Castle of Shadows

"For lovers of Aiken, Ellen Renner's debut, Castle of Shadows, is not to be missed. . ." Sunday Times(London) "An intriguing first novel from a promising new author." The Independent(London) Ever since the Queen mysteriously disappeared and the King went mad five years ago, eleven-year-old Princess Charlie has lived a wild and mostly unsupervised life in the country of Quale, running amok through the castle instead of following affairs of state. Now revolution whispers through the air, and Charlie is powerless to stop it. Then she discovers a clue: a desperate, unfinished letter scribbled years before by the missing Queen. Charlie doesn't understand the danger her mother writes of, but she does know that the Queen absolutely must be foundtogether, they can surely save the King and the kingdom. So plucky Charlie embarks on a quest to track down her mother, armed with the precious scrap of paper and with Tobias, the gardener's boy, as an unlikely ally. Putting away her tattered old clothes, she must deal with games of political intrigue, the rebels' rough-laid schemes, and the prime minister's sudden interest in the forgotten princess's well-being. And every step closer to the Queen pulls Charlie deeper into an entangling web of lies and secrets, where nothing is as it seems and people are not who they say . . .