Shouldn’t she be in her body?

Shouldn’t she be her body?

That was the first clue she had that something had gone sideways.

Thorn wakes up one morning hovering over her own body. Watching herself go about her days from a distance, she bounces around her past, present and future, gradually putting together the pieces of her life. Through love and resistance, Thorn is faced with how she sees herself, and must figure out if the things that mattered before are what are really important.

Cover illustration by Simon Pemberton, interior illustration by Milly Chapple.

The people of Unst, Norse and Pict alike, enjoy lives of relative peace – none more so than Hilde, daughter to Jarl Frida, and Cormac, the blacksmith’s boy. Hilde yearns for a life of adventure, like the one her mother had before her, carving her name in the great sagas as a legendary shieldmaiden.

But Hilde should be careful what she wishes for. When a terrible Viking warband arrive upon the island, shrouded by an otherworldly fog and hellbent upon horror, Hilde and Cormac’s worlds are turned upside down. They bring with them terrors and secrets, the likes of which a Norse girl and a Pictish boy could never have dreamt of in their worst nightmares.

For when the Harrowed Men come raiding, there is no escape from their cruelty – or their hunger.

And no amount of blood will slake their thirst …

Divided by plague, divided by war, divided by love – what will reunite two sisters?

Yorkshire,1643. Civil war divides the country.

Jane mourns the departure of her last boy who goes off to fight for the king. She must find a new way to endure, facing family secrets and her own buried grief.

Isabel is spurred into action, finding herself drawn into the rebel resistance – with unexpected consequences that might mean disaster for her sister Jane.

Kit is left desperate and starving, taking on the identity of a murdered brother. Life in the king’s army brings friendship and new hope, and even love at the most perilous moment of all. As these three lives intertwine, each of them will be altered forever.

“Rory is Baxter’s big brother. Baxter likes to bounce, and hum, and flap. Sometimes it can take a while to get to wherever they’re going. Sometimes this makes Rory cross.”

Baxter and Rory see the world differently. Rory often wants to race ahead, while Baxter likes to stop and experience the world around him. Join Baxter and Rory as they journey to the playground with Mum, and Rory learns to see things from Baxter’s view. With heartfelt storytelling and stunning illustrations by Murphy’s Sketches, this book shows that if you slow down, you will see some wonderful things.