Showing results by author "Judi Curtin" in All Categories

Ancient castles, yummy French food and deep, dark forests - sounds like the perfect holiday! Megan's really looking forward to the summer holidays - her whole family is going to France, and best of all Alice is coming, too! But when Alice tries to make friends with a local French boy, things begin to get very interesting....

Best friends need to be together. Don't they? Poor Megan! Not only is she stuck with totally uncool parents and a little sister who is too cute for words but also her very best friend, Alice, has moved away. Now Megan has to go to school and face the dreaded Melissa all on her own. The two friends hatch a risky plot to get back together. But can their secret plan work?

Lissadell House, Sligo, 1915. In the Big House, young housemaid Lily feels life is changing for everyone—and she fears for her new friend Sam and his choices. Plans are also being made for Maeve de Markievicz, daughter of the famous Countess, whether she likes it or not. Can Lily help her friend without getting into too much trouble? All the while, Lily knows she has a chance to grab hold of her own special dreams, as long as nothing goes wrong. With friendship they can face anything.

Lissadell House, Sligo, 1913. Lily and her friend Nellie are young housemaids in service in the Big House - they work for Lady Mary and Sir Josslyn Gore-Booth at Lissadell. As well as her housework and duties, Lily helps out in the local school of needlework - she hopes it might be a step on the way to her dream of being a teacher. Though they work hard, there’s lots of fun to be had at Lissadell - like friendship, fun and madcap bicycle rides with Sir Josslyn’s niece Maeve, daughter of the famous Republican Constance Markievicz.

A best friend is forever, isn’t she? Megan can’t wait to go away to summer camp with her best friend, Alice. It will be fantastic - no organic porridge, no school, nothing but fun! But when Alice makes friends with Hazel, Megan begins to feel left out. Hazel’s pretty, sophisticated and popular, and Alice seems to think she’s amazing. Is Megan going to lose her very best friend?

Bridget and Josie are leaving rural Ireland for New York, to stay with a distant relative, Catherine, who has found jobs for them. On the journey they meet a young orphaned girl, Julia, who is travelling alone in hopes of staying with her long-absent brother. When they get to the brother's address, he is no longer there, and no one knows where he has gone to. In the following weeks they do their best to search for him, but are unsuccessful as he has a common name, and the police are not particularly interested in finding yet another lost Irish man.

Sally and her sister Bridget are New Yorkers now – they’ve settled in and feel at home in the bustling city. Life in New York is exciting enough that the girls can rise above life with Catherine, their mean cousin. At work one day, Bridget finds a photograph of a young man between the pages of a book. She shows it to her employer Miss Cameron who dismisses it, but her blush and flustered manner intrigue Bridget. She soon discovers he was a suitor, but not allowed by Miss Cameron’s family as he came from a poor background.

It's spring midterm, and Alice has invited Megan to visit her in Dublin. Megan is hoping for a nice trouble-free few days with her best friend. No such luck! She soon discovers that Alice is once again plotting and scheming. It seems that Alice's mum, Veronica, has a new boyfriend. The plan is to discover who he is and to get rid of him. Alice (with poor Megan in tow) becomes totally horrible in an effort to scare the poor man away.

Alice and Megan are back together again! When they are together, they can handle anything! Grace invites Alice and Megan to spend Easter in her house in Lanzarote. The girls are accidentally left alone for two days in the house. It's fun at first, until they become trapped on an upstairs balcony and spend a long, cold night and day waiting to be rescued! Meanwhile Melissa is still unhappy at boarding school. Alice wants to help her to get back to their school, but Megan sees this as a betrayal.

Life is complicated enough for Molly and Beth even before they walk through a spooky doorway that leads to - Thursday 26 July 1984! The girls can’t believe they are back in a time where the hair is weird and the technology is basic. But when Beth realises that her mum, who died when Beth was little, would be alive in the 1980s, she just has to try to find her.... Can the girls navigate their way through the strange world of their parents’ youth - and back home again (without using Google maps)?

Megan and Alice are starting secondary school; with new subjects, new teachers and new friends, it's going to take a bit of getting used to. And when Megan meets Marcus, the class bad boy who’s always in trouble but doesn't seem to care, things really start to get complicated. At least she has Home Ec class with Alice - the worst cook in the school - to look forward to, so school's not all bad!

From the best-selling author of the Alice & Megan series comes another smash-hit Eva adventure. Eva Gordon likes fashion, fun and hanging out with friends, so she can't believe she is stuck all summer with Kate, who doesn't care about being cool. But when the girls have to pull together to solve a problem, Eva finds out that there's more to life than having the right hair or clothes, and sometimes 'weird' girls can make the best friends.

Alice and Megan are back, and that can only mean one thing: trouble! It's Easter, and best friends Alice and Megan are together in Limerick again. They are both looking forward to their confirmation, especially as their two families are going out to dinner together to celebrate. But not even a meal can be simple when Alice is around, as she decides to hatch a plan to get her parents back together.

It’s 1913, and the time has come for Lily to leave primary school in Sligo and start her job in the Big House - Lissadell. Her employers, the Gore-Booths, are kind, but life as a young housemaid is hard: Lily misses her home and family, she works long days and has to learn how to get on with her sullen roommate, Nellie. Then Maeve, the daughter of Constance Markievicz and niece of the Gore-Booths, comes to visit. She decides to paint a portrait of Lily, and a friendship begins.

This latest instalment in the popular series sees Lily finally on her way to realising her dream of becoming a teacher. Nellie's older sister, Johanna, starts walking out with Harry the footman, and is extremely worried when he enlists and goes off to fight in World War I. He send letters to the girls from the front and tells them all about the Christmas Day truce in 1914...but then a telegram comes. Harry is missing, presumed dead. Will he return to Lissadell, safe and sound?

Eva Gordon doesn't like mysteries - so when new girl Aretta hurries away after school every day, Eva's determined to find out why. And Aretta’s not the only person Eva’s interested in - a friend’s granny has been parted from her beloved dog, so Eva decides to cheer her up. But can she? Eva finds that some things are too big and complicated for one girl to deal with alone...but she has a talent for bringing people together, and together people can do almost anything!

Winning is a good thing, isn’t it? Everyone in first year is really excited about the big prize in the English essay competition - four months in France - and Alice has a good chance of winning. Megan loves writing essays, but she doesn’t want to win - go away for four months alone? No way! She doesn’t want Alice to go either - why would anyone want to go abroad without her best friend?

Families are complicated! Molly’s dad seems so lonely. He lives on his own, he won’t get a pet and he doesn’t get on with his brother.... Best friends Molly and Beth suspect his problems lie in his past, but what can two 13-year-olds do about that? Well, when they have a time-travelling door, maybe they can do something! The girls go back to 1975 hoping to right some wrongs - if they can navigate 1970s cars, food and boybands. And if the colourful fashions don’t blind them first!

What if something happened long ago that still makes you sad? Graham is Molly and Beth’s favourite uncle, so they really want to help him fix the past – and as the girls know of a mysterious door that can take them back in time, maybe they can! But how can they find who they’re looking for without apps or social media? And what will the girls make of the '60s, where the hairstyles are wild, the slang is weird and no one’s heard of ciabatta?

When Eva and Kate find an old diary, they end up determined to right old wrongs! But they can't spend all their time living in the past as the present, too, is throwing all sorts of challenges at them....