The Wind in the Wall
By Sally Gardner · 2019 Bonnier Books UK
A beautifully crafted fairy tale with a dark twist. Be careful what you wish for.
“I have no idea how long I have been incarcerated in these ancient walls. . . Let me explain how I find myself in this predicament . . .”
Set in the hot houses of a stately home in the eighteenth century, a gardener falls from grace when the Duke sets him the impossible task of growing prize pineapples fit to show off in high society.
The gardener’s star falls further when he is replaced by Mr Amicus, a pineapple ‘specialist’, who he believes to be a charlatan and a trickster – but nevertheless miraculously produces fruit to delight the Duke.
Determined to uncover Mr Amicus’s tricks, the gardener sneaks into the pineapple house to uncover the mysterious shrouded birdcage Mr Amicus carries with him. And what he finds changes his life for ever . . .
A cautionary tale with echoes of myth and fairy tale, this bewitching fable will make you careful what you wish for.
Invisible in a Bright Light
Sally Gardner (Author) ©2019 Sally Gardner (P)2019 W. F. Howes Ltd
From I, Coriander to Invisible in a Bright Light, Sally Gardner’s first middle grade novel in 14 years soars with the imagination of a master story teller.
A pitch perfect, haunting story about a crystal chandelier shaped like a galleon that splinters into a thousand pieces, a girl abandoned as a baby on the steps of an opera house and a dangerous game called the Reckoning.
1870. It is opening night at the Royal Opera House in a freezing city by the sea, where a huge crystal chandelier in the shape of a galleon sparkles magically with the light of 750 candles. Celeste, a theatre rat, wakes up in a costume basket from what she hopes is a bad dream, to find out that everyone at the theatre where she works thinks she is someone else. When the chandelier falls, she is haunted by a strange girl who claims to know Celeste’s past and why she must play a game called the Reckoning to try to save the people she loves.
My Side of the Diamond
Sally Gardner (Author) Hot Key Books 5 Oct. 2017
An extraordinary tale about the search for love from the acclaimed Costa and Carnegie Award winning novelist Sally Gardner.
Jazmin has been shunned ever since her best friend Becky disappeared. But Becky didn’t just disappear – she jumped off a tall building and seemingly never reached the ground.
It was as if she simply vanished into thin air.
Did Jazmin have something to do with her disappearance? Or was it more to do with Icarus, so beguiling and strangely ever youthful, with whom Becky became suddenly besotted . . .
The Door That Led to Where
by Sally Gardner (Author) Hot Key Books 1 Jan. 2015
When the present offers no hope for the future, the answers may lie in the past
AJ Flynn has just failed all but one of his GCSEs, and his future is looking far from rosy. So when he is offered a junior position at a London law firm he hopes his life is about to change – but he could never have imagined by how much.
Tidying up the archive one day, AJ finds an old key, mysteriously labelled with his name and date of birth – and he becomes determined to find the door that fits the key. And so begins an amazing journey to a very real and tangible past – 1830, to be precise – where the streets of modern Clerkenwell are replaced with cobbles and carts, and the law can be twisted to suit a villain’s means. Although life in 1830 is cheap, AJ and his friends quickly find that their own lives have much more value. They’ve gone from sad youth statistics to young men with purpose – and at the heart of everything lies a crime that only they can solve. But with enemies all around, can they unravel the mysteries of the past, before it unravels them?
A fast-paced mystery novel by one of the country’s finest writers, and a UKLA Book Awards 2016 shortlisted title, THE DOOR THAT LED TO WHERE will delight, surprise and mesmerise all those who read it.
Tinder
Sally Gardner (Author) Orion Publishing Group (Publisher) 7 Nov. 2013
A young soldier, a captive princess, witches, wolves and Death walk hand in hand in Costa Award winner Sally Gardner’s exquisitely written new novel inspired by the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale, The Tinderbox.
Otto Hundebiss is tired of war, but when he defies Death he walks a dangerous path. A half beast half man gives him shoes and dice which will lead him deep into a web of dark magic and mystery. He meets the beautiful Safire – pure of heart and spirit, the scheming Mistress Jabber and the terrifying Lady of the Nail. He learns the powers of the tinderbox and the wolves whose master he becomes. But will all the riches in the world bring him the thing he most desires?
