Secrets of the Fire Sea Stephen Hunt 9780007289660

A tale of high adventure and derring-do set in the same Victorian-style world as the acclaimed The Court of the Air and The Rise of the Iron Moon.

A secret grave enough to kill for...

The isolated island of Jago is the only home Hannah Conquest has ever known. But her carefree existence comes to an abrupt halt when her guardian, Archbishop Alice Grey, is brutally murdered.

Someone desperately wants to suppress a secret kept by the archbishop, and if the attempts on Hannah's own life are any indication, the killer believes that Alice passed the knowledge of it onto her ward before her head was separated from her neck.

Meanwhile, a deadly power struggle is brewing on Jago. And as Hannah digs deeper into the mystery Alice left behind, assisted by two rather different detectives, she must race to unravel a chain of ancient riddles in order to save not just her own life, but her island home itself...

Stephen Hunt has worked as a writer, editor and publisher for a number of magazines and national newspaper groups in the UK. He is also the founder of www.SFcrowsnest.com, one of the oldest and most popular fan-run science fiction and fantasy websites. Born in Canada, the author divides his time between the UK, North America and Spain. His interests include computer programming, the graphic arts and collecting comics. One day he hopes to have a library large enough to house all of his books.

Praise for Stephen Hunt:

'Hunt's imagination is probably visible from space. He scatters concepts that other writers would mine for a trilogy like chocolate-bar wrappers. This is Philip Pullman with a dose of benzedrine. Hold on to your hat and let yourself get carried away.' Tom Holt

'A ripping yarn ... the story pounds along ... constant inventiveness keeps the reader hooked ... the finale is a cracking succession of cliffhangers and surprise comebacks. Great fun' SFX

'An inventive, ambitious work, full of wonders and marvels' Lisa Tuttle, The Times

'The characters are convincing and colourful, but the real achievement is the setting, a hellish take on Victorian London ... the depth and complexity of Hunt's vision makes it compulsive reading for all ages' Guardian

'Wonderfully assured ... Hunt knows what his audience like and gives it to them with a sardonic wit and carefully developed tension' Time Out