MR RIPLEY'S BOOK COVER WARS: HEAT TWO 2014/15 - Plus Mystery Book Competition

Book Cover Wars is back again for another exciting year and we are looking for a new worthy winner. If you are returning to the site for another year, or you are new to this competition, then I send you a very warm welcome. It is a delight to have your company in the book cover war zone. Don't forget to share this exciting adventure with your friends and followers - everyone is welcome.

For any follower of this site this is the chance for you to become part of the weekly book cover wars. Each week, starting from today for the next 3 weeks, I am going to select five book covers for you to vote for. The winner of each heat will then go forward to the final round and get a chance to be crowned as 'Mr Ripley's Enchanted Book Cover Winner 2014/15'.

Mr Ripley's Enchanted Book Cover War Rules:
There will be four weekly heats with five book covers to vote for. All heat winners will make the grand final. However, one more entry will also be entered into the final - this will be the book cover with the most votes from the other four heats as the runner up. 

As a voter, not only will you get the chance to choose your favourite book cover, but you will also be in with the chance to win a different special book each week. Therefore, in order to kick off the competition this week we have an amazing collectable book which is a Mystery Book Prize......

Congratulations! - Heat One Winner: Melinda Salisbury - The Sin Eater's Daughter - 122 Votes

If you are interested then all you need to do is:

• Vote for your favourite book cover using the poll - HERE
• Leave a comment through this post or poll - HERE
• Sit back, watch the voting develop and wait to hear whether you've won (once the poll has closed). Please note that this competition is open to the UK only.
• This poll will end on 31. 10. 2014 at Midnight UK time. 

So here are the five book covers to vote for this week:

Book One - Lucy Coats - Cleo (Young Cleopatra) - Published by Orchard Books - 7 May 2015 - Cover by Thy Bui (Orchard design team ) - VOTE HERE

Book Two - M. G. Harris/Gerry Anderson's Gemini Force One - Black Horizon - Published by Orion - Cover by Blacksheep - 2 April 2015 - VOTE HERE

Book Three - Roy Gill - Werewolf Parallel - Published by Kelpies - 20 March 2014 - Book cover by Adrian Stone -  VOTE HERE

Book Four - Tim Hall - Shadow of the Wolf - Published by David Fickling Books - 3 July 2014 - Richard Collingridge - VOTE HERE

Book Five - Huw Powell - SpaceJackers - Published by Bloomsbury Children's - 3 July 2014 - Book Cover by Alex Fuentes -  VOTE HERE

Happy Voting, may the best book cover win.....

MR RIPLEY'S BOOK COVER WARS: HEAT ONE 2014/15 - Signed Jenny Downham Book Competition

Book Cover Wars is back again for another exciting year and we are looking for a new worthy winner. If you are returning to the site for another year, or you are new to this competition, then I send you a very warm welcome. It is a delight to have your company in the book cover war zone. Don't forget to share this exciting adventure with your friends and followers - everyone is welcome.

For any follower of this site this is the chance for you to become part of the weekly book cover wars. Each week, starting from today for the next 4 weeks, I am going to select five book covers for you to vote for. The winner of each heat will then go forward to the final round and get a chance to be crowned as 'Mr Ripley's Enchanted Book Cover Winner 2014/15'.

Mr Ripley's Enchanted Book Cover War Rules:
There will be four weekly heats with five book covers to vote for. All heat winners will make the grand final. However, one more entry will also be entered into the final - this will be the book cover with the most votes from the other four heats as the runner up. 

As a voter, not only will you get the chance to choose your favourite book cover, but you will also be in with the chance to win a different special book each week. Therefore, in order to kick off the competition this week we have an amazing collectable book which is a signed first edition, hardback copy Jenny Downham - Before i Die. 

If you are interested then all you need to do is:

• Vote for your favourite book cover using the poll - HERE
• Leave a comment through this post or poll - HERE
• Sit back, watch the voting develop and wait to hear whether you've won (once the poll has closed). Please note that this competition is open to the UK only.
• This poll will end on 21. 10. 2014 at Midnight UK time. 

