This is a tale of Moby Dick tipped on its head.

Bathsheba is the key character in this story. She’s a whale – part of a team of three apprentices under the leadership of Captain Alexandra. This whale Captain is renown in the oceans for her hunting prowess, her prey – man. Loaded with their own harpoons, this is just one pod of whales hunting their enemy who sail the Abyss (what the whales call the sky above the water).

This war between man and whale has consumed both to the point of obsession. Captain Alexandra believes her pod are part of a prophecy to kill the worst man of them all, the infamous Toby Wick. They are on the lookout for him and his white-hulled ship.

When they come across a lone survivor of a man’s ship, they capture him and it is Bathsheba’s job to interrogate him then kill him. But the more she talks to him, the more she ponders his answers and her own destiny.

Even this man calls Toby Wick the devil. Have they all become just as bad as him, swimming the oceans intent on slaughter? Have they all become devils in their own way? Will they even find him, let alone defeat him?

The illustrations are swirls of greys, whites and the blood of war. Seemingly gruesome and beautiful at the same time.

Suspension of belief is needed to get your head around whales building their own ships, firing their own harpoons and tying humans up to interrogate them, but the meaning underneath this whale tale is too good to miss!

Author – Patrick Ness

Illustrator – Rovina Cai

Age – 10+

(Whale, Ocean, Classic, Moby Dick, Retelling, War, Destiny, Prophecy)