AustLit

'The Fey Queen, Emajicka, is stealing the children of Grimmery for her Collection. She bathes in their nightmares to relieve her own. There is one nightmare she wants most of all.

'If Ike had stayed home that Tuesday, he would not have betrayed a princess or robbed a murderous queen. He would not have been tied to an insane imp desperate to eat his liver. He certainly would not have floated across a strange land on an impossible rescue mission, powered by exploding manure. Nor would he have tried to escape via that disastrous troll-bum door...

'But can he ever escape the Nightmare Queen?' (From the author's website.)

'The Nightmare Queen has hidden the Book of Grimmery. Without it, Grimmery will fall and its people will become slaves. To find the book, Ike and Mellie need a goblin spell from the forbidden land of Gobbeloon. But Ike makes a disastrous blunder. If he had kept his mouth shut, he would not have been turned into a night-gaunt, the creature he feared more than anything in the world. Nor would he have attacked his best friend. And he definitely would not have died . . . In Gobbeloon, Ike and Mellie are thrown into the goblin king's dungeon. To get the spell, Ike must give up his enchanted pen, which he needs to clear his dead parents' names, or fight off the Nightmare Queen's army all by himself. How can he hope to defeat the queen, outwit the wily, treacherous goblins and escape with both the counter-spell and the pen?' (Publication summary)

'It's not easy to be a hero when your bum is the size of an airship and you're bobbing around the ceiling, mocked by a host of angry dwarves. Mellie has stolen the unluckiest charm in Wychwold and can't get rid of it. Pook, who has an insane plan to rescue the Collected children, is demanding Ike's help. The demons Nuckl, Spleen and Tonsil are after Ike's innards. And the Fey Queen, Emajicka, is coming to tear his worst nightmare out of him. Only Ike can save Grimmery now. But first he has to win a contest with a lying, cheating scoundrel-the desperate dwarf, Con Glomryt.' (Publication summary)

'The time has come. It's now or never for Ike. Will he discover the secret of his missing parents? Will he be able to help Pook free the Collected children? Have Mellie's parents been horribly burnt alive by Emajicka's minions? And will Spleen and Nuckle finally get to eat Ike's innards? All the answers are coming in The Calamitous Queen. Brace yourselves for a wild ride! ' (Publication summary)