Fleur Beale

In a gripping psychological thriller, a teenager is left with members of a strict religious cult when her mother goes away and is forced to follow the severe set of social standards set by the cult. Reprint.

I Am Not Esther

Life inside a religious cult becomes too much for 16-year-old Rebecca when she finds out who she is to marry. When she turns 14, Rebecca will find out who she is to marry. All the girls in her strict religious sect must be married just after their 16th birthdays.Her twin sister Rachel desperately wants to marry the boy she's given her heart to. All Rebecca wants is to have a husband who is kind, but both girls know the choice is not theirs to make. But what will the future hold for Rebecca? Is there a dark side to the rules which have kept her safe? Can the way ahead be so simple when the community is driven by secrets and hidden desires? Award-winning YA writer Fleur Beale's gripping sequel to the bestselling classic I am not Esther is a psychological thriller.

I Am Rebecca

The gripping sequel to the bestselling YA novels I am not Esther and I am Rebecca. Four years after Rebecca fled the religious community The Children of the Faith, twelve-year-old Magdalene bears the brunt of trying to protect and nurture her rebellious younger sister. Zillah isn't at all interested in behaving as befits a daughter of a Faith family, but Magdalene knows only too well the cost of rebellion. Life becomes increasingly difficult for the two girls as the Elders tighten the Rules the children must obey. Magdalene knows it is useless to appeal to their father for help and protection. He believes fully in the integrity of the Elders. His children must obey for if they do not, they will be denied salvation. But what can two children do when their lives become unbearable? Another wonderful novel by an award-winning writer.

Being Magdalene

Having a dream and aiming for it . . . a gentle coming-of-age novel for girls by much-loved YA novelist Fleur Beale. Ruby Yarrow is a 14 year old who lives in a busy, loving, chaotic family with her mum, stepdad, brother and two little stepbrothers. Ruby feels a bit like a doormat - she has to help out while her brother doesn't. He wins lots of prizes at school but she has a learning difficulty and needs a reader/writer to help her in exams. What's more, her surname, Yarrow, is at the end of the alphabet and when the roll gets called out she's always at the end . She hates it. She feels she's always at the end of the line. Not that Ruby is a misery bag at all. She's bright, vibrant and a really neat character. She has great friends and loves clothes, fashion magazines and sewing, which she has a real knack for. She's very keen to go on the school trip to Brazil and so she gets a job to earn the money for her airfare, working in a supermarket for an old grump. She also learns a bit of Portuguese and meeting exchange students. Ruby doesn't get to go on the trip but she stands up to her parents, gets some backbone and starts to see herself in a much better light. There's even a bit of romance. This book is about having a dream and aiming for it. But it's not sentimental - it's a great read, very real and it has a lovely upbeat tone.

End of the Alphabet

'Don't give up. Don't let them kill your spirit. Things will change. You need to be strong. You need to be ready. And you will need courage.' Juno is young; she has no authority, no power, and to question the ways of Taris is discouraged. She knows what it's like when the community withdraws from her - turning their backs and not speaking to her until she complies. The Taris Project was the brainchild of a desperate twenty-first-century world, a community designed to survive even if the rest of humanity perished. An isolated, storm-buffeted island in the Southern Ocean was given a protective dome and its own balmy climate. And now Juno is one of 500 people who live there - but what has happened to the outside world in the years since Taris was established? The island has not been in contact with Outside since the early years of its existence. Juno yearns to know about life Outside, just as she yearns to be allowed to grow her hair. It is a rule on Taris that all must have their heads shaved bare. But is it a rule that could be broken? Danger awaits any who suggest it.

