The Juno series by Fleur Beale

• Book 1 – Juno of Taris

• Book 2 – Fierce September
• Book 3 – Heart of Danger

Once I got in to Juno of Taris I couldn't put it down.  Fleur Beale’s strength with this series is her characters, the strong bonds between them and also the conflict between them.  Fleur really makes you feel for her characters and the strange situation that they are in.  After reading the first book, I would have been satisfied to leave the characters as they were, then Fleur wrote two sequels.  I really enjoyed following these characters as they settled into their new life, and it was great to find out more about the other characters in the series.

Reviewed by Zac Harding. Review taken with kind permission from http://www.bestfriendsrbooks.com, 2013.

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And here is a review from my daughter:

Juno of Taris by Fleur Beale is a futuristic novel set in the year 2225 and it tells the tale of a young girl by the name of Juno. Juno is one of 500 chosen people to live on Taris, a remote island in the middle of the raging Pacific ocean. It is protected by a giant dome creating its own climate, shutting of contact from the rest of the dying world.

The leaders of Taris govern the people to lead basic, transparent lives. Questions are left unanswered, speech and actions which are out of line are shunned and reading and writing does not exist. Juno rebels against her oblivious community and demands answers, but when her parents are given permission to fill the recently emptied 500th spot in the community, Juno realises she must comply, or else she might end up dead herself...

Juno of Taris is a fantastic book that makes you think and shocks you with its content. Fleur creates the amazing world of Taris, a rushed utopia of the desperate 21st century world, through the first half of the book, and then BAM!!!! ... you are plunged into a whirlwind of mind- boggling events that will leave you craving more.

I recommend this amazing book to add to your must-read list!

I rate this book with ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼!

Saoirse Hill-Shearman, 13

Mandy Hager’s The Nature of Ash is one of the finalists in the Young Adult category of the 2013 New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards.  It was one of my favourite Young Adult books of 2012 so I’m really glad to see it as a finalist.  I reviewed it back in June last year, so if you want to hear all about it and find out what makes it such a worthy finalist, read on.

I love books with lots of action, but I also want to read about characters that I care about and can relate to.  Those books are the ones that make me keep reading furiously, just to make sure the characters make it to the end of the book alive.  I love books like Hunger Games, Divergent and The Maze Runner for this very reason, but there aren’t many books like this for teenagers set in New Zealand (Fleur Beale’s Juno series and Brian Falkner’s Tomorrow Code are the only ones that come to mind).  Mandy Hager has set a new standard in thrilling, action-packed stories for NZ teens with her new book, The Nature of Ash, and I’ll say it can proudly stand alongside these international, best-selling dystopian thrillers.

Ash McCarthy thought he finally had it made: away from home and all its claustrophobic responsibilities, he’s revelling in the freedom of student hostel life. But life is about to take a devastating turn, when two police officers knock on his door. Their life-changing news forces him to return home to his Down Syndrome brother Mikey, and impels him into a shady world of political intrigue, corruption, terrorism and lies . . . so many lies. As if this isn’t bad enough, the whole country is imploding, as the world’s two greatest super-powers start a fight that leaves New Zealand ‘piggy-in-the-middle’ of their deadly games. While trying to protect Mikey, along with strangers Travis and Jiao, his fight to uncover the truth turns into a nightmare race to save their lives and stop the destruction of all the principles he holds dear.

The Nature of Ash is an exciting, explosive, action-packed thriller that had me on the edge of my seat from start to finish.  From the first page I got caught up in Ash’s life and the horrific situation he finds himself in.  Mandy Hager has painted a picture of a future New Zealand that you could imagine turning from fiction into fact.  Our country is caught in the middle of a conflict between the two super powers of the world, the Western Alliance (USA, UK, Australia, Taiwan, Malaysian Federation, Republic of Indonesia, Peru) and the United People’s Republic (China, East Russia, United Korea, Japan, Republic of Indochina, Fiji, Chile).  Our Prime Minister is corrupt and will sell his loyalty to the highest bidder, there are protests, riots and looting breaking out all over the country, and food is running low.  In short, the country is falling apart and things keep getting worse.  In the middle of it all is Ash, who had gone to study in Christchurch, but gets called back to Wellington when a bomb explodes at his dad’s office.

