Rebecca Lisle – författare

Ruby wants a pet. She thinks it's very unfair that her older sister Jane is allowed a kitten for her birthday, especially when Jane refuses to let Ruby play with the kitten. So when she finds a very friendly-looking stone, she decides to adopt him as her pet. Jane thinks Ruby is being silly, but Ruby is pleased to discover that her new pet has some appealing characteristics - and she doesn't have to clean up any messes like Jane does! When the girls enter their pets in the school fete pet competition, there is a very surprising result.

On Copper Beech's 10th birthday her aunt suddenly sends her away to the Snowy Mountains to stay with family she had never known she had. In a bleak landscape of ice and snow, wood and stone, Copper finds herself battling against strange forces trying to destroy her. The fearsome Granite, king of the rock mountain, holds the key to all the mysteries, but he would rather lock her up in his dank prison than explain. Even the rest of the family living in the Beech house are not telling her all they know. She finds that for her own safety she must attempt to establish what has happened to her parents, who have both disappeared, and may not have died as she had previously supposed.

Amy jumps at the chance to leave her gloomy aunt and uncle and go to the mountains. But once there, she finds that she must to go to stay with the alien clan, the Wood People, and betray them. Worse still, when she meets the Woods she likes them, and her traitorous position there makes her more and more uncomfortable. A mysterious stranger turns up at the house, and kidnaps their beloved wolf cub. Amy is soon engaged in the chase through the winter landscape to a final showdown.

Crystal is unusual; she has silvery blonde hair and blue eyes. There isn't anyone like her in the Town except for her mum and everyone says her mum is either crazy - or a witch. Crystal knows that the Town leader has something to do with her mother's madness but how can she prove it? And how can she stop him when the Town Guard tramps the streets day and night, there's a curfew, and a strange creature in their house spies on them and records their every move?When Crystal thinks she glimpses someone looking up at her from the depths of Lop Lake, she is amazed but strangely hopeful. Could this be the help she's been waiting for?

An orphan boy''s triumph over adversity, with help from a fire-breathing, winged horseStormy is an orphan and a kitchen skivvy. He tends the compost, he scrubs the floors, and watches feasts make their way up the mountain as he survives on bread and water. A skivvy is all that Stormy can hope to be. But Stormy has a secret. He wants to be a sky-rider, to soar amongst the clouds on spitfyres: flying horses that spit fire and smoke, and answer only to their riders. A chance meeting with an escaped convict turns Stormy''s life upside down. Sent up to the Academy he uncovers a web of lies, deceits and neglect, at the centre of which lies the mysterious thirteenth horse. Can Stormy save Thirteen, defeat the dark forces at work within the Academy and prove himself worthy as a sky-rider?

A fantastical twist on a classic story.Thrown out of the Knip and Pynch Home for Waifs and Strays, Sparrow is an orphan accompanied only by her loyal cat Scaramouch and a single clue to her real family. Sparrow travels to the town of Stollenback where, lost and afraid, she is taken in by Gloriana, a strange and colourful street girl. Sparrow thinks she has found a home in the ''nest'' - a hideout for homeless girls run by the beautiful but menacing Miss Minter. Sparrow is taught to make matches and stay quiet, but all is not as it seems. And what does the vicious Tapper want with her? As Sparrow uncovers a web of strange and suspicious secrets she finds herself at the heart of an undercover smuggling trade with a price on her head. Kidnapped and locked in the dark coal cellar, Sparrow''s dream of finding a family seems impossible.A wonderful re-imagining of OLIVER TWIST, Sparrow''s adventure realises the dark secrets of Dickensian London with a fantastical twist for younger readers.