Seventeen-year-old Jayna wishes she could spend every second of the day with Andrew. He’s her first love, and he understands her like nobody else can. Jayna just wishes Andrew’s prejudiced family could accept her – but when they’re alone together, it hardly seems to matter.

But something strange has happened to Andrew. He looks . . . different. Pale and drawn, as if he hasn’t been outside for days, with mysteriously cold green eyes. He won’t go out in the sunlight, and he’s unnaturally fast and strong. And now he wants Jayna to join him.

Now she has to make the choice: to lose Andrew forever, or to be with him always – no matter the cost.

When the mysterious stranger shows up at Nova’s parents’ hotel, she thinks her luck has changed – until she realizes she’s the only one who can see him.

Liam explains he’s been here a long time. And he can never leave, no matter how hard he tries.

Soon, Nova begins to piece his tragic story together. But she’s hiding a secret of her own – one she’s desperate to keep from her family. And now Liam’s found her out . . .

Callum is the new short story by Malorie Blackman. Originally written for World Book Day, it is now available to download as an ebook.

In a hostile alternative society, the pale-skinned noughts are treated as inferiors by the ruling dark-skinned Crosses. Callum’s a nought. Sephy’s a Cross. In their world, they simply don’t fit – it’s as clear as black and white. But their childhood friendship has grown into intense, burning love. They have to find a way to be together. Then Sephy’s kidnapped, and Callum’s faced with a choice– his love for Sephy or his loyalty to his brother. Once that choice is made, there can be no looking back.

An explosive and passionate short story, set during the timeline of Malorie Blackman’s original dystopian bestseller, Noughts and Crosses.

What if YOU were left holding the baby?

You’re waiting for the postman – he’s bringing your A level results. University, a career as a journalist – a glittering future lies ahead. But when the doorbell rings it’s your old girlfriend; and she’s carrying a baby. You’re fine to look after it, for an hour or two, while she does some shopping. Then she doesn’t come back and your future suddenly looks very different…

What if YOU were left holding the baby?

You’re waiting for the postman – he’s bringing your A level results. University, a career as a journalist – a glittering future lies ahead. But when the doorbell rings it’s your old girlfriend; and she’s carrying a baby. You’re fine to look after it, for an hour or two, while she does some shopping. Then she doesn’t come back and your future suddenly looks very different…

Kyle has always been afraid of things, especially dying. But when he gets on the train that is taking him and his class on a school trip, he has no idea how close to Death he is going to come. Death enters the train and Kyle moves with him, past his friends, who are frozen in time, in life-or-death situations. Kyle finds that he can pick up on their deepest, darkest fears – real things that have happened to them, or may happen in the future, and sometimes their surreal nightmares too.

Kyle realises that he isn’t the only one who has buried fears and, more importantly, he now burns with the desire to live, and to live without fear. But will Death release him?

Sephy is a Cross – a member of the dark-skinned ruling class. Callum is a nought – a ‘colourless’ member of the underclass who were once slaves to the Crosses. The two have been friends since early childhood. But that’s as far as it can go. Until the first steps are taken towards more social equality and a limited number of Noughts are allowed into Cross schools… Against a background of prejudice and distrust, intensely highlighted by violent terrorist activity by Noughts, a romance builds between Sephy and Callum – a romance that is to lead both of them into terrible danger…

Sephy is a Cross, one of the privileged in a society where the ruling Crosses treat the pale-skinned noughts as inferiors. But her baby daughter has a nought father – Callum. Eaten up with bitterness, Callum’s brother Jude, blames Sephy for the terrible losses his family has suffered. Now Jude’s life rests on a knife edge. Will Sephy be forced, once again, to take sides?

Can the future ever erase the past? Rose has a Cross mother and a nought father in a society where the pale-skinned noughts are treated as inferiors and those with dual heritage face a life-long battle against deep-rooted prejudices. Sephy, her mother, has told Rose virtually nothing about her father, but as Rose grows into a young adult, she unexpectedly discovers the truth about her parentage and becomes determined to find out more, to honour both sides of her heritage. But her father’s family has a complicated history – one tied up with the fight for equality for the nought population. And as Rose takes her first steps away from Sephy and into this world, she finds herself drawn inexorably into more and more danger. Suddenly it’s a game of very high stakes that can only have one winner…

Just this once . . . Please let me get away with it just this once . . .

Tobey wants a better life – for him and his girlfriend Callie Rose. He wants nothing to do with the gangs that rule the world he lives in. But when he’s offered the chance to earn some money just for making a few ‘deliveries’, just this once, would it hurt to say ‘yes’?

One small decision can change everything . . .

In March 1807, the British Parliament passed an Act making the trading and transportation of slaves illegal. It was many years before slavery, as it was known then, was abolished, and slavery still continues today in different ways, but it was a big step forward towards the emancipation of a people.

Malorie Blackman has drawn together some of the finest of today’s writers and poets to contribute to this important anthology. Their short stories and poems sit alongside first-hand accounts of slavery from freed slaves, making a fascinating and absorbing collection that remembers and commemorates one of the most brutal and long-lasting inflictions of misery that human beings have inflicted upon other human beings.