In my opinion, Ash is one of the most authentic male teen characters in New Zealand fiction.  Mandy Hager is absolutely spot-on with Ash’s voice, his actions and decisions.  Sure, he swears, he drinks, and smokes some weed, but in the crappy situation that he’s in you can completely understand why he talks the way he does and makes those decisions.  He’s fiercely loyal to his family, especially his brother Mikey, who has Down Syndrome.  Even though it’s hard to look after Mikey and keep him calm and happy, Ash does all that he can to help him and protect him from harm.  I also loved Jiao and Travis, the other teenagers that escape from the city with them.  Jiao is an Asian girl who often looks after Mikey and is someone that he trusts (and has a bit of a crush on) and Travis is the son of policewoman Jeannie.  The group have some tense moments but they pull together when they need to.

The adult characters are a real mixed bag.  Ash and Mikey’s Dad is a very loving parent who really cares about his kids.  He’s always telling them he loves them and provides them with what they need.  Ash is left with no doubt that his father loves him and does all he can to protect them, even hiding secrets from them so they don’t need to worry.  There are many other adults who help them along the way, including Jeannie, Lucinda, Simon, and one of my favourite characters, Erich.  Then there are the immoral, sadistic characters, like the members of Muru, whose actions made me so angry.

Mandy Hager has created a story and characters that will stay with me long after I’ve put the book down.  I’m sure that teenage boys in particular will relate to Ash and his struggle to do what’s right.

5 out of 5 stars

Please note:  Ash uses some quite strong language (which I think is perfectly acceptable because of his situation) so I would recommend the book for 13+.

Reviewed by Zac Harding. Review taken with kind permission from http://www.bestfriendsrbooks.com, 2013.

Thanks to the various book prizes that are awarded both here in New Zealand and overseas there have been some fantastic new authors for children and young adults discovered.  Some of my favourite authors have won the Text Prize in the last few years, including Richard Newsome and Leanne Hall, which has started them on their writing career.  The Tessa Duder Award is a relatively new award in New Zealand and it is given annually to the unpublished author of a work of fiction for young adults aged 13 and above.  Last year’s very deserving winner was Rachel Stedman.  I’m extremely glad she won because her book, A Necklace of Souls is a brilliant fantasy that left me awestruck.  It has just been published in New Zealand, just in time for NZ Book Month.

In the hidden Kingdom of the Rose a Guardian protects her people with the help of a magical necklace. But evil forces are also seeking the necklace, and as the Guardian grows weaker these forces threaten to destroy the Kingdom. Dana, the rightful heir, must claim the necklace and save her people. Her duty is clear: to protect her homeland she must submit to the power of the necklace. But all power comes at a price – a price that Dana may not be willing to pay.

A Necklace of Souls is gripping, dark fantasy that sweeps you up takes you on a wild ride.  It has reignited my love of fantasy stories.  R.L. Steadmantransported me to a medieval world similar to ours, where illness and war has ripped through the world leaving death in its wake.  The one place that is safe, clean and peaceful is the Kingdom of the Rose, a magical, legendary place that is protected by a guardian.  We’re introduced to the two characters who are central to the story – Will and Dana.  Will lives outside the walls of the kingdom with a loving family, until the plague reaches his town and he is one of the only survivors.  Luckily for Will, his Auntie and Uncle provide safe passage for him into the Kingdom, where he becomes an apprentice.  It is inside the walls of the Kingdom that he meets Dana, the princess with a very important role to play.

