The Red Necklace by Sally Gardner

'Exquisitely constructed...sophisticated, unpatronising...this book is a challenging read but also extremely rewarding. With vivid descriptions and fluid prose, this tale of magic, murder and madness brings 18th-century Europe to life on the page' WATERSTONE'S BOOKS QUARTERLY

'Gardner has woven a tense and believable fantasy into a setting of great danger and social termoil. Suspenseful throughout, The Red Necklace builds a thrilling climax. Highly recommended' HISTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW


The story of a remarkable boy called Yann Margoza; Tetu the dwarf, his friend and mentor; Sido, unloved daughter of a foolish Marquis; and Count Kalliovski, Grand Master of a secret society, who has half the aristocracy in thrall to him, and wants Yann dead.

Yann is spirited away to London but three years later, when Paris is gripped by the bloody horrors of the Revolution, he returns, charged with two missions: to find out Kalliovski's darkest deeds and to save Sido from the guillotine.

With a tangle of secrets, a thread of magic and a touch of humour, the follies of the aristocracy and the sufferings of ordinary people are unfolded as their lives move relentlessly towards the tragic and horrific days of the Terror.

THE RED NECKLACE is not only a tremendous adventure story but a vibrant and passionate picture of Paris in turmoil and of a large cast of memorable characters.

About the Author

Sally Gardner trained at art college and went on to work in the theatre, winning awards for her costume designs for some notable productions. After her twin daughters and her son were born she started to illustrate children's books, and then turned to writing. She lives in North London.

Click here to find out more about the Author...

Love in the time of the Terror - Adèle Geras applauds a sprightly tale set during the French revolution

My Swordhand is Singing by Marcus Sedgwick

Winner of the Booktrust Teenage Prize

'A bloodthirsty tale which grips readers from the off.' WATERSTONE'S BOOKS QUARTERLY

'Marcus Sedgwick paints a chilling and irresistibly Gothic picture of the fight between good against evil. This book is tense, unnerving and well-structured - it scared me right to the end and I could not put it down.'  Anna Hickling, The Times

'He came to the gate of the graveyard. There could be no doubt. The wool ran over the fence next to the gate, as if his quarry had sailed clean over it. Dumbly, he gripped it, as if it were a lifeline, when in reality it was leading him towards death itself...' 

In the bitter cold of an unrelenting winter Tomas and his son, Peter, arrive in Chust and despite the inhospitability of the villagers settle there as woodcutters.

Tomas digs a channel of fast-flowing waters around their hut so they have their own little island kingdom. Peter doesn't understand why his father has done this, nor why his father carries a long battered box everywhere they go, and why he is forbidden to know its contents. But when a band of gypsies comes to the village Peter's drab existence is turned upside down.

He is infatuated by the beautiful gypsy princess, Sofia, intoxicated by their love of life and drawn into their deadly quest. For these travellers are Vampire Slayers and Chust is a dying community - where the dead come back to wreak revenge on the living.

Amidst the terrifying events that follow, Peter is stunned to see his father change from a disillusioned man to the warrior hero he once was.

Set in the remote and forbidding landscapes of the seventeenth century this is a heart-rending story of loss and redemption, and inspired by the original vampire folklore of Eastern Europe it represents a unique regeneration of a timeless myth.

Marcus Sedgwick is a successful children's author. When he was young he was told he wouldn't be able to make a living as an author, and that left an impression on him, so much so that he did maths and politics at university. But then he got a job in a children's bookshop, "fell in love with contemporary children's writing" and remembered his childhood aspirations to become a writer. He decided to give it a try.



About the Author

Since Floodland won the Brandford-Boase Award for the best first children's novel of 2000, Marcus Sedgwick's books have been shortlisted for many awards, including The Guardian Children's Fiction Award, The Blue Peter Book Award, the Carnegie Medal and the Edgar Allan Poe Award. About My Swordhand is Singing he says: "It was fascinating to discover the original folklore that gave birth to the vampire legend. No snowy graveyard is left unvisited, no corpse undisturbed, no spell unspoken, no date with destiny unmet. But it's not all gloom; there's misery and horror, too."

By day he works in children's publishing and by night is the drummer in a rock band in Brighton. He lives in Sussex with his wife Pippa, and has a daughter, Alice.

Click here to visit Marcus Sedgewick's own website...

