Nicola Garrard 🏳️‍🌈BLM

This is wonderful feedback from the Chichester Literary Society. 🤩Oddly, I can speak to 1700 teenagers (yep!) at a time without batting an eyelid, but talking to 35 adults terrifies me! Do any other Children’s and YA authors find talking to grown ups a challenge? Why is that?! 😂

Little Bear did his salutations to the sun on our early dog jog. Now I’m energised for charity funding applications, schools’ book festival organising (more on that soon!) & talking to the Chichester Literary Society!@petworthbooks @oldbarnbooks #ontheedge
#NationalYearOfReading

Jenny Pearson - Shrapnel Boys Katya Balen - Letters from the Upside Brian Conaghan - Stealing Happy Hiba Noor Khan - The Line They Drew Through Us Kenneth Oppel - Best of All Worlds Philip Reeve - Thunder City Nicola Garrard - On the Edge William Hussey - The Boy I Love Blessing Musariri - When It's Your Turn For Midnight Tia Fisher - Not Going To Plan

Happy New Year! In 2025 I read 251 books - as ever, lots these were relatively quick reads. These were my favourite children's/YA books
@bconaghanauthor.bsky.social @philipreeve.bsky.social @nmgarrard.bsky.social @whusseyauthor.bsky.social @tiafisher.bsky.social

Thank you so much for choosing On the Edge! 251 books! Wowee!🤩

The best children’s books of 2025, chosen by top authors and… We asked authors and illustrators including BookTrust’s Writer in Residence Matt Goodfellow, Frank Cottrell-Boyce, Patrice Lawrence, Rashmi Sirdeshpande…

“I was astonished by Nicola Garrard's On The Edge.”

I’m absolutely thrilled that Anne Fine chose #OnTheEdge🔥for the @Booktrust top authors and illustrators’ best books of 2026 round-up 🥰🤩 @oldbarnbooks
See all the choices here:

www.booktrust.org.uk/book-recomme...

“Children young as 11 were advised to walk miles along unlit, dangerous roads.” Public transport is failing rural youth – here’s why a shake-up is long overdue | Countryfile.com Limited public transport disadvantages rural teenagers academically and socially, says author Nicola Chester

Thank you Nicola Chester for writing this important article for Countryfile Magazine. Lots of people - including politicians and policy makers - don't know about transport inequality - so read this!
(And thank you for your praise for #OnTheEdge)

www.countryfile.com/people/opini...

I’m lucky to be invited into schools to spend time with bright, inquisitive, optimistic & passionate children & teenagers. If you ever get a chance to listen to young people, you’ll know that the future is in safe hands. The next generation have got this! 🥰

“recommend attempting to read it in a Devonshire accent - if that's available to you”
SPOT ON, my lover! You give her a try! 😂

Really happy to read two more 5⭐️ reviews for #ontheedge🔥 Thank you lovely readers (including a superstar author)!🤩🥰

@oldbarnbooks.bsky.social

A reminder that my acclaimed YA/Crossover novels are TRIED & TESTED at getting teenagers reading!🤩😁Order your teenager a copy in time for Christmas. #OntheEdge❤️🔥#nationalyearofreading2026 #TeenReads #CarnegieMedalForWriting2026 @oldbarnbooks.bsky.social

www.oldbarnbooks.com

Want to teach an acclaimed YA novel about working class coastal kids? Download a FREE #OnTheEdge secondary school Education Pack at nicola-garrard.co.uk
✅ 6-week SofW
✅ Faster Read strategies
✅ character studies
✅ creative writing
✅ discussion prompts
✅ extension tasks

I’m SKIPPING! #OnTheEdge🔥 is in the Financial Times
BEST BOOKS OF 2025 list. Thank you!⭐️🌟💫✨

If you have an angry teenage rebel-without-a-cause kid at home, they might just like a copy of #OnTheEdge. #NEETS & #grommets especially welcome👊🌊🏄

