In Lyonesse, if you know how to swim, you must be a Cross - a half-human, half-monster hybrid. When Idris Limpet survives drowning, he is condemned to death, but a hasty escape leads him to safety. Now he is going to become a monster groom and care for the very eatures waiting to be killed for the land's fuel. He can't even imagine what destiny has in store for him.

David Hillyard, founder of the famous firm of boatbuilders in Littlehampton, was born in the late nineteenth century, at the height of the Big Boat era. His family were stalwarts of Rowhedge in Essex, where the aristocratic owners of the enormous cutters dicing in the Solent sent their skippers to pick their racing crews of hard-bitten fishermen. Yachts, in those days, were for the very rich, but the men who sailed them were often the reverse. Perhaps it was a consciousness of this divide that led Hillyard-a devout Christian, descended from a long line of fishermen-to build boats that were robust, practical, and within the means of those lacking the advantage of dukedoms or armaments factories. This account of David Hillyard's voyage from apprentice boatbuilder to founder of a boatbuilding dynasty will be deeply interesting not only to owners of his boats and enthusiasts of traditional boatbuilding, but to anyone interested in the story of messing about in boats as practised in Britain. It also provides fascinating insights into the development of a small but significant corner of the relationship between the people of these islands and the seas that surround us.

It's 1813 and England is at war with France and America. Kate finds herself disguised as a boy and mistaken for one of the crew on a Royal Navy ship, chasing an American man of war. Shipboard life is perilous - but that is nothing to the tangled knot of mystery, intrigue and adventure that awaits her on the high seas

Inexplicably out of print since the late 1940s, Messing About in Boats is one of the most charming and evocative accounts of work and leisure afloat in the years either side of the Great War. John Muir describes with humanity and humour the perils of boat acquisition and ownership by the impecunious, and the somewhat mixed talents of the Paid Hand. But his account is more than balanced by the interest and pleasure he took in working and sailing in English waters, from the North Sea to the Bristol Channel, in an age long before the marina, GPS and radio.Muir provides two valuable first-hand accounts of work afloat under steam and sail before the War, while he was on half-paid leave between assignments in the Royal Navy: In the North Sea 'boxing' fleet of trawlers which remained on station for weeks on end, where he served in his medical capacity, and later in the Bristol Channel Pilot service, where he crewed on a cutter, delivering the pilot to incoming ships in all weathers.His unfavourable views of the qualities of the Bristol Channel Pilot Cutter as a yacht may surprise its aficionados today, but he relented sufficiently to own two of them, Maud and Freda, which feature in the book.

Matt Haig, Derek Landy, Philip Reeve, Joseph Delaney, Susan Cooper, Mal Peet, Berlie Doherty, Robin Jarvis, Eleanor Updale, Jamila Gavin and Sam Llewellyn have come together to bring you eleven spine-tingling stories. Watch your step as you take a ghost walk around the ancient city of York and a long-ago woodland which is reawakening. Be warned of the drowned boy who will stop at nothing to find someone to play with for all time. Look into the mirror, where a lost child lurks, ready to pull you in, and try not to cry out at the monstrous creatures prowling for their next victim. Some stories will make you scream, some will make you shiver - but all will haunt you long after you've put the book down . . .