In a nutshell: swashbuckling adventure with added fun (dragons and magic!)
Readers of Claire Fayer’s debut Voyage to Magical North will be delighted to climb back on board the Onion with Brine Seaborne and her young crewmates. (If you haven’t read the first, there’s a smartly delivered precis to bring you up to date). They’re sailing West in search of adventure – of course – and to find Brine’s long-lost home. They certainly find adventure, by the bucket load. The book opens with an invasion of giant spiders, and there’re are lots more challenges and enemies to overcome. The action is never less than rousing, and the pages turn as quickly as the Onion at full sail, but there’s still lots of room for humour and proper character development too. Great fun. ~ Andrea Reece
Since accidentally joining the crew of pirate ship the Onion, the lives of twelve-year-old Brine Seaborne, her magician friend Peter and former-librarian Tom have been turned upside down. Having battled the world's most evil magician, Marfak West, fought off sea monsters and found Magical North, they thought they were prepared for whatever the eight oceans could throw at them ...until they hatched the world's last-known dragon.
Desperate to find a family for their fire-breathing friend and hoping to unravel the secrets of Brine's mysterious past, the Onion and her crew sail into uncharted territory. Their aim, to find the legendary Western Island and its floating castle, where - legend has it - there be dragons ...
Claire Fayers was born and brought up in South Wales, an area of the country sadly deficient in dragons. Having studied English at Canterbury Christ Church University, she built a successful career writing short stories for women's magazines until the lure of magic became too much and she wrote The Accidental Pirates: Voyage to Magical North. When she's not writing, you'll find her at her allotment. She has produced some magnificent onions, but her dream of growing a straight carrot still eludes her.