This Thing of Darkness by Harry Thompson

Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize

'Perhaps the best historical novel I have read…A stunning achievement of imagination and story-telling. A masterpiece.' Bernard Cornwell

'It's an excellent read, in the traditions of Patrick O'Brian, and fully deserves its position on the Booker list.'

The Daily Telegraph

In 1831 Charles Darwin set off in HMS Beagle under the command of Captain Robert Fitzroy on a voyage that would change the world. 

In novels by Kurt Vonnegut, we find the concept of a "karass": a small group of people whom fate brings together to accomplish great things.

The suicide of a British captain in 1828 and the need to replace him in charting the icy complexities of Tierra Del Fuego led to the appointment of Fitzroy as commander of the Beagle. His manic-depressive state led him to advertise for a ship's naturalist, a companion to jolly him from dark moods - and to appoint Charles Darwin. Of such contingencies are revolutions made, whether or not they might have happened otherwise.

This is an epic novel of sea-faring adventure set in the 19th century charting the life of Fitzroy, the captain of 'The Beagle' and his passenger Charles Darwin.

It combines adventure, emotion, ideas, humour and tragedy as well as illuminating the history of the 19th century. Fitzroy, the Christian Tory aristocrat believed in the sanctity of the individual, but his beliefs destroyed his career and he committed suicide. Darwin, the liberal minor cleric doubts the truth of the Bible and develops his theory of evolution which is brutal and unforgiving in human terms. The two friends became bitter enemies as Darwin destroyed everything Fitzroy stood for.

This Thing of Darkness is two sorts of book: a superior adventure story and a polemic. One can enjoy the former considerably while noting that the manners of the latter are wanting. The Independent

About the Author

Harry Thompson was a highly successful television producer 'Have I Got News for You, They Think It's All Over, Never Mind the Buzzcocks' and the author of a number of non-fiction bestsellers 'Peter Cook, The Biography'. He wrote for most of the national newspapers, especially on travel, and was nominated for Travel Journalist of the Year. He died in November 2005.

Click here to read an interview with the author from The Guardian conducted a few months before he died...

Arthur and George by Julian Barnes

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize

'The situation at the centre of this richly accomplished new novel isn’t fantasy but fact. Taking a real-life Edwardian whodunit Barnes transforms it into a dazzling exercise in detective fiction of more kinds than one.' The Times

Arthur and George grow up worlds and miles apart in late nineteenth-century Britain: Arthur in shabby-genteel Edinburgh, George in the vicarage of a small Staffordshire village.

Arthur becomes a doctor, and then a writer; George a solicitor in Birmingham.

Arthur is to become one of the most famous men of his age, George remains in hardworking obscurity.

But as the new century begins, they are brought together by a sequence of events which made sensational headlines at the time as The Great Wyrley Outrages.

With a mixture of detailed research and vivid imagination, Julian Barnes brings to life not just this long-forgotten case, but the inner workings of these two very different men.

This is a novel in which the events of a hundred years ago constantly set off contemporary echoes, a novel about low crime and high spirituality, guilt and innocence, identity, nationality and race.

Most of all it is a profound and moving meditation on the fateful difference between what we believe, what we know and what we can prove.

The Guardian reviews Julian Barnes's wonderfully executed Arthur & George which recounts Conan Doyle's own detective adventure

Read more about the book at the Author's own website...

About the Author

Julian Barnes was born in Leicester, England on January 19, 1946. He was educated at the City of London School from 1957 to 1964 and at Magdalen College, Oxford, from which he graduated in modern languages (with honors) in 1968. After graduation, he worked as a lexicographer for the Oxford English Dictionary supplement for three years. In 1977, Barnes began working as a reviewer and literary editor for the New Statesmen and the New Review. From 1979 to 1986 he worked as a television critic, first for the New Statesmen and then for the Observer.

Barnes has received several awards and honors for his writing including the Somerset Maugham Award (Metroland 1981), three Booker Prize nominations (incl. Flaubert's Parrot 1984, England, England 1998); Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize (FP 1985); Prix Médicis (FP 1986); E. M. Forster Award (American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, 1986); Gutenberg Prize (1987); Grinzane Cavour Prize (Italy, 1988); and the Prix Femina (Talking It Over 1992). Barnes was made a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1988, Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1995 and Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2004. In 1993 he was awarded the Shakespeare Prize by the FVS Foundation and in 2004 won the Austrian State Prize for European Literature.

