Author(s): Nicholas Bowling

Senior Fiction | Fantasy & Magic

Oran lives on Little Drum, where music is everything. Every islander has a birth instrument and a life song—and the ancestors, called ghasts, linger to hear the music. But when the Duchess arrives from the mainland bringing orders of silence, she threatens the ghasts—existence, the very soul of the community. When Oran hears of a mythical instrument with the power to manipulate hearts, she brings her ghast best friend, Alick, on a quest to find it, play it, and change the Duchess's mind ...

From Costa-shortlisted Nicholas Bowling comes a middle-grade fable of adventure, myth and music to make your heart sing.

Author Bio: Nick Bowling is an author, stand-up comic, musician and Latin teacher from London. He graduated from Oxford University in 2007 with a BA in Classics and English, and again in 2010 with a Masters in Greek and Latin Language and Literature, before moving to his first teaching job at Trinity School, Croydon. While writing his debut novel Witchborn, he has also performed a solo show at the Edinburgh festival, and has co-written, recorded and released an album and two EPs with soul-folk singer Mary Erskine, Me For Queen.