So here are the four book covers to vote for this week:

Book One - James Dawson - Say Her Name - Published by Hot Key Books - 5 June 2014 - VOTE HERE

Book Two - Gillian Murray Kendall - The Garden of Darkness - Published by Ravenstone - 3 July 2014 - Cover by Luke Preece - VOTE HERE

Book Three - Non Pratt - Trouble - Published by Walker - 6 March 2014 - VOTE HERE

Book Four - Melinda Salisbury - The Sin Eater's Daughter - Published by Scholastic 5 March 2015 - Cover by Jamie Gregory - VOTE HERE

Book Five - Patrick Carman - Quake - Published by Katherine Tegen Books - 24 Feb 2015 - Book Cover by Amy Ryan and Joel Tippie at Harper - VOTE HERE

Happy Voting, may the best book cover win.....

MR RIPLEY'S ENCHANTED BOOKS - DARREN SHAN OF HORROR BOOK COVER WARS 2014 + BOOK COMPETITION

Mr Ripley's Enchanted Books has decided to do a one off Book Cover Wars featuring some of Darren Shan's amazing book images. I have tried to pick a varied selection for you to consider. This is your chance to vote for your favourite BOOK COVER from the five that I have chosen. 

It's very easy to vote by clicking the links that you'll find at the end of this post. You have one month to vote as the Book Cover Wars will end on the 16th AUGUST 2014. Feel free to tell your friends and other like minded people about this post. 

As an incentive, I will give one lucky person who votes and leaves a comment on the post a Darren Shan book of my choice. This is open worldwide - I will choose one lucky winner at random. Enjoy and get voting.....

BOOK ONE: ZOM-B BABY - UK PAPERBACK COVER - PUBLISHED BY Simon & Schuster Childrens Books (27 Mar 2014) - VOTE HERE

BOOK TWO: ZOM-B ANGELS - TAIWAN BOOK COVER - PUBLISHED BY Crown Publishing Limited - ( 16 June 2014) - VOTE HERE

BOOK THREE: THE THIN EXECUTIONER - US HARDBACK  BOOK COVER - PUBLISHED BY Little, Brown Books (1 August 2010) - VOTE HERE

BOOK FOUR: WOLF ISLAND - UK PAPERBACK - PUBLISHED 
BY HarperCollins Children's Books (27 March 2014) - VOTE HERE

BOOK FIVE: BIRTH OF A KILLER - UK HARDBACK - PUBLISHED BY  HarperCollins Children's Books - ( 30 September 2010) - VOTE HERE

Mr Ripley's Guest Post: Paul Durham - The Luck Uglies - HarperCollins - Happy Publication!

DREAMS, THICK SKIN, AND UGLY LUCK

Dreams don’t come easy. I suppose they aren’t meant to.

Since I was a child, my dream was to see my fiction published. Sometimes I wished I’d aspired to be an astronaut or professional athlete instead. That’s how difficult the road to publication seemed at times.   

I started my first novel nineteen years ago. It was heavy-fisted, testosterone-laden stuff, filled with gritty characters and grimy settings. I labored over it for seven years until finally, finished work in hand, I braved the literary agencies’ slush piles. Most agents didn’t accept e-mail queries back then and the rejections mounted as fast as the postage.

It had been months when finally, unexpectedly, an agent at a great New York agency agreed to represent me. Needless to say, this was an exciting time and soon the agent was submitting my work to publishers with much optimism. Then another unexpected thing happened. Rejections began piling up again. They came with promising words and invitations to send my next book, but the ultimate message was always “no thank you.”  Eventually, there was nowhere left to go. I joked that I had been read and rejected by every major (and not-so-major) publisher in Manhattan.  

