Synopses & Reviews
Twelve-year-old Mosca Mye hasn't got much. Her cruel uncle keeps her locked up in his mill, and her only friend is her pet goose, Saracen, who'll bite anything that crosses his path. But she does have one small, rare thing: the ability to read. She doesn't know it yet, but in a world where books are dangerous things, this gift will change her life.
Enter Eponymous Clent, a smooth-talking con man who seems to love words nearly as much as Mosca herself. Soon Mosca and Clent are living a life of deceit and danger discovering secret societies, following shady characters onto floating coffeehouses, and entangling themselves with crazed dukes and double-crossing racketeers. It would be exactly the kind of tale Mosca has always longed to take part in, until she learns that her one true love words may be the death of her.
Fly by Night is astonishingly original, a grand feat of the imagination from a masterful new storyteller.
Review
"A rollicking read to be savored." Bookseller (London)
Review
"Mosca is a curious heroine, rather like Philip Pullman's Lyra, a fierce black-eyed street survivor whose passion, quick-wittedness and intelligence are a power for change. Fly by Night is like delving into a box of sweets with a huge array of flavours." London Times Literary Supplement
Review
"A stylish historical adventure...written with an assured touch. Original and inventive descriptions which paint a vivid picture of people and events. Undoubtedly one of the finest books of the year." Publishing News
Synopsis
When Triss wakes up after an accident, she knows something is very wrong. She is insatiably hungry, her sister seems scared of her, and her parents whisper behind closed doors. She looks through her diary to try to remember, but the pages have been ripped out. Soon Triss discovers that what happened to her is more strange and terrible than she could ever have imagined, and that she is quite literally not herself. In a quest to find the truth she must travel into the terrifying underbelly of the city to meet a twisted architect who has dark designs on her family—before it’s too late . . .
Set in England after World War I, this is a brilliantly creepy but ultimately loving story of the relationship between two sisters who have to band together against a world where nothing is as it seems.
About the Author
Frances Hardinge spent her childhood rambling around in a huge, isolated old house in Kent that "wuthered" when the wind blew and that inspired her to write strange, magical stories from an early age. She studied English at Oxford University, where she was a founding member of a writer's workshop and won a magazine short-story competition. She recently returned from a yearlong round-the-world odyssey. Fly by Night is her first novel.