Books with Take Care attitude

The Edge is the land that borders on the emptiness beyond.

While most fantasy introduces the unusual, this book borders on strange. The myriad of bizarre characters would be bearable if they actually took the story somewhere, but by the end you feel like you’ve been bounced and splattered and sloshed all over the place only to reach an unsatisfactory conclusion. The only underlying (and over-emphasised) “value” is that the main character does the unthinkable… he strays from the path.

Genres: Adventure, Fantasy, Magic

Lord Gort, a cat is trying to find her owner, an RAF pilot.

A pleasant read for the most part; the action is seen either through the eyes of the cat, always couched in such terms as a cat would be expected to understand, or through those of the person to whom she's presently attached. The story is marred by the section concerning Sergeant Smith, who keeps a collection of pin-up girls, and the married woman who makes love to him on a hilltop.

Genres: Historical, Animal, War

Set slightly into the future when a decaying Britain is controlled by large criminal clans.

Powerfully written story based on Icelandic sagas. Disturbing vision of a future very pagan Britain ruled by brutality and where strength and cunning prevail. Christianity is reduced to an undistinguished sect.

Genres: Mythical, Fantasy, Gritty

Mia and her boyfriend go too far in the fields one day and Mia finds that she is pregnant.

Abortion treated as matter of fact by everyone except the mother-to-be.

Genres: Moral Issue, Coping with

Li, an intelligent Aquatic ape lives four million years ago on the shores of an African Sea; Vinny, now, is helping her father discover the fossilised remains of Li's tribe.

Interesting, helping the imagination discover the relationship between modern and ancient Africa; divorced parents; the birth of intelligence in mammals.

Genres: Thought-provoking, SciFi

Danny discovers that his former-SAS grandfather Fergus is back in England, and goes looking for him.

A young man and his girl friend trying to help his wrongly-accused grandfather to clear his name.

Genres: Adventure, Boys

A father and mother are convinced that the 20th century will corrupt their three daughters and so they buy a secluded farmhouse and base their life on the Bronte family.

Genres: Thought-provoking, Romantic, Girls

Bertram is a school minibus driver on the "Fruitcake Run", picking up various handicapped children.

Genres: Thought-provoking, Short

Laura, a 14-year-old New Zealander, turns to prefect Sorenson Carlisle - a witch - when her brother is possessed.

Genres: Magic

Sam, a Bradford student, gets to know Jenny, a Kingston schoolgirl when he uses her father's camera.

Unexceptional boy-meets-girl story; some references to Sam's previous sex.

Genres: Romantic

Will Stanton, seventh son of a seventh son, wakes on his 11th birthday to discover that he is the last of the Old Ones, destined to aid The Light in protecting the world we live in against The Dark.

A boy coming to terms with new-found powers and responsibilities; family life; love for music

Genres: Growing-Up, Magic

Old Singer Rialle is missing, and when Kyarra and her mother are taken, too, Second Singer Renn and Singer Kherron follow, believing that their old enemy Frahzin is behind the kidnapping.

Genres: Fantasy

Helen becomes pregnant with her boyfriend's baby and as she is so young and distraught she does not know whom to turn to.

Genres: Moral Issue, Coping with

George Archer finds himself under attack from a group who want the information in a diary of which he possesses the only remaining fragment.

Some grotesque scenes involving reanimation of men and animals by mechanical means. A fraudulent séance with a serious element. Possibly lethal violence used in self-defence by the protagonists.

Genres: Macabre, Adventure, SciFi

Kernel Fleck, able to see lights invisble to everyone else, frightens his parents when he returns from a mysterious absence with his younger brother Art.

Some shocking scenes as innocent people are killed grotesquely. Kernel's devotion to rescuing his younger brother. Dervish & Shark's loyalty to Kernel.

Genres: Macabre, Fantasy, Horror

Set on a future Earth colony, settled by colonists wanting to escape the wars and pollution &c.

Genres: SciFi

A story of moles keeping their system going against all manner of adversity.

Genres: Animal, Fantasy

With the siege of Winchester and the destruction of its Benedictine monastery, an eldery monk (dying from wounds inflicted on the crusades) together with a young, mute but devoted companion-monk, arrive at Shrewsbury seeking refuge.

Genres: Historical, Detective

Pyrgus, Prince of the Purple Emperor of the Faeries, is accidentally transported to Mr Fogarty's house and must rely on Henry and Mr Fogarty to return him to the Faerie Realm.

Family separation because of a lesbian affair. Commonplace acceptance of family breakups. One disturbingly camp character. Brief unintended voyeurism.

Genres: Fantasy

Zoe lives in an England that has been covered by water as a result of global warming, the city of Norwich is a small island, cut off from the part of the mainland which still remains above the water level.

Genres: Adventure, SciFi

Maggie & Bernard have discovered the Missing Link gene which gives humans the ability to reason and to speak.

