Margaret Pearce – författare

John Scarlett never fit in. A disillusioned English tutor without tenure, he builds a crystal gate to escape into a parallel universe of adventure, only to lose his return ticket within hours.His own tomcat, now a powerful sorcerer, holds the resonator and forces him into an indenture: serve as apprentice for seven years, then venture into the demon-haunted Seventh Parallel to retrieve a mysterious entity called the Sapphire, or remain trapped forever.But the Sapphire is not a gemstone. It is a person, and one with her own dangerous agenda.Armed with a sword, dwindling appetite-suppressing berries, and the company of a sharp-tongued shape-shifting girl named Tabitha, John must navigate carnivorous rabbits, elemental guardians, and sorcerers who view humans as expendable resources.In a world where eating too much turns men into mindless giants and cats walk their own ruthless paths, John discovers that the greatest adventure may be choosing whether to return home at all.

The meek inherited the earth. But someone is still deciding who survives.Sixteen-year-old James Tadworthy lives in a peaceful post-apocalyptic society where violence is unknown, disease has been eradicated, and the Shepherds of the Federation Church guide every community with wisdom and care. Life is safe. Life is harmonious. Life is controlled.When his best friend's pregnant partner is secretly drugged and detained by those same trusted Shepherds, everything James believed shatters. His brilliant tutor dies under suspicious circumstances. His friends face a penance at the sand mines from which Grandmother predicts no return. And James himself is hunted through the night and thrown into a flooding river.Rescued by his formidable grandmother, who knows far more about the world's dark secrets than she ever revealed, James descends into forbidden underground tunnels where ancient technology still hums and creatures with glowing red eyes roam. Somewhere in the darkness lies the legendary third seal, a vault of knowledge the survivors of the old wars locked away for posterity.But reaching it means confronting horrors that make the Shepherds' tyranny look merciful.

One dog was locked in a garage. One boy had no choice but to run.John Emery Phillips slips out in the dead of night, saddles his old horse Roanie, and disappears into the dark Australian countryside with his blue heeler Blue at his heels. The reason? Blue has bitten two grown men, his father has five stitches in his shoulder, and the order has come down: the dog dies in the morning.What begins as a desperate escape turns into something John never imagined. Swept up by a circus train heading deep into the country, he finds himself in the extraordinary world of Archie Shugg's travelling circus: three roan horses that waltz in the sawdust ring, acrobats in silver tights high on the trapeze, elephants that help raise the big tent, and a pair of quarrelling clowns who tumble through every performance.But circus life holds more than wonder. Someone is trying to burn Archie's circus down. As a series of fires creeps closer, John, Fred and Leonard must move faster than the flames to find out who, and why.And meanwhile, Blue keeps proving there is more to a condemned dog than anyone back home ever believed.Circus Runaways is the second book in the Jumping into Trouble series. A warm, funny Australian adventure for animal lovers and mystery fans aged 8 to 12.

Mike has a talent for falling into trouble. This time, he has fallen through time itself.When a beam of noon sunlight focuses on an ancient altar during his father's desert expedition, Mike leans in just a little too far. One moment he is part of an archaeological dig between Egypt and Libya. The next, he is thousands of years in the past, in a lost civilisation ravaged by plague, with chanting priests on one side and a jungle full of silence on the other.Then he rescues a girl from the altar knife. Alinea is not from Earth. She is an alien, her parents dying in suspended animation aboard a hidden spaceship, and she needs Mike's help to reach them before it is too late. Between them and any hope of survival stand the Kloog: scaled predators with blazing red eyes and sharp curved claws, who arrived following a comet and have no interest in leaving peacefully.With only his wits, a telepathic bond with Alinea, and a scaly beast named Beeper who eats trees and deflects weapons with his scales, Mike must find his way through jungles, ancient temples, and impossible odds to reach the one door home, if it ever opens again.

