Susan Price

Kenelm is an Atheling, a prince of the Blood-Royal.A descendent of the god, Woden. His uncle is the King.Kenelm had thought to live his life as a warrior: fighting, feasting and marrying a beautiful princess.But his uncle gave him to a monastery, to live and die as a Christian monk.Kenelm feels betrayed but is bound by his oath of loyalty to his king. So he digs the monasterys vegetable garden and dreams of the life he might have had.Then comes a message from the king. He has a mission that only Kenelm can undertake.Kenelm must carry a royal message into the dark wood.To the Wolf Sisters.

Zoe wants her dead boyfriend back.Shes heard all about Elizabeth Beckerdyke. About her being a witch. About her speaking to the dead.Maybe she can raise the dead too?So Zoe goes knocking on the witchs door.Duncan is homeless, a rough sleeperHes looking for a new life. He fears the witch and he fears for Zoe.Elizabeth Beckerdyke wants to prove her power.But can she control what she leads back from the land of the dead?A dark, disturbing novel of the occult by award-winning author, Susan Price.

Paul loves beautiful girls and poetry.And hes courageous enough to recite sonnets to the Hells Angels in the Hailstone Inn.So when Zione, black and gorgeous, appears in his audience, hes well pleased. When she invites him into the yard, he doesnt hesitate.But in the yard, Zione calls up green fire and things become very strange... Waking in a strange bed is, for him, nothing new but hes never found himself sharing one with a dragon before. A small dragon, but still. A dragon.It turns out Zione is a sorceress and shes kidnapped Paul to perform poetry for a big poetry lover. A very big poetry lover.A poetry lover whos devoured almost the whole of the Oxford Book of Poetry. In the most literal sense.Can Paul survive the performance?Can he win back to his beloved lost world of pubs, pints and crisps?A light-hearted fantasy of poetry, sorcery, dragons -- and wrapping paper.

"You love me, dont you, Jonnie?"The Industrial Revolution blackens the countryside.Women and children hack at coal underground and drag loaded tubs like animals. "Youd better love me."Rattle is a dirty, pipe-smoking, swearing collier-wench who dresses and swaggers like a boy.Shes in love with Jonathan Turner, a young farmer and a prim, God-fearing Methodist. "I love you, Jonnie. Ill never let you go."Rattle is determined to have Jonathan.But hes already married.To a vengeful ghost."I love you to death."

Here are nine powerful stories written by acclaimed, award winning author, Susan Price.Voices whisper in a graveyardWho weeps on my grave, who keeps me from sleep? - Is it you who unearths me to this cold rain, this dark, this wind and all its grief?A lost sister speaks in a dream...She said,"Im on Mow Top. But you wont find me now. Dont look. Forget me."A supermarket is haunted by a murdered baby Footsteps climb the stairs of a darknened cottage... A voice whispers in a museum...Nine short, haunting stories of the supernatural, of loss and longing, of those who walk between this world and the next...

Haunting: something which lingers in the mind and is not easily forgotten. A dead boy stands in a dark farm-yard, staring at the lit windows of the farmhouse kitchen.An old man, living alone in a farmhouse surrounded by modern estates, sees spirits dancing on an ancient hillside.A bullied schoolgirl finds a protector at a price.A writer listens to the telling of a dream and cant sleep easily after.A poltergeist joins a couple in their homeAn elderly couple are woken nightly by the return of their young neighbour who was murdered. Yet still she comes home lateAn ancient wood emerges from the lamposts and walls of a cityA spiritual medium is exposed as a trickster.Hauntings...

The beautiful and the uncanny A young blacksmith is hired to spend Midsummers Night in a lonely field, near an ancient mound, to shoe with silver the horses of those who come by A beautiful Englishman drives his Italian mistress to suicide and after her death she follows her faithless lover homeIn the echoing, eerie surroundings of an out-of-hours shopping mall, a lonely cleaner falls in love with a beautiful, hungry strangerA family gather at the bedside of a dying girl, and, out of the night, something comes knocking at the windowA man walks home, in the early hours, on a freezing night, along lanes haunted by the Death-DogA young actor playing James Dean in a bio-pic, hates that people are impressed by his looks rather than his talent. Then hes offered a lift in a car silver sports car with the number, 130.A holiday cottage holds memories of despairAnd a ghost features in a gentle Christmas story.Eight eerie, haunting stories of the supernatural from an expert story-teller and award-winning writer.Beautifully uncanny...