Juno of Taris

Juno of Taris faces more dangers in the second in the award-winning science fiction / fantasy young adult novel series. Juno and the Taris inhabitants must leave their dying island. The young people look forward to a wider life Outside, but Outside too has its problems. It is two-year-old Hera, with her uncanny ability to foresee events, who saves the Taris people from the injury and death prepared for them by an underground group of protestors. The people of Taris, though, have no choice but to try to live in this seemingly hostile place. The young people are entranced despite the hate campaign against them: there are the fashions, the technologies and best of all for Juno, the freedom from extreme control. Only days after the group arrives, a pandemic hits the country - this has drastic consequences for Juno and her people. Once the pandemic is over, life settles down and the question now for Juno is to find her way among the choices open to her, some of which cause her parents to fear she is abandoning the values they hold so dear. Juno was relieved to put Taris behind her. But Taris doesn't give up its hold so easily - she is shocked to find the island held more secrets than any of them knew. She wants to bury her head, ignore what she's discovered and forge ahead to find her own place in this new world. She falls for Ivan, a young man who seems to understand her, but love is a fey thing. What will become of her? Winner of the Young Adult Fiction Award in the 2011 NZ Post Children's Book Awards and of the 2011 LIANZA Young Adult Fiction Medal, the stunning sequel to Juno of Taris (shortlisted for the 2009 NZ Post Children's Book Awards) features a ground breaking new cross-media technique - at the end of each chapter readers are referred to an online blog featuring additional conversations/commentary by the characters in the novel.

Fierce September

'Dreams were dangerous things.' It was the dream of Molly's dying mother that she would become a nun. It isn't, however, the dream of her Methodist father, who wants her to marry. But what is her true calling and how can she follow it? As the 19th century draws to an end, Molly searches out the extraordinary nun Mother Mary Joseph Aubert to find out. 'One of the most consistently accomplished and versatile writers for teenagers in the country' - The New Zealand Listener

The Calling

It is 1859 in the raw new township of New Plymouth where Hannah Carstairs walks between two worlds. To her English father she is Hannah; to her Maori step-mother she is Hana who speaks Maori but only when Papa or her beloved Aunt Frances aren't around. Soon, Hannah finds that both her worlds are changing. First there are the disturbing hints about her dead mother's past. Then the tensions between the Maori tribes and the settlers boil over into war. Hannah and her twin brother Jamie flee from the fighting. They board a sailing ship and make the long trip to England where they must confront the past.

A Respectable Girl

Etta is worried about her brother, Jamie. The doctors can find nothing wrong with him, but he is getting weaker by the day. At breakfast one morning, he seems to have lost it completely- In a voice as pale as his face, he said, 'I think I can see a ghost.' However, when they all turn to look, sure enough, materialising on the window seat is a girl about Etta's age, wearing a beautiful Victorian wedding dress. Etta has to get off to school, she has no time for this, but she is about to discover that time has a whole new significance. She and her ghost companion have no choice but to work out what is going on before Jamie is lost for ever . . .

Faraway Girl

Lincoln MacKenzie gets his first motocross bike though his parents totally disaprove. And as he gets into his new sport, everything seems to go wrong - his brother gets caught by the police, his father has an accident in Antarctica... Written during the author's Creative New Zealand and Dunedin College of Education writing fellowship.

Deadly Prospect

Lyla has just started her second year of high school when a magnitude 6.3 earthquake shakes Christchurch to pieces. Devastation is everywhere. While her police officer mother and trauma nurse father respond to the disaster, Lyla puts on a brave face, opening their home to neighbours and leading the community clean-up. But soon she discovers that it's not only familiar buildings and landscapes that have vanished - it's friends and acquaintances too. As the earth keeps shaking day after day, can Lyla find a way to cope with her new reality?

Through My Eyes - Natural Disaster Zones

Lyla

Teenage novel about Lacey Turner, a city girl who has to come to terms with her family moving to the country. Author, Fleur Beale, based the background for the novel on the year she and her family lived in a hundred-year old cottage in the country.

Lucky for Some

The exciting third and final book in the Juno series of gripping, sci-fi / fantasy YA novels. Heart of Danger is a rollicking good read that veers between quite terrifying situations and Juno's discoveries about love and the powers of her own mind. Juno and her family arrive at their new home, but almost immediately danger threatens Hera and they move to Willem's protection in New Plymouth, the city Juno most hoped to avoid. Fairlands school is too like Taris, and Hilto's son Thomas is a pupil there.The handsome Ivor is also there, and soon begins to pay attention to Juno in a way she finds both confusing and exciting. Juno's special mind powers are called upon to help her save Hera. Juno of Taris (the first in the series) won the Esther Glen Award and Fierce September (the second book) won the NZ Post Book Award (YA) 2011.