Julian Barnes has written numerous novels, short stories, and essays. He has also translated a book by French author Alphonse Daudet and a collection of German cartoons by Volker Kriegel. His writing has earned him considerable respect as an author who deals with the themes of history, reality, truth and love.

Read an interview with the author explaining why he came to write about the creator of Sherlock Holmes...

Revolver by Marcus Sedgwick

'One of the finest and best-constructed page turners of the year Tense, succinct, evocative and ingenious, and one to haunt you long after the novel is over.'

Nicolette Jones, THE SUNDAY TIMES

'An outstanding psychological thriller about the Arctic gold rush.' THE BOOKSELLER

1910. A cabin north of the Arctic Circle.

Fifteen-year-old Sig Andersson is alone.

Alone, except for the corpse of his father, who died earlier that day after falling through a weak spot on the ice-covered lake.

His sister, Anna, and step-mother, Nadya, have gone to the local town for help.

Then comes a knock at the door. It's a man, the flash of a revolver's butt at his hip, and a mean glare in his eyes.

Sig has never seen him before but Wolff claims to have unfinished business with his father.

As Sig gradually learns the awful truth about Wolff's connection to his father, his thoughts are drawn to a certain box hidden on a shelf in the storeroom, in which lies his father's prized possession - a revolver.

When Anna returns alone, and Wolff begins to close in, Sig's choice is pulled into sharp focus.

Should he use the gun, or not?

Read The Guardian's review of Marcus Sedgwick's 'thought-provoking revenge tale' here...

About the Author

Marcus Sedgwick was born in 1968 in Kent, and has worked as a bookseller and inside children's publishing, becoming a writer for children in 1994, and well-known for the dark themes in his young adult fantasy books. He has illustrated some of his own books, and also produces woodcuts and stone carvings.

His first novel, Floodland (2000), winner of the 2000 Branford Boase Book Award, tells the tale of Zoe, who lives on her own on an island once part of England, and his second book, Witch Hill (2001), is about Jamie, a boy whose house is destroyed by fire. The Dark Horse (2002), borrows its tone from Norse myth, and Cowards (2003) is about two men who refuse to fight in the first World War. The Book of Dead Days (2003) and its sequel, Dark Flight Down (2004), tell of the search of Boy, Willow and Valerian, and their capture by Emperor Frederick.

My Swordhand is Singing (2006), was shortlisted for several book awards and was winner of the 2007 Booktrust Teenage Prize. Blood Red, Snow White (2007), was shortlisted for the 2007 Costa Children's Book Award.

His latest book is White Crow (2010), shortlisted for the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize. He has also recently published several books in The Raven Mysteries series, featuring Edgar the Raven and the Otherhand family.

Click here to visit Marcus Sedgwick's own website...

Interview with Marcus Sedgwick: 'There is almost nothing you can't tackle in a teenage novel'

Perfume by Patrick Süskind

‘The streets stank of manure, the courtyards of urine, the stairwells stank of mouldering wood and rat droppings, the kitchens of spoiled cabbage and mutton fat . . .'

An acclaimed bestseller and international sensation when it was first released in 1987, Patrick Suskind's classic novel provokes a terrifying examination of what happens when one man's indulgence in his greatest passion - leads to murder.

Survivor, genius, perfumer, killer: this is Jean-Baptiste Grenouille.

In the slums of eighteenth-century Paris, the infant Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born with one sublime gift - an absolute sense of smell. As a boy, he lives to decipher the odors of Paris, and apprentices himself to a prominent perfumer who teaches him the ancient art of mixing precious oils and herbs.

But Grenouille's genius is such that he is not satisfied to stop there, and he becomes obsessed with capturing the smells of objects such as brass doorknobs and fresh-cut wood.

Then one day he catches a hint of a scent that will drive him on an ever-more-terrifying quest to create the "ultimate perfume"- the scent of a beautiful young virgin. And to get it he must kill. And kill. And kill…

Told with dazzling narrative brilliance, Perfume is a hauntingly powerful tale of murder and sensual depravity suitale for older readers.

About the Author

Patrick Süskind was born near Munich, in 1949. He studied medieval and modern history at the University of Munich.

His first play, The Double Bass, was written in 1980 and became an international success. His first novel, Perfume, became an internationally acclaimed bestseller.

He is also the author of The Pigeon and Mr. Summer's Story, and a coauthor of the enormously successful German television series Kir Royal. Patrick Süskind lives and writes in Munich.

