The Wild Ones by Antonio Ramos Revillas

Translated by Claire Storey

Book Summary

An impactful story about the heroism of surviving on the social periphery.

Fifteen-year-old Efraín and his two younger brothers live in a house on the hillside in Monterrey, Northern Mexico.

They are left to fend for themselves after their mother is wrongly arrested for theft.

Má has raised her boys to keep out of trouble with the local gangs and to study for their future, but they are viewed by society as good-for-nothings or criminals simply because of where they live.

The only people offering any kind of support are the local gang members – but everything comes

with a price tag.

This is quite an easy read, despite the difficult subject matter, and though it looks middle-grade from the cover, the main character was older than I expected so I'd put it more at young adult.

It was a bit too slow going for me, not a lot really happens. But there was a good lesson about how much stuff we have around us that we really don't need. I don't think I'm rich, but Efrain would probably have considered me quite well off! Reading about what Efrain went through to support his family and the things he had to do, I felt quite emotional at times.

Author Bio

Antonio Ramos Revillas is a Mexican author of books for adults and your people.

In 2015 he was selected to participate in the Mexico 20 project by the Hay Festival. The project brought together twenty Mexican writers under the age of forty and paired them with British translators, resulting in

the Mexico 20 anthology, published by Pushkin Press.

Antonio has received numerous regional and national awards for his writing.

On an international level his novel La guarida de las lechuzas won the Fundacion Cuatrogatos prize in Miami as well as winning the International Latino Book Award.

His YA books have been recommended by IBBY Mexico, Salvajes is his third book to be chosen for the White Ravens.

This was the first time I've made a Wild Rose Margarita and I was surprised how well all the different ingredients fit together.  Shake the following ingredients with ice - 45ml tequila, 15ml triple sec, 25ml Savoia Americano Rosso (I substituted with aperol) 10ml rose sugar syrup, 15ml lime juice, 7.5ml gin. Strain into a cocktail glass and enjoy!

Skyfleet: March of the Mutabugs by Victoria Williamson

Book  Summary

When the skies turn deadly, a young heroine must rise from the ashes...

Twelve-year-old Amberley Jain has faced incredible challenges since the crash that took her parents and paralysed her legs. Now, with her best friend Ricardo Lopez about to be sent away and a swarm of mutated insects closing in on the Skyfleet base, the stakes have never been higher. Something monstrous is driving the mutabugs north from the contaminated meteor site known as the Cauldron, and the only plane capable of stopping it - the Firehawk - lies in pieces in the hangar.

Determined to honour her parents' legacy, Amberley hatches a daring plan. With Ricardo's help, they stow away on a supply train, trading his most treasured possession for the parts needed to repair the Firehawk. After secret test flights, the legendary jet is ready for action. Now, Amberley and Ricardo must confront the deadly swarm and save their home, discovering their inner strength and the true meaning of friendship along the way.

If there's anything worse than giant mutated bugs, its giant mutated bugs that regenerate!

Amberley and her best friend Ric are determined to show the rest of the base what they can do. Neither wants to be sent away to the farming villages with the other orphans, Amberley knows she can be the best flyer and Ric the best engineer they've ever had. They just need a way to prove themselves!

This is a fast-paced, quick read. Screwball Sydney and her wombat are amusing characters, just the right amount of encouraging and insane. I really enjoyed Amberley and Ric's attempts to fix Amberley's parents old Firehawk jet and make everyone see what they can do. Together they showed that nothing should stop you trying for your dreams and I found the end particularly touching and uplifting.

Author Bio

Victoria Williamson grew up in Glasgow, Scotland, and has worked as an educator in a number of different countries, including as an English teacher in China, a secondary science teacher in Cameroon, and a teacher trainer in Malawi.

As well as degrees in Physics and Mandarin Chinese, she has completed a Masters degree in Special Needs in Education. In the UK she works as a primary school special needs teacher, working with children with a range of additional support needs including Autistic Spectrum Disorder, Down Syndrome, physical disabilities and behavioural problems.

She is currently working as a full time writer of Middle Grade and YA contemporary fiction, science fiction and fantasy, with a focus on creating diverse characters reflecting the many cultural backgrounds and special needs of the children she has worked with, and building inclusive worlds where all children can see a reflection of themselves in heroic roles.