I found the story absolutely fascinating.  Rachel draws you in with the mystery surrounding the Kingdom, the necklace and its Guardian, Dana’s strange gift of true dreaming, and the threat from an army from a far off land.  You know that all these pieces of the puzzle fit together somehow and you don’t want to stop reading until you find out how.  N’tombe was one of the characters that intrigued me the most because her past was so shadowy.  One of the things I liked most about the story was that, even when you got to the very last page, there is still a sense of mystery to the characters.

The story initially alternates between Will and Dana, but focuses more on Dana as the story progresses.  I found it interesting that Dana’s story was narrated by her, but Will’s story was told in the third person.  This seemed to fit the story though and I really enjoyed switching between the two.  Dana and Will are both wonderful characters but Dana stood out more for me.  She’s definitely not your average princess!  She’s not afraid to get dirty, she’s a skilled fighter, and she’s not interested in being the center of attention or attending to her royal duties.  She’s the complete opposite of her mother, who is incredibly vain and more interested in her face creams than the welfare of her people.  Dana’s journey through the course of the story and the burden she has to carry has a huge effect on her.

A Necklace of Souls is a story that will stay with me for a long time and I hope that there is more of Dana and Will’s story to come.  I think that A Necklace of Souls can stand proudly beside the likes of Christopher Paolini’s Eragon,and Rachel Hartman’s Seraphina as a great fantasy story for teens and adults alike.  Everybody should go out and buy a copy for NZ Book Month and support this wonderful New Zealand author.

5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed by Zac Harding. Review taken with kind permission from http://www.bestfriendsrbooks.com, 2013.

What do you think the world would be like if you fell asleep right now and woke up in 100 years time?  Would the world be incredibly technologically advanced or would it be ravaged by an apocalyptic event?  Would people be more tolerant of differences in race, ethnicity and sexuality? Karen Healey shows us her version of a future in earth in her latest book, When We Wake, about the first person to be cryonically frozen and successfully revived.

Sixteen-year-old Tegan is just like every other girl living in 2027 – she’s happiest when playing the guitar, she’s falling in love for the first time, and she’s joining her friends to protest the wrongs of the world: environmental collapse, social discrimination, and political injustice. But on what should have been the best day of Tegan’s life, she dies – and wakes up a hundred years in the future, locked in a government facility with no idea what happened.

Tegan is the first person to be cryonically frozen and successfully revived, which makes her an instant celebrity – though all she wants is to rebuild some semblance of a normal life … including spending as much time as possible with musically gifted Abdi, even if he does seem to hate the sight of her. But the future isn’t all she hoped it would be, and when appalling secrets come to light, Tegan must make a choice: Does she keep her head down and survive, or fight for a better future?

When We Wake has everything a great science fiction story should have – mystery, action, actual science, a future world, cool technology, and a main character who you route for right from the start.  Karen keeps you guessing and her writing is fast-paced so you want to keep reading so you can find out how it ends.

It’s a sign of a great character when you connect with them as soon as they start talking.  Karen hooked me in from the first paragraph and I wanted to know everything about Teegan and the insane situation that she finds herself in.  You empathise with her because you know how strange and difficult it would be to adapt to a different world. The more you find out about her and the sort of person she is, the more I liked her.  She’s the sort of person who won’t be pushed around and told what to do.  Even though she’s told by the army and various religious groups that her life doesn’t belong to her she does everything to prove them wrong.  She’s not concerned about making a spectacle, even when she’s being broadcast to millions of people around the world.  Other people try to force their morals and ethics on to Teegan, but she has her own strong opinions and no one is going to change those.

One of the things that really stood out for me in When We Wake was the way that Karen brought the future society’s moral and ethical views into the story.  Many science fiction stories (especially for teens) don’t delve into these aspects of future worlds so it made Karen’s feel fresh and different.  Through Teegan you see how the future society’s views of religion, ethnicity, and sexuality have changed, and how, even with massive climate change, people still aren’t looking after the planet.  Like today’s society, many of the people in charge of this future earth have questionable morals and ethics, and it’s these that shape the story.