I promised to get the agent my next novel, and over the next few years I did—in a sense.  Fifty pages of one novel, a hundred pages of another. All of them stories started but never finished. With a wife, two young daughters, and a demanding career that already kept me away from them for too long, it grew harder and harder to justify even more hours toiling alone in front of a computer with the voices in my head. Finally, after so many stops and starts, I quit writing altogether.

In the years that followed, I focused on my family and my career, but a hollow remained.  I found myself tormented by the fact that I wasn’t creating much of anything at all. Then, upon reflection, I realized that I was. Every day, with two little girls who seemed to be bitten at birth by the same creative bug that I had, I sketched and painted and told stories. Lots of stories.  Late one fall, when my oldest was six and our thoughts turned to Christmas, I asked what she might want for a gift. She asked if I would write her a story. One we could read together. And, with that one simple request, everything changed. Little did she know that she was the one who had given a gift to me.

I was writing again. A children’s story. I truly had no aspirations to seek an agent for this work, nor to have it published. My goals were far more modest but at the same time all the more important. I simply wanted to finish a story for my daughter. I met that first deadline and my family gathered around the fireplace on Christmas Day as I read what would become the first chapters of my next novel. It was called The Luck Uglies and I completed it over the next three months, one chapter per week, each read aloud by the fire to my enthusiastic audience.

When the manuscript was done, those old aspirations started to creep back into my mind.  Dreams die hard I suppose. Either that or I’m a glutton for punishment. But this time things ended differently. As I write these words, HarperCollins has published The Luck Uglies in the United States and the United Kingdom. A Norwegian language version is in the works. It’s humbling to think that families around the world may soon be reading my little story around their own fireplaces.   

I never dreamed of writing books for children. Now I can’t imagine writing books for anyone else. As strange as it sounds, I am fortunate that my first novel was never published. I’m grateful for that twist of ugly luck so many years ago.

For those of you with similar dreams and aspirations, I wish you good writing, thick skin, and your own dose of ugly luck in unexpected places.  

Please check out Mr. Ripley's book review here:  http://www.mrripleysenchantedbooks.com/2014/05/book-review-paul-durham-luck-uglies.html

Mr Ripley's Adult Sci-fi Fantasy Book Picks - Solaris 2014 - UK Post (July, Sept, October)

James Lovegrove - World of Fire - Published by Solaris (11 Sep 2014)
Dev Harmer, reluctant agent of Interstellar Security Solutions, wakes up in a newly cloned host body on the planet Alighieri, ready for action. It's an infernal world, so close to its sun that its surface is regularly baked to 1,000 C, hot enough to turn rock to lava. But deep underground there are networks of tunnels connecting colonies of miners who dig for the precious helium-3 regolith deposits in Alighieri's crust. Polis+, the AI race who are humankind's great galactic rivals, want to claim the fiery planet's mineral wealth for their own. All that stands between them and this goal is Dev. But as well as Polis+'s agents, there are giant moleworms to contend with, and a spate of mysterious earthquakes, and the perils of the surface where a man can be burned to cinders if he gets caught unprotected on the day side...

Christopher Fowler - Nyctophobia -  Published by Solaris (7 Oct 2014)
There are two things you need to know about haunted houses. One, there's never been an actual authenticated haunted house. Two, it's not the house that's haunted, but the person. Callie is a young architectural student who marries Mateo, a wine importer, and moves to a grand old house in Southern Spain. Hyperion House is flooded with light, it also has a mute gardener, a sinister housekeeper and a sealed, dark servants' quarters that nobody has the keys for. And although initially happy, and taking care of Mateo's daughter, Callie can't help being drawn to the dark empty rooms at the back of the house, and becomes convinced that someone is living in there. Uncovering the house's history, she discovers the shocking truth.
As Callie's fear of the darkness returns, she comes to understand the true nature of evil...