Linnet begs his mates to cut off his head, so his children can carry it with them on the road.Its 1770 and Linnet lies dying beside the stinking ditch he has helped to dig for miles. His last desperate wish is for his children to go home to his mother, whom they have never seen.But how are they to reach her safely, without money or knowing the way?His work-mates think his request is fever-talk but still... A promise to a dying mate is a serious thing. So, when the children start their long walk, they carry their fathers head with them, wrapped in his old work-shirt.What use is a dead mans head when the children meet danger and difficulty?Its then the head opens its eyes and tells stories.Stories have power.Almost as much power as a fathers love.Susan Price has won the Carnegie medal and the Guardian prize and her many books have been sold around the world. She has a life-long love of folk-tale and legend and has published several collections of retellings.

Ghost DanceBook 3 of The Ghost World Sequence "Are you cold, my children? Are you cold?" The young witch, Shingebiss, believes she can spell the Czar and make him save her beloved Northlands from destruction.In her innocence, she little understands that the Imperial Palace is a place of treachery and murder, ruled by a madman with a mind like a broken mirror, reflecting all things crookedly.At first the Czar takes Shingebiss for an angel, sent to him by God, and welcomes her. But none of her spells seem able to blunt his greed and cruelty.Shingebiss has a rival at court who hates her -- the English wizard, Master Jenkins, who pretends to the Czar that he can summon demons.Fearing that Shingebiss will unmask him, Master Jenkins plans to be rid of her. He tells the Czar that he can make him an Elixir of Immortality. The most potent ingredient is the blood of an angel.The Czar orders the elixir made immediately. Can Shingebiss save the Northlands?Can she save her own life?An intense, Gothic fantasy REVIEWSIn Ghost Dance, Price transports us to the palace of a Czar whose avarice and suspicion are destroying the beautiful Northlands... Here again, the complete seriousness and integrity of the writing makes for a quietly terrifying read. Highly recommended.Guinevere VaughanThis third book of the sequence is still rich and deeply powerful. Its full of the physical awfulness of human existence and human fears and the magic of storytelling which veers between the safe and the dangerous, the fascinating and the uncomfortable.Books For KeepsSusan Price is an acclaimed author of over 60 books, which have been translated into many languages, including Japanese, Chinese and Russian. She has written for almost every age-group, and has won several awards, including the Carnegie and the Guardian, and has been short-listed for the Whitbread.She is a founder member of the Authors Electric Collective (Find them on-line.)To find out more about her books, visit her website at https://www.susanpriceauthor.com/

Horror by night in the Royal latrine...A fast flight to Rome by demon horse...A saint humbled by a mere carpenter...A fisherman lured by a mermaid... And fifteen other folk-tales and legends... Told by award-winning writer Susan Price, who published her first book with Faber at the age of eighteen, here are tales from the time when Pagan first met Christian.

Midsummer midnight: the endless white night of the far north.Malyuta, slave and hunter, names his first born son Ambrosi because it means Immortal.Then comes Kuzma, the bear-shaman, who claims the baby as his apprentice. He promises Malyuta riches or even the return of his youth, if he will give up his new-born son.Malyuta refuses, throughout the long night. The bear-shaman leaves, at last, declaring that keeping the baby will bring Malyuta nothing but misery.It is never wise to anger a shaman. Kuzma watches as Ambrosi grows...Can Ambrosi escape the bear-shaman? Can he protect his father from the Kuzmas revenge?Book Two of the Ghost World sequence, which began with Ghost Drum and continues with Ghost Dance.

