Karen Foxlee is an award-winning author well known for Lenny’s Book of Everything and Dragon Skin, among other titles. In this latest book, the setting is an alternative 1719 and Lavender Wolfe finds herself abducted by Big Agatha while she is sitting waiting for her mother on the wharf in Whitby.
Renamed Hans Whitby because all the kitchen rats in the galley of The Good Marchioness are boys, Lavender clings to her identity while learning the ropes on the enchanted pirate ship. The crew is in a desperate race to find a lost treasure and return it to its rightful owner before the deadline, or they will all be turned to sand.
Big Agatha snatched Lavender because she could tell she was magical and Lavender soon discovers she has a gift she didn’t know she had. It comes in handy in the various battles with other galleons. Several characters are not what they seem, and they all need their wits about them to lift the curse from the ship.
Although this is a middle-grade novel, it is quite long and complex. Part 1 which fills in the background and sets the scene is 123 pages long. Part 2, titled ‘Caribbean Sea,’ is 90 pages long while Part 3, ‘The Kingdom of Spain’, is 87 pages long. The presentation is excellent with hardback binding, lovely endpapers and calendars and black-and-white decorations litter the text. There is a hint of a possible sequel.
This is an original and inventive fantasy adventure which will require young readers to keep all their wits about them.
Book review by Lynne Babbage
Age Guide 9+
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ABOUT THE AUTHORKaren Foxlee is an Australian author who writes for both kids and grown-ups. She grew up in the outback mining town Mount Isa and still frequently dreams she is walking barefoot along the dry Leichhardt River there.
One of four children she started telling stories when she was young. She filled countless small exercise books with sweeping sagas of orphaned girls illustrated with pictures cut from the back of Reader’s Digest magazines.
She has worked as an underground cable mapper, pool kiosk attendant, library assistant and hotel laundry hand and eventually became a registered nurse. All the while she never gave up her secret dream of becoming a writer.
Karen lives in South East Queensland with her daughter and several animals, including two wicked parrots, who frequently eat parts of her laptop when she isn’t looking. Her passions are her daughter, writing, day-dreaming, baking, running and swimming in the sea.
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