Christopher Priest, Garth Nix & Other - Fearsome Magics - Published by Solaris (9 Oct 2014)
A cabinet of magic! A cavalcade of wonder! A collection of stories both strange and wondrous, of tales filled with wild adventure and strange imaginings. Fearsome Magics, the second New Solaris Book of Fantasy, is all these things and more. It is, we think the best book you will read all year. Award-winning editor Jonathan Strahan has invited some of the best and most exciting writers working in fantasy today to let their imaginations run wild and to deliver stories that will thrill and awe, delight and amuse. And above all, stories that are filled with fearsome magic! Authors committed to take part in Fearsome Magics include Christopher Priest, Garth Nix, Catherynne M. Valente, Ellen Klages, Isobelle Carmody, Nalo Hopkinson, Frances Hardinge, Scott Lynch, Robert Shearman, Justina Robson, Christopher Rowe, Karin Tidbeck, K J Parker, and Justina Robson.

Eric Brown - Jani and the Greater Game - Published by  Solaris (31 July 2014)
It's 1910 and the British rule the subcontinent with an iron fist - and with strange technology fuelled by a power source known as Annapurnite - discovered in the foothills of Mount Annapurna. But they rule but at the constant cost of their enemies, mainly the Russians and the Chinese, attempting to learn the secret of this technology...This political confrontation is known as The Greater Game. Into this conflict is pitched eighteen year old Janisha Chaterjee who discovers a strange device which leads her into the foothills of the Himalayas. When Russians spies and the evil priest Durja Das find out about the device, the chase is on to apprehend Janisha before she can reach the Himalayas. There she will learn the secret behind Annapurnite, and what she learns will change the destiny of the world for ever...Jani and the Greater Game is the first book in a rip-roaring, spice-laden, steampunk action adventure series set in India and featuring a heroine who subverts all the norms.

Website: http://www.solarisbooks.com/
Twitter: @SolarisBooks 

Mr Ripley's New Children's/Teen Books Published In May 2014 - UK Post One

Moira Young - Raging Star (Dustlands) - Published by Marion Lloyd Books; (1 May 2014)
Loyalty and betrayal. Lovers and enemies. The final installment in the heart-stopping DUSTLANDS trilogy, which began with the Costa Award-winning BLOOD RED ROAD and continued with REBEL HEART. Saba doesn't know who she is any more. Her encounter with DeMalo leaves her drawn to the man she knows should be her enemy. She has no choice but to continue to lead the fight against him. Saba knows the price of violence. She has lost too much in the quest for freedom. Now she must decide if it's worth the fight.

Peter Lerangis - Seven Wonders: The Tomb of Shadows - Published by HarperCollins; (13 May 2014)

The third book in the thrilling SEVEN WONDERS series.

“A high-octane mix of modern adventure and ancient secrets… I can’t wait to see what’s next.” Rick Riordan

THREE FRIENDS:Jack McKinley and his friends are the Select. Their powers are growing at a furious rate and must find seven magical object to save themselves – and the world. Two treasures have already been found, but time is running out…

TWO SIDES SPLIT: Marco has betrayed his friends and ancient secrets are coming unravelled. The Select don’t know who to trust or where to turn, but they must fight on.

ONE LIFE LOST: Jack, Aly and Cass race to the next stop on their quest, where they have to face their own demons and engage in an epic battle with shadows of the dead. When promises are broken, blood is spilled – and the Select are forced to destroy the one thing that might have saved them all.

The epic adventure continues. Third stop: The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus.

Amy Plum - After the End - Published by HarperTeen; (6 May 2014)

Juneau grew up fearing the outside world. The elders told her that beyond the borders of their land in the Alaskan wilderness, nuclear war had destroyed everything. But when Juneau returns from a hunting trip one day and discovers her people have been abducted, she sets off to find them. And leaving the boundaries for the very first time, she learns the horrifying truth: World War III never happened. Nothing was destroyed. Everything she'd ever been taught was a lie.

As Juneau comes to terms with an unfathomable deception, she is forced to survive in a completely foreign world, using only the skills and abilities she developed in the wild. But while she's struggling to rescue her friends and family, someone else is after her. Someone who knows the extraordinary truth about her secret past.

