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Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell's Midnight Over Sanctaphrax is a stormy sky-pirate fantasy for 11 year olds about a young captain who steers straight into the mouth of a monster storm.
Twig is captain of the Edgedancer. He's following a giant caterbird out into open sky, where no ship has ever gone, because it says it can lead him to his long-lost father.
His crew aren't so sure. There's Goom the banderbear, a nervous oakelf in the lookout, a water-waif who reads everyone's thoughts (which Sleet the grumpy quartermaster finds VERY annoying) and a silent Stone Pilot. Twig has sworn he'll never abandon any of them.
Then they fly into the weather vortex. Inside, the storm gets into everyone's heads. First comes a wave of sadness, then fear, then a red rage that makes Twig do something terrible.
He does find his father, the sky pirate Cloud Wolf. It's a strange, sad meeting and Cloud Wolf has a warning. A great storm is coming, and the floating city of Sanctaphrax sits right in its path.
Then the Edgedancer is blown apart. Bits of it rain down on Sanctaphrax and the muddy streets below, and Twig's own memory starts to slip away.
It's the third Edge Chronicles book about Twig, so this crew already has plenty of history. The world is the big draw. Sky ships float on flight-rocks, professors study the weather with gadgets that change colour with your mood, and white ravens guard the rocks that grow at the tip of the Edge.
There are LOTS of made-up words (hammelhorns, tolley-ropes, snowbirds). Some readers lap that up straight away and some need a chapter or two to settle in.
This one is darker than the words sky pirate might suggest. The storm scenes are really intense, a crewman howls with grief for his dead brother, and falling wreckage kills people in the town below.
If your reader is easily upset by that kind of thing, it could be a lot. If they love a big, strange adventure where the danger feels real, they'll be gripped.
Want more of Sanctaphrax? Try The Curse of the Gloamglozer. It's set in the same floating city, where the sky pirate Wind Jackal and his son Quint are flying in to see the Most High Academe.
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