Ink by Alice Broadway - Every action, every deed, every significant moment is tattooed on your skin for ever. Leora is desperate to see her father's memory preserved, but in a world where your life story is written on your skin, will he prove worthy?
Piglettes by Clémentine Beauvais - Mireille, Astrid and Hakima are voted the three ugliest girls in their school, but does that mean they’re going to sit around crying about it? Well… yes, a bit, but not for long! A wickedly funny road-trip story.
Release by Patrick Ness - It’s Saturday, it’s summer and, although he doesn’t know it yet, everything in Adam Thorn’s life is going to fall apart. A new classic about teenage relationships, it's the most tender and personal novel from Patrick Ness yet.
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas - Sixteen-year-old Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her unarmed best friend by a police officer. Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, this is a powerful and gripping YA novel about one girl's struggle for justice.
Things a Bright Girl Can Do by Sally Nicholls - Through rallies and marches, in polite drawing rooms and freezing prison cells and the poverty-stricken slums of the East End, three courageous young women join the fight for the vote.
Welcome to Nowhere by Elizabeth Laird -
Omar and his family are driven from their Syrian home by war, taking with them only what they can carry. Yet no matter how far they run, the shadow of war follows them - where do you go when you can't go home?
Abir Mukherjee (A Necessary Evil) - Abir Mukherjee grew up in the west of Scotland. At the age of fifteen, his best friend made him read Gorky Park and he’s been a fan of crime fiction ever since. The child of immigrants from India, A Rising Man, his award-winning debut novel, was inspired by a desire to learn more about a crucial yet often forgotten period in Anglo-Indian history. It became the first in a series starring Captain Sam Wyndham and ‘Surrender-not’ Banerjee. Abir lives in London with his wife and two sons.
Kate Tempest (The Bricks that Built the Houses) - Kate Tempest was born in London in 1985. She has published two plays, Wasted and Hopelessly Devoted, and two collections of poetry, Everything Speaks in its Own Way and the acclaimed Hold Your Own. Her epic poem, 'Brand New Ancients', won the 2012 Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry. Her album Everybody Down was nominated for the 2014 Mercury Music Prize. She is a Next Generation Poet. The Bricks that Built the Houses is her first novel.
Édouard Louis (The End of Eddy) - Édouard Louis was born in 1992 and raised in the town of Hallencourt in the North of France, which is the setting of his first autobiographical novel, The End of Eddy. The book confronts the poverty, racism and alcoholism Édouard faced during his childhood - upon its publication in France, where it became a bestseller, it garndered extensive media attention and gave rise to debate and controversy over perceptions of the working class in France. It has since been translated into over 20 languages.
Mary Paulson-Ellis (The Other Mrs Walker) – Mary Paulson-Ellis lives in Edinburgh. She has an MLitt in Creative Writing from the University of Glasgow and was awarded the inaugural Curtis Brown Prize for Fiction in 2009 and the Maverick Award from the Tom McGrath Trust in 2011. Her short stories and non-fiction have been published in a variety of anthologies and magazines including New Writing Scotland, Gutter and the Herald. The Other Mrs Walker is her debut novel.
Fiona Mozley (Elmet) - Fiona Mozley was born in Hackney but grew up in York and studied at Cambridge before moving to Buenos Aires for a year - without speaking any Spanish. After briefly working at a literary agency in London, she moved back to York to complete a PhD in Medieval Studies. She also has a weekend job at The Little Apple Bookshop in York. Elmet is her first novel and has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2017.
Harriet Cummings (We All Began as Strangers) - Harriet Cummings is a freelance writer with a background in history of art and gender studies. As a script writer, she has had work performed at Edinburgh Fringe Festival, as well as independent venues around London. While studying at Faber Academy, Harriet threw herself into her first novel and hasn't looked back since. She lives in Leamington Spa with her husband and springer spaniel.