The Crowstarver by Dick King-Smith

Dick King-Smith has published over 100 books, and still he comes up with the goods. The Crowstarver tells the story of Spider, a foundling brought up by a childless shepherd and his wife in Gloucestershire in the days before the second world war. This is King-Smith in a more sombre and reflective mood than usual, but his love of the land and the people who work it is strong and deep.

Young Spider is different from other boys; he's handicapped both mentally and physically. But he has a marvellous affinity with animals of every sort. A crowstarver is someone who scares crows away from the growing corn, and Spider is the best crowstarver there ever was; and in his understanding and love of all animals, even the croaks, as he calls them, he finds fulfilment.

There's a warmth in this book, a profound understanding of the cycle of birth and death, and a wisdom that knows that big things like joy and wonder are often found in little things like robins and Liquorice Allsorts and penknives. Philip Pullman

Like many another tale set in the pre-war rural world of the English countryside, The Crowstarver tells about a close-knit farming community and the ways of animals and birds. But this is a story of country life with a difference. Joy comes to a childless shepherd and his wife when a baby found lying in the straw of a sheep pen becomes their very own child. As he grows up it becomes clear that Spider is not "normal". Although he can't think or speak like other children, he can understand and communicate with animals.

In this deceptively simple story the ordinary and the natural are transfused with the extraordinary and the wonderful. The tale has elements of a fairy story and yet remains rooted in a realistically described, historically accurate, everyday world. The combination of elements creates a powerful, poignant, thought-provoking read for all 9 to 11-year-olds. Tamsin Palmer

About the Author

Dick King-Smith was a Gloucestershire farmer until the age of 45, when he gave up farming to become a primary school teacher.

Now a bestselling full-time author, his work has received many awards including a Bronze Medal for the Smarties Prize of 1997 for All Because of Jackson and the Children's Book Award in 1995 for Harriet's Hare. In 1992, he was also voted Children's Author of the Year.

In 1995, his top-selling title The Sheep-Pig was developed into a box-office movie, BABE, introducing hundreds of thousands of youngsters to his work.

Possession by AS Byatt

Winner of the Booker Prize

'This proves that a serious, intricate book can also be a page turner...manifest intelligence, subtle humor and extraordinary texturing of the past within the present make Possession original and unforgettable' Sunday Times

'This is a novel for every taste: a heartbreaking Victorian love story, a take-no-prisoners comedy of contemporary academic life, and an unputdownable mystery. You turn the last page feeling stunned and elated, happy to have had the chance to read it.' Washington Post

"Literary critics make natural detectives", says Maud Bailey, heroine of a mystery where the clues lurk in university libraries, old letters and dusty journals. Together with Roland Michell, a fellow academic and accidental sleuth, Maud discovers a love affair between the two Victorian writers the pair has dedicated their lives to studying: Randolph Ash, a literary great long assumed to be a devoted and faithful husband, and Christabel La Motte, a lesser- known "fairy poetess" and chaste spinster.

At first, Roland and Maud's discovery threatens only to alter the direction of their research, but as they unearth the truth about the long- forgotten romance, their involvement becomes increasingly urgent and personal. Desperately concealing their purpose from competing researchers, they embark on a journey that pulls each of them from solitude and loneliness, challenges the most basic assumptions they hold about themselves, and uncovers their unique entitlement to the secret of Ash and La Motte's passion.

Winner of the 1990 Booker Prize, Possession is a gripping and compulsively readable novel. A.S. Byatt exquisitely renders a setting rich in detail and texture. Her lush imagery weaves together the dual worlds that appear throughout the novel--the worlds of the mind and the senses, of male and female, of darkness and light, of truth and imagination--into an enchanted and unforgettable tale of love and intrigue. Lisa Whipple

About the Author

AS Byatt is renowned internationally for her novels and short stories.

Her novels include the Booker Prize-winning Possession, The Biographer’s Tale and the quartet, The Virgin in the Garden, Still Life, Babel Tower and A Whistling Woman.

Her most recent novel, The Children’s Book was published in 2009.

Her highly acclaimed collections of short stories include Sugar and Other Stories, The Matisse Stories, The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye, Elementals and Little Black Book of Stories.

A distinguished critic as well as a writer of fiction, AS Byatt was appointed CBE in 1990 and DBE in 1999.

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AS Byatt says women who write intellectual books are seen as unnatural - click here to see if you agree...