Scarlet Morning

What’s it about?

The story.

In the grey, colourless town of Caveat, Viola and Wilmur have spent fifteen long and boring years waiting for parents who never come home, comforting themselves with old stories of the sea and the pirates who once sailed it, before both vanished after a calamity no one fully remembers. Then, one storm-lashed night, the fearsome Captain Cadence Chase kicks down their door in search of their most prized possession: a strange, secret book. The orphans strike a deal. Chase can have the book, but only if she takes them too, because if their parents really aren't coming back, Viola and Wilmur might as well sail off in search of them. So begins a grand, surreal adventure across a dazzlingly imagined ocean, told in ND Stevenson's first prose novel and lit up throughout by their mixed-media illustrations. Funny, thrilling and shot through with longing, this opener to a planned duology is a treat for readers who love bold worldbuilding, found-family warmth and a heroine or two willing to gamble everything on a story.