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Paula Harrison's Pale Peak Burning is a magical adventure for 10 year olds about a girl with fire in her hands and a secret she can't tell anyone.
Laney is a faerie. In her village of Skellmore the faeries look just like humans, but they belong to different tribes with different magic. Laney's dad is a Mist, the water tribe. Her fire comes from her mum's side, and in Skellmore marrying outside your tribe is forbidden.
This is the third Faerie Tribes book, so a lot has already happened. The Shadow, a dark faerie nobody can put a name to, is still hunting for the magical objects each tribe guards. And Laney's dad has been unconscious in hospital for months since the Shadow attacked him.
When the doctors move him to a special unit up north, Laney's family moves too. Her new village has a whole street of fire faeries, the Blazes, and she's desperate to meet them. The first Blaze she meets is a boy on a hilltop who's very suspicious of her (not quite the welcome she'd pictured).
It's a very emotional read. When Laney's upset her hands literally heat up, and she scorches a friend's sofa without meaning to. Anyone who's ever felt too big for their own feelings will get it.
It opens ten years earlier, with little Laney being flown away in the night after her mother has been killed (that's backstory, not something that happens later). Early on, an elderly neighbour dies suddenly on his front step and turns to faerie dust, and the Shadow steals the dust for dark spells. Her dad stays in hospital through the opening chapters.
For a child who's living with illness or loss in their own family, that could feel close to home. For a reader who likes their magic with real stakes and big feelings, it's gripping.
If they'd like another girl who can see a hidden world that everyone else misses, Robyn Silver is by Paula Harrison too. Robyn is stuck in the middle of five noisy brothers and sisters, and she's the only one who can see the spiky creature hiding in the kitchen cupboard.
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