Jason Rohan - The Sword of Kuromori - Published by Egmont; (8 May 2014)

Kenny Blackwood arrives in Tokyo to spend the summer with his father and is stunned to discover a destiny he had never dreamed of when he finds himself in the middle of a hidden war that is about to explode.

Racing against an impossible deadline, Kenny must find the fabled Sword of Heaven and use it to prevent the disaster. But a host of terrifying monsters is out to destroy him, and success will come at a price.

With clever, fearless, sarcastic Kiyomi at his side, Kenny must negotiate the worlds of modern and mythic Japan to find the lost sword, before it's too late.

Keep up to date with my new facebook page, news, book competitions etc.

https://www.facebook.com/MrRipleyspage

Mr Ripley's Book Cover Wars Final Winner 2013/14 - Niel Bushnell - Timesmith

                             

Mr Ripley's book cover wars has now come to a climatic end. After four exciting heats, we now have a worthy winner.......

As usual I would like to thank the many people who have supported the book cover wars. Although this idea is now in its fifth year I still find the whole process tremendously exciting! I hope that you too have had as much fun as I have - either as an observer or a contender.

Altogether 1,700 votes were cast over five weeks, which just highlights the passion that this competition generates. In the final there were 678 votes in total. An epic last minute battle saw only two votes stand between Roderick and Niel's respective book covers. However there can only be one winner. . . . . 

Book One: Niel Bushnell - Timesmith	194	28.61%	28.61%
Book Two: Alexander Gordon Smith - The Fury	95	14.01%	14.01%
Book Three: Roderick Gordon & Brian Williams - Terminal	192	28.32%	28.32%
Book Four: Thomas Taylor - Dan and the Caverns of Bone	99	14.6%	14.6%
Book Five: Ian Johnstone - The Bell Between the Worlds	98	14.45%	14.45%

Without further ado I'd like to award the title of 'Mr Ripley's Book Cover Wars 2013/14' to . . . . . . .  Niel Bushnell for 'Timesmith'. 

Niel's book cover will be placed in the Ripley's Hall of Fame where it will accompany the following past winners:

2009/10 - Jon Mayhew 'Mortlock' 
2010/11 - Darren Shan 'Birth of a Killer' illustrated by David Wyatt
2011/12 - Curtis Jobling ''Werewolf: Shadow of the Hawk' illustrated by Andrew Farley
2012/13 - Thomas Taylor - Haunters illustrated by Steve Wells 
2013/14 - Niel Bushnell - Timesmith - illustrated by James Fraser & Kate Grove

The winner of the book competition is...... Karen Everitt. Congratulations to you - please get in touch with your postal details. 

Mr Ripley's New Children's Books Published October 2013 - Post Two Fantasy/Horror Mayhem

                       

Curtis Jobling - Wereworld: War of the Werelords - Published by Puffin - 3, October 2013

Drew Ferran was born a werewolf. Time has always been his greatest enemy.

Across the Badlands the Catlords have turned on each other. In North Lyssia the Seven Realms' greatest armies gather. And in the frozen city of Icegarden an even deadlier force lies in wait. If Drew wants to save his friends, he must fight - but have the heavens already decided his fate?

All roads lead to war. In the shadow of Strakenberg, and by the light of the full moon, the victors - and losers - will be decided.

Andrew Fukuda - The Trap (Hunt) - Published by Simon & Schuster Childrens Books - 24, October 2013

After barely escaping the Mission alive, Gene and Sissy face an impossible task: staying alive long enough to stop an entire world bent on their destruction. Bound on a train heading into the unknown with the surviving Mission girls, Gene, Sissy, David, and Epap must stick together and use everything they have to protect each other and their only hope: the cure that will turn the blood-thirsty creatures around them into humans again. Now that they know how to reverse the virus, Gene and Sissy have one final chance to save those they love and create a better life for themselves. But as they struggle to get there, Gene's mission sets him on a crash course with Ashley June, his first love ...and his deadliest enemy.

