Book description
Jake's father disappears while working on mysterious experiments with
the obsessive, reclusive Oberon Venn. Jake is convinced Venn has
murdered him. But the truth he finds at the snow-bound Wintercombe Abbey
is far stranger ... The experiments concerned a black mirror, which is a
portal to both the past and the future. Venn is not alone in wanting to
use its powers. Strangers begin gathering in and around Venn's estate:
Sarah - a runaway, who appears out of nowhere and is clearly not what
she says, Maskelyne - who claims the mirror was stolen from him in some
past century. There are others, a product of the mirror's power to twist
time. And a tribe of elemental beings surround this isolated estate,
fey, cold, untrustworthy, and filled with hate for humans. But of them
all, Jake is hell-bent on using the mirror to get to the truth. Whatever
the cost, he must learn what really happened to his father. Catherine
Fisher is an award-winning fantasy writer and author of the New York
Times bestseller Incarceron. The Oracle was shortlisted for the
Whitbread Award 2003, The Conjuror's Game for the Smarties Award, The
Snow-Walker's Son for the WH Smith Mind Boggling Award, The Candle Man
won the Tir-Na-n'Og Award, and Corbenic was shortlisted. Author of many
books for children and two volumes of award-winning poetry, she is
particularly well-known in Wales and has been named as the first Welsh
Young People's Laureate.