The Shadow Thief

Book excerpt: Revisit bestselling Alexandra Adornetto's first trilogy in this new format. Ages: 10+ Millipop Klompet and Ernest Perriclof live in the uneventful town of Drabville, where the cautious Ernest spends his time enlarging his rock collection and Milli dreams of adventure. When the pair are kidnapped from their homes and brought to live in the gothic mansion known as Hog House, they are adopted by the madcap Mr and Mrs Mayor and a series of bizarre encounters follows. things do not add up and the children find that sinister plans are beginning to emerge. Why has the notorious Lord Aldor stolen the shadows of all of the town's residents and where are they being held? Assisted by a band of prisoners, the children must venture into the taboo territories, and battle the perils dished out by the Lurid Lagoon, in order to outwit Lord Aldor and prevent him from executing his secret master plan. Praise for the Shadow thief:'Clearly [Adornetto] is already an Australian literary phenomenon ... to read the Shadow thief is to be thrust into a fast-moving plot full of menace and thrills, amply seeded with a magnificently precocious vocabulary'the Courier-Mail 'an impressive debut ... a wonderful fantasy story, full of adventure and scary, dark shadows'the Australian Women's Weekly 'a comic fantasy full of magic'the Sydney Morning Herald