Staying alive isn't easy in the world of the dead

After an accident at her grandmother's house, Rosie is transported to a strange and sinister world populated by a cast of carnivalesque characters who reside in the Circus of the Unseen. Reigning over them is an old woman called Mother Matushka, who guards the threshold between life and death and has extraordinary powers over all around her.

This is an in-between world, a bizarre and trapped existence, but Rosie is not like the others here. She seems to be hovering between the world of the living and the world of the dead, and even seems to have the power to challenge Mother Matushka. Can Rosie escape Mother Matushka's formidable rule and a world in limbo? And can she solve another mystery - one that lies at the heart of her grandmother's life?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joanne Owen was born in Pembrokeshire, Wales, and read Social and Political Sciences with Archaeology and Anthropology at St John's College, Cambridge. Now living in North London, Joanne has published two previous Young Adult novels. Steeped in the atmosphere of nineteenth-century Prague, PUPPET MASTER blends the magic of marionette theatre with Czech folklore and legends. Described by The Guardian as 'timeless', PUPPET MASTER was longlisted for the Carnegie Medal and Branford Boase award and has been translated into several languages.

Her second novel, THE ALCHEMIST AND THE ANGELS, is a fantastical historical epic set in sixteenth-century Prague, among the plague-ridden ghettos and decadent court of mad Emperor Rudolf. It was described by School Librarian as 'an imaginative tour de force'. Follow Joanne on Facebook at www.facebook.com/JoanneOwenBooks or on Twitter: @JoanneOwen.