The Time Twister (Red King Quintet) [Hardcover]

Praise for ‘Midnight for Charlie Bone’:

‘Charlie Bone is dark, funny, crackling with magic. It’s a long time since I’ve been so absorbed in a story, and so keen for the next installment.’ Artemis Cooper.

‘A fast moving, dialogue driven romp with plenty of cliff-hangers for those first hooked into reading by Harry Potter’ Bookseller

January 2002. A month after the excitement of Christmas, on another cold night, Charlie meets Henry reappearing at Bloor’s in the twenty-first century, and realises Henry’s cousin is none other than old Ezekiel Bloor.

He hides Henry from Ezekiel’s spies, Billy Raven and Blessed the dog, while he and Fidelio work out how they can help Henry. Using the freezer to create the right temperature doesn’t work, but it does bring Cook and the Flames into the secret. Of the other endowed children, Emma is distant, Lysander and Tancred have fallen out, and then Gabriel tries on a mysterious black glove.

Charlie’s horrible Yewbeam aunts are trying to make him enter a picture of Skarpo, the magician, while his Uncle Paton has found he can avoid exploding light bulbs if he reads as he walks.

The friends meet up at the Pets’ Café, run by Mr and Mrs Onimous, and the town’s dogs chase Asa when he tries to slink in as a werewolf. Uncle Paton’s plan to soothe Julia Ingledew’s fears about his strange talent fails when he’s momentarily distracted from his book.

Meanwhile, back at Bloor’s, Henry has been captured by Manfred and Ezekiel, and Mrs Bloor has finally been able to escape using the Time Twister. Paton is suddenly run over by the Yewbeam aunts, but asks Julia Ingledew to give Charlie a Welsh dictionary, that will allow him to command the wand of a Welsh wizard.

Charlie, with the endowed children and Uncle Paton, sets off to rescue Henry from the Pets’ Café which has a secret tunnel to where Henry is imprisoned. After releasing Henry from the dungeon with the Welsh wand, Charlie takes him to the home of Henry’s brother, James, now an old man, looked after by Cook’s sister, Pearl. Everyone thoroughly enjoys Uncle Paton’s birthday party, especially when Tancred’s father blows the Yewbeam aunts down the street.

Jenny Nimmo has been an actor, researcher, floor-manager and script editor for children’s television. Her first book ‘The Bronze Trumpeter’ was published in 1975. ‘The Snow Spider’ won the Tir na N’Og award and the Smarties Grand Prix. Her most recent book, for older readers, is ‘Milo’s Wolves’. Jenny Nimmo was born in Windsor, Berkshire and now lives in Wales with her artist husband and three bi-lingual children.