Long ago, an evil God now named ‘The Enemy’, drowned the world. Ellie and her friends live in a large city half submerged beneath the sea. Now an orphan, Ellie is continuing her mother’s amazing work in inventions and ideas to make life better.

One day there is huge excitement and wonder as a dead whale is discovered on one of the lower city rooftops, left there at high tide. Ellie ventures near it with a knife, in order to release the gases before it heats and swells in the sun. She’s as shocked as everyone else when a pale hand emerges from inside the whale.

The incredibly supersticious and wary residents of this city immediately believe it has something to do with The Enemy, and are immediately in an uproar. But Ellie believes the boy she pulls alive from the whale’s stomach is not the Enemy at all, and she does everything she can to save him from the city’s hate and fear.

But who is this boy, able to survive inside a whale? Ellie and her best friend Anna are soon caught up in a age-old quest to learn about the Gods that drowned the world they now live in. They also learn more about The Enemy itself, and how it controls it’s host, or ‘The Vessel”, as the cityfolk have named it for centuries. Is it possible to free the city from The Enemy once and for all?

With a rich fantasy/dystopian/victorian-esque setting surrounded by the sea, this story’s pace doesn’t let up. Constantly on the run from superstition, Inquisitors (the city’s higher powers), and her own guilt from her past, Ellie is resourceful, strong-minded, quick-witted and determined to save a complete stranger from a terrible fate at the Inquisitor’s hands.

The plot and back stories of the main characters are unique and intriguing, revealing answers to the many powerful questions they have. B & W atmospheric illustrations are peppered throughout the novel and an unexpected twist is an added bonus. Great read.

Author – Struan Murray

Illustrator – Manuel Sumberac

Age 9+

Read an extract here

(Dystopian, Historical, Fantasy, Ocean, Submerged City, Secret, Superstition)