August 2015 Book of the Month Part superhero story, part Victorian Gothic, Julia Golding’s new story is great fun! It begins in the Arctic when Cabin Boy Mel finds something strange trapped in the ice: it’s Eve Frankenstein no less, daughter of the monster. The unscrupulous crew of the Albatross take the pair of them to London to sell to Queen Victoria, who has developed an obsession with monsters. There’s definitely something fishy going on in Buckingham Palace, and the Queen’s creepy butler has a peculiar influence over his monarch. It’s up to Mel, Evie and an assorted bunch of monsters to save the Empire! Mel and co make a great gang, and their adventures are rip-roaring stuff. ~ Andrea Reece
Cabin boy Mel Foster has always been told that he'd come to a bad end - he just never thought it would be as a meal for a giantess from the Arctic wastes! But as Mel is about the find out, looking monstrous doesn't make you a monster. Eve Frankenstein has no interest in eating Mel. She wants to protect him. And very soon he'll need as much protection as he can get. While Eve and Mel become firm friends in the Arctic, far away in London Queen Victoria's strange new butler is hatching a plan that could destroy the British Empire...and only Mel has the power to stop him.
Julia Golding is the author of over thirty books for children and young adults. Her stories are set all over the world (and in some new worlds too) and span the centuries.
In her first year as a published author, she won the Nestlé Children’s Book Prize (Gold Award), was shortlisted for the Costa Children’s Book Award, longlisted for the prestigious Carnegie Medal, and won the Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize. In the US, Secret of the Sirens won the honor book medal of the Green Earth Book Award. Dragonfly won the 2012 Beehive Book Award, Young Adult Division, given by the Children's Literature Association of Utah and voted on by readers in schools and public libraries.
She has sold over half a million books worldwide and they are translated into more than fifteen languages.
Julia Golding lives in Oxford with her husband and three children.
Click here to read a Q&A with the author from top children's publisher Egmont.
