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Skandar and the Unicorn Thief: The international, award-winning hit, and the biggest fantasy adventure series since Harry Potter (Volume 1)

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True to that first vision, Steadman’s unicorns are not cute, candy-coated creatures, but ravening beasts who feed on raw meat and have no qualms about killing riders unfortunate enough to fall off in their terrifying airborne races and battles. They also suffer from flatulence, which undercuts the majesty of their soaring and swooping with a more earthbound reality of mounts that trot along, announcing their riders’ arrival by letting off a fart with every step. The fantasy is so rich and baroque, with its elemental battles between young riders who channel fire, water, earth, air and spirit as weapons, that I’d half expected its author to look equally exotic. But there’s not even the teeniest little unicorn tattoo in evidence on the 30-year-old woman who turns up to be interviewed at her publishers’ deserted London HQ, where she has requested we meet because her barrister husband is working in their north London flat, and she didn’t want to interrupt him. It’s hard for you kids to understand, really.” He sighed, staring at the screen. “Thirteen years ago, when my generation first watched the Chaos Cup, it was enough just knowing the Island existed. I was far too old to be a rider. But the race, the unicorns, the elements... it was magic for us—for me, for your mum.” The smell of bacon and burnt toast wafted under the door. Skandar’s stomach rumbled into the silence. She wrote her story “in about three months in 2018, and then I left it alone”, working on it again with her literary agent, Sam Copeland at Rogers, Coleridge & White.

Skandar approached him on one side, Kenna on the other. Skandar could hear the crowd screaming, but it wasn’t excitement anymore; it was fear. Unicorns were no longer coming through the arch to finish the race. The commentators were silent, the footage still—there was just a single shot of the arena, as though the camera operators had abandoned their posts. Unassuming Skandar Smith yearns to be bonded with a unicorn and must grow into the role he’ll play in an epic battle with evil. Skandar entered the kitchen to the sound of sizzling eggs and blaring early Cup coverage. Dad was humming, leaning over the pan. When he saw Skandar, he gave him an enormous grin. Skandar couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen him smile. All of which reduces the chance of books with creative and original stories being endorsed. And it would seem this would be the case with “Skandar and the unicorn thief”.Steadman fantastically reinvents the traditional Western unicorn mythology by inverting the classic images--serene, majestic, noble, gentle, sparkly--and presenting instead a creature that is ferocious, deadly and nearly unstoppable. Skandar and the Unicorn Thief is filled with incredible worldbuilding, a fully realized system of magic and an unforgettable cast of riders and unicorns. -- Kyla Paterno, freelance reviewer Kenna didn’t come out for breakfast, though Dad didn’t seem to mind too much as he and Skandar munched on sausages, bacon, eggs, beans, and fried bread. Skandar stopped himself from asking where the money for this extra food had come from. It was race day. Dad clearly wanted to forget about all that, and Skandar did too. Just for today. So he grabbed the brand-new bottle of mayonnaise and squeezed it over everything, grinning as it made a satisfying squelch.

Have you forgotten your Hatchery classes? Aspen and New-Age Frost are water-allied, right? And there are two air wielders among the favorites: Ema Templeton and Tom Nazari. We both know air has advantages over water!”Skandar swallowed hard. Dad had never told him that story before. Maybe he’d saved it until the year of his Hatchery exam. Maybe it wasn’t even true. Skandar would never know whether Rosemary Smith had really promised him a unicorn, because—without warning, three days after the Mainland had watched unicorns race for the first time—Skandar’s mum had died. And for months now Skandar’s dad had been telling him the same. That it was possible, probable, even inevitable, that he’d become a rider. And despite knowing how unusual it was—despite seeing Kenna so disappointed last year—Skandar wanted more than anything for it to be true.

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