"The Roar," Emma Clayton, Chickenhouse; 2008; 473 pp.

'The sun was setting over the Atlantic and as it ran like molten gold into the waves, a girl in a Pod Fighter ripped through the scene, like graffiti sprayed across a landscape painting, and for a few startled moments, the sun and the sea trembled."

What an immodest — and befitting — kick-off to this grab-you-by-the-collar thriller from newcomer Emma Clayton. Set in a futuristic, Dystopian world where everyone lives behind the Wall, safe from the plague animals that lie beyond, this is about 12-year-old twins, Mika and Ellie. Ellie has disappeared, but Mika doesn't buy the explanation that she's dead; he knows in his gut that she is alive, somewhere.

In fact, Ellie has been kept captive by the villainous Mal Gorman (could a name be any more malevolent?) on a space station far from Earth, so she is alive, but barely — and things aren't that great for her brother Mika either.