BookElves Anthology Volume 1

By Jemima Pett, Rebecca M. Douglass, Fiona Ingram and 4 more

Seven stories, seven situations threatening the festivities. Will the holidays be a disaster? Will families be left out in the cold? Will there be tears before bedtime, or will there be happy endings all round? The MG BookElves group brings you its first anthology of tales to enjoy during the holiday season:

* Reliable Clooney Dockins delivered his town's mail on time for thirty-two years, until that strange and impossible Christmas Eve when he woke up late. M.G.King (Fizz & Peppers at the Bottom of the World, Librarian on the Roof)

* Max the Tonkinese cat finds Santa Claus on the roof and is whisked away to retrieve a very special message from another time and place. Wendy Leighton-Porter (The Shadows from the Past series)

* Shirley Link is an amateur sleuth who lives in a town that could use all the sleuths it can get! What is it about Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts that makes it such a hotspot for dastardly deeds? Even on Christmas Day? Ben Zackheim (Shirley Link Detective Series, The Camelot Kids)

* Champ may be a rescue dog, but he’s the best person around to stop the dognappers and save heartbreak at Christmas. Fiona Ingram (The Secret of the Sacred Scarab, Champ: My Story of Survival)

* When the railroad gets snowed under, the two bit town of Skunk Corners has to play host to a load of mighty difficult strangers. Can Big Al and the Ninja Librarian keep the season of goodwill from breaking into a riot? Rebecca M. Douglass (The Ninja Librarian, Halitor the Hero)

* Far away on the west coast of a western Scottish island, Dylan and Dougall face yuletide in Castle Haunn with no heat, light or food. Can Dylan get the message through to the mainland for help, or is there something nasty waiting for him in the hills? Jemima Pett (The Princelings of the East series)

* It’s Christmas holiday and Lily is stuck in a remote mountain village. With school out for a month and no internet connection, at first she wonders how she will fill the time. In this sweet romance, Lily discovers there’s more to gift-giving than just the giving. S. Smith (The Seed Savers series)

Each tale weaves its own seasonal magic. Each magician has already warmed the hearts of thousands of young readers with their stories. Enjoy these frantic races to meet the Christmas deadline while you curl up in your favourite reading spot this winter.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Princelings Publications
• Release date: Nov 25, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311887887

Jemima Pett

Jemima Pett has been living in a world of her own for many years. Writing stories since she was eight, drawing maps of fantasy islands with train systems and timetables at ten. Unfortunately no-one wanted a fantasy island designer, so she tried a few careers, getting great experiences in business, environmental research and social work. She finally got back to building her own worlds, and wrote about them. Her business background enabled her to become an independent author, responsible for her own publications.Her first series, the Princelings of the East, mystery adventures for advanced readers set in a world of tunnels and castles entirely populated by guinea pigs, is now complete. The tenth and final book, Princelings Revolution, came out in October 2020. Jemima does chapter illustrations for these. She has also edited two volumes of Christmas stories for young readers, the BookElves Anthologies, and her father's memoirs White Water Landings, about the Imperial Airways flying boat service in Africa. She has compiled four collections of flash fiction tales, publishing in the first half of 2021. She is now writing the third in her science fiction series set in the Viridian System, in which the aliens include sentient trees.Jemima lived in a village in Norfolk with her guinea pigs, the first of whom, Fred, George, Victor and Hugo, provided the inspiration for her first stories, The Princelings of the East. She is now living in Hampshire, writing science fiction for grown-ups, hatching plans for a new series, and writing more short stories for anthologies.