Junior fiction, middle-grade fiction and YA novels, by Allison Rushby
Children’s books
Junior fiction books
For readers aged 6+, by Allison Rushby
The Wish Sisters – The Party Wish
Imagine if your baby sister could make wishes come true…
Flick has just found out her little sister has a special gift. Birdie has wished for a super-fabulous unicorn party and it has magically appeared in their backyard! There’s a rainbow slide made out of sour straps, a ball pit full of marshmallows and a real-life unicorn that poops cupcakes!
How can Flick stop the nosy next-door neighbour finding out about Birdie’s magic when the birthday cake is floating like a cloud?
Available from Riverbend Books, Booktopia, Dymocks, Angus & Robertson.
The Wish Sisters – The Big Wish
Imagine if your baby sister could make wishes come true…
It’s a big day. Flick is nervous about leading book club for the very first time. It doesn’t help that her little sister is super cranky and won’t stop wishing. Birdie is filling the pram with her favourite snacks and getting puppies appear out of thin air.
How can Flick do a good job at book club when Birdie makes a BIG wish in the library?
Available from Riverbend Books, Booktopia, Dymocks, Angus & Robertson.
The Wish Sisters – The Running Wish
Imagine if your baby sister could make wishes come true…
Flick’s got more than a running race to worry about when her little sister Birdie’s in a wishing mood. How can she keep everything under control and avoid their secret getting out? It’s school sports day and Flick is ready to race! So is Dad. He’s been training for the parents versus teachers event. There will even be a news crew filming the day. But excitement often leads to baby Birdie making wishes and soon Flick’s got more than a running race to worry about. How can she make sure her team wins fair and square when Birdie starts meddling with the most important event of the day?
Available from Riverbend Books, Booktopia, Dymocks, Angus & Robertson.
The Wish Sisters – The Pet Wish
Imagine if your baby sister could make wishes come true…
How is Flick going to hide a rainbow cat and a dancing dog from everyone?At the Pet Play Date, Flick and her little sister, Birdie, are helping local seniors group The Busybodies raise money for animals in need. There are some special pets waiting to find their fur-ever homes. But things turn wild when Birdie wishes to make the animals even more special in the hope that they will be adopted.How is Flick going to keep a rainbow cat and a dancing dog a secret when a pesky photographer is snapping lots of pics?
Available from Riverbend Books, Booktopia, Dymocks, Angus & Robertson.
The Wish Sisters – The Christmas Wish
It’s not easy to celebrate Christmas when wishes are going wrong.
It’s Christmastime, but Flick and Birdie are missing their Granny Aggie. To cheer them up, Mum and Dad invite the neighbours over to decorate gingerbread houses. All is going well until Mrs Mortlake brings up Christmas wishes, giving baby Birdie all the wrong ideas.
How can Flick spread the joy of Christmas when a gingerbread person is biting the guests?
Available from Riverbend Books, Booktopia, Dymocks, Angus & Robertson.
Middle Grade novels
For readers aged 8+, by Allison Rushby
Miss Penny Dreadful and the Midnight Kittens
Forever in trouble for sketching in her notebook, Penny Pickering dreams of her famous authoress aunt turning up at her boarding school and whisking her away. So when Aunt Harriet appears at Miss Strickland’s School for Girls of an Enquiring Mind and asks Penny if she would like to join her on an adventure, Penny knows exactly what to say – yes, please! Penny soon finds herself headed for Hampshire and a strange place called Mr Toddington’s Museum of the Curious and Absurd where bewitched kittens are said to have a tea party at midnight.
Available from Riverbend Books, Where the Wild Things Are, Booktopia, Dymocks, Angus & Robertson.
Miss Penny Dreadful and the Malicious Maze
From the moment Penny steps into her family’s Hyde Park Square townhouse, she can sense something dreadful has happened.
This is confirmed when she discovers her parents’ laboratory in terrible disarray. Before she can find out any more, Penny is whisked away with her authoress aunt to Harewood Hall in the countryside, where a malicious maze is rumoured to be gobbling up servants. Miss Penny Dreadful has yet another mystery to solve. And nothing, absolutely nothing, is as it seems!
Available from Riverbend Books, Where the Wild Things Are, Booktopia, Dymocks, Angus & Robertson.
Miss Penny Dreadful and the Mermaid’s locks
From the moment Penny steps into her family’s Hyde Park Square townhouse, she can sense something dreadful has happened.
This is confirmed when she discovers her parents’ laboratory in terrible disarray. Before she can find out any more, Penny is whisked away with her authoress aunt to Harewood Hall in the countryside, where a malicious maze is rumoured to be gobbling up servants. Miss Penny Dreadful has yet another mystery to solve. And nothing, absolutely nothing, is as it seems!
Available from Riverbend Books, Booktopia, Dymocks, Angus & Robertson.
The Ghost Locket
Eleven-year-old Lolli must return to London and break a promise she made — to never again enter the historic building run by her beloved Aunt Elsie. However, with the busy Christmas season coming, help is required and Lolli, with her guardian Freya, must return to the house of her nightmares.
Inside, Lolli must face up to what she saw three years ago. Only she can make things right for two ghosts, one friendly and one decidedly not.
But Freya can’t see the things that Lolli sees. She doesn’t understand what’s at stake. Can Lolli convince Freya that her dreams are real and help the ghosts in time?
Available from Where the Wild Things Are, Readings, Riverbend, Booktopia, Dymocks.
The Mulberry Tree
Do naught wrong by the mulberry tree, or she’ll take your daughters … one, two, three.
Ten-year-old Immy and her family run away from their storm cloud of problems to a tiny village in Cambridgeshire, England. When they find an adorable thatched cottage to begin a perfect new life in, the only downside is the ancient, dark and fierce-looking mulberry tree in the back garden. And the legend that comes with it – the villagers say the tree steals away girls living in the cottage on the eve of their eleventh birthday. Of course, Immy thinks this is ridiculous. Then she starts to hear a strange song in her head …
Available from Riverbend Books, Booktopia, Angus & Robertson.
The Turnkey
Flossie Birdwhistle is the Turnkey at London's Highgate Cemetery. As Turnkey, Flossie must ensure all the souls in the cemetery stay at rest. This is a difficult job at the best of times for a twelve-year-old ghost, but it is World War II and each night enemy bombers hammer London. Even the dead are unsettled. When Flossie encounters the ghost of a German soldier carrying a mysterious object, she becomes suspicious. What is he up to? Before long, Flossie uncovers a sinister plot that could result in the destruction of not only her cemetery, but also her beloved country. Can Flossie stop him before it is too late?
Available from Riverbend Books, Booktopia, Angus & Robertson.
The Seven Keys
Flossie Birdwhistle is the Turnkey at London’s Highgate Cemetery. Seven years have passed since Flossie saved her country from a ghostly invasion during World War II. Since then, things have been quiet. That is, until Flossie’s nemesis, Hugo Howsham, reveals a secret the pair have been keeping – the keys of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries can be combined to make a Turnkey not only mortal, but immortal. When Hugo Howsham begins stealing keys, the other Turnkeys turn against Flossie, trusting her no longer. With family, friends and her cemetery in danger, can Flossie find the inner strength to protect everything she has ever cared about?
Available from Where the Wild Things Are, Readings, Riverbend, Booktopia, Dymocks.
When This Bell Rings
In London's Belgravia, Tamsin lives next door to Edie St Clair, famous author of the ‘London of the Bells’ series of graphic novels. With the series’ tenth and final novel overdue, Tamsin offers her idol help and discovers that Edie can literally draw herself into her stories. When Edie goes missing, Tamsin draws herself into the novel and lands in a world of unexpected danger. The stakes couldn’t be higher in this gripping adventure.
Available from Riverbend Books, Booktopia, Dymocks, Angus & Robertson.
Young Adult novels
For readers ages 12+ by A.J. Rushby
The Stand In
When new girl Millie shows up at Lena’s boarding school, she arrives with a question. Why is Lena pretending to be someone she’s not? Lena ignores her. Until Millie shows her photo after photo of someone who looks like her. Exactly like her. Intrigued, Lena agrees to meet her look-alike, Saskia.
Saskia is wild. And rich. And money is something Lena desperately needs if her mother is to stay in the care home she currently lives in. So when Saskia offers Lena cold, hard cash to stand in for her at family events, Lena finds she canât say no. Sometimes, she doesn’t even want to say no – to the weekends away, the beautiful clothes, the amazing food and Saskia’s on-again-off-again boyfriend, Rhys.
Until, of course, she agrees to one last job. The one she definitely should have said no to. Because that job might be the last thing she ever does.
Available from Readings. Riverbend, Amazon, Booktopia, Dymocks, Angus & Robertson.
The Fifth Room
When a brilliant high-school student is invited to join an international secret society, she leaves everything behind in pursuit of the high-stakes rewards it offers. When Miri discovers her boyfriend is also in the society, they must pretend they dont know each other, as the students are pitted against each other to push the boundaries of medicine using illegal self-experimentation. Miris experiment involves a new combination of specially timed drugs that could mean never needing to sleep again.
As her experiment progresses, and she spends more and more hours awake, she finds that all is not as it seems. When the group realises that there is a secret fifth student experimenting alongside them, the stakes are raised dramatically. Now they must decide how far they will go to with their research…and some, it seems, are willing to go much farther than others. When it becomes clearer to Miri that the secrets in this society are deeper and more dangerous than she bargained for, she starts to question the true purpose of the secret society, and who lies behind it.