Pebble (Strong Winds series vol. 6)

PUBLICATION DATE 15.11.2018 (It's been a long time coming!)  

Pebble is set somewhere in the early summer of 2012, after President Putin has been returned to power in Russia and before the London Olympics.  Why should these things matter to the characters in the Strong Winds series? A good question and not one that any of them will have been asking themselves - except that Xanthe's family are absent from this story as she's won back her place in the GBR squad after the turbulent experiences of Black Waters (volume 5). Luke appears to have moved on from his adventures in The Lion of Sole Bay (volume 4) but Liam has been more affected by his brother's narrow escape than anyone else has realised. He struggles to keep a lookout from the Bawdsey cliffs - but how could he have expected the complex plot in which he and Donny find themselves accidentally involved in Pebble? 

Much of Liam's story had already been written before the real-life poisoning that occurred in Salisbury in March 2018 (and also in June). Pebble is fiction, yet it's fiction that considers the damage that can occur when other nations play out their own struggles in a different country. As in all the Strong Winds series the characters' lives are affected by events beyond their control and things that happened years before they were born.  History is never far away along the English East Coast. 

Pebble is also the story of a child going through a life changing experience and how this may affect the people around him. It's a family story with characters ages from 5 - 95 and it's intended for readers of 12 upwards. Once again artist Claudia Myatt has supplied delightful black-and-white illustrations throughout the text, as well as atmospheric watercolour paintings for the front and back covers.