@oldbarnbooks.bsky.social

I love this review for #OnTheEdge 🥰

Do you have a free-thinking rebel-without-a-cause teenager at home? This book might just be up their street!❤️ @oldbarnbooks.bsky.social

When a bookish mum gets this from her 15yo son’s secondary school. 🥹😍
Note to self: don’t immediately moan about the clothes and wet towel on his bedroom floor when he gets in. 😂😊😁

At my adult education Spanish lesson yesterday, and one of my classmates whips out a copy of #OntheEdge for me to sign for his grandkid’s Christmas present! Que emocionante! 🥰😊

"Published authors are always back at square one the minute their book is released, and find themselves on the old familiar rollercoaster."

@nmgarrard.bsky.social author of On the Edge, shares her experience of publishing a third novel.

Read: www.writersandartists.co.uk/advice/third...

I really appreciate my publisher putting #OnTheEdge in Pen & Inc magazine for all the lovely school and county librarians to see! Thank you!📚🥰❤️🔥

#cilip #carnegies #schoollibrarian #indiepublishing #countylibrary #librariansofinstagram

So this happened on Monday and I couldn’t be happier!🥳❤️🔥Somehow I forgot to post about it on Bluesky. #OnTheEdge @oldbarnbooks.bsky.social

#OnTheEdge has been spotted in Morningside Library, Edinburgh!🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🥰❤️🔥
@oldbarnbooks.bsky.social

Why is @knightsofbooks.bsky.social. Closing? It has so many prize winners & dominates long/shortlists every year in every major children’s award. I’m reading the brilliant #heretoslay by Radhika Sanghani today, on the @uklitassociation.bsky.social book awards 11-14+ longlist. What’s going on?🥺

“I read this beautiful book on holiday and couldn't put it down.”
😁I’m delighted to see more 5 star reviews for #OnTheEdge popping up, especially when they praise its beauty AND unputdownability (is that a word?😂)❤️🔥🥰
THANK YOU READERS! Keep ’em coming ⭐️🌟💫✨
@oldbarnbooks.bsky.social

There are now signed copies of #OnTheEdge🔥at The Book Nook in Hove! 😁🥰🤩This specialist indie children’s bookshop has a huge collection of YA & children’s books. Check it out! Thank you @booknookhove.bsky.social for the warm welcome!❤️
#ukya #bookshop #Brightonandhove
@oldbarnbooks.bsky.social

I love it when “oldies” love my books!🥰😊🔥I want #OnTheEdge to be the kind of book that young people read again later in life and see a whole different story!
@oldbarnbooks.bsky.social
#yacrossover #ukya #bookrecs #booksbooksbooks #youngadultfiction

😊🥰

This thread.. thank you, thank you @nmgarrard.bsky.social. If you like the sound of this, do please read, buy, borrow, listen, gift, review. These forgotten women & their ghosts will love you for it, as will I!

By the way… I only treat books this badly when I adore them! I go back to each dog-eared page to re-read, copy out quotes and write notes on favourite sections.

like many species of birds, shrunk towards extinction as habitats (hand-laid hedges, affordable tied housing & jobs) grow scarce and villages are gentrified by wealthy weekenders. Chester is an unparalleled writer of rural things, a conjuror of ghosts.
@chelseagreenbooks.bsky.social

The past is never glorified but echoes a warning through time to our present-day, living rural communities with complex challenges and uncertain prospects. The ghosts in this book are the people we used to be, the shadows of a way of life for rural working class people that has…

hope for a future that can contain nature, farming and rural communities. Chester has the ear and eye of a novelist for dialogue and imagery - much of this reads like a novel and I found myself slowing down towards the end, wanting to be haunted for longer…

#GhostsOfTheFarm by @nicolawriting.bsky.social is an outstanding fusion of memoir and creative historical non-fiction. It is tender and sentiment-filled, without ever being sentimental, and strikes a deeply painful, elegiac note without losing hope…

🤩🥰😊