What Are You Looking For?

Bethany’s summer centres on weight-loss pressure, family tensions and unrequited affection. A failed fad diet and a clash at camp lead her to leave, only for the hoped-for escape to prove less simple or healing than she expects.

This is a captivity-and-escape story, with a frightening abduction at its centre. Consider whether your reader is comfortable with suspense built around a character being held against her will.

A lyrical fairy tale with atmospheric illustrations and a cinematic flow. Its central appeal is the developing bond between Maude and Tony.

This is a stark story about exploitation and a young person trying to find a way out. Its verse form also gives space to Angel’s reflections on words, identity and faith.

This is a fantasy adventure built around a perilous flight and a family under pressure. Its appeal may lie in the combination of strange threats, a legendary inheritance and the siblings’ relationships.

This historical adventure centres on work, friendship and a promise to family, with Kevin's role in helping enslaved people escape adding a serious moral dimension.

This is presented as a comic story of mismatched impressions and eccentric circumstances, bringing two teenagers together in a residential home for older people.

This is a perilous adventure about a secluded boy entering an unfamiliar city, with an unfinished fantasy story woven into his attempt to escape and find his mother.

A familiar Cinderella framework is recast as a Faerie-court adventure, with Ornella bargaining for freedom while becoming involved in danger surrounding the Winter King.

A wartime story follows Paul’s involvement in resistance work and an escape route, alongside the devastating news he receives after the war about his friend’s family.

A historical diary narrative about a Jewish girl’s attempted escape from Nazi Germany, centred on her family’s uncertain hope of reaching Cuba.

A school dance troupe’s journey becomes a story of friendship and helping a young prince in danger, set against the threat of Nazi persecution in 1939.

This is a family-centred story about escaping abuse, making a new identity and discovering that a flight framed as an adventure has practical consequences.

This is a family-centred ghost story about three sisters trying to make sense of loss while imagining lives beyond their home and neighbourhood.

A historical adventure about escape, travel through the Scottish Highlands and an unexpected partnership, set against political unrest after the Jacobite rebellion.

This is a friendship story set against coercion and injury, with a fantasy of flying and wartime flying stories in the mix.

A fantasy journey centred on a young protagonist whose life shifts from tightly controlled service towards travel, uncertainty and new possibilities.

A Minecraft-inspired adventure pairs an outsider character with a bullied girl as monsters enter her school. The characters team up under pressure.

A modern fairytale combines a fantastical journey with Masha’s wish to reunite with her mother. The central choice is presented as a question, not an answer.

A fantasy quest begins with a castle attack and an escape. Four characters with different backgrounds face a mission involving legendary magical beasts and the fate of their people.

A brisk-sounding science-fiction adventure pairs a group of young people with a mystery about life-draining creatures and their purpose.

A historical account of escape from slavery, centred on the secret network that helped people seek freedom. The stories also include the possibility of reunion with family.

This is a contemporary thriller about craving adventure, taking a risk and discovering that a promising escape may be dangerous.

A princess befriends a visitor who has a special connection to a fierce lion. Belzékor, described as demonic, sees a way to endanger the princess, setting up a tale of peril and escape.

This is a historical coming-of-age adventure built around two young people facing sharply different forms of upheaval, with martial-arts training and escape driving their separate journeys.

This is a coming-of-age journey shaped by separation, escape and travel, with Beck trying to make his own way and understand his childhood.

A fantasy escape story built around a prison on an immense scale, uncertain origins and a connection between Finn and Claudia, who are on opposite sides of its boundary.

An imaginative prequel built around two brothers’ discoveries and journeys, with identity and the history of their land among its mysteries.

A Snow White retelling, the story centres on Sophie’s attempt to get away from a jealous stepmother and Gabe’s effort to bring her to his family’s castle. Escape brings new complications as their feelings grow despite existing betrothals.

A fast-moving premise combines a secretive organisation, a flight into hiding and a mystery tied to Jimmy’s new experiences. The book appears to centre on what he can prove and whom he can convince.

A compact historical biography centres on Tubman’s work helping people escape slavery, placing her actions within the Underground Railroad and their historical setting.

A theatrical adventure follows Josie from discouragement at stage school into an unexpected acting opportunity, with escape and pursuit adding suspense.

This could suit a reader interested in historical romance and stories of escape, while also inviting careful thought about how slavery and racial identity are represented in popular historical fiction.

A fast-moving speculative thriller about genetically modified young people, authoritarian power and escape. It combines a flood-threatened future with assassination, secret-police pursuit and freedom-fighter conflict, while placing Kai’s changing loyalties and Phoebe’s relationship with him at the centre.

This is speculative young-adult fiction about a young woman and her male counterpart negotiating an unusual shared existence. It combines departure from a hometown where Jill faces public judgement with romance, sexual choices, family conflict and the practical question of how either identity can build an independent life.

Choose this for a spooky, participatory adventure rather than a linear story. Its main appeal is agency: the reader travels through a perilous historical setting, makes decisions and may reach one of many endings.

Expect a dark, surreal adventure combining danger, romance, humour and mystery. Peter and Navinda’s relationship sits alongside family separation, secrets and strange village characters, with identity and belonging recurring beneath the thriller plot.

Expect a light adventure combining a mischievous puppy, a cruise setting and a mystery. The children’s efforts to conceal Bagels create comic problems, while possible spies and a secret envelope add suspense.

A richly imaginative fantasy that combines adventure with reflection on identity, wishes and responsibility. Its layered realities and symbolic design may appeal to readers who enjoy wonder that asks them to pause and think.

This is a determined sibling-rescue adventure rooted in a little-known historical episode. It combines family loyalty and questions about adoption with travel, danger and prejudice, while inviting readers to notice how institutions and communities treat vulnerable children.

A historically grounded creative-life story in which the origins of Curious George are closely tied to a Jewish couple’s flight from wartime Europe. Its strongest elements are human connection, artistic work, and a tense escape.

This is a compact, atmospheric horror story where lavish celebration is set against plague and mortality. Its strongest appeal is the deliberate use of colour, rooms, sound and theatrical suspense rather than detailed psychological development.

Expect a tense, historically grounded story about family separation, political division and surveillance. Alternating viewpoints show East and West Berlin while cliff-hanger moments sustain uncertainty about what happens next.

This anthology offers contrasting kinds of supernatural romance: wistful, thoughtful, unsettling and eerie. Its short-story structure lets readers compare how different writers handle love, strangeness, freedom and uncertainty.

This offers a whimsical romance about a girl weighing escape and social advancement against love for a childhood friend. Its central tension is whether a seemingly attractive opportunity should determine Gracepearl’s future.