Ella West is a multi-award winner teen thriller writer who farms sheep and beef with her husband near Dunedin in the South Island of New Zealand. She likes cooking and gardening but doesn’t like cleaning the bathroom. She occasionally goes trout fishing with her family and they hate her when she catches a fish and they don’t. Her chickens keep getting out and destroying her garden. In other words, life is tough.
And then there’s the sheep.
WARNING: Do not start reading an Ella West book when you are about to go to sleep. Ella West will not be responsible for late nights, sleeping in or missing the start of school the following day.
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Novels
Rain Fall
I'm not running late like I usually am. Maybe that's why I look in the river, maybe that's why I stop when I see it. A dark-coloured raincoat, the arms spread wide, floating, hood-first down the river.
And then it starts to rain.
Fifteen-year-old Annie needs to get to her basketball match, but the police have cordoned off her road. Is her neighbour, who she grew up with, still alive? What has he done to have the police after him?
A murder investigation brings new people to Annie's wild West Coast town, including a dark-haired boy riding the most amazing horse she has ever seen. But Annie is wary of strangers, especially as her world is beginning to crumble around her. In setting out to discover the truth Annie uncovers secrets that could rip the small community apart.
A horse, a boy - will anyone make it out alive?
Buy Rain Fall as a paper back or as an eBook
Try your local bookshop or The Nile, Mighty Ape, Fishpond, Amazon – wherever you buy your books.
Download Teachers Notes for Rain Fall from the Allen & Unwin website with the link below
https://www.allenandunwin.com/documents/teachers-resources/1117-rainfall9781760296834tn
Night Vision
Viola was born with a genetic condition that makes sunlight deadly. In the dark of night, when most teenagers are tucked up in bed, Viola has the run of her parents' farm and the surrounding forest. She is used to seeing hidden things through her night-vision goggles, but one night she sees something that could get her into a whole lot of trouble...
Viola has always believed she would be dead before she was twenty, but now she must decide just how far she's willing to go to help her parents keep their beloved farm.
Is it okay to steal from a thief? What if the thief might be a killer? And what if the killer threatens to come after her and her family?
A heart-thumping thriller that will leave you breathless.
Buy Night Vision as a paper back or as an eBook
Try your local bookshop or The Nile, Mighty Ape, Fishpond, Amazon – wherever you buy your books.
Download Teachers Notes for Night Vision from the Allen & Unwin website with the link below
https://www.allenandunwin.com/documents/teachers-resources/500-nightvision9781743317662tn
Thieves
Nicky has a secret. Now you see her: now you don’t.
And then it starts to rain.
She has the ability to disappear and reappear in another place – her gift controlled through the powers of thought alone. Someone else has discovered Nicky’s extrasensory talent: a group called the Project. Anonymous, benign in manner, yet also sinister in its secrecy, the Project spirits Nicky and four others away to a desert hideaway.
Constantly monitored by security, taken from their families and even their own countries, Nicky and her fellow travellers are gradually pushed into a world of espionage and intrigue. But who are they working for? Is the Project inherently good, or is it inherently evil?
Anywhere But Here
Like wanted criminals, Nicky and the other travellers are on the run. But what’s their crime?
They all have an extraordinary gift: the ability to transport themselves anywhere, through the powers of thought alone. Pursuing the travellers is the Project, an organisation that abducted them from their parents, virtually enslaving them, and pushed them to carry out secret missions. Until they escaped. Now the five teenagers are in Los Angeles, trying to keep one step ahead of their pursuers.
They might make it if they work as a team – but loyalties are shifting. In one head-long dash, the travellers must find out what they want, and who they want to be, but the Project is shadowing their every move.
Real Life
Despite their gifts, Nicky and her fellow travellers are back at the Project. They’ve been issued with new tracking bracelets that can’t be removed, leaving them all feeling trapped and betrayed.
But Nicky won’t be confined. She continues to brood on escape, but discovers a swim team in a nearby town, returning to what she loves. But for how long will the Project tolerate her small slice of freedom? Meanwhile, the Project is caught up in sinister, questionable affairs. When terrorists threaten, Nicky is sent to the dangerous heart of the matter.
No longer afraid of her remarkable abilities, and no longer willing to let others decide for her, Nicky is on the brink of retrieving her own real life. But destructive forces close in . . .
Where to buy the Thieves Series
Unfortunately the Thieves Series is officially out-of-print but University Bookshop in Dunedin still has limited copies and will courier them to you. Contact them www.unibooks.co.nz
Thieves is the best teenage science fiction novel I have read this century – Trevor Agnew, Magpies
Edgy, fast-paced science fiction teens will love – Stephen Clark, Tomorrow’s Schools Today
Action packed adventure and I couldn’t put it down – Tania Roxborogh, Otago Daily Times
Not many debut novels make it onto New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards shortlists, but Thieves, by Mosgiel writer Ella West, fully deserves its place. This fine thriller looks like the first appearance of a rising star – Tessa Duder, Australian Women’s Weekly
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I lived in Westport for about 15 years after I graduated from university. I went there for my first fulltime job and fell in love with the place. When I went back a few years ago for an author tour, a pupil at one of my talks asked me why I hadn’t written a book set in Westport and I didn’t have an answer. So I wrote this book.
