'For God's sake, hold on!'

On a stormy night off the coast of Scotland, young David Balfour faces his most terrifying test yet. He's been double-crossed by his wicked uncle, tricked into a sea voyage and sold into slavery. When the dashing Alan Breck Stewart comes aboard, he finds a brave friend at least, and the pair fight back against their treacherous, black-hearted shipmates. But then the ship hits a reef, it's every man for himself, and David must battle against the raging sea itself!

Author : Robert Louis Stevenson

Edition : Paperback, 368 pages, Vintage Children’s Classics

ISBN : 9780099573739

Weight: 243g
Dimensions: 188 x 129 x 22mm

Nix has spent her entire life aboard her father’s ship, sailing across the centuries, across the world, across myth and imagination. As long as her father has a map for it, he can sail to any time, any place, real or imagined: nineteenth-century China, the land from One Thousand and One Nights, a mythic version of Africa. Along the way they have found crewmates and friends, and even a disarming thief who could come to mean much more to Nix.

But the end to it all looms closer every day.

Her father is obsessed with obtaining the one map, 1868 Honolulu, that could take him back to his lost love, Nix’s mother. Even though getting it—and going there—could erase Nix’s very existence.

Author : Heidi Heilig

Edition : Hot Key Books, Paperback, 368 pages

ISBN : 9781471406652

Weight: 293g
Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 22mm

“One moment several things are possible, the next moment only one happens, and the rest don't exist. Except that other worlds have sprung into being, on which they did happen.” 

It begins with a girl and her daemon

The girl is Lyra Belacqua, an orphan who lives in a place like, and yet unlike, Oxford in a parallel universe in which science, theology and magic are entwined. Yet for Lyra, her world is about climbing the rooftops of the Oxford colleges with her friend Roger, enthralling the neighbourhood children with her tales and keeping out of the way of the scholars of Jordan College.

Then children start to go missing, snatched mysteriously by a group the children call ‘The Gobblers’. When Roger is taken, Lyra founds herself bound up in a dangerous chase, a daring game of cat-and-mouse that sees her on the run from the highest authorities.

It is a hunt that will take her far from Oxford, to high-society London and the home of the mysterious and beautiful Mrs Coulter and beyond, to the home of the witches and the kingdom of the ice bears where the aurora awaits.

Here Lyra’s quest for answers becomes a mission to understand a mysterious phenomenon called Dust and there are secrets too, about her own family, about a prophecy, about betrayal and about the universe; secrets that come at a deadly cost.Why Novel North recommends

'Love the sense of adventure and the friendships.  Getting caught up in Lyra's world, you crave exploration and discovery for yourself. A wonderful tale of self-discovery and adventure. A fantastical world, just off our own, with armoured polar bears, secret underground passages, and airship exploration over ice.’

Author : Philip Pullman

Edition : Paperback, Paperback, 448 pages

ISBN : 9781407186108

Weight: 280g
Dimensions: 203 x 142 x 29mm

'There's the Black Island. Only a few minutes and we'll be ashore.'

Witnessing a mysterious plane crash, Tintin embarks on a grand adventure which takes him to the highlands of Scotland and a castle home to an unexpected resident. 

Why Novel North recommends

'A childhood favourite, with great Snowy (the dog) escapades.'

Author : Hergé

Edition : Egmont, Hardback, 64 pages

ISBN : 9781405208062

Weight: 460g
Dimensions: 301 x 224 x 9mm