Liz Berry Knihy

Seventeen-year-old Mel Calder is desperate for her life to change, and she is learning the hard way that only she can make it happen. Left alone in their run-down house after her mother's breakdown, Mel decides to repair and redecorate it for her mother when she comes home, but it's not long before the whole neighbourhood is involved. When Mel meets attractive Mitch Hamilton, lead guitarist with top rock group Asssassination, Mitch is more than willing to help with the house, but Mel is suspicious. She has no time for a boyfriend, particularly a famous one who will be off to other girls in other countries soon enough, and, besides, there's her lovely teacher, young Mr Edwards, so helpful and sympathetic. So when Mitch announces his intention to marry Mel, no one is more astounded than Mel herself except, perhaps, Mitch's girlfriend, the formidable Roxy Leigh. In her latest compulsively readable novel, Liz Berry has created a courageous and resourceful heroine, who finds she is able to assert her independence and, against the odds, make a future for herself.

Set in post-Roman Britain, the story follows Rhianna, who resides with her grandmother in a secluded village bordering the treacherous Perilous Forest. Amid the chaos of King Arthur's struggle against rebellious warlords, Rhianna's life unfolds in a tranquil yet precarious environment, highlighting the contrast between her sheltered existence and the broader conflicts shaping the realm. The narrative weaves themes of safety, familial bonds, and the impact of external turmoil on isolated lives.

'Home's not a place, you must believe this,but one who names you and means beloved.'In 1908, Eliza Showell, twelve years old and newly orphaned, boards a ship that will carry her from the slums of the Black Country to rural Nova Scotia. She will never return to Britain or see her family again. She is a Home Child, one of thousands of British children sent to Canada to work as indentured farm labourers and domestic servants.In luminous and tender poems, Eliza's world unfolds, a place where ordinary things are transfigured into treasures - a red ribbon, the feel of a foal's mane, the sound of her name on someone's lips. With nothing to call her own, the wild beauty of Cape Breton is the only solace Eliza has - until another Home Child, a boy, comes to the farm and changes everything.Inspired by the true story of Liz Berry's great aunt, this spellbinding novel in verse is an exquisite portrait of a girl far from home.