5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed by Zac Harding. Review taken with kind permission from http://www.bestfriendsrbooks.com, 2013

Risha is strong and outspoken, and at 16 has developed into a leader of men, a strategic thinker, and a woman — one can imagine — who will assume the legacy left by her mother.

The story begins with 13-year-old Risha living a simple life in the mountains with her father. When her father suddenly dies, Risha is left alone, an outcast of her village. Disguised as a boy, Risha leaves the village with a group of traders, on a quest to find out the truth about her mother and her heritage.

Here begins a grand sweeping adventure as Risha is caught up in dangerous pursuits, intrigue, trickery and betrayal. She is left for dead, confused by the actions of many, and is made to hide from those who wish her harm. She finds out by chance that she is Cattra’s daughter. Who is Cattra — and why do so many wish Risha harm?

Cattra’s Legacy tells of the journey of Risha, not only across the wild land in which she lives, but from timid young girl to fierce and powerful young woman.  Risha’s world is full of secrets, lies, promises, danger, strategy, rescue missions, and plenty of fighting.  Anna has created Elgard, a world that is both beautiful and harsh, and she takes Risha from one corner of the land to another.  From her rocky mountain home of Torfell where she has grown up, Risha travels through the busy city of Caledon, the Lacstone Marshes and the Citadel at LeMarc.  As you delve further into the story you discover the politics of Elgard, the struggle for power between the various rulers, and the enormity of the task that Risha has ahead of her.  There was one particular part of the story, when Risha and Torfell are going through the marshes, that reminded me of the Swamps of Sadness scene from one of my favourite movies, The Neverending Story.  It’s a heart-breaking part of both the movie and Anna’s book, and I’d love to know if this part of the story is a tribute to that movie or just a coincidence.

Risha is a wonderful character who grows so much throughout the story, and she grew on me more and more as the story progressed.  She starts off as a timid young girl who lives a quiet life with her father in the mountains of Torfell, but the events of the story mean she has to grow up fast.  She grows in to a fierce and powerful young woman, who is very self-assured and you wouldn’t want to cross her.  You know that she is going to become a strong, but kind leader of her people and will do everything in her power to unite the people of Elgard.  One thing I really like about her is that she’s really focused on her duties.  Even though she could have her pick of the males around her, romance isn’t her number one priority.  I’m sure that romance will come in to the other books that are to follow in the series.

Review by Zac Harding. Review taken with permission from http://www.bestfriendsrbooks.com. 

It’s New Zealand, 1914, and the biggest war the world has known has just broken out in Europe. William eagerly enlists for the army but his younger brother, Edmund, is a conscientious objector and refuses to fight. While William trains to be a soldier, Edmund is arrested. Both brothers will end up on the bloody battlefields of France, but their journeys there are very different. And what they experience at the front line will challenge the beliefs that led them there.

My Brother’s War is a compelling story about two brothers who have very different opinions and experiences of the First World War.  William feels very strongly that he needs to play his part in the war and so he enlists in the army.  The people in his town commend him for being brave and doing his part.  He believes he is doing what is right to protect his country and the people he loves.  He can’t understand his brother and thinks that his refusal to enlist is ‘wrong and stupid.’  His brother, Edmund, is a conscientious objector who believes it is wrong to go to war and kill other people.  The story switches between their two points-of-view so you see the huge differences in their experience of war.  The story is mainly told in the third person, but each of the characters write letters to their mother and this gives more of an insight into their thoughts and feelings.

You experience the build-up to the fighting and the horrible conditions of the battlefield through William’s story, but it was Edmund’s story that shocked me.  I knew a little about conscientious objectors before reading this book but Edmund’s story really opened my eyes to how horribly they were treated.  Conscientious objectors like Edmund were labelled cowards and treated like second-class citizens.  Edmund constantly refuses to obey army orders, but in the end really has no choice.  He’s put on a boat and taken to France where he is forced on to the battlefields.  In the training camps he is locked away with little food and water, and he also faces excruciating punishment for not following orders.  Edmund is incredibly strong-willed though and stands by his principles.

