Crimefest 2023

MATCH THE BLURB TO THE COVER: Eighteen year old Red and her friends are on a road trip in an RV, heading to the beach for Spring Break. It’s a long drive but spirits are high. Until the RV breaks down in the middle of nowhere. There’s no mobile phone reception and nobody around to help. And as the wheels are shot out, one by one, the friends realise that this is no accident. There’s a sniper out there in the dark watching them and he knows exactly who they are. One of the group has a secret that the sniper is willing to kill for. A game of cat-and-mouse plays out as the group desperately tries to get help and to work out which member of the group is the target. Buried secrets are forced to light in the cramped, claustrophobic setting of the RV, and tensions within the group will reach deadly levels. Not everyone will survive the night.

MATCH THE BLURB TO THE COVER: Fourteen-year-old Maya cannot believe she has to spend the summer with her grandmother, helping out at the family cosmetics firm. But things get much more exciting when she meets a community of activists who are campaigning against the dumping of chemical waste. Getting closer to one boy in particular, Bear, Maya is dared into joining one of their protest missions, but doesn't know that her grandmother's business is the target. Someone has been lying about their environmentally-friendly products, and as danger threatens, Maya must uncover the truth or betray her family forever.

MATCH THE BLURB TO THE COVER: Two scandalous outlaws have outwitted their pursuers and escaped into the wilds of Mercia and Northumbria, and it’s not long before they become famous across the Seven Kingdoms for their audacious heists. No bank is safe from a pair with the ability to read minds and make a perfect shot. But neither is fully able to escape the past – as they discover when a dangerous job turns sour. Soon old enemies and sinister new threats are pressing in on every side, and Scarlett and Albert must pull off an impossible mission. Can they hope to outwit the Faith Houses and the Brothers of the Hand – and save the people they hold most dear?

MATCH THE BLURB TO THE COVER: Trained and traumatised by a secret training programme for minors, Isabel Ryans wants nothing more than to be a normal civilian. After running away from home, she has a new name, a new life and a new friend, Emma, and for the first time in Isabel’s life, things are looking up. But old habits die hard, and it’s not long until she blows her cover, drawing the attention of the guilds – the two rival organisations who control the city of Espera. An unaffiliated killer like Isabel is either a potential asset . . . Or a threat to be eliminated. Will the blood on her hands cost her everything? An exhilarating new voice in YA fiction, comes an addictive new blockbuster series for fans of global phenomena The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Killing Eve and The Hunger Games.

MATCH THE BLURB TO THE COVER: Romania, 1989. Communist regimes are crumbling across Europe. Seventeen-year-old Cristian Florescu dreams of becoming a writer, but Romanians aren’t free to dream; they are bound by rules and force. Amidst the tyrannical dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu in a country governed by isolation and fear, Cristian is blackmailed by the secret police to become an informer. He’s left with only two choices: deceive everyone and everything he loves—or use his position to creatively undermine the most notoriously evil dictator in Eastern Europe. Cristian risks everything to unmask the truth behind the regime, give voice to fellow Romanians, and expose to the world what is happening in his country. He eagerly joins the revolution to fight for change when the time arrives. But what is the cost of freedom?

MATCH THE BLURB TO THE COVER: Charlene is a demon knitter. It’s the only thing she enjoys and the only thing she believes she’s really good at. So when her foster mum’s son destroys her latest creation, Charlene loses it and stabs him in the hand with her knitting needle. It damages a nerve and she gets sucked into the criminal justice system for assault. Charlene's not sorry and she’s never apologised to anyone in her life. But people keep telling her that if she says sorry, they’ll go easier on her. Can she bring herself to say it and not mean it when her freedom’s at stake?

Rank the Crimefest Shortlist in the order which YOU would most like to read them...