Readings.com.au: Penni Russon

Only Ever Always

Does the world shape us, or do we shape the world? A suspenseful story of parallel realities - two girls in two worlds with two different ways to survive. 'Fascinating and absolutely memorable.' - Ursula Dubosarsky

Who dreams the dreamer?

Claire lives in an ordinary world where everything is whole. But inside Claire is broken. The silvery notes of her music box allow her an escape from her grief into a dream-world, into Clara's world.

Clara's world has always been broken. She finds broken things to swap at the markets; she walks the treacherous route past the brown river where lone dogs prowl; she avoids the seamy side when she can, but with powerful people pulling the strings, it's not always possible. Which world is real?

Claire's and Clara's paths are set to collide, and each has much to lose - or gain.

Original and poetic, this captivating novel explores dreams, grief, friendship and love through a brilliantly constructed dystopian fantasy world.

'Like the sound of the little loved music box that is so pivotal to the story, Penni Russon's Only Ever Always is both deeply touching and strangely eerie, leaving the reader with a mixture of warmth and apprehension, yearning and wonder - about death, life, language, art,dreams and childhood. Fascinating and absolutely memorable.' - Ursula Dubosarsky

Penni Russon was born in Hobart, and spent her childhood roaming around on a small mountain. Eventually she had to grow up, and she moved from Tasmania to Melbourne to study classics, archaeology, women's studies and contemporary literature. She writes, edits and teaches creative writing, and lives in outer Melbourne with her husband and three children.

Find out more about Penni at pennirusson.com, or her blog eglantinescake.blogspot.com

Little Bird (Girlfriend Fiction)

Ruby-lee is an ordinary girl, trying to do the right thing, and teetering on the edge of love. But is she looking in all the wrong places? Book 13 in the Girlfriend Fiction series: real life, real emotions, awesome stories.

Everything I know about love I learned in one short year. Somehow I'd coasted along all my life and then I fell in love twice, bam bam, just like that, and it left my heart spinning... Ruby-lee is cynical about love; after all, she's watched her sister Shandra call off her wedding three times a week. But when Shandra volunteers her to babysit her friend's seven month old baby, Ruby-lee discovers just what love means. First she's overcome by powerful feelings for tiny Maisy, then she starts spending time with Maisy's dad, Spence. She even begins to imagine a future together, as a family. But where will Ruby-lee's fantasies lead? And what sort of trouble could they get her into? When it looks like Ruby-lee might lose everything, she has to discover what love truly is to find her own heart.

Dear Swoosie (Girlfriend Fiction)

Book 17 in the Girlfriend Fiction series is a joyous story about a mothers, daughters, long lost friendship and romance, written by two of Australia's best YA authors. Another great read for girls. Fall in love with something real.

My mental telepathy is stronger than most people's. Once I stared at Lucy for a whole class, and she complained. If I can make it work on a blind person, I can make it work on anybody. - India

Rule number one of fortune telling give the customer what they want. We could have made a good team. Pity I wasn't a team player. I was a strictly solo kind of girl. - Poppy

India can see the future, and Poppy has a past. And when they discover old letters in the school attic it seems destiny has a plan for them. Who is the mysterious Swoosie? What does she have to do with Poppy's high-school sweetheart parents, and India's mum? Meanwhile plans for the reunion of the class of '89 are underway, and there's a lot of bad hair going round.

Does the past have the power to change the future and can the future heal the past? India and Poppy are about to find out.

'Funny, warming...A great tale of friendship and family...' Amelia 15
'A great read, complex and enthralling.' Akela 16

The Indigo Girls: Girlfriend Fiction

Zara's an alpha - the first letter of the Greek alphabet. She's popular. I'm more like one of the obscure letters in the middle that no one's ever heard of - an omicron or something.

Zara, Tilly and Mieke go to different schools and live in different social worlds. But for two weeks every summer they're the Indigo Girls - surfing, bushwalking, or just hanging out at the campground or the nearby resort. This year Mieke doesn't show up, and Zara and Tilly - the queen bee and the geek - are left circling each other, unsure how to relate without Mieke in the middle. Soon it becomes a summer of change and a summer of secrets; a summer for losing themselves but finding each other.

'Teenage girls will love the raw truth about their lives which has been captured in this book.' - Lucienne, age 16, Silverfish Book Group

Drift

Undine thinks she could be happy living in a world where Stephen is still alive. Back in the real world, Trout could be happy too - as long as he doesn't think about Undine's disappearance, or why her shadow appears in his photographs. Phoenix is new in town, a drifter, passing through with his conjuring tricks. But they can't keep drifting forever, and one hot summer night their worlds collide. Coincidence or confluence? Illusion or reality? Trout isn't sure he wants an answer and Phoenix isn't telling. All Undine knows is that she must find a way to return home. Someone is calling her name. Sister, come to me... In the spellbinding conclusion to the Undine trilogy, the girl and the magic must become one to quell the darkness forever.

Breathe

Trout walks the streets at night, obsessing over Undine and the events in the Bay, haunted by the image of his own death. In his search for answers he is drawn back to the chaosphere and to Max, who may hold the key to Undine's magic. But can he trust the mysterious Max? Undine promised her mother that she won't use her magic in her final year of school, but her father, Prospero, thinks her promise is dangerous. Against the idyllic background of Corfu, home of her father's ancestors, conflict rages inside her and Undine must answer the most important question of all: is she the magic, or is she the girl?

Undine

Being sixteen is confusing and unpredictable enough for anyone. But if you're Undine, you also begin hearing voices calling you home in the middle of the night … and then you suddenly produce a storm out of thin air. Your best friend Trout insists on falling messily in love with you, while you end up with a crush on his older brother. Meanwhile, the ocean begins appearing in your inland bedroom, and your dead father turns out to be not so dead after all …

Josie And The Michael Street Kids: Aussie Chomps

Josie and her mum are moving house. The problem is, she'll be living a million miles away. From her best friend. From the beach. From everything.

But then Josie finds a secret treasure map, and meets the kids from Michael Street . . .