Presenting all three books in a trailblazing time-travel cli-fi trilogy to mark its 10th anniversary, Sarah Holding’s SeaBEAN is fast-paced, thought-provoking and driven by the courage of a crew of kids who live on a remote Scottish island.
The action opens on St Kilda in 2018, when Alice is just ten and has lived on the scarcely-populated island for five years. Everything changes when she finds a mysterious black box on the beach. A box Alice opens with a small sheet of metal bearing the words “C-Bean Mk. 3” and “a hologram image of a globe that shimmered in the sunlight”. So far, so strange, and matters mount stranger still when one of Alice’s classmates brings in a seabean seed pod to a show and tell session (it must have somehow washed up from the Amazon). Then, soon after, it emerges that Alice is able to use the C-Bean as a vehicle for travelling the world, and through time.
Interspersed with Alice’s blog posts, and rising with escalating urgency to its thrilling SeaRISE climax, SeaBEAN amounts to a unique adventure that’s likely to grip 12+-year-olds who are engaged with ecological issues, and those who enjoy quest-driven tales of courage.
Life for Alice and the five other children living on the remote Scottish island of St Kilda was challenging enough, but when a strange time travel device shows up and they discover only Alice can control it, their whole world changes.
This fast-paced eco adventure features all three books of the series in one volume.
Sarah Holding is a full-time children’s & YA author based in the UK and Japan. Road to True North is her 6th novel. Her fictional debut SeaBEAN, a best-selling time travel adventure trilogy first published in 2013, is now in its 4th edition and being taught in primary schools across the UK and around the world. CHAMELEON, her first YA novel published in 2020, is set during the fall of Atlantis. Her second YA novel blackloop, an edgy coming-of-age sci-fi romance, came out in 2023.
Sarah has given over 250 author-led creative writing workshops and talks for schools, libraries, festivals and offers a range of virtual discovery sessions for schools overseas. She is passionate about inspiring young people to connect with and understand their environment through fiction.
