Wonderbear
Flame-haired Tess is six months shy of sixteen. Her microbiologist father calls her Wonderbear, after her favourite creatures; the microscopic but extraordinarily tough and resourceful waterbears. When her father becomes deathly ill, forcing their parents to seek treatment in Toronto, Tess and her six-year-old brother Sam are sent to stay with their unconventional Aunt Sarah in a remarkable house in South Africa’s Drakensberg – the dragon mountains also known as ‘The Barrier of Spears.’ But shortly after their arrival, Tess is kidnapped by a couple of unscrupulous fortune hunters, and forced to dive for treasure into a deep and secret mountain pool. And whenever she dives to the bottom the pool, she gets a powerful sense that she is not alone in the water...
If Tess is to stand any chance of surviving her ordeal, she will need to have the courage and tenacity worthy of her nickname.
The Equilibrist
On the first night the Circus Basilisk spends outside the Northern England town of Kirkholme, aspiring tightwire performer Flynn Oakley finds out just how easily his hard-earned and well-balanced world can fall apart. Falsely accused of a monstrous crime and forced to flee from his adoptive home, Flynn becomes the first person to run away from the circus.
Finding himself hunted by a devious cabal formed by the candy butcher, a family of aerialists called The Flying Gremaldis and the sinister, crow-like Raffen, Flynn has to trust in unlikely alliances to try and save the only place he has ever called home.
And even though he has found shelter inside a subterranean network of tunnels and caverns under the nearby Bleaks – a desolate high moor on the other side of the fell that looms over the circus camp – something else also inhabits this netherworld, and Flynn is yet to discover if it is friend or foe.
'A mesmerising novel, beautifully written and full of heart. I loved it.'
-Sarah Lotz, author of The Three
Dark Shenanigans
When a tall foreigner accused of stealing honey is brought to the police station on the Greek island of Kythnos, Sergeant Laziridis's uneventful night is about to take a very unexpected turn. A man regains consciousness and finds himself the only diner in a strange restaurant with some curious staff and a dinner literally prepared to be the meal of his life. Things fall apart on a newly-terraformed Mars. And then there are the pair of midwives from a secret society you never want to cross…
These tales and much more await in this weirdly wonderful short story collection. Dark Shenanigans includes the PEN Literary Award-winning story A Visit To Dr Mamba and the 2015 Short.Sharp.Story best story Train 124.