I’m so excited to be going to my first ever Nothern YA Literature Festival! This is a wonderful event that takes place in Preston on the 16th of March. There’s lots of amazing authors going and quite a few them have books which are sitting on my TBR so I thought it would be fun to make a post about all the books I’m hoping to read before the event. It’s a pretty ambitious TBR, but I’m up for a challenge!

1. After the Fire – Will Hill
After the Fire is a book I know very little about, except that I know lots of people absolutely adore it, and it’s won tons of awards. I’m pretty sure it features a cult, and I’m really intrigued to know more.

Father John controls everything inside The Fence. And Father John likes rules. Especially about never talking to Outsiders. Because Father John knows the truth. He knows what is right, and what is wrong. He knows what is coming.

Moonbeam is starting to doubt, though. She’s starting to see the lies behind Father John’s words. She wants him to be found out.

What if the only way out of the darkness is to light a fire?

2. Trouble – Non Pratt
Non Pratt is one of those authors I’ve always wanted to read and just haven’t gotten around to trying yet. I saw Trouble in a second hand book shop so I quickly snapped it up and I’m looking forward to trying it out.

When the entire high school finds out that Hannah Shepard is pregnant via her ex-best friend, she has a full-on meltdown in her backyard. The one witness (besides the rest of the world): Aaron Tyler, a transfer student and the only boy who doesn’t seem to want to get into Hannah’s pants. Confused and scared, Hannah needs someone to be on her side. Wishing to make up for his own past mistakes, Aaron does the unthinkable and offers to pretend to be the father of Hannah’s unborn baby. Even more unbelievable, Hannah hears herself saying “yes.”

Told in alternating perspectives between Hannah and Aaron, Trouble is the story of two teenagers helping each other to move forward in the wake of tragedy and devastating choices. As you read about their year of loss, regret, and hope, you’ll remember your first, real best friend—and how they were like a first love.

3. Monsters in the Mirror – A. J. Hartley
This is a middle-grade fantasy novel that just sounds brilliant! I’m going to be on the blog tour for this one so stay tuned for full review!

Darwen Arkwright’s world is turned upside down when he is forced to move from a small English town to Atlanta in the United States of America. Feeling out of place and struggling to fit in at school, Darwen seeks solace in a mysterious shop full of mirrors. It’s there that he discovers the ability to step through mirrors into different worlds – worlds beyond his wildest imagination. Darwen befriends creatures including Moth, a tiny being with mechanical wings, but he soon learns that there is a terrible darkness threatening this new world . . . and only he can save it.

The problem with doors is that they open both ways. There are monsters inside, and some of them are trying to get out . . .

4. Song of Sorrow – Melinda Salisbury
Melinda Salisbury is one of my favourite authors so I am super excited to have a copy of Song of Sorrow to read. This is the second instalment in the series and I’m so excited to find out what’s going to happen next!

Sorrow Ventaxis has won the election, and in the process lost everything…

Governing under the sinister control of Vespus Corrigan, and isolated from her friends, Sorrow must to find a way to free herself from his web and save her people. But Vespus has no plans to let her go, and he isn’t the only enemy Sorrow faces as the curse of her name threatens to destroy her and everything she’s fought for.

5. The Priory of the Orange Tree – Samantha Shannon
This one is technically cheating because it doesn’t come out until next week but it is one of my most anticipated releases and I’m just dying to read this one.

A world divided.
A queendom without an heir.
An ancient enemy awakens.

The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction—but assassins are getting closer to her door.

Ead Duryan is an outsider at court. Though she has risen to the position of lady-in-waiting, she is loyal to a hidden society of mages. Ead keeps a watchful eye on Sabran, secretly protecting her with forbidden magic.

Across the dark sea, Tané has trained all her life to be a dragonrider, but is forced to make a choice that could see her life unravel.

Meanwhile, the divided East and West refuse to parley, and forces of chaos are rising from their sleep.

6. The Graces – Laure Eve
I got this as a Christmas present last year and I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet but it sounds amazing and I definitely hope I get to it before the festival!

Everyone said the Graces were witches.

They moved through the corridors like sleek fish, ripples in their wake. Stares followed their backs and their hair.

They had friends, but they were just distractions. They were waiting for someone different.

All I had to do was show them that person was me.

Like everyone else in her town, River is obsessed with the Graces, attracted by their glamour and apparent ability to weave magic. But are they really what they seem? And are they more dangerous than they let on?

7. Spark – Alice Broadway
I read Ink a while ago and loved it but I still haven’t gotten around to Spark yet so I figured this was the perfect opportunity!

Leora is reeling: questioning everything she has ever known about her family and herself.

As half-Marked and half-Blank, can she ever wholly belong in either fractured community? Mayor Longsight wants to use her as a weapon: to infiltrate Featherstone, home of the Blanks, and deliver them to him for obliteration. Leora longs for answers about her mysterious birth mother, and Featherstone may reveal them.

But will she find solace and safety there or a viper’s nest of suspicion and secrets? 

8. Floored – Various Authors
This book is really intriguing to me because it’s written by so many authors that I love, and quite a few that are going to the festival –  Melinda Salisbury, Sara Barnard, Non Pratt, Holly Bourne, Tara Byrne, Eleanor Wood and Lisa Williamson. I’m excited to see how it will work with so many authors collaborating in one story.

When they got in the lift, they were strangers (though didn’t that guy used to be on TV?): Sasha, who is desperately trying to deliver a parcel; Hugo, who knows he’s the best-looking guy in the lift and is eyeing up Velvet, who knows what that look means when you hear her name and it doesn’t match the way she looks, or the way she talks; Dawson, who was on TV, but isn’t as good-looking as he was a few years ago and is desperately hoping no one recognizes him; Kaitlyn, who’s losing her sight but won’t admit it, and who used to have a poster of Dawson on her bedroom wall, and Joe, who shouldn’t be here at all, but who wants to be here the most.

And one more person, who will bring them together again on the same day every year.

9. A Girl Called Shameless – Laura Steven
I read The Exact Opposite of Okay last year and it was an instant five star read for me. I picked up the sequel today and I’m so excited to dive in!

Funnier. Ruder. Angrier. Izzy O’Neill is back in the hilarious sequel to The Exact Opposite of Okay. 

It’s been two months since a leaked explicit photo got Izzy involved in a political sex scandal – and the aftershock is far from over. The Bitches Bite Back movement is gathering momentum as a forum for teenage feminists, and when a girl at another school has a sex tape shared online, once again Izzy leads the charge against the slut-shamer. This time she wants to change the state law on revenge porn. 

Izzy and her best friend Ajita are as hilarious as ever, using comedy to fight back against whatever the world throws at them, but Izzy is still reeling from her slut-shaming ordeal, feeling angry beyond belief and wondering – can they really make a change?

So that’s my TBR for NYALitFest! Hopefully I can make a good dent in it over the next week or so and I do have the three hour journey down there to read some books too! I would love to pick up Wing Jones by Katherine Webber and maybe something by Lucy Christopher too but I’m not sure I’ll be able to squeeze anymore in. If you want to know more about the event, or register to attend (it’s free), all the information is here! If you’ve read any of these definitely let me know which ones to prioritise!