Hybrids - David Thorpe

A thrilling sci-fi novel set in a believeable - and terrifying - near future Hybrids is the winning entry to the HarperCollins nationwide new author competition with SAGA Magazine.

Johnny Online and Kestrella are hybrids - victims of "Creep", a pandemic sweeping the country which causes sufferers to merge with items of technology when over-exposed to their use. Kestrella persuades a wary Johnny to help her find her missing mother, but the Gene Police have other plans for him

Powerful, compelling, and narrated alternately by Johnny and Kes, it questions our human dependence on technology, and our reactions in the face of nationwide panic. This was the outstanding winner of the Children's Book Writing Competition run in conjunction with SAGA Magazine.

Orange-prize winning author Helen Dunmore - one of the judges - says: "The writing is sharp, the dialogue good, and the action pacey and page-turning. But there's a real depth to this story, too. Like all good fiction it makes the reader see the world in a different light."