Author: mondomolly

70s. I read a book which I think was called “The Selkie”. There are several books I can google with this name but without the author’s name I don’t think any are right. The story was I think a first-person account of a teenage boy who turned out to be a Selkie and able to be a seal (which he only finds out part way through.) He lives in a (Scottish?) island community and has a younger brother Bran who is selected to be a sacrifice at the start of the story. I think the book is mostly him trying to stop the brother’s sacrifice but I don’t recall much more except I loved it. I think it was probably a Knight (reading club) book. 70s. This was a book from our library that I remember borrowing, reading many times and then taking it out for another period because I loved it so much. Sadly the memory has faded. It’s about a maybe 12 yr old boy from our world that gets pulled into a fantasy world. He ends up leading an army and battling with a special hero sword. Can’t recall if he was a king’s heir or if I added that. I recall the enemies being ‘orcs’ which is the first time I came across the word.  So I guess there was a Tolkien vibe to it. The boy (I vaguely think his name might be Peter but I may be mixing up with Narnia) hence became an orc-slayer. I wondered since finding lotr how they could use ‘orc’ but maybe the term is earlier than both (common source). Again from the 70s. Set in Britain I think. It’s the story of separated twins. The protagonist (Martin I think) has grown up with a twin (Sean or Steve?) and other siblings. Has never felt he fitted with the family and is not like his twin. Then one day he runs into a boy that looks identical to him. Turns out there was a mix up at the hospital and one of the twins went home with another family. I recall the emotion of the reveal. Also the emotion of the two boys with the wrong families always feeling separate from them. And the process of re-integrating to the right families.

I’ve been trying to find the title of the book I read when I was younger, but I couldn’t find it. 😣 Here are few details about the book: It has a violet cover with a girl who is seemingly caught in a hurricane. The book is about a girl who is trying to survive inside a house that wasn’t hers or familiar with her (specifically in the attic, I think?) in the aftermath of a hurricane that hit their place. She ate canned food or whatever was left inside the house because it was dangerous to go out. During her last hours/days of being trapped inside the house, she painted an “SOS” sign for rescuers to see. I remember that there was a racoon that accompanied her inside the house, but I think it scratched her once.

I’ve been on this quest for over two decades to no avail. If you can help me find this book, I’d be happy to make a small contribution towards your cause. I read the book back in 1994/1995 at my school library in London, UK. It was a collection of football (soccer) short stories but I have no recollection of the title. I found a book online that was titled ‘Gary Linekar short stories’ but I definitely know that wasn’t it.

This is a book published BEFORE 2015, main character is a girl, side characters include her grandma (might? Be a witch?), a boy who can shape shift into a horse or dog/wolf by putting a carved bone/stone under his tongue, a queen whos murders have literally STAINED the land, wolves that talk. The grandmother makes this girl this amazing coat that she SEWED HERBS AND CHARMS INTO, LITERALLY THE COAT OF MY DREAMS, shes like “dont fucking go into the woods”, and makes sachets of charms for the granddaughter. Granddaughter OBVIOUSLY goes into the woods, gets spooked by wolves i think? Starts running, she actually like crashes into water i think? And sees the horse boy, who is in horse form im Pretty Sure. And im 99.9% sure the book changes povs from her and the horse doggo boy every few chaps. Anyways the land they’re in has special rules!! Like “if you turn your clothes inside out you are invisible”. Cover is a girl with a patchwork quilt coat on a horse.

 I read back in the late-2000s. I doubt they would have been written before 2000, but I could be wrong.  I don’t remember too much about these books besides the female narrator and some… weird concepts. It surrounded a town where monsters came out after dark (or something like that), and a group of teens would fight them with enchanted weapons. There was a whole premise of certain numbers holding great importance. I think they would enchant their weapons by labeling them with 13-letter words. That might not have been it exactly, but I do remember a huge thing being the 13-letter words. Pretty sure there was a love triangle, too (but who’s surprised!). 

I have one i read a long time ago that ive been dying to remember.  It was a YA i think; and it was about a young troubled lady who got sent off to an all girls college i believe? To help sort her out.  There she meets this preppy rich girl and a girl whose very unemotional, offputting and just very guarded.  They become a best friend trio and soon stuff starts to go awry.  I think the preppy girl buys them all a house to live in?  Main character thinks sad girl is up to no good but it turns out its preppy girl who is absolutely insane and ended up like.. cutting off locks of main characters hair and preforming spells to fuck her life up. 

There’s a book I’ve been looking for over the course of maybe 20 years at this point. A while ago I came to the conclusion that I dreamed it or otherwise made it up, but maybe it actually does exist! I probably read it around 1993 or so.
The only plot points I remember are that it’s a group of kids and one adult (a teacher?) that escaped a global apocalypse of some sort and are traveling around in an airship. Somewhere in my head the phrase “purple cloud” popped up, which is great because it does seem to be the title of a classic post-apocalyptic sci-fi story. Unfortunately, that book doesn’t seem to have anything to do with what I remember. And since I’ve been searching for so many years it’s also possible that I’ve now conflated all the other things that came up with the book in question.

book 1: a girl who dresses in all black is often bullied at school and starts dressing as a raven/crow and terrorising the area she lives in at night and the bullies

book 2: a girl befriends a new girl in town who begins dressing like her, gets her hair cut like her and tries to steal her identity, not a good description but i remember the book cover being red 

 I’m technically looking for a series, but I can describe a few key events within the series. Also, this was available around the time I was in middle school, 07-08ish. 1. The main character, who is a young medium (think maybe 13 or younger), realizes that her new friend is dead and he has to accept that as well. 2. She leads some child ghosts to an Alice in Wonderland statue that winks due to a trick of the light, and it somehow persuaded the children to move on, much to the annoyance of her deceased brother later when they arrive 3. She visits some center that prepares people for the afterlife. One of the ways they do this is by having them rehearse their death. She, as a medium, isn’t even supposed to be there and it’s somehow dangerous for her to be present.

I have been looking for this book for a while, came across this email on twitter and thought I would ask! All I remember is it is about a girl and a boy, the book is told from both perspectives, the girl is a poor girl who has a chicken coop/chickens in her backyard, and is from a poorer family. I believe she just moved into the area, and her neighbor is a boy from a more well off family who initially is embarrassed by her and she had a crush on him (I’m not sure if his parents made him be friends with her because she was new to the area). Eventually as the story progresses and they get older the roles essentially switch where she becomes very pretty and popular and eventually moves on from liking him due to him being mean to her and her realizing her worth while he then begins to develop feelings for her. That’s pretty much the gist of what I remember and would love any help in finding the name of the book. I also want to say the cover was pink and blue (or had those colors on it)