Each week we bring you a sample of the books we’re reading, the films we’re watching, the television shows we’re hooked on or the music we’re loving.

Bronte Coates is reading Nicola Yoon and C. Robert Cargill

I’ve just finished reading two great books, and both were thanks to other people’s recommendations. A colleague put me onto Nicola Yoon’s new YA novel which is romantic, heartwrenching and packed with all kinds of big questions and complications. In short, The Sun is also a Star is exactly the kind of book I would’ve loved as a teenager. My younger brother also recently recommended I read C. Robert Cargill’s debut, Dreams and Shadows. This urban fantasy mashes up fairy lore with the real world to construct a richly-imagined mythology. I was impressed with how Cargill layers multiple storylines throughout the book, bringing them together for an exciting punch of a finish.

Nina Kenwood is reading The Trespasser by Tana French

I just finished Tana French’s The Trespasser – one of our top 10 crime books of the year – and it was terrific. I only discovered French this year (thanks to my colleague Lian) and after enjoying her previous novel The Secret Place, I was excited to dive into The Trespasser. Both novels feature the same two detectives, but the books are stand-alones and do not have to be read together. The Trespasser is a juicy who-dunnit, and it also features a hefty dose of workplace intrigue as protagonist Antoinette Conway grapples with being the only female detective on the Murder Squad, and tries to figure out who she can trust. French’s novels are delightfully Irish, and provide the perfect cold, blustery, biting escape you need on a too-hot Australian summer’s day.

Mike Shuttleworth is reading A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness and Jim Kay (from an original idea by Siobhan Dowd)

The film adaptation of A Monster Calls is arriving in cinemas this Christmas. The trailer looks brilliant, but I wanted to read the novel first. Patrick Ness finished the book based on a draft by the late Siobhan Dowd, who died aged 47 in 2007. Dowd was critically acclaimed and her early death robbed us of an outstanding writer for young people.

A Monster Calls tells the story of 13-year-old Conor O’Malley who is woken every night at 12:07 by a looming ghost figure, part scarecrow and part monster. Conor’s mother lies in a hospital bed with advanced stages of cancer. Who is the figure, and what story does he have for Conor that could help in any way?

Illustrations by Jim Kay evoke an English mysticism and amplify the surprisingly tender writing. (Kay is also behind the fully illustrated Harry Potter novels, of which book one and book two have been released.)

Writer and illustrator combine superbly to tell a story that shows us our darkest fears, and also the stories we tell ourselves to protect us from the truth. A Monster Calls never flinches from questions it raises and I hope the filmmakers have the same courage. Highly recommended for ages 12 to adult.

(Ed. note: Two new editions of this book have been published in honour of the forthcoming film: one is a gorgeous