A flash flood. A hidden cave. Ancient paintings that glow with impossible blue light.When a flash flood traps Mike and Alinea in a hidden cave in Central Australia, their extraordinary scaled pet Beeper triggers an ancient dimension gate, and all three are hurled across time and space to a world with two moons, dense prehistoric jungles, and dangers beyond imagination.Now they're stranded on an alien planet where pterodactyls swoop from the jungle canopy, water dinosaurs lurk in the bays, and the deadliest threat of all is closing in: the Kloog, outer-space cannibals who land on planets and eat through every living thing until nothing remains.The Galactic Federation wants to lock them in suspended animation until someone claims them, possibly for thousands of years. The only way home lies through time gates the Federation is sealing one by one.With enemies circling from every direction, Mike and Alinea must rely on their wits, each other, and one very unusual creature to survive.The clock is ticking. The gates are closing. And in this corner of the galaxy, survival is anything but guaranteed.

When Dad fails to come back from a solo trip to a remote island ruin, Mike and his friend Alinea go to find him. They find his notebook, his untouched sandwiches, and his shovel in a stone hut. They do not find Dad.What they find instead is a stone platform that shouldn't be there, and a warm pulse under their feet that sends them tumbling out of their world entirely.Somewhere out in the galaxy, Dad is in a Federation ship bound for the Intergalactic Lost Property office, fifty years away. To reach him, Mike and Alinea must outwit alien computers, navigate moss-breathing ships, and keep one step ahead of the galaxy's deadliest predators.And then there is Quok: the small, green, mossy creature who speaks every language in the galaxy, hitches rides on any ship he can find, and calls himself almost a tree. He's helping them. Mostly.

John Phillips is the only kid in the district without a horse. Every Saturday, he sits on his front fence and watches the riders go past: Shetlands, Welsh Mountain ponies, expensive part-Arabs, all clip-clopping to the riding school or Pony Club without him. His parents won't budge, his small blue heeler Blue barely counts as company, and the weekend stretches ahead, empty and useless.Then a wild chestnut gelding bolts from the local riding school, and one ordinary Saturday explodes into adventure. Before the day is out, John will be wading through lake shallows, outwitting a would-be horse thief, and discovering something he never expected: that the horse worth having might not be the horse you dreamed of.Wanted! A Horse is the first book in the Jumping into Trouble series: a warm, funny, and honest story about a boy who wants a horse more than anything, and what happens when he finally gets one.

One collar left dangling. One bay gelding gone.John Emery Phillips knows the difference between a horse that slips its tether and a horse that has been taken. The unbuckled collar says it all. But when he tries to raise the alarm, the adults around him have another word for it: strayed.Then a second horse goes missing. Then comes the news that changes everything: knacker yards are paying good prices for horses, no questions asked. Animals are being stolen and sold for pet food and fertiliser.With no one listening and time running out, John and a handful of stubborn friends do what the grown-ups won't. They follow the clues, pound the pavement, and refuse to give up, even when the trail goes cold and the odds stack against them.A story of loyalty, courage, and refusing to stop searching when it matters most.

Her grandmother rides a vacuum cleaner. Her cat talks when he feels like it. And Belinda Robinson's life will never be the same.Matilda arrives with silky white hair under a pretty straw hat, twinkling green eyes, and a dimple at the corner of her mouth. She smells of flowers. She bakes perfect scones. She builds a tree house overnight in the big gum tree. And she brings a grumpy Blue-point Siamese cat named Senna who wears a narrow leather collar with a gold bell and has very strong opinions about modern transportation.But Matilda has secrets.The vacuum cleaner hums at midnight. The television shows things it shouldn't. And Senna? He talks in a deep, velvety voice that is exactly what you would expect from a cat who considers himself royalty.Belinda has always been the new girl. No cousins, no siblings, no friend who lasted. But Matilda changes everything. Suddenly there is athletic Kate with her blonde curls and reckless bravery, and lonely Amanda with her glossy hair and sharp mind hiding behind a snooty exterior. There is Miss Higgins in her haunted mansion, who went to a very unusual school with Matilda; a school where cats studied catography and feline thermodynamics. And there are midnight flights over moonlit trees.But when Matilda's temper flares and everything goes terribly wrong, it is up to Belinda and her friends to set things right on their own, armed with a borrowed flying carpet, a crystal ball, and courage they did not know they had.The first enchanting adventure in the Belinda Robinson series.