Heart Of Danger

Atapo, a young M?ori girl, tells her story, from her capture and slavery as a young child through to her escape to the mission house in the Bay of Islands as a 14-year-old. Here she learns the new ways and language that means she is present at the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. Although born into an important family her capture has meant she has lost her standing in her tribe, but she hopes the new skills she has acquired will mean she can return home with her head held high. Suggested level: intermediate, junior secondary.

The Writings of Atapo, Paihia, C. 1840

A New Song in the Land

Bill Redding

But danger only fires the blood of Bill (Red Dog) Redding. He flies a perilous payroll delivery tothe heart of Colombian bandit country, then takes explosives' work with a construction company where 'safety last' seems the motto. With a nose for adventure and an instinct for survival Red Dog quickly makes his mark. He gentles a man-killing horse, defuses a potential explosives disaster and dines weekly with the Bandit Queen and her twelve excitable, gun-toting sons. However, before long Red Dog makes a surprising and hazardous discovery. This, along with complicating factors, sets his shoulder blades twitching and suddenly he must flee for his life through bandit-riddled mountains. Red Dog's extraordinary real-life exploits are told in his own laconic vernacular to writer, Fleur Beale. His entire life is the stuff of adventure novels and this story is guaranteed to keep all enterprising daredevils reading till way past lights out.

A True Story

Red Dog in Bandit Country

Lyn White

Lyla: Through My Eyes - Natural Disaster Zones

The disturbing story of the ruthless exercise of power in a New Zealand religious cult. Charismatic, driven and self-righteous, Neville Cooper set up his own brand of Christian utopia on earth: a reclusive community on the West Coast of New Zealand. For the 400 inhabitants of Gloriavale, his word is law - despite his 1995 conviction for sexual abuse. His son Phil Cooper, as headstrong as his father, had to escape. But Phil's wife Sandy was bound to the will of Neville and his brand of eternal salvation. And so began the monumental tug-of-war between father and son: a son who wanted to give his children a chance in the world. This is a true story of power and control, of abductions and night raids, of hearts broken and those trying to mend. It's also the story of the long shadow cast by the unyielding vision of one man, and the hope and resolve of one family to restore its shattered past.

The Long Shadow of a Religious Cult : a New Zealand Story

Sins of the Father

A coming of age story for teenage boys, especially car lovers. Shortlisted for the 2012 NZ Post Book Awards and the 2012 LIANZA YA Award. Jake's life is sweet. He's got no money and doesn't have a mobile, but he's got two best mates; Buzz and Robbie. Buzz is generous and doesn't mind buying stuff for his mates. Jake wouldn't change a thing. But then Robbie has the idea of the century: rescue the old wreck from the ditch and make it into a paddock basher. Yes! Buzz, however, puts a spanner in the works by saying he's not paying for it all. Even stevens or no deal. Robbie gets a job. Jake refuses. It's just not his style to work for a boss. But he desperately wants to drive that car, and the others are going to go ahead without him. The summer holidays are looming ahead of him in a desert of boredom and friendlessness. He needs a game plan ... A writer with an uncanny understanding of young male teenagers, Fleur Beale also wrote Slide the Corner which won the Storylines Much-Loved Book Award - and teachers have been crying out for more books in this genre. Dirt Bomb fills this gap beautifully.

Dirt Bomb

The past lives of Bess Gray catch up with her in this passionate young adult novel by a NZ Post Children's Book Award-winner. On the night of her seventeenth birthday Bess Grey sees images of a witch-burning unfold in front of her as if in a movie. She also sees images from a different time — lovers, and the girl, she’s sure is — was – herself. When she meets Nick she recognises him as the boy. There’s an immediate connection. However when her father nearly dies from a heart attack there’s no time to brood as Bess tries to save her father’s business. She falls in love with Nick but her difficult mother interferes, forcing Bess to make the hardest decision of her life. She must decide whether to lose her mother or the boy she loves. Fleur Beale, winner of the 20123 Margaret Mahy medal, weaves Bess's mysterious past lives into her very realistic current-day life. The result is a beautifully told love story.

Fleur Beale

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