Set in Talia, a parallel world very similar to 16th-century Italy, the narrative follows Lucien, who in our world is very ill. Given a marbled notebook to use as a diary, the notebook is the unexpected means that transports Lucien to this dangerous new world; a world that thrills to the delight of political intrigue and where a life can be snuffed out with a flash of a merlino blade. The city of Bellezza (Venice in our world) is astonishingly evoked, with a filmic eye to detail, from the s...

Set in Classe (Ravenna in our world), the Stravagante is Isabel, a younger twin by a matter of minutes. Her talisman is a pouch of silver mosaic tiles and she stravagates to Classe, where she is met by Flavia, a successful female merchant who trades spices, silks, tapestries, and whose son is an outcast and a pirate. Isabel finds that Classe and Bellezza are under threat from attack by the fierce Gate people. What can she do to help save the city? A thrilling story packed with action, pira...

There's more to you than meets the eye...So many people tell Kit this that he thinks he must look very nondescript indeed. The thing is: they are right. Kit Wagstaffe, rescued from a plague cart, is taken into the household of the Ravenmaster at the Tower of London and learns how to speak the language of the big black birds, who are also not what they seem.It is 1536 and Kit's secret knowledge comes in handy when he wants to help the condemned Queen Anne. I...

I stopped being a woman a long time ago...It's 1610 and Jacobean London is full of dangers, from the plague to plots and revolutions.In Shakespeare's Ghost, Mary Hoffman provides an imaginative answer to one of the great questions about Shakespeare's work: why, from A Midsummer Night's Dream onwards, are his plays increasingly peopled by fairies, witches, ghosts and apparitions?For William Shakespeare, life has taken an unexpected turn: one that will transform his w...

Sequel to City of Masks, the setting is again Talia, the parallel world very similar to 16th-century Italy, but the main character in this book is Georgia - who has a love of horses. She is desperate to buy a little, dusty winged horse that has appeared in a local antique shop. This tiny, winged horse proves to be the talisman that transports Georgia right into the rivalries and the high-octane excitement of the hugely competitive Stellata horse race. Mary Hoffman proved herself a...

Silvano and Chiara are two teenagers with a difference. Silvano has been accused of a murder he did not commit. Chiara has been ousted from her family as a young woman with no marriage prospects. For these two very different reasons they are forced to seek refuge in a neighbouring convent and friary. And when they meet they are instantly aware that they are both outsiders, ill at ease with monastic life.Then a grisly murder - followed by another, and then another - strikes fear int...

When Matt is unexpectedly transported to the Scriptorium of Padavia (real-life Padua) University, he discovers he is a Stravagante who can travel through time using his talisman, a leather-bound book. Together with Luciano, now studying at the University, and Arianna, in disguise as a boy, he must fight the dangerous di Chimici clan who are on the verge of making a terrifying breakthrough into our world.A breathtaking and thrilling novel that will delight all Stravaganza f...

Desperately unhappy, Laura has resorted to secretly self-harming. But Laura is a Stravagante, somebody who can travel in time and space. When she finds her talisman, a small silver dagger, she stravagates with it to sixteenth-century Fortezza, a town similar to Lucca in Italy, where she meets her Stravagante, who is a swordsmith. But Laura also meets the charming and attractive Ludo, and falls for him. Their love for each other is tested when Ludo lays claim to the crown of Fortezza, and L...

Sequel to City of Masks and City of Stars, the narrative moves to the Talian equivalent of the city of Florence, where beauty and danger walk - as ever - hand in hand. The focus this time is on the new Stravagante, Sky, whose talisman is an ornate and delicate blue glass bottle. Sky is propelled right into the midst of a deadly feud between the di Chimici and Nucci families, who think nothing of sliding a knife between a man's ribs for revenge . . .A breathtaking ...

During the day, Lucien battles cancer in his modern, normal life. But at night, he becomes a Stravagante, a time-traveler of sorts who finds himself in Belleza, a city parallel to old Venice. Befriended by a local girl and protected by an older Stravagante, Lucien uncovers a plot to murder the city's beloved ruler, the Duchessa. But to save the Duchessa and the city Lucien risks losing his only chance to return home to his family and his real life.The well-paced, thick-with-plot sto...

Look through fresh eyes at the stories of some of history's most remarkable women, in this inspiring collection of short stories by the finest female authors writing historical fiction for children today - The History Girls.Subjects include: Queen Boudicca, Aethelfled, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Julian of Norwich, Lady Jane Grey, Elizabeth Stuart, Aphra Behn, Mary Wollestonecraft, Mary Anning, Mary Seacole, Emily Davison, Amy Johnson and the Greenham Common women.

This collection of stories contains a multicultural thread which runs through all the pages bind the stories intimately together, providing the reader with a seamless experience. The tone and style flows continuously from story to story, which allows the reader to experience the collection not as four isolated moments of multiculturalism, but rather as a culmination of an entire world struggling to understand, tolerate, and accept the various cultural beliefs of the world.In this prize-win...