It should have been a fun school holiday. Instead, Belinda's world falls apart.When her father's car is found crashed on a rain-swept coastal road, with no sign of him anywhere, the police suspect he wrecked the car, stole the firm's money, and disappeared. But Belinda knows her dad would never do that.Armed with determination, her two best friends Kate and Amanda, and three very unusual kittens that let them understand the speech of the animals around them, Belinda sets out into the wild bush to find her father.But the rain will not stop. The floodwaters are rising. And the animals of the coast: grumpy possums with opinions about everything, a gentle giant horse who knows his own shortcuts, and a loyal lost dog with a red spotted bow tie and his own mystery to solve, might be the only ones who can help.A heartwarming middle-grade adventure about friendship, courage, and never giving up on the people you love.

A missing will. A crumbling mansion. A stone griffin that seems to be watching.When Belinda Robinson discovers that kind old Miss Higgins has been living in poverty, with her electricity cut off and barely enough to eat, she is determined to help. Miss Higgins' father wrote a second will before he died, one that would have changed everything. But the will vanished after his death, and no one has found it since.Together with her friends Kate and Amanda, Belinda searches Miss Higgins' crumbling mansion from the tower above the rooftops to the secret rooms hidden deep in its walls. They even start selling Miss Higgins' famous cumquat jam to help her make ends meet.But the house is strangely bare. Where has forty years of furniture and belongings gone? And why does the stone griffin on the rooftop seem to watch them wherever they go?Meanwhile, Belinda's grandmother Matilda, who has a few extraordinary secrets of her own, keeps a careful eye on proceedings. And the talking Siamese cat Sennacherib seems to know far more than any cat should.Some old houses hold secrets far stranger than a hidden will. And Belinda is about to find out just how strange.Book 3 in the Belinda Robinson series, cosy middle-grade mysteries where everyday adventures meet gentle magic.

Princess Dewdrop is bored out of her mind.Life in fairyland is an endless parade of moonlit revels, lessons she refuses to attend, and nothing interesting to do. When the house goblin Golly reveals that a human baby has been stolen and replaced with a changeling, Dewdrop sees her chance. She hatches a plan to put things right, and drags her long-suffering guard Lord Be Thankful along with her.But fairyland has rules, and breaking them has consequences.Trapped in the mortal world after eating mortal food, Dewdrop must find a way to reunite both families before the full moon rises. Hobgoblins are circling. The Fairy Queen's fury is building. And the only person who can complete the swap is a young farm girl who doesn't even believe in fairies.

Rebecca used to be a fairy princess. Now she is just a girl with chores, a baby brother, and a white owl who will not stop giving advice.Life as a mortal is not so bad. She has a warm cottage, kind parents, and her best friend Golly, the loyal house goblin who never misses breakfast. Until one morning, he does.When Golly and every goblin in the district vanish without a trace, Rebecca knows something terrible has happened. The hobgoblins have invaded, and without the goblins to protect the village, mischief is turning to menace. Eggs are stolen. Milk curdles. Fires spread where they should not.Armed with a mysterious golden key and her steadfast owl guard, Rebecca must journey into the dangerous hobgoblin in-between land, a realm of purple skies, flesh-eating plants, and creatures so dangerous that even hobgoblins fear them.But rescuing the goblins is only the beginning. Laws of fairyland have been broken, secrets reach all the way to the Fairy Court, and Rebecca may be the only one who can set things right.

