Books with author Melvin Burgess

I can give it up any time I want . . .Sometimes maybe you need an experience. The experience can be a person or it can be a drug. The experience opens a door that was there all the time but you never saw it. Or maybe it blasts you into outer space. This time it was Lily and Rob and Gemma spending all that time to make me feel one of them, but it was the drug too. All that crap--about Gemma leaving me, about Mum and Dad, about leaving home. All that negative stuff. All the pain . . . It just floated away from me, I just floated away from it . . . up and away . . . I leaned back and I looked at the book and I looked at them and Gemma smiled at me, a big soft smile, and her eyes were like marbles. "Better?" she said.

London is in ruins, in the hands of two warring families of gang lords, the Volsons and the Conors. To cement a truce between the two families Val Volson offers Conor the hand of his 14-year-old daughter Signy. The wedding feast is disrupted by the dramatic coming to life of a mysterious one-eyed prisoner. The people are in no doubt that it is the god Odin, come to play a part in the affairs of men...

A haunting and original retelling of the infamous Pendle witch trials"Are you frightened of dying, Issy?"Issy is a foster child who doesn't know where she came from or who she really is. Night after night, she has the same nightmare: she is burning in a fire and at the heart of the flames is a face she is afraid to look at. With the terror of the witch trials surrounding her, fear and superstition are everywhere, and Issy must fight to unravel the truth of who she really is before it's too late. What she discovers leaves her no choice but to run—from the Witch-finder, from the evil hag who wants her dead, from those she loves, and maybe even from her own true nature. Perfect for young readers who enjoy mysteries and adventure novels, Melvin Burgess prefaces this fast-paced historical novel with a discussion about the religious bigotry and fanaticism of the early 17th century.

Pearson English Readers bring language learning to life through the joy of reading. Well-written stories entertain us, make us think, and keep our interest page after page. Pearson English Readers offer teenage and adult learners a huge range of titles, all featuring carefully graded language to make them accessible to learners of all abilities. Through the imagination of some of the world’s greatest authors, the English language comes to life in pages of our Readers. Students have the pleasure and satisfaction of reading these stories in English, and at the same time develop a broader vocabulary, greater comprehension and reading fluency, improved grammar, and greater confidence and ability to express themselves. Find out more at english.com/readers

This is the story of a Kite, hand reared in secret by a young boy, Taylor, after an egg-hunting mission goes wrong and the mother bird abandons her nest. Not everyone wants to protect the Kite - Taylor's gamekeeper father and his employer see kites as predators on their pheasants, as vermin to be destroyed. The story reaches a dramatic climax as Tom, Taylor's father, knows he will lose his job and his home, if he fails to carry out his boss' wishes and kill the bird. He does intervene and stophis boss shooting the bird he has already cruelly injured. Tom regains his son's respect but the Kite will never fly again.

Melvin Burgess, author of the award-winning young adult novel Junk, explores the sinister side of fame, obsession and the cult of celebrity in the psychological thriller Sara's Face. Sara Carter wants to be famous. Fame is her obsession. So when legendary rock star Jonathon Heat offers her star training and the cosmetic surgery she thinks she wants, Sara can't believe her dream will come true. But Jonathon Heat doesn't want Sara's talent. Jonathon Heat wants Sara's face. Melvin Burgess is on top form with this chilling, original and topical psychological thriller. Award-winning children's author Melvin Burgess is one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary young adult fiction. His most well-known book Junk won the Carnegie Medal, the Guardian Children's Fiction prize and was shortlisted for the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year. Other titles by Melvin Burgess available from Penguin include: Nicholas Dane, Doing IT (winner of the LA Times Young People's Book of the Year) and Kill All Enemies. If you enjoyed Sara's Face and want to get inside more of your favourite books, then check out spinebreakers.co.uk for exclusive author interviews, competitions, and much more.

London is in ruins, in the hands of two warring families of gang lords, the Volsons and the Conors. To cement a truce between the two families Val Volson offers Conor the hand of his 14-year-old daughter Signy. The wedding feast is disrupted by the dramatic coming to life of a mysterious one-eyed prisoner. The people are in no doubt that it is the god Odin, come to play a part in the affairs of men...

The second in MeLvin Burgess's Volsunga duo, now reissued to appeal to a whole new generation of fans.Fifteen-year-old Sigurd, son of King Sigmund, is the last surviving member of the Volson clan. His father's kingdom -- the former city of London -- is gone. And his father's knife, a gift from the gods, has been shattered to dust. Armed with a powerful sword forged from the remnants of the knife, Sigurd faces death, fire and torment as he travels through Hel and back to unite his country once again.