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Winner of Smarties Book Prize Gold Award 2001. Shortlisted for LA Carnegie Medal 2002 and Whitbread Book of the Year Award Children's Book Category 2001 and Blue Peter Book Award (Book I Couldn't Put Down Prize) 2002 and Blue Peter Children's Book Awards: The Book I Couldn't Put Down 2002 and Carnegie Medal 2002 and Whitbread Children's Book of the Year 2001.

'A plot too exciting to put down. Sheer pleasure.' Sarah Johnson, The Times; 'A splendidly suspenseful, richly characterised drama.' Children's Book of the Week, Sunday Times

Eva Ibbotson was born in Vienna, but spent her early childhood travelling backwards and forwards across Europe between the homes of her father, a scientist, and her mother, a novelist, who separated when she was three. When the Nazis came to power, her family fled to England. She lives in Newcastle, where she brought up her four children and has written the best-selling novels for both adults and children that have been published all around the world.