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  • Published: 3 May 2004
  • ISBN: 9780099456674
  • Imprint: Red Fox
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 224
  • RRP: $19.99

Limbo Lodge




A title in the epic 'Willoughby Chase' series. Originally published in 1999, it is now being re-issued with a stunning new cover

Dido Twite is aboard the Thrush, trying to return to England after her adventures in America. But orders have been sent to find Lord Herodsfoot, said to be on Aratu, the Pacific 'Island of the Pearl Snakes'. Snakes are the least of Dido's worries as she and her companions struggle through the jungle. On Aratu she is helped by spirit magic but also meets settlers who will stop at nothing to achieve their ends. And what is this strange royal residence called Limbo Lodge?

  • Published: 3 May 2004
  • ISBN: 9780099456674
  • Imprint: Red Fox
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 224
  • RRP: $19.99

About the author

Joan Aiken

Joan Aiken was born in Sussex in 1924. She was the daughter of the American poet, Conrad Aiken; her sister, Jane Aiken Hodge, is also a novelist. Before joining the 'family business' herself, Joan had a variety of jobs, including working for the BBC, the United Nations Information Centre and then as features editor for a short story magazine. Her first children's novel, The Kingdom of the Cave, was published in 1960.

Joan Aiken wrote over a hundred books for young readers and adults and is recognized as one of the classic authors of the twentieth century. Amanda Craig, writing in The Times, said, 'She was a consummate story-teller, one that each generation discovers anew.' Her best-known books are those in the James III saga, of which The Wolves of Willoughby Chase was the first title, published in 1962 and awarded the Lewis Carroll prize. Both that and Black Hearts in Battersea have been filmed. Her books are internationally acclaimed and she received the Edgar Allan Poe Award in the United States as well as the Guardian Award for Fiction in this country for The Whispering Mountain.

Joan Aiken was decorated with an MBE for her services to children's books. She died in 2004.

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Praise for Limbo Lodge

What I relish in particular is the swiftness of the telling, the vigour with which brilliant moments of perception seem to be improvised in the sheer delight of the onward rush of the story

Philip Pullman, Guardian

A writer of wild humour and unrestrained imagination

Oxford Companion to Children's Literature

A consummate story teller

The Times

This is a racy tale with plenty of disgusting details

Orna Mulcahy, The Irish Times