Billy Pitt didn't mean to cause trouble. He just wanted to fix his bike and finish his paper round.But when he and his best friend Rusty stumble across a mysterious grey metal box at the local tip, curiosity gets the better of them, and Billy's beloved pet mouse, Marmaduke, ends up right in the middle of it.One slippery accident later, something strange begins to happen. Very strange.Now the neighbourhood is in an uproar. Television crews are arriving. Adults are arming themselves with shovels, brooms and sticks. And somewhere out there, Marmaduke is in serious danger.With time running out and chaos closing in, Billy and Rusty must think fast, act brave, and pull off the cleverest plan of their lives, before someone discovers what really happened.A rollicking middle-grade adventure full of humour, heart, and one very unusual mouse.

Rebecca never expected being mortal would be this dangerous.When a cruel new teacher arrives at her village school, Rebecca senses something dark beneath Miss Baroom's sharp tongue and mean red eyes. With help from her talking horse Sally, a protective white owl, and two loyal house goblins, Rebecca discovers the terrifying truth: Miss Baroom is a powerful witch with plans that threaten everyone Rebecca loves.Now Rebecca must use her wits and courage to protect her classmates, save an innocent family from dark magic, and face down the most dangerous witch she has ever encountered, all without the fairy powers she once had.Can a girl with no magic stop a witch this powerful?

When baby Willyum is stolen by dwarf guards, Rebecca knows she has to act.The dwarves believe George has betrayed their missing heir, Prince Lejon, and they won't return Willyum until Lejon is found. But Lejon has vanished, kidnapped and hidden far from the dwarf kingdom in a place no mortal has ever reached.With her father George, her loyal goblin companions, and her brave white owl, Rebecca must journey through the dangerous underground hobgoblin waterways into Cantia, the land of ogres, trolls, and giants. There, locked in a tower guarded by monsters who don't believe in being vegetarian, Lejon waits.But finding him is only part of the problem. Getting him out and getting home alive will take more than courage. It will take cleverness, loyalty, and a little help from unexpected friends.Can one small girl outsmart ogres, escape hobgoblins, and save two lives before time runs out?

Jeremy hates his new house. His parents are so obsessed with keeping everything spotless that he can't have friends over, can't play in the yard, and definitely can't have a pet.Then he finds a strange egg in his cousin Kate's backyard. It's far too big to be a tortoise egg, and the wrong colour entirely. But Jeremy doesn't care. He buries it in the compost bin and waits.What hatches is unlike anything he's ever seen: a mottled, scaly creature with spiked ears, bright green eyes, and an insatiable appetite for rubbish. Jeremy names him Ulp.Keeping Ulp secret is hard enough. But when Jeremy gets picked for the school football team and needs sixty dollars for proper boots, he and Kate must find a way to earn the money fast, all while hiding a rapidly growing mystery creature who's getting harder to conceal by the day.Every dollar they earn, Ulp eats a little more. Every day that passes, the compost bin fits a little less.

Jane Smith knows what it feels like to be invisible.No father. No relatives. A mother who works at the factory and takes in ironing. At school, Jane is the girl in patched jeans and odd socks, the one who gets blamed when things go wrong and never quite catches a break.While Jane navigates stolen oranges, trampoline practice, and the daily weight of being overlooked, something extraordinary unfolds in a parallel world. Four silver-cloaked Patrollers on flying disks are scouring history for warriors. A princess commands the defence of her planet against a force that wants to cross the boundary between worlds. Fifty warriors must hold the gate at the bridging, and the Patrollers are still ten short.As the school year builds toward the end-of-term display, four children in identical silver jumpsuits perform in front of every parent and teacher who ever looked past them, and the two worlds are drawing toward the same moment.What happens at that moment is something neither world saw coming.A dual narrative about courage and belonging, for readers who have ever felt like outsiders and wondered if there was more to life than everyone else can see.

Nothing interesting ever happens in Lovelace Court. At least, that's what twins Gert and Phil believe, until the Morris family moves in next door.Suddenly their quiet suburban life explodes. Red, green and black paint is splashed across the laundry floor, walls and cupboards. Their beloved dog Doggo is clipped, covered in boot polish, and turned black, then whisked away by a stranger who dyes him bright purple for a television commercial. The vegetable garden is trampled. And at the centre of it all is Robbie Morris, loud, rough, and always lurking just where he shouldn't be.Gert is furious. She's ready to fight back.But as the feud escalates, she starts to see past the chaos to something she never expected. Because Robbie Morris has secrets of his own, and the real trouble in Lovelace Court runs much deeper than paint on the laundry walls.When the noise dies down, what Gert finds on the other side of the fence will change everything she thought she knew about neighbours, families, and doing the right thing.

She wakes in a grey, silent corridor with no memories, no name, and no way out.A mysterious girl appears with a desperate warning: find the mistake you were sent to fix, or remain lost forever. Before she can ask questions, she is pushed through a door and tumbles into someone else's life.Now she is Kate Cavanagh, a fourteen-year-old student teacher at a tiny bush school in 1900s Australia. The world is harsh and unfamiliar. Children walk miles barefoot through mud to learn. Teachers strap students for spelling mistakes. And girls have almost no choices in life.Her new friend Becky knows this better than anyone. Kind-hearted and clever, Becky dreams of something more, but her father has arranged her marriage to a neighbouring farmer, and she will turn sixteen in two weeks. In this world, a daughter belongs to her father until she belongs to a husband. There is no escape.Kate does not belong here. Her sharp tongue and modern ideas make her an outsider. But she cannot stand by while Becky's future is decided for her, even if speaking up earns her bruises, even if helping might mean she never finds her way home.What is the mistake she was sent to correct? And what happens if she fails?A gripping time-slip adventure about courage, friendship, and discovering where you truly belong.

Dragons aren't supposed to exist in the mortal world. But when livestock begins vanishing and strange wings blot out the stars, Rebecca knows something ancient and dangerous has arrived.A dragon egg is about to hatch, and every dragon in existence is gathering to fight for the right to become consort to the new Princess. Among them is Perjury, a monstrous black dragon who breaks every law of his kind. Something darker controls him from the shadows. Something that shouldn't have escaped its prison.Rebecca is just a mortal girl now, no longer the fairy princess she once was. But the Fairy Queen has asked for her help, and dragon law doesn't apply to humans. With her loyal owl companion, two devoted house goblins, and a terrified silver dragon named Albus hiding in her creek, Rebecca must find a way to stop Perjury before the full moon rises.Can one small girl give a cowardly dragon the courage to face his destiny? The answer begins with a bucket of bright red oats and a promise that she says twice a day, every day, no matter what he wails back.

Jenny Carruthers is eleven years old and the odd one out.Her brother Brian has curly brown hair and deep blue eyes. Her little sister Janine has yellow curls. Even her mother's greying fair hair falls in curls. But Jenny? Straight black hair. Brown eyes. Always in the middle, never quite belonging.With Dad in hospital since his accident and Mum stretched to breaking point, Jenny feels invisible. Overlooked. Unloved. So she decides to stop trying to be good and starts making choices that spiral further and further out of control.A forbidden friendship. A reckless act of rebellion. A desperate attempt to finally look like she belongs.But fitting in isn't about what you look like on the outside. And sometimes it takes making the worst mistakes to discover where you truly belong.

Beebie always felt like the odd one out.While his tall, athletic brothers excel at every sport going, eleven-year-old Beebie is small, slight, and wears glasses. But when he is finally picked to play rover for the school football team, he is convinced this is his moment: the day his sports-mad father will finally be proud of him.Then his mother drops a bombshell. His father has left.Now Beebie must spend weekends at his dad's new home, sleeping on a convertible couch in a stranger's lounge room. His father's girlfriend is shiny and cheerful. Her two little boys demand all the attention. And her daughter Marnie? She is hostile, resentful, and wants nothing to do with him.But Marnie has her own pain. Her own absent parent. Her own reasons for that permanent scowl.As Beebie and Marnie circle each other warily across kitchen clean-ups and tennis courts, they discover something unexpected: the only person who truly understands what you are going through might be the last person you would choose.A warm, honest Australian novel about fractured families, unlikely friendships, and finding your footing when the ground shifts beneath you.