A quote from Edmund towards the end of the book sums up war perfectly, ‘I never knew some men could do such dreadful things to one another, and I never knew some men could be so kind and brave.’


Reviewed by Zac Harding. Review taken with kind permission from the Christchurch Kids Blog, 2013.

This novel by Maurice Gee is very much a perceptive examination of New Zealand and New Zealanders, as well as the life story, the search for identity of the protagonist.

Ranging from the Hutt Valley in the 1950s, to Wellington, to Takaka and Nelson the landscapes are the backdrops for the events in Ellie's life, but also for the post-WWII defining aspects of New Zealand’s social change: sexual repression and liberation, Vietnam, the “OE”, the Muldoon years, the Springbok tour, Rogernomics, escape to a lifestyle block in the country ...

A true test of character strength is to what extent people can define themselves in relation to others. "Just be yourself, then nothing can go wrong," Ellie's mother advises her. Despite this, she effaces her own personality, absorbed for decades by her new husband and his narrow-minded religion.

Ellie on the other hand goes on a journey to find herself, making plenty of false turns and mistakes on the way. While she drifts through New Zealand, from librarian, to work with a sheep-shearing gang, to apple-picker, to hippie on a commune, to mother, to partner of a self-centred writer, to artist, she manages not to lose her sense of self.

She looks always for love, although not at any price, and abandons lovers who threaten her freedom of choice, to be who she wants to be.  Essentially a loner with the driven nature of a true artist, she is not really a likeable character, though when she finally finds the self-knowledge and discipline to become a successful painter, she can at last make space in her life for the shadow man who haunted her thoughts over the years.

This is my no means an easy read, but compelling and well worth the effort.


Reviewed by Anneke a Campo.

Back in 1889 Sir Julius Vogel prophesied women presidents, prime ministers, and leaders of the opposition. He advocated social welfare and state housing, and foresaw a "noiseless telegraph." So far so good. 

His Anno Domini 2000 or Woman’s destiny is a mix of melodrama and utopia, thriller and science fiction and above all a book with a message. As a novel it is dated and clunky, with cardboard characters. The narrative is constantly interrupted by long-winded discursions on finance and politics. 

This book is worth reading, not for its silly plot, but as an insight into the mind of a nineteenth century Prime Minister of New Zealand. His “feminism” before there was a feminist movement, his “social welfare ideology” long before there was a Labour Party, go hand in hand with a naïve adoration for a lasting British Empire, an Empire which re-absorbs the dissolved United States of America! 

Though his name is associated with a Science Fiction award, do not expect a SF novel…

Reviewed by Anneke a Campo.

David Hair: Aotearoa series

The Bone Tiki and its sequel The Taniwha’s tear

The premise of this fantasy series is that alongside our contemporary New Zealand lies a parallel Aotearoa, the timeless, mythical land were people and other beings that are remembered in Maori legend live on. There are crossing places, where people who know how can cross from one world into the other.

Against this backdrop the action-packed plot takes the teenage protagonist to face human and non-human enemies in both worlds. The strongest point of the series is the use of Maori myth. Characterisation is not so well developed though there is an element of coming-of-age and coming-to-terms with a mixed heritage. This is an exciting NZ fantasy for the YA reader.

Reviewed by Anneke a Campo.

The heroine lives in an unspecified city with uncanny resemblance to Christchurch, in a boarding school near a university campus and has all the usual teenage girl worries about looks, weight, boyfriends (including a mysterious brooding gorgeous guy).

This could have become very boring, but fortunately the action, the mystery, some truly creepy characters and the mythology make this a page-turner. Readers looking for a supernatural vampire/werewolf romance may be disappointed however.

If you enjoy a strong female protagonist who is able to cope with whatever human and supernatural villains throw at her, this is an interesting, at time quite dark and grim fantasy cleverly using both European and Maori mythology.


Reviewed by Anneke a Campo.