Amoral genetic manipulation of human beings and animals within a family community. Origin of intelligent life. Friendship and loyalty in times of social breakdown.

Genres: Thought-provoking, SciFi

Glenn Jackson has to adjust as he is uprooted from his home in Burnley to a village in Cumbria, but his mother refuses to come without explaining why and he finds it difficult to fit into the village community.

Marital difficulties with some attempt at reconciliation. Implied and condoned dishonesty by the main character and others. Some sensuality between 14-year-olds. Commonsense portrayal of a character with hearing difficulties. Negative portrayal of a religious character.

Genres: Growing-Up, Friendship, Coping with, Family

A man tyrannises his family, driving them to despair in one form or another.

Genres: Family, Gritty

The Prussian bombardment of London at the end of the 19th century left it demoralised and easy prey to demons of various sorts, known as wych-kind, leading certain men and women to become wych-hunters.

Genres: Fantasy, Magic

When a certain Elave, attendant to Willian of Lythwood (a local merchant and abbey benefactor) arrives with the dead body of his master from foreign travels and requsts its burial within the abbey walls, a visiting prelate, Gerbert, recalls that William had been reproved for heretical ideas.

Genres: Historical, Detective

Lyra Belacqua a 12-year-old girl believes herself to be an orphan and is brought up in Jordan College, Oxford, in some recognisable but different England.

Genres: Friendship, Fantasy, Adventure

Matt, a child clone of an artificially ancient rich drug baron, has to come to terms with the way the world sees him as he grows up and discovers the truth behind his way of life.

Genres: Moral Issue, Growing-Up, SciFi

13-year-old Elliot Sutton is picked on and bullied at school, so when his family moves to a new house in a different area, he wants to make a fresh start at his new school.

Genres: Friendship, Thought-provoking, School

Noah and his family build an Ark and fill it with all kinds of animals in time for the flood of which, they believe, they are the only worthy survivors.

Genres: Animal, Growing-Up

Jimmy Coates is an ordinary 11-year-old, fighting with his sister, grumbling over his homework, until some people turn up at his house and try to take him away.

Genetically-engineered assassin child

Genres: Friendship, Thought-provoking, Family, Adventure, SciFi

13 year old Kit Watson has moved back to his ancestral town of Stoneygate, an old mining town in northern England.

Jane is pregnant by an actor with whom she had a brief holiday affair.

Genres: Moral Issue, Coping with

Tom, translating documents for the English, is taken prisoner by a servant of the Bishop of Reims but escapes with Emily, the Bishop's niece, while Ann, disguised again as Alan, has left the Duke to rejoin the English army proper.

Genres: Historical, Adventure

Rose & Diana are left unchaperoned after their aunt is taken ill, but decide to hide the fact from their actor mother, off on a tour, as they feel old enough to look after themselves.

A sexual encounter between a young unmarried couple. Scorn for society's treatment of unmarried mothers.

Genres: War, Growing-Up

Grubbs Grady sees his family horribly killed and is taken in by his father's mysterious brother who explains that the family is cursed and that he must learn to defend himself from demons and to play chess to help fight the curse.

Brief but shocking, grotesque horror, enough to send the main character into an asylum. Otherworldy demonic creatures and their master. Grubbs' family's closeness contrasted with his father's infidelity to his wife when away on business.

Genres: Macabre, Fantasy, Horror

Christie follows Danny his strange half-brother and Darling the starling to Dublin early one morning, where they meet Tina, the homeless teenager and Oggy the dog and set off for the north of Scotland where Danny's mother lives with other talking animals.

Genres: Thought-provoking, SciFi

Widowed fieldmouse Mrs Frisby turns to the rats for help when her family's house is threatened, only to find them abnormally intelligent and with technology.

A gentle story, highlighting a mother's love for her children and the risks she'll take to help them. Normal animal behaviour combined with intelligent actions and, in the case of the laboratory-enhanced Rats, developed technology which they're giving up.

Genres: Animal, Thought-provoking, Classic

Bernard and Colin return from Africa with signs that the legendary Yeti of the Tibetan Himalayas may be the answer to how mankind acquired the Missing Link gene.

Genres: Thought-provoking, SciFi

The stone which Christie was given by the Yeti is linked to the mysterious creature which takes over the lab at Fourth World; meanwhile in some unspecified place and time, the Dogs and the Cats are in a permanent state of conflict.

Genres: Thought-provoking, SciFi

Bobby finds Saint Dane manipulating things in 1937 New York, and must work out what link there is between a New York gangster, the Nazi Party, the Hindenburg Airship disaster and Saint Dane's plan for total chaos.

Genres: Fantasy

In 1900 Australia, a part of tennage girls from a College for Young Ladies goes on a trip to Hanging Rock.