Victoria’s experiences teaching young children in a school with many families seeking asylum inspired her debut novel, The Fox Girl and the White Gazelle, an uplifting tale of redemption and unlikely friendship between Glaswegian bully Caylin and Syrian refugee Reema.

You can find out more about Victoria’s books, school visits and free resources for schools on her website.

I used to love a June Bug cocktail when I was younger, now it seems some of the ingredients are a bit harder to find, but I did find this one on Difford's Guide which is a great website for pretty much any cocktail you can imagine. I remember it having a much greener colour but it still looks pretty tasty!

To make the cocktail, shake all the following ingredients with ice, then strain into your glass. 30ml each of coconut rum, melon liqueur, banana liqueur, 120ml pineapple juice and 30ml lime juice.

The Christmas Party by Mikayla Davids

Book Summary

A family reunion. A shocking secret. A night to die for.

On a snowy Christmas Eve, the Bailey family are gathered at an isolated hotel in the English countryside. They’re reuniting for the first time since the accident that shattered their lives ten years ago. 

It’s a time for love and forgiveness. But someone has an ulterior motive…

The perfect daughter

The success story

The single mother

The alcoholic 

The husband

The jealous sister

The murderer

As the clock strikes midnight, one member of the party is found dead at the foot of the grand marble staircase.

Everyone is a suspect. But which one of them is a killer?

I enjoyed Mikayla Davids' previous book The Couple on Holiday (see my review here) so I jumped at the chance to join the blog tour for her new audiobook.

There's an immediate mystery, even before any mention of the murder. What could have happened to break this family apart? There are flashbacks and clues throughout the book and for me this was the biggest puzzle. Despite reading about the murder early on, the victim is not revealed till much nearer the end.

The story is told by different characters so you get all sides of the story and also realise how unreliable any of them could be. The different narrators were very good, keeping the personalities separate.

I loved how the secrets just kept coming. There are sooooo many and they were gradually doled out like sweets, which kept me hooked.

I must say I found it hard to trust Erin from quite early on, though I won't say whether I was right not to! I soon started to suspect she might have more motivations for organising the reunion, as well as reconciliation.

The conclusion is left quite open ended which I was slightly disappointed with, but it makes you wonder what could happen next and definitely sets up for more books.

Serve a Christmas Daiquiri at your next party, your guests will love it. Add 50ml rum, 15ml lime juice, 15ml Velvet Falernum and 15ml cranberry juice to a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with a star anise.

The Blood Texts: You’d Better Watch Out by Frank Cadaver

Warning, this is extremely creepy! Definitely not one to read at night, especially if you haven't been perfectly good recently. Full of spooky imagery and terrifying descriptions. It also got me surprisingly emotional at the end. Read on for more and an extract from the book... if you dare!

Book Summary

Fourteen year old Evangeline knows she isn’t good. She knows she might even be a bully to her quiet, studious classmate Olivia. But when her Dad returns home with a sinister looking Watching Elf, desperately hoping it will push her to behave, ‘just in time for Christmas’, she’s positive he’s lost the plot. Just how old does he think she is?!

But then footsteps scuttle past flickering fairy lights, when she’s sneaking to places she shouldn’t. A malevolent figure is reflected in her phone screen, when she’s about to share malicious photographs. And, when a bullying teacher is brutally attacked during her detention, Evangeline starts to wonder: is this Watching Elf more than just a doll?

And not to be forgotten, is Olivia. Always perfect Olivia. There’s just something not right about her; she’s got a part to play in this but Evangeline can’t quite figure out what. All she knows is Olivia may not be as innocent or as perfect as she seems…

Extract

PROLOGUE - THE BLOOD TEXTS

2004...

“You’re scared.”

“I’m not scared!”

“You’re the one who wanted to do this!”

“I’m just saying, the coach is gonna go. We’ve got to get back!”

“Whatevs, run away then,” Mason scoffed, his black Korn hoodie up over his ears, his legs straddling the metal track in what he would never admit was his One Tree Hill pose. From the path below, his friend sighed and turned away up the dripping, decayed exit ramp. As the New Animal rollercoaster rumbled far above them, joined by the muffled screams of its passengers, Mason couldn’t help but call after him.

