Welcome back!

 It's our first post of the term - and we'd like to welcome all our regular readers, plus everyone else encountering the blog for the first time.

The blog exists to promote and celebrate all aspects of books and reading at SPS.  Anyone can contribute - if you've read something brilliant, fiction or non-fiction, and you want to share it with the world, just send us your review (spsbookblog@stpaulsschool.org.uk) and we'll happily publish it. We also publish creative writing, articles about writers and writing, plus the occasional quiz. Our Tuesday post is our regular 'book of the week' slot, so here, without further ado, is the school librarian, Mrs Cummings, with our first recommendation of the term.

The Call by Peadar O'Guilin

Reviewed by Mrs Cummings

Set in a contemporary Ireland which has been cut off from the rest of the world, this is a cursed country where at some point every teenager will vanish for three minutes and four seconds. They go to school and train aggressively in the hope of surviving the ordeal, but most are killed or return horribly damaged. 

The heroine, Nessa, is a likeable character: intelligent and strong-willed but her physical disability means she is at a disadvantage from the start. She has to try to survive both the monsters she meets when she is Called, and the threats she faces from the other people.

This is such an unsettling book. Dark, often gory, it stayed with me long after reading it. It has the pace of a thriller but it is a strange mash-up of fairy tale, fantasy and horror story. At times the violence meant I had to put it down but, in the end, I just needed to know what happened.  

The author has said this is the first of a duology - if you enjoyed Hunger Games or A Game of Thrones you will probably enjoy this. If you want a good night’s sleep, maybe skip it.