An inventive and playful illustrated middle grade fantasy adventure set aboard an enchanted ship about an abandoned girl, a friendly ogress, and a terrible curse, perfect for fans of Katherine Rundell!

An abandoned girl. A cursed ship. A race against time.

Lavender Wolfe’s world is limited to her mother, the fancy ladies they pickpocket together, and the best hiding places along the wharf, and she likes it that way. But one fateful afternoon while waiting for her mother, Lavender is snatched by a large and brusque woman named Big Agatha—the cook of a pirate ship who prides herself on being able to sniff out magic in urchins and rescuing them from the streets.

Despite Lavender’s protests that she doesn’t have magic, isn’t an urchin, and certainly isn’t a pirate, she’s given no choice but to accept the galley of The Good Marchioness as her new home—and Hans Whitby as her new name, as girls are bad luck in the galley. The Good Marchioness is no ordinary ship. Captained by Odyessia Pleasant, a fierce pirate with long blonde hair, violet eyes, and a bird’s wing in the place of an arm, the crew is on a desperate voyage to find and return stolen treasure—before all those who sail on the cursed ship are turned to sand…Lavender included.

Can Lavender help break the curse? Or will she be just another victim of it, her true identity lost to the sands of time?