“Go on then, biatch!” he shouted. “Run back to teacher! But I won the challenge! I’m keeping the magazine! It’s MY trophy!”

The magazine was tucked down the back of Mason’s baggy jeans, and it was why they were here in the first place. The Blood Texts – the most gruesome and gory of his older sister’s horror magazine collection. When he’d discovered a feature among The Blood Texts’ creased pages about Smithson’s Theme Park, just one week before their school was visiting it, he and his friend’s next graffiti challenge had been clear: they would tag the OLD ANIMAL ROLLERCOASTER, HOME OF REBECCA’S HEADLESS GHOST!

“Rebecca didn’t keep her arms and legs inside the ride. Rebecca wanted to wave to the camera. But once the ’coaster sped up, she started slipping out too far, and when the loop-the-loop went through the tunnel, her head clipped a boat on the old River Rapids. Her boyfriend had to sit the rest of the ride next to her headless corpse. After her family sued, Smithson’s shut the Old Animal ride and built the New Animal over top of it. But The Blood Texts says they never tore the loop down. It’s still down there, and Rebecca’s ghost an’ all . . . searching for a head to replace hers.”

His friend had grinned then, and they’d gone toe-to-toe with sick jokes about the tragedy. It was what they did – like Jackass, like Dirty Sanchez – like grinning the blood out between your teeth after stacking a rail grind. Like sneaking past warning signs down an unmarked tunnel to graffiti the last bones of a deadly rollercoaster that Smithson’s Park didn’t mention in their ads.

MA$ON

He was getting better, he decided, as again the New Animal rumbled and screamed above. The dollar sign used to just look like he’d screwed up the ‘S’, but now it looked legit, like the $ in the rapper Ma$e. He leant closer to study it, when the battery light began to fade orange.

“Dumb torch,” he growled. The batteries were the big Eveready ones he’d tea-leafed from his sister’s new hi-fi; how were they failing already? Mason – BANG – smacked the torch with the – BANG – palm of his hand, trying to get some juice from the batteries, but the orange bulb still – BANG – wouldn’t BANG—

Splash...

It came from below, quiet, but unmistakable.

“Tyler?”

There was no answer. Mason shone his torch down, lighting up twisted metal, bolts and rails, to the brown, stagnant water of the closed river rapids beneath. Seeing nothing, he turned to point the beam behind him. The grey fake river wound further down the gloomy tunnel, surrounded by knackered SM_LE _OR TH_ C_MERA! signs, tattered rope queues and decayed plastic animal models. Then, with a sudden thought, he looked up to where the last surviving tracks of the Old Animal twisted and climbed, before stopping dead against a concrete slab that Smithson’s had built to hide this infamous deadly loop-the-loop.

Huh...? The screams. The rollercoaster screams, from the New Animal.

Why have they stopped?

Splash...

At the second splash, Mason whirled the torch back down again, a cold stab of fear in his gut.

There was nothing.

And then...

Soft ripples raced across the grey water, before a ride boat bobbed gently down the river below. Mason’s mouth felt suddenly dry. The boat was filthy, worn and circular with seats around the edge and a wheel in the middle. The insides were strewn with something black and matted, and as he climbed down to the bottom rail, Mason saw what it was and fought back the urge to scream.

Hair. Long, human hair. And blood.

Mason pulled out the magazine tucked behind his waistband and stared at the picture on the open page.

“It’s true,” he croaked out loud. “The Blood Texts. It’s true.”

It was the last thought his head got to have.

The Blood Texts. It’s true.

Who is Frank Cadaver?

He was born in the witching hour, beneath a blood-red moon, and under a bad sign. His first words were not fit to print. Now he scratches stories with yellowed fingernails, across the mouldering walls of the abandoned nuclear power station he calls home. If you like what you read, we’ll dare you to find out more…

I started this book while on holiday and had an amazing Pomegranate Caipirinha. This also looks quite Christmassy so I thought its a good fit for the book. Cut half a lime into chunks and muddle in a cocktail shaker with 2 teaspoons of sugar. Add 60ml of cachaca and 15ml of grenadine, stir and then pour into your glass. Add crushed ice (or smaller cubes) to half fill the glass, drop in a handful of pomegranate seeds, stir and top with more ice. Garnish with more pomegranate.