The Blackthorn Key
By (Author) Kevin Sands
Penguin Random House Children's UK
Puffin
4th January 2016
3rd September 2015
United Kingdom
Children
Fiction
813.6
Short-listed for Waterstones Children's Book Prize: Younger Fiction 2016
Paperback
320
Width 131mm, Height 199mm, Spine 20mm
227g
Percy Jackson meets Dan Brown in a fast-paced conspiracy mystery. London, 1665. Fourteen-year-old Christopher Rowe is apprenticed to master apothecary Benedict Blackthorn. In Blackthorn's shop, Christopher learns the delicate secrets of transforming simple ingredients into powerful medicines, potions and weapons. His beloved master guides him with a firm, steady hand - instilling him with confidence and independence that prove increasingly vital as Christopher learns of a mysterious cult preying on the most learned men in London. The murders are growing closer and closer to home and soon Christopher is torn from the shop with only a page of cryptic clues from his master and the unambiguous warning- 'Tell no one'. Helped by his best friend, Tom, Christopher must decipher his master's clues, following a trail of deceit towards an unearthly secret with the power to tear the world apart.
Since escaping from university with a pair of degrees in theoretical physics, Kevin Sands has worked as a researcher, a business consultant and a teacher. He lives in Toronto, Canada.