Valentine

Valentine is the first in a smart and page-turning YA series with a paranormal twist.

Strange and terrible things begin to happen to four teenagers – all born on the same Valentine’s Day. One of these teenagers is the Valentine: a Seelie fairy changeling swapped for a human child at its birth. The Unseelie have come to kill the Valentine – except they don’t know who it is.

Pearl shares a birthday with Finn Blacklin. She’s known him all her life and disliked every second of it. Now Pearl and Finn must work together to protect themselves from the sinister forces that are seeking them out.

But there's one more problem: the explosive chemistry between them . . .

Staff Review

First things first, I have to express my love for this cover - it's pretty but still a bit dark; a perfect accompaniment to this story. In a small Australian town, four babies were born on the same day, Valentine's Day. They're somewhat local celebrities. But then one goes missing and is found in pieces days later. Weird things then start happening around the others...

Our main characters are Pearl and Finn, two of the Valentine babies. They don't like each other very much, but are trying to work together to understand what is happening. They slowly begin to uncover links to a fairy underworld, to a war between the Seelie and the Unseelie.

It is really exciting to see a fairy story unfolding within the Australian bush - it is a perfect location for the dark, creepy fairies which exist in this world. The book is a bit slow to start, but it builds and builds. There are major plot twists, and the end has left me craving more. A great start to an interesting new Australian young adult series.

About the Author

Jodi is an author and academic from Kiama, a seaside holiday town on the south coast of New South Wales. She is a literary historian, and her PhD was awarded by Macquarie University in 2015. She is currently a lecturer in English at the University of Tasmania. Her academic work focuses on the history of love, sex, women and girls, popular culture and literatures. It means that reading romance novels and watching The Bachelor is technically work for her.