The Night Diary is set in India in 1947 when Britain split from India. The protagonist is a 12 year old girl called Nisha who’s mum died in childbirth. Her Mum is Muslim and her Dad is Hindu. Nisha lives with her twin brother, Amil, her dad, her grandma and Kazi who cooks meals for them.
Soon into the book, the family find out about Britain splitting from India and that they’ll have to leave from Pakistan to go to India. Unfortunately this meant that Kazi couldn’t go with them as he is Muslim so he had to stay in Pakistan.
At the beginning of the book, Nisha starts to notice the changes which happens after Britain split with India. When Nisha and her family decide that it is safer to walk to India than to take the train. They decide to stop halfway at Nisha’s mums brothers house. This is the house that Nisha’s mum grew up in, so she’s very excited to see it.
This book is amazing and would highly recommend to readers 10+.
Everless is a book by Sarah Holland. This book is part of a duology, the first book being Everless and the second book being Evermore. The protagonist is a girl called Jules. she lives in a Dystopian world where blood is money. The more blood money (as they call it in Everless) you have the more power you have, this can lead to people who are poorer dying earlier than expected as eventually, all of there blood would be extracted.
The book opens to Jules hunting for food so that she can sell it and her Dad doesn’t have to pay as much of his blood. She goes to the butcher stall where we meet her friend Amma, where she sells what she hunted for an hour coin. Amma tells Jules that she is leaving to work at Everless (the palace where the Princes Roan and Liam live). Amma’s excited as she’ll get paid a year coin for a month of work. Jules is happy for Amma, but she starts to remember her past.
When Jules was younger, she lived at Everless, her dad was a blacksmith. She grew up with the princes and was good friends with them. She would make up games to play with Liam and Roan. Everything was great until one day. Jules was playing near a fire with the princes when suddenly, Liam pushed roan into the fire. Luckily, Jules was quick and saved him, but Jules and her father had to leave because her father was worried about what Liam would do to her because of what she had seen.
After she left the butchers, she rushed home to help her dad pay rent for the month. When she got there, she realised that her dad had to pay double rent as he hadn’t paid the month before, Jules was worried because she knew her dad didn’t have a lot of time left in him, so she told the Collector (the person who collects the blood) that she’s going to work at Everless, and they’ll pay double what they owe the collector and two months in advance. The collector agrees but Jules’s father isn’t so sure.
In the middle of the night, she leaves for Everless. She learns about the Alchemist and the Sorceress (who made the blood stones) and starts to learn things about the monarchy and secrets from her past.
Everless is an amazing book which I would highly recommend.
Bookworming 