"So the actual reason I was calling you is because-get this-I am not going to Prague this summer at all. Surprise! Thanks, Villa. Just ruin my life for me."
Villa Grace is in disgrace. Her expulsion from school has ruined the prospect of a family holiday in imperial Prague, where her mother is organising a conference. Two of her three siblings are barely speaking to her, as all four face into a 'holiday' sweltering on Cobwell Farm in the back of beyond of drought-stricken Hibernia.
But the power-hungry St. Maur Ker family has breached the border between mortal and sídhe for their own gain. Cobwell, on the threshold of myth, is about to become the centre of a battle between older, wilder forces and the technomantic ambitions of one of the empire's great aristo-corporate clans.
Caught up in this conflict, the children are forced to face up to the dark underbelly of their parents' corporate environ-ment, and to confront their own conflicting ambitions and loyalties.
This books is set in the same 'Hibernia Altera' universe as Maxwell's Good Red Herring, included in the Irish Times Best Books of 2014 for Children and Young Adults.
For readers of all ages.
"Gorgeous and hilarious and profound." Siobhán Parkinson
