, and that is exactly why they do. Part road story, part love story, Guitar Highway Rose is a thrilling ride for anyone who has ever dreamed about escaping everyday life, even just for a little while.

    wild' while showcasing women's strength and purpose, and the power of friendship and laughter.Loretta is a school librarian, who embarks on compiling The Dangerous Book for Menopausal Women while waiting to collect her son from after-school activities.Chance is a teenager, who discovers an unusual creative outlet to offset the strain of her controlling mother.Riva is dedicated to the wetlands sanctuary she created, who is seeking a way to fulfil her promise to her dying sister to do something 'absolutely spectacular'.Within a clearing in the woods by a lake stands a den, a secret sanctuary and eventual meeting place for all three women . . .

    In Saved by the Music, Willow thinks she’s alone until she meets Axel, an older teen who lives isolated from the world on the sailboat docked nearby. An unlikely romance sparks as the two grapple with their darkest secrets and bond through shared pain and laughter. It is a summer where music must do more than just soothe the soul.

    With a fulfilling career and satisfying relationship, she has convinced everyone, including herself, that her life is just as she wants it to be. But one night, Marian answers a knock on the door . . . only to find Kirby Rose, an eighteen-year-old girl with a key to a past that Marian thought she had sealed off forever. From the moment Kirby appears on her doorstep, Marian’s perfectly constructed world—and her very identity—will be shaken to its core, resurrecting ghosts and memories of a passionate young love affair that threaten everything that has come to define her. For the precocious and determined Kirby, the encounter will spur a process of discovery that ushers her across the threshold of adulthood, forcing her to re-evaluate her family and future in a wise and bittersweet light. As the two women embark on a journey to find the one thing missing in their lives, each will come to recognize that where we belong is often where we least expect to find ourselves—a place that we may have willed ourselves to forget, but that the heart remembers forever.

    There, Allie can spend her days bantering with the street people, talking the talk with the staff, shepherding the uncool bridge-and-tunnel shoppers, all the while blissfully surrounded by music, music, music. It's the perfect setup for her to develop her secret identity as The Vinyl Princess, author of both a brand-new zine and blog. From the safety of her favourite place on earth, Allie is poised to have it all: love, music and blogging. Her mother, though, is actually the one getting the dates, and business at Allie's beloved record store is becoming dangerously slow--not to mention that there have been a string of robberies in the neighbourhood. At least her blog seems to be gaining interest, one vinyl junkie at a time....

    But then, it is Ma who is the cause of the most troubling question of all, the one Frankie can never bring himself to ask. When a new girl arrives at school — a daring free spirit with unavoidable questions of her own — Frankie’s carefully guarded world begins to unravel, leading him to a painful confrontation with the ultimate 10 p.m. question. Deftly told with humor, poignancy, and an endearing cast of characters, The 10 P.M. Question will touch everyone who has ever felt set apart.