Age: 10-14

This writer-translator team won the Marsh Award for Translation for The Flowing Queen, part of a fantasy trilogy originally written in German. This book, the first of a new trilogy, has many elements of Pirates of the Caribbean: an 18th-century setting, glamorous buccaneers and courageous girls, ghosts and battles, as well as teasing banter, endless chases and monsters made out of drowned men.

The book tells the story of two 14-year-olds – known as polliwiggles – who have the power to run over the surface of the sea. Dangerous forces pursue them across the Caribbean, and they accumulate curious associates as they set out to save the future: a supernatural trader, a daredevil boy, a beautiful pirate princess, a captain with a mercenary history, a strongman with the head of a pit bull, and a whiny shipworm. The book ends on a cliffhanger that is in no way a conclusion, the tone is deliberately inconsistent and episodes unfold with a certain formlessness, but any Captain Jack fan already seduced by adventure on the high seas will enjoy this drama of cannon fire, magic spells and tongue-in-cheek dialogue.

(Egmont £5.99)

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