Plots within plots, simmering discontent, a secret labyrinth, and hidden identities, Ursula Jones weaves treachery and murder that strikes at the heart.
'Melior', he emphasized, 'I'm a Ghosty Boy. Khul has no king.' Melior leant down and put her hand on his head, saying fiercely, 'I'll see you crowned if it kills me!' The Slave City of Khul, a proud Kingdom founded by slaves, is invaded. The Slave King and his family slaughtered and resistance brutally suppressed. The former slaves are slaves once more. The slaves whisper a name that has not been heard or repeated since the City fell. Avtar. Avtar is their king. Thirteen year-old Watt is a Ghosty Boy, so called for the flour-covered uniform of The Baker's apprentices, and works in the ancient fortress of Slave City, a far- flung outreach of Empire. When Watt gets stuck cleaning the Baker's chimney, he falls into a labyrinth of corridors where he finds his sister, Melior, and his life is turned upside down. All Watt wants to do is survive, but Melior dreams of revenge.
Ursula Jones has had a long and successful career writing for children. In 2003 she won a gold Smartie Award and in 2008 she was awarded the inaugural Roald Dahl Funny Prize. She also trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art; she has a dual career as both a writer and an actress.
Ursula’s creativity was undoubtedly influenced by her unique childhood and early literary encounters. She lived in the house where Arthur Ransome spent his schooldays and where he set much of his well-known Swallows and Amazons series. She also met Beatrix Potter, at that time rather elderly and bad-tempered, who chided her sister for trespassing on her land. Frequently moving house, enjoying an abundance of physical freedom and a lack of parental guidance, Ursula grew up in the perfect environment for nurturing her imagination helping her to develop her own extraordinary gift for storytelling.