Genres: Historical, Classic, Spooky

Chased by the Green Storm, a breakaway group from the Anti-Traction League, Tom and Hester with their passenger Pennyroyal are forced to land on Anchorage, currrently travelling across the High Ice towards its origins in the Dead Continent of America.

Genres: Adventure, SciFi

Like many other English soldiers in WWI, 'Tommo' Peaceful is too young to fight, however he lies about his age.

Genres: Historical, Thought-provoking, War

10 years after all the superheroes and supervillains in the world disappeared in the wake of a titanic battle, a few youngsters start to develop superpowers, but are soon kidnapped by a mysterious organisation.

Comic-book style superhero action; moral dilemmas, some driven by visions of the future.

Genres: Growing-Up, SciFi

Sabriel, 18-year-old daughter of the Mage Abhorsen, has to free her father and defeat his enemy before taking on his roles and responsibilities.

Conventional heroic valour and loyalty. Sisterly gentleness of an older girl with younger ones. Brief mention of sexual topics and an overheard sexual encounter. Concepts of necromancy and journeying between Death and Life. Considerable loss of life and gruesome injury in the final battle.

Genres: Adventure, Fantasy

Parson Demurral is using the power of the Keruvim to bring him the power he wants; Raphah, helped by Thomas and Kate, has to recover the Keruvim and stop Demurral before he ends the Time of Captivity and lets loose the fallen Seruvim.

Genres: Historical, Adventure, Fantasy, Magic

Ellen, defying her aunts' idea of what a modern young woman should do, takes up the role of Housekeeper at a school in Austria run on alternative lines for children of rich parents.

Marriage as merely a convention. Generosity and maternal care by Ellen for the children and others in her charge. Bravery of those helping Jews escape from Nazi detention. Ironic view of militant spinsters, pretentious playwrights, and alternative lifestyles.

Genres: Growing-Up, Thought-provoking, Romantic, School

Luke Stanton, a gifted young musician, falls in with a local gang after his father dies but when he starts to rob an old lady's house, he finds himself drawn into her life.

Genres: Growing-Up, Thought-provoking, Coping with

The Time Tube allows people from the 21st century to travel to the 16th to negotiate deals which will bring now unknown produce from an unpolluted world.

Genres: Time-Travel, Adventure

16-year-old Ariana is drawn to the lagoon city of Bellezza in her world, while in ours Lucien, being treated for cancer, finds himself there, whole and well, when he sleeps.

Travel between parallel worlds with correspondingly dissimilar religion. Complex issues of life and death. Accepted pre-marital relations. Coping with fatal illness. Strained loyalty between two worlds.

Genres: Time-Travel, Fantasy

Georgia, taunted by her older step-brother, finds solace in horse-riding and the friendship of the owner of a curio shop where she buys a winged horse which transports her at night to the Talia of 400 years ago.

Some crude taunts about women and horse-riding. An unjustified suggestion that an older man is a sexual predator. Casual assumptions about annulment of marriage. Morally problematic subplot involving an apparent suicide. Contrast between Georgia's difficult family and Paolo's cheerful and large one. The Duke's true love for his family despite his machiavellian attitude.

Genres: Time-Travel, Fantasy

Sam is diagnosed with Spengler's Syndrome, a terminal illness, and must come to terms with his own mortality.

A story which tries sincerely to balance and contrast life and death for a modern youngster and his counterpart in the Great War, but which ultimately lacks depth. Inconclusive look at life & death; divorced family background

Genres: Historical, Time-Travel, War, Coping with

Charlotte falls in with a quiet girl in her class and discovers another side to the town they live in.

An antidote to superficiality, revelling in vivid imagination; rather wild idea of three warring orders of Nuns.

Genres: Growing-Up, Girls

18-year-old Jennifer Howard is devastated when her older brother dies of AIDS and after a failed suicide attempt, decides to stay for a while in a Shaker-like Christian Community nearby.

A positive view of a strict Christian community; some ambiguity in the feelings Jennifer has for Wayne; Charles Howard is seeing another woman with his wife's knowledge (but not consent)

Genres: Moral Issue, Growing-Up

Dushma lives in a society where being registered is everything, she is not registered with the authorities due to a defect during pregnancy and so she is not entitled to do anything.

Genres: Coping with, SciFi

Dan & Ursula have just escaped from Roman Britain and find themselves in Arthurian Britain a few centuries later.

Genres: Historical, Time-Travel, Adventure, Magic, Arthurian

Wendy Darling, an inquisitive but innocent girl, learns more and more about the adult world as her family goes through difficult times.

Genres: Growing-Up, Coping with, Family

Meg and Belcher are both killed as they argue about letting an old man bleed to death whose flat they've tried to burgle.

Quirky take on the afterlife. Amusing in many places and sympathetic treatment of an old man trying to right the wrongs of his life. Probably rather dubious theologically. (But who knows?)

Genres: Humorous, Thought-provoking