The talented author of the ‘Grandest Bookshop’ trilogy is back with a new series for a younger readership. Although the main character, Cori, is 13 years old, the story is written to be easily read by lower middle-grade readers from about eight years of age.
Cori is an orphan whose parents drowned when the underground tunnels where they lived were flooded. The orphans are then given food, shelter and an education in the Radiant Palace run by the Prime Council in exchange for doing jobs. Sent to the lower chambers to get floor polish, Cori discovers a trove of paintings and scrolls about the Champions, who had ruled in the Age of Glory before the Prime Council took over – and all the champions wore golden armour.
After running away while being sent to the Blackrocks, Cori inadvertently finds herself indentured to pirates on board the Harridan. Captain Scrimshaw has a job for her on Fin Island. As the smallest of the crew, she is sent into an old rotting building with a warning sign on the entrance. After surviving several booby traps, she discovers the Oceanforged Gauntlet. And after slipping it onto her left hand, the gauntlet clamps itself to her arm and Cori uses its power to escape.
With new friends who take her in and look after her, Cori daringly retrieves the missing signet stone from the pirate captain and restores it to the gauntlet. They then survive a mad chase by the ship and at the end of the book are on their way to Whalehead Island, hopefully to find more of the missing armour.
Oceanforged includes a map and illustrations by Alessia Trunfio. Books 2 and 3 are due out in 2026 with the final two titles to come in 2027.
Reviewed by Lynne Babbage
Age Guide 8+
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Amelia Mellor began her writing career as her secondary school’s resident playwright in Year 11. As part of her creative writing course at the University of Melbourne, she completed a thesis on the reinvention of the Industrial Revolution in children’s fantasy literature. Her debut novel, The Grandest Bookshop in the World, has won an Australian Book Industry Award, an Indie Book Award, a NSW Premier’s Literary Award and a Booksellers’ Choice Award. When she isn’t writing, Amelia enjoys hiking, gardening and drawing.
0 Comments