'The London home of Matthew Ashby is visited by the beautiful, famous half-Venetian musician, Emilia Lanier, begging him for help. A young Venetian girl, Sarah, has been accused of witchcraft by a wealthy merchant's wife, and has since disappeared. Is she in hiding? Or worse - kidnapped or murdered? So with his daughter, Celia, and his clerk, Ned, Matthew Ashby sets off for Venice and into a greater mystery than could ever be imagined. They must draw on all their wits and ingenuity to find allies in unexpected places. When Master Ashby is kidnapped, Ned and Celia have to race against the clock to find him as well as Sarah - but nothing is as it seems, not least the mysterious Madman of Venice ...' (Publisher's blurb)
The Tempestuous Voyage of Hopewell Shakespeare
London
:
Hodder Children's Books
,
2003
Z1120011
2003
single work
novel
young adult
historical fiction
adventure
'Hopewell Shakespeare is a young apprentice in London. He is besotted with the Globe where the plays of his distant cousin, William, fuel his fantasies of love and fortune. He joins the crew of a pirate, Captain Wolfe, on The Golden Dragon, searching for the legendary Lost Island ruled by the Lord of Alchemists. But Hopewell is suspicious of the second mate Davy Jones and the ship's boy Kit Sly, and beset by visions of a beautiful woman and predictions of a White Ship. When the Golden Dragon pursues and is wrecked by such a ship, Hopewell seems to be sole survivor, cast up on an island inhabited only by an elderly scholar, Dr Prosper Bonaventure, a girl, Flora, and her goat, Caprice. But who from the wreck is truly lost, and who has survived? What is real and what is illusion? Who is evil and who is good? Which is the Lord of Alchemists who manipulates them all? As Hopewell struggles through the twists of an enchanted world, the scales begin to fall from his eyes . . .' Source: bookseller's website.