                     

Catherine Fisher - The Box of Red Brocade - Published by Hodder Children's Books - 3, October 2013 

On a mission to recover his father lost in time, Jake finds himself in 1940s London. From the rubble of the Blitzed city, a clue leads him to an eccentric seer of ghosts, three sinister children and three strange prophesies. Two of them soon come to pass, but what is the Box of Red Brocade? Does it hold the secret of destroying the Obsidian Mirror? A talking bird, an invisible girl, a walking wood; the second volume of Catherine Fisher's Chronoptika series is packed with mystery, magic and sinister intrigue.

                    

Hilton Pashley - Gabriel's Clock - Published by Andersen - 3, October 2013

Jonathan is in terrible danger. After his home is attacked by faceless monsters in bowler hats, he wakes up in the strange village of Hobbes End. Built by a fallen angel and hidden deep within a forest, Hobbes End protects those who need to be safe - and nobody is more in need of protection than Jonathan.

Jonathan is the only half-angel, half-demon in the universe, and now the forces of Hell want him for their own purpose. Aided by a vicar with a broken heart, a big man with a cricket bat and a very rude cat, Jonathan races to find the mysterious Gabriel's Clock. If he doesn't find it then his family and friends will die, but, if he does, then he risks starting a war between Heaven and Hell that could engulf them all.

Gabriel's clock is ticking . . . and time is running out.

Mr Ripley's New Children's Books Published October 2013 - Post One

                   

Lily Herne - Death of A Saint - Published by Much-In-Little - 17, October 2013 

Some secrets are so unthinkable you can't even admit them to yourself . . . Lele, Ginger, Ash and Saint - aka the Mall Rats - are hiding out in the Deadlands, a once-prosperous area of Cape Town, now swarming with the living dead. Exiled from the city enclave for crimes against the Resurrectionist State, the Rats face a stark choice: return and risk capture - or leave Cape Town and go in search of other survivors.But what if the rest of South Africa is nothing but a zombie-riddled wasteland? Now Lele has discovered the truth about why the lurching dead leave them alone, she can't bring herself to tell the rest of the gang. And she's not the only Mall Rat harbouring a dangerous secret . . . Can the friends' survive on the road if all they have is each other? Or will their secrets tear them apart?

                     

Marcus Sedgwick - She is Not Invisible - Published by Indigo - 3, October 2013
Laureth Peak's father is a writer. For years he's been trying, and failing, to write a novel about coincidence. His wife thinks he's obsessed, Laureth thinks he's on the verge of a breakdown. He's supposed to be doing research in Austria, so when his notebook shows up in New York, Laureth knows something is wrong.

On impulse she steals her mother's credit card and heads for the States, taking her strange little brother Benjamin with her. Reunited with the notebook, they begin to follow clues inside, trying to find their wayward father. Ahead lie challenges and threats, all of which are that much tougher for Laureth than they would be for any other 16-year old. Because Laureth Peak is blind.
                        

Sophie Jordan - Hidden (Firelight) Published by OUP Oxford - 3, October 2013
'Inhaling deep breaths I wait for it to begin. The battle I've been waiting my whole life to fight.'
A group of vicious hunters are drawing dangerously close to discovering the secrets of the draki (descendants of dragons with the ability to shift into human form). Reluctantly, Jacinda realizes that running away to be with her beloved Will is no longer an option while the safety of her draki pride is at stake. Jacinda vows to use every last breath of fiery determination to protect the pride and for the right to control her own destiny.

But when the battle is over, Jacinda must decide where her heart truly lies . . . with the pride or with Will?
    

