The Science of Breakable Things by Tea Keller

When life tries to break you, hold tight to your friends.

When Natalie's science teacher suggests that she enter an egg drop competition, Natalie thinks that this might be the perfect solution to all her problems. There's prize money, and if she and her friends win, then she can fly her botanist mother to see the miraculous Cobalt Blue Orchids--flowers that survive against impossible odds.

Natalie's mother has been suffering from depression, and Natalie is sure that the flowers' magic will inspire her mom to love life again. Which means it's time for Natalie's friends to step up and show her that talking about a problem is like taking a plant out of a dark cupboard and giving it light.

With their help, Natalie begins an uplifting journey to discover the science of hope, love, and miracles.

New Kid by Jerry Craft

Seventh grader Jordan Banks loves nothing more than drawing cartoons about his life.

But instead of sending him to the art school of his dreams, his parents enrol him in a prestigious private school known for its academics, where Jordan is one of the few kids of colour in his entire grade. As he makes the daily trip from his Washington Heights apartment to the upscale Riverdale Academy Day School, Jordan soon finds himself torn between two worlds—and not really fitting into either one.

Can Jordan learn to navigate his new school culture while keeping his neighbourhood friends and staying true to himself?

Boy everywhere by AM Dassu

When his mum and sister are caught in a bomb attack in a Damascus shopping mall, 13-year-old Sami and his family make the difficult decision to leave behind their lives in Syria.

For Sami, that means saying goodbye to the things he loves most: his friends, football, video games, and his home.

But things are about to get even worse as they begin their dangerous journey to seek asylum in the UK.

Through encounters with people smugglers, a perilous boat journey across the Mediterranean, and finally their arrival at a detention centre in Manchester, Sami learns that the world can be harsh and unforgiving - but that hope can be found in unlikely places.

King of Nothing by Nathanael Lessore

Anton and his friends are the kings of Year 9. They're used to ruling the school and Anton wears the crown.

The other kids run away when he's about but that's the way he wants it - he's got a reputation to live up to after all. So, when he gets into serious trouble at school, he doesn't really care, but his mum most definitely does.

She decides it's time for Anton to make some new friends and join the Happy Campers, a local activity group.

Anton would quite literally rather do anything else, especially when he finds out Matthew, the biggest loser in school, is also a member. But after Matthew unexpectedly saves Anton's life, Anton figures maybe this kid is worth a shot.

Teaching him some game is the least Anton can do to repay the debt. As the boys strike up an unlikely friendship, Anton finds himself questioning everything he thought was important.

The Betrayed by Kiera Cass

She gave her heart away. Now she’ll fight to get it back. Can you follow your heart when it’s already broken?

After fleeing the court of Coroa and leaving the memory of her beloved, the assassinated Silas Eastoffe, behind, Hollis is unsteadily adjusting to life with his family.

The Eastoffe's affection is a balm on Hollis’s weary spirt, though Etan, a surly cousin with a deep distaste for Coroans, threatens to upset the uneasy peace that Hollis has found. While tensions at home are mounting, disquiet in the kingdom of Isolte is reaching fever pitch.

XOXO by Axie Oh

Jenny didn’t get to be an award-winning, classically trained cellist without choosing practice over fun. That is, until the night she meets Jaewoo. Mysterious, handsome, and just a little bit tormented, Jaewoo is exactly the kind of distraction Jenny would normally avoid. And yet, she finds herself pulled into spending an unforgettable evening wandering Los Angeles with him on the night before his flight home to South Korea. With Jaewoo an ocean away, there’s no use in dreaming of what could have been.

But when Jenny and her mother move to Seoul to take care of her ailing grandmother, who does she meet at the elite arts academy she’s just been accepted to? Jaewoo. Finding the dreamy stranger who swept you off your feet in your homeroom is one thing, but Jaewoo isn’t just any student.

Turns out, Jaewoo is a member of one of the biggest K-pop bands in the world. And like most K-pop idols, Jaewoo is strictly forbidden from dating anyone. When a relationship means not only jeopardizing her place at her dream music school but also endangering everything Jaewoo’s worked for, Jenny must decide once and for all just how much she’s willing to risk for love.

Girl in Pieces by Kathleen Glasgow

Charlie Davis is in pieces. At seventeen, she’s already lost more than most people lose in a lifetime.

But she’s learned how to forget it through cutting; the pain washes out the sorrow until there is nothing but calm.

She doesn't have to think about her father or what happened under the bridge.

Her best friend, Ellis, who is gone forever. Or the mother who has nothing left to give her. Kicked out of a special treatment centre when her insurance runs out, Charlie finds herself in the bright and wild landscape of Tucson, Arizona, where she begins the unthinkable: the long journey of putting herself back together.

Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson

Eleanor Bennett won't let her secrets die with her. When Eleanor's estranged children Benny and Byron reunite for her funeral, they receive an unexpected inheritance.

First, a traditional Caribbean black cake, to remind them of their roots.

Second, the story of a decades-old murder that shatters everything they thought they knew about their mother. But as Benny and Byron unravel their family's troubled past, will the truth push them further apart? Or will it reunite them and fulfil Eleanor's final wish?

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

‘A woman has to be tough as steel up here. You can’t count on anyone to save you and your children. You have to be willing to save yourselves’ Thirteen-year-old Leni is coming of age in a tumultuous time.

Caught in the riptide of her parents’ passionate, stormy relationship, she dares to hope that Alaska will lead to a better future for her family, and a place to belong.

Her mother, Cora, will do anything and go anywhere for the man she loves, even if it means following him into the unknown. As Leni grows up in the shadow of her parents’ increasingly volatile marriage, she meets Matthew. And Matthew – thoughtful, kind, and brave – makes her believe in the possibility of a better life.

Case Histories by Kate Atkinson

Cambridge is sweltering, during an unusually hot summer.

To Jackson Brodie, former police inspector turned private investigator, the world consists of one accounting sheet - lost on the left, found on the right - and the two never seem to balance.

Jackson has never felt at home in Cambridge and has a failed marriage to prove it.

Surrounded by death, intrigue and misfortune, his own life haunted by a family tragedy, he attempts to unravel three disparate case histories and begins to realise that despite apparent diversity, everything is connected...