Do you want to be sure you're getting top-shelf books for your favourite people this Christmas – or on any gift-giving occasion? We are making it easy for you! Here is our selection of 2018's very best New Zealand books for young adults. Ash Arising, by Mandy Hager Hager’s writing is masterful. She keeps the tension taut throughout, controlling the chaos of explosions, gunshots, kidnappings and more. She makes her moral points and she kicks the world’s arse for letting things

Sarah Forster reviews three fantastic new New Zealand YA titles. These are three quite different titles, from Take Flight, set in a world where a group of teens have gained wings and the power of flight; to Slice of Heaven, where a group of kids in detention become softball champions; to Monsters of Virtue, set in an alternate future, where Eugenics has created a ruling class. All are fantastically unique representations of the inner world of teens. Monsters of Virtue, by L.