Catherine Johnson - Sawbones - Published by Walker Books - 3, October 2013 
Sixteen-year-old Ezra McAdam has much to be thankful for: trained up as an apprentice by a well-regarded London surgeon, Ezra’s knowledge of human anatomy and skill at the dissection table will secure him a trade for life. However, his world is turned on its head when a failed break-in at his master’s house sets off a strange and disturbing series of events that involves grave robbing, body switching … and murder. Sparky, persuasive young Loveday Finch, daughter of the late Mr Charles Finch, magician, employs Ezra to investigate her father’s death - and there are marked similarities between his corpse and the others. The mystery takes Ezra and Loveday from the Operating Theatre at St Bart’s to the desolate wasteland of Coldbath Fields; from the streets of Clerkenwell to the dark, damp vaults of Newgate Prison; and finally to the shadowy and forbidding Ottoman Embassy, which seems to be the key to it all…

Mr Ripley's Enchanted Children's Book Picks August 2013 - UK Post

                                             

Michelle Paver - The Burning Shadow (Gods and Warriors Book 2) - Published by Puffin - 1 August 2013

If an Outsider wields the blade, the House of Koronos burns...'

A boy on the run.

A deadly prophecy.

A race against time.

Hylas the Outsider is captured by slavers. Set to work in the terrible underground mines of Thalakrea, he learns to his horror that he's now closer than ever to his murderous enemies, the Crows. He has to escape before they find out he's here.

Pirra, the daughter of the High Priestess, is also on the run. When Fate reunites her with Hylas, their survival depends on ancient magic and an orphaned lion cub - unless the Gods have other plans...

                  

F. E. Higgins - THE PHENOMENALS: A GAME OF GHOULS - Published by Macmillan - 1 August 2013

An earthquake has rumbled through the twisted city of Degringolade, stopping the town Kronometer and the infamous Phenomenals in their tracks. Legend has it that if the ancient clock stops ticking a terrible fate will befall the people of Degringolade, and there's no denying that the super-mundane entities of the tar-pits are behaving strangely.

They know something that the townspeople don't: deep below the city, something has woken up. And it's hungry . . .

                                           

Jenny Nimmo - Leopards' Gold (The Secret Kingdom) - Published by Egmont Books - 29 August 2013 

In the conclusion to this beautifully crafted trilogy, bestselling author Jenny Nimmo takes her readers on an extraordinary journey that will enthral any fan of magical fantasy. From the author of the Charlie Bone series and The Snow Spider. Fans of Diana Wynne Jones and Angie Sage's Septimus Heap will love the Red King's adventures. In the conclusion to this beautifully crafted trilogy, bestselling author Jenny Nimmo takes her readers on an extraordinary journey that will enthral any fan of magical fantasy. From the author of the Charlie Bone series and The Snow Spider. Fans of Diana Wynne Jones and Angie Sage's Septimus Heap will love the Red King's adventures. Many years have passed since King Timoken settled in Britain, and his majestic home is protected by the wizards Llyr and Eri, whose powerful enchantments make the great Red Castle and its people invisible whenever danger threatens. Then the castle bellman disappears. A trace of blood on the stairs is the only clue as to his fate. Could there be a traitor in their midst? Petrello and Tolomeo, the most inquisitive of Timoken's nine children, are determined to solve the mystery.

                          

Chris Northrop & Jeff Stokely - The Reason for Dragons - Published by Archaia Entertainment - 6 August 2013 

Wendell is a high school outcast who lives a lonely, suburban existence, losing himself in books in order to avoid his distant, motorcycle-riding stepfather, Ted. When the school bullies convince Wendell to venture into the forest around their neighborhood and explore the long-abandoned Renaissance Faire grounds they all believe to be haunted, Wendell is surprised to find a man living in the barn - and even more surprised by the man himself. His new acquaintance seems the definition of crackpot, believing himself to be a medieval knight named Sir Habersham, tasked with the duty of slaying the dragon he insists is wandering the woods. But when Wendell starts hearing rumblings - and listening to Habersham's stories - he starts to wonder if, perhaps, it could all be true. In a heartfelt coming-of age story, Wendell must defy logic in order to follow his heart.