CHILDREN’S

VOYAGE OF THE SPARROWHAWK by Natasha Farrant (Faber €9.99, 368 pp)

IT’S 1919 and Nathan, the kindly owner of the Sparrowhawk barge who, years earlier, adopted orphans Ben and Sam, has been killed in France while visiting Sam in an Army hospital.

Sam is now missing and 12-year-old Ben is left alone on the boat until a surprise visit from orphaned Lotti, on the run from her cruel aunt and uncle.

The same age as Ben, she’s determined to track down her grandmother in France.

What follows is a thrilling race against time as the two children evade the authorities and nosy neighbours and set sail across the Channel in search of their respective relatives.

But what really raises this above the usual adventure story is the way it evokes a deeply moving need to replenish the emotional emptiness of loss by the creation of new family units.

KIDNAP ON THE CALIFORNIA COMET by M.G.Leonard & Sam Sedgman (Macmillan €8.99, 256 pp)

THIS second in the Adventures On Trains series sees intrepid young hero Hal invited by his railway enthusiast uncle Nat to travel on the California Comet from Chicago to San Francisco.

Hosting the trip is multibillionaire tech mogul August Reza and his enigmatic, unhappy daughter Marianne.

When she is kidnapped, amateur sleuth Hal enlists the help of two new friends he’s met on board to follow the clues — making particularly talented use of his observational and drawing skills.

Wildly funny, with hairpin plot bends and inventive characters, this series is firmly on track to become a bestseller.

TAMARIND AND THE STAR OF ISHTA by Jasbinder Bilan (Chicken House €8.99, 224 pp)

JASBINDER BILAN

scooped a hatful of prizes with her debut, Asha And The Spirit Bird, and this second book confirms her enchanting talent.

No one will tell Tamarind how her mother, Chinty, died when she was just a baby.

But now her father has remarried, she is allowed for the first time to travel from her Bristol home to visit Chinty’s family in the foothills of the Indian Himalayas, where Tamarind was born.

Hoping to discover more about her mum, she is disappointed by her relatives’ silence, until the discovery of an emerald ring and a chance encounter with a night-time visitor inspire her to unravel the sad and painful mystery.

Beautifully written, richly atmospheric and touchingly spiritual, this brief novel sparkles like a polished gem.