Wonder Tales

Once upon a chime... Every day at four o' clock, an enchanted twilight sweeps over Vale Argantel. Strange things happen under its eldritch influence: mists boil up out of the ground, rain pours out of a cloudless sky, and the roses grow wild and fey. Such is the way of things. But when her friend falls through a magic mirror and disappears, Margot realises something's changed. An ancient enchantment has gone awry, and chaos quickly spreads. Magic-drunk, confused and hampered at every turn, Margot must find a way to reclaim Oriane - and before anybody else disappears. But for Oriane, things are stranger still. Lost in a topsy-turvy world, how can she ever find her way home? For she's adrift in a place very like Argantel - eerily familiar, yet strangely different; a place which follows none of the usual rules...

Distantly upon the horizon, bejewelled light shone like stars; tantalising, inviting. Then the palace-in-glass was gone, fading away into the velvet night like a snuffed lamp. Between the sands and the starlight, ancient powers rise, and the oldest of tales becomes new. An old sorcerer travels the starlight bazaars: cursed and magic-blighted, he has glass where his heart should be. A half-jinni enchantress seeks her missing son: daughter of a fallen king, hers is a great and daunting power. A trio of camels walks the sands: loyal sisters in service, there is more to their past than meets the eye. What unites these tales (and many more) is a marvel of sorcery and beauty: a great palace of ensorcelled glass, glimpsed only under the stars, and vanishing with the dawn... The third Wonder Tale from Charlotte E. English combines the magic and colour of ancient stories with her trademark wit and whimsy. A fresh journey into the strange lands of fairytales.