Ten-year-old Sandys childhood ends when his mother sells him to a farmer who half-starves and beats him.So he runs away for good, away from the farm and from home.Alone on the road, penniless, Sandy is lucky to find friends: Spot and Patch, two drovers dogs, who are making their way home all by themselves.With no idea where they are going, Sandy joins them, following them across Scotland, through a wild landscape of loch and mountain, to the Hebridean island of Mull in the West.When the dogs lead him to their croft, Sandys deepest wish seems to have come true. He, too, has found a loving home.He is happier at Lachlans croft than he thought he could be, until he discovers that he is not really wanted there at all. Unwelcome, he takes to the road again. But without his four-legged friends.Will he go through his whole life friendless and lonely?Susan Price is an acclaimed writer of books for the young. She has won the Carnegie medal and the Guardian Fiction prize and her books have been translated into many languages.

ELFGIFT. The elfs get and the Goddess darling fights to keep his throne. If he loses, he loses everything: crown, love and life. Elfgifts Christian half-brother, Unwin, will never be satisfied until Elfgift is dead. He vows that, on capturing Elfgift, he will hand him to his Danish allies, to be sacrificed to Odin. The sacrifice of the Blood-Eagle.Its a gruelling war, but Elfgift is sustained by the love of the Goddess he fights for -- until She asks for the life of his brother, Wulfweard. Wulfweards life is owed to Odin, the Goddess tells him. He must choose. Will he have his brother at his side, or his Goddess? A brief truce, to celebrate Jul and Christs Mass, ends in brutal treachery. Elfgift falls into Unwins power. Will the Goddess come to his aid. Or has She deserted him? Part Two of a Gothic, Dark Age fantasy.

Elfgifts father is the king but his mother was not the queen. She was a beautiful elf-woman: pagan and not even human. But the king, on his death-bed, leaves his kingdom to Elfgift, the elfs-get. From that moment, Elfgifts three royal half-brothers want him dead.Armed warriors arrive at Elfgifts farm while he is away, hunting. He returns to find his home burned and his people slaughtered.Alone, he faces enemies who want his head.His only ally comes from the wood: Jarnseaxa, the Battle-woman, as Elvish as his mother.Can she help him gain revenge and a crown? Or is she as great a threat as his royal brothers?A Gothic, Dark-Age fantasy.

Clo, Letty and Granny Shearing...There at every gathering, spinning thread and stories. Spinning, measuring and cutting through the thread thats spun...They make sandwiches, wipe tears, mind children, stitch clothing and always have a story to tell...When a young girl must leave home and make her own way...When a new baby is born...When a brides wedding clothes are stitched...When a neighbour dies...Clo, Letty and Granny Shearing are there, spinning tales, weaving stories...And the tales they tell are Telling Tales.(Warning: these are not fairy tales for young children.) Susan Price has a life-long interest in folk-lore and traditional stories, and has written several collections of folk-tales, including The Story Collector, Crack A Storyand Head and Tales.A well-known writer for children and young adults, Susan Price was first published, at 16, by Faber. She has since published many books, including the Carnegie winning Ghost Drum and the Guardian prize winning The Sterkarm Handshake. Her books have been translated into many languages and published world-wide.

"Ill see you home," said the dog.Old Mr. Grimsby collects stories as a hobby. He writes down stories told him by his maid and by her grandmother, Mrs Naylor. He listens to stories at the bedside of the dying Mrs. Riley.A hero of Waterloo, Sergeant Lamb, will tell him stories if paid with pairs of old trousers.Because everybody has a story.Walking home late one night, Mr. Grimsby finds the Churchyard Grim pacing at his side the Grim, the ghostly dog that guards the graveyard and its dead.The Grim tells him a story as it leads him to Heavens Gate. There he finds Sergeant Lamb also waiting for the gate to open, and the Sergeant tells another story to pass the time.Once inside the gate, theres Mother Mary and She has a story to tell too. She even coaxes a story from Mr. Grimsby.Everybody has a story.If you like the old stories, the wise, haunting, poetic and funny old stories passed down for hundreds of years, then youll love Susan Prices tales within tales, of the stories and the people who told them.

