Often the 2nd in a series is the weaker, but Julia Golding has surpassed herself here by delivering a totally gripping novel where once again good versus evil is the underlying theme but Connie has to get the better of a shapeshifter as well as someone who can kill just by looking.
Awesome stuff with an ecological twist and completely unputdownable.
The third title in the Companions Quartet is scheduled for 2007.
Magical Mallins Wood is under threat from developers. Unknown to everyone but the members of the top secret Society for the Protection of Mythical Creatures, the wood is the home of the last gorgon, a creature so deadly she can kill with a look. Col's difficult mother is the gorgon's Companion - and she's determined to save it.
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.
