The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman (David Fickling Books)
The second instalment of the Book of Dust – Philip Pullman’s new trilogy about Lyra Belacqua, set in the magical alternative reality of His Dark Materials, in which peoples' souls are expressed via animal companions called daemons. This novel picks up 20 years after Pullman's La Belle Sauvage, as Lyra tries to navigate the responsibilities of adult life, a growing estrangement from her beloved daemon Pam, and a mysterious murder that threatens to overturn the security of her student life in Oxford and send her back out into a world fraught with sinister authoritarian forces.