A red squirrel A stone squirrelA stone squirrel of red carnelian runs up and down a little nut-tree, cracking nuts. For every nut she cracks, she must tell a story So many nuts to choose. Nuts with shells of bottle glass shells of chinashells of gold and silver, shells of paper, shells of flint When the poison nut is cracked, what story will be released? What story is held in the steel nut or the bronze? Stories of loveStories of hatred... Tales of adventure, danger and triumph Which nut will you crack?Which story will you hear? Susan Price is the author of the best-selling The Wolfs Footprint and the Carnegie medal winning writer of The Ghost Drum. She has loved folk-tale and myth all her life. Crack A Story is one in a series of folk-tale retellings. The others are: The Story Collector, Head and Tales, The Carpenter and Other Stories and Telling Tales.

Under a freezing Arctic sky, a wolf carries a baby to a remote village.Taken in by the villagers and named Vulchanok or Little Wolf, the lost baby grows into a happy little boy.But night after night, his dreams are walked by his rescuer, the wolf-witch. She leads him to the Ghost World and makes him a shaman.The villagers begin to fear him and he grows into a lonely man -- until he sees a vision of a lovely girl as lonely as himself, imprisoned in a small room. Shrugging on his falcon skin, he flies to find her.When a falcon drums its wings against her window, Kristiana opens it -- and is astonished when the hawk lights on the floor and turns into a man. She and Vulchanok are soon in love.But Kristianas brother, Glev, will never allow her to marry a dirty northern huntsman -- and Vulchanoks wolf-wife is fiercely jealous.Can the lovers survive the hatred and jealousy surrounding them?

Azalins class go on a school trip to another planet.The planet Earth.Once on Earth, Azalin runs away.Her dream is to be a tronic when she grows up: one of the special people who maintain the systems keeping the man-made planet of Newarth alive.But just before leaving for Earth, she was told that Newarth already has all the tronics it needs. She will have to be a store-keeper instead. And she is to be sporting about it.Azalin doesnt want to be a store-keeper. And she doesnt want to be sporting.So she runs away. She phones home to say that when shes allowed to be a tronic, shell come back. But, alone on Earth, Azalin has no idea how much danger shes in. Life on Earth isnt as safe and ordered as life on Newarth.Especially when she wanders into the no-go zone called The Rookery.Even the Earth Police wont go there... Azalin comes down to Earth. But will she survive to home to Newarth?

A bad summer, and the crops didnt grow. Now winter is coming. Everyone is hungry. People are searching for nettles and acorns.Elka and her little brother Daw huddle under their blankets, trying to keep warm. Elka is too hungry to sleep. Awake in the dark, she listens to her parents whispering."I dont want to watch them starve. Take them into the wood and leave them. Take them far in, so they wont find their way back, and leave them."The next day their father takes them into the wood, to look for mushrooms. Daw goes along innocently, holding his fathers hand. Elka goes because she doesnt want Daw to be alone.The light fades. Their father moves away into the darkness among the trees. He doesnt come back.And then the wolves comeWhere do these lost children belong in the village with the people who left them to starve? Or, in the wood, with the wolves?No one writes this kind of dark tale better than Price... brilliantly reworks folk themes... an atmospheric and poignant story. Not a word is wasted. Books For Keeps.This is a powerful piece of writing - a folk tale where difficult issues are confronted, no compromises allowed and no happy ending guaranteed.Theres no escaping the anger of the little girl who decides to leave the world of her parents and remain with the pack of wolves who looked after her - nor the loneliness of the brother who pines for her at the edge of the forest. This is a classic. CarouselThis book is republished by the author, with illustrations by Andrew Price, because of the continued demand for it, from schools and the general public, after it had gone out of print.Please note: a decision was taken not to fix the format, so that the font-size and line spacing can be changed on e-readers. However, depending on the e-reader used and the font-size chosen, the picture sizes will also change, and in some cases, may become too large for the page. This is unavoidable without fixing the format, which has other disadvantages.Readers may need to experiment to find the size that best suits their personal taste..