Fairy tales are often the cruellest stories of all; in this exquisite novel Sally Gardner writes about great love and great loss.
2015, CILIP Kate Greenaway Children’s Book Award, Commended
2015, ,CILIP Carnegie Medal, Commended
©2013 Sally Gardner (P)2013 Orion Publishing Group
Maggot Moon Paperback –
by Sally Gardner (Author) Hot Key Books 3 Jan. 2013
A starkly original and heartbreaking tale of friendship and rebellion
Winner of the Carnegie Medal and a 2012 Costa Award winner. Narrated against the backdrop of a ruthless regime determined to beat its enemies in the race to the moon, MAGGOT MOON is the stunning novel from award-winning author Sally Gardner.
When his best friend Hector is suddenly taken away, Standish Treadwell realises that it is up to him, his grandfather and a small band of rebels to confront and defeat the ever-present oppressive forces of the Motherland.
Utterly original and stunning, it is impossible not to be moved by MAGGOT MOON’s powerful story and the unforgettable heroism of Standish.
The Double Shadow
by Sally Gardner Indigo | Orion Publishing 1 Jan. 2011
Arnold Ruben has created a memory machine, a utopia housed in a picture palace, where the happiest memories replay forever, a haven in which he and his precious daughter can shelter from the war-clouds gathering over 1937 Britain. But on the day of her seventeenth birthday Amaryllis leaves Warlock Hall and the world she has known and wakes to find herself in a desolate and disturbing place. Something has gone terribly wrong with her father’s plan.
Against the tense backdrop of the second World War Sally Gardner explores families and what binds them, fathers and daughters, past histories, passions and cruelty, love and devastation in a novel rich in character and beautifully crafted.
The Silver Blade: The French Revolution,
Sally Gardner (Author), Orion Publishing Group Limited (Publisher) 3 Aug. 2009
A mysterious boy is the focus of a novel that takes us from the September Massacres of 1792 to the death of Robespierre four years later. After rescuing Sido, the young daughter of an aristocrat, he flees to England, making secret journeys back to France to smuggle out refugees. He and Sido fall in love – but then she is kidnapped, and he needs all his courage and skill to rescue her a second time. Even then the young lovers are not safe, for our hero learns who he really is, and how can Sido marry him?
The horrors of the French Revolution make a dazzlingly vivid setting for a tale of high adventure that is also a most touching love story. The first book, complete in itself, leaves the reader longing to know what happened next – the second book concludes the story of Sido and this wonderful charismatic young man who shows true heroism.
The Red Necklace
Sally Gardner (Author)Orion Children’s Books 1 Jan. 2007
A thrillingly exciting, action-packed novel about a boy destined to be a hero of the French Revolution. The story of a remarkable boy called Yann Margoza; Tetu, 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.
I, Coriander
Sally Gardner (Author), Orion Publishing Group Limited (Publisher) 2005, Nestlé Children’s Book Prize, Winner
The story is told by Coriander, daughter of a silk merchant in 1650s London. Her idyllic childhood ends when her mother dies and her father goes away, leaving Coriander with her stepmother, a widow who is in cahoots with a fundamentalist Puritan preacher. She is shut away in a chest and left to die, but emerges into the fairy world from which her mother came, and where time has no meaning. When she returns, charged with a task that will transform her life, she is seventeen.
This is a book filled with enchantments, a pair of silver shoes, a fairy shadow, a prince transformed into a fox, that contrast with the heartbreaking loss and cruelty of Coriander’s life in the real world. With its brilliantly realised setting of old London Bridge, and underpinned by the conflict between Royalists and Puritans, it is a terrific page turner, involving kidnapping, murder, and romance, and an abundance of vivid characters.
Coriander is a heroine to love, whose joys and sorrows we follow through huge adventures. Her story is utterly captivating and will establish Sally Gardner as a major children’s writer, of boundless imagination and originality.
