Inkdeath

Cornelia Caroline Funke's Inkdeath is a fantasy for 11 year olds that picks up Meggie and her family long after they've been read into the world of a book.

What happens

It follows Inkheart and Inkspell, and it really does lean on them. Characters, places and old grudges turn up with very little explanation. So if your reader hasn't met Meggie yet, start with Inkheart and work forward.

For anyone who has, this one is a treat. Meggie, her dad Mo and her mum Resa have been living in the Inkworld for three months. Back in our world, Elinor sits up at night in her library with nothing but a grumpy dog and three photographs (Elinor is gloriously cross about everything, and she's great company).

In the Inkworld things are grim. A greedy new governor is starving the villages. Mo, a bookbinder, has become the Bluejay, a masked robber the minstrels sing songs about. He rides out at night with the Black Prince and his bear, hiding harvests before the soldiers can take them.

Meanwhile vain Orpheus is reading himself rich. He writes treasure into the ground and makes Farid dig it up under the gallows. Farid privately calls him Cheeseface, and he's had just about enough of him.

It's a book about the power of words. Who gets to write a story, and what happens when somebody else starts changing it? Meggie and her family are living inside a tale that nobody seems to be in charge of any more.

Be ready for how dark it gets, though. The fighting is on the page. In an early raid the robbers kill every soldier who rides against a village, and it's told close up, blood and all. There are hanged bodies on the gallows, two boys being taken to hang for poaching, and talk of buying children's bones.

It reads at the very top of the shelf. For a reader who has already loved the first two books and can handle a proper battle, it's a rich, heart-thumping read.

What to read next

In the meantime, Cornelia Funke's The Thief Lord is a great next step. Two orphaned brothers are on the run in Venice, and the aunt who only wants the younger one has hired a private detective with a fake walrus moustache to find them.