Publisher: Penguin Random House Children's UK

Original and enticing, this is one of the best fantasy stories I have read for a long time. There’s a mix of peril and intrigue in all the right proportions, a strong female lead and a well-constructed fantasy world with its own haunting mythology that really does immerse the reader from the start.

Ellie Lancaster is a feisty young inventor who lives in the last city to survive in a world that has been almost entirely drowned by a fear-inducing god known as the Enemy. The city sits upon a steep mountain that juts out above sea level, and one day washed up on one of its rooftops appears a whale, out of which emerges a mysterious boy whose origins are unknown. It doesn’t take long for rumours to accrue – rumours that suggest the boy is the Enemy himself returning to the city to cause destruction. Only Ellie seems convinced of his innocence and when the boy is caught and sentenced to death by the city’s Inquisitors, Ellie finds herself on a whirlwind of an adventure to keep the boy from being wrongly harmed.

The story is full of edge-of-your-seat danger and has its fair share of scary parts while also tenderly exploring themes of friendship, loyalty, forgiveness and grief. The twists and turns in the plot are delightful, with secrets, surprises and delicious ‘penny drop’ moments that kept me turning pages late into the night.

here’s already a buzz around Orphans of the Tide and it’s easy to see it finding a lot of fans in the coming year, especially readers who have enjoyed Philip Pullman, Suzanne Collins and Vashti Hardy. For me, it’s a gripping middle-grade fantasy that ticks all the right boxes as an exceptionally enjoyable read.

Nominated for “Favourite Books of 2020” by: Alison Leach (founder of BooksForTopics)

Alison says, “Original and enticing, this is one of the best fantasy stories I have read for a long time. There’s a mix of peril and intrigue in all the right proportions, a strong female lead and a well-constructed fantasy world with its own haunting mythology that really does immerse the reader from the start. The twists and turns in the plot are delightful, with secrets, surprises and delicious ‘penny drop’ moments that kept me turning pages late into the night.”