Jenny Nimmo

Charlie Bone's life with his widowed mother and two grandmothers undergoes a dramatic change when he discovers that he can hear people in photographs talking.

Back at Bloor's Academy after Christmas vacation, Charlie finds himself confronted with a new problem when young Henry Yewbeam, who vanished during a game of marbles in 1916, suddenly appears and needs help to find his family.

When Asa Pike, a Bloor's Academy student with the ability to change into a beast at dusk, goes missing, twelve-year-old Charlie Bone suspects a new classmate, the magically gifted Dagobert Endless, of foul play.

Magically-gifted Charlie Bone, accompanied by his best friend's dog, Runner Bean, comes to the rescue when the enchanter Count Harken takes revenge on the Red King's heirs by kidnapping and imprisoning Charlie's ancestors in the dark, forbidding land of Badlock.

Charlie and the Children of the Red King must call upon all of their strength to defeat the darkness and finally learn the fate of Charlie's family, the evil intentions of the Bloors, what has become of Septimus Bloor's will, and the destiny of the Red King's heirs.

It is years since King Timoken, his sister Zobayda, and his friends settled in the enchanted Red Castle, but now they are all threatened by the evil beyond the castle's protective spells and it will be up to two of Timoken's nine children, Petrello and Tolomeo, to find out which of their siblings is the traitor in their midst, and defeat their enemies.

Dando, a young dragon who cannot fly, is captured by dangerous humans, but a kind slave-girl, an orphaned bird, and the melancholy son of the dragon's captors help him escape his imprisonment and learn to fly.

Nia, the middle girl in a large Welsh family, discovers her own special artistic talent as she uncovers the dark secret shared by the Llewelyn and Griffiths families.

After years of having moved around, eleven-year-old Dinah determines to make a huge, dilapidated old mansion into a home for her mother and herself, but the wild beasts she summons from a stone wall to protect her may also imprison her.

Charlie faces his most dangerous adventure yet when the shadow from the Red King's portrait escapes. Strange things start to happen at Bloor's Academy. A mysterious force, however, is